BootsnAll Travel Network



Makin’ Movies

August 20th, 2006

Ok, so it hasn’t quite been the six months I said it would be between posts, but during my lunch breaks whilst back at work in Scotland, I’ve knocked up a short little video about our two months in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, using some of the photos we took during our travels. It’s not yet finished, as half of the photos we took are waiting patiently on cd’s back home in Australia, but the clip should give you an idea of what the finished product might be like.

The song that plays behind the images is a brilliant track by Melbourne outfit The Guild League. The song, called Siamese Couplets (which I’ve also titled the movie) is all about travelling around Southeast Asia, so pay attention to the lyrics.

I can’t wait to complete it, as the third and fourth verses of the song have some great lines. So, without further waffling, hit play, turn the volume up a little, sit back, and enjoy. (And then, after that, I’ve also got a flick from our two weeks in Lubeck, Germany, at Christmas last year. I originally made it and sent copies to the friends we shared the two weeks with, so it’s not really targeted at strangers, but I’ve whacked it up on YouTube, so thought I may as well share it here as well (it also uses the same music at the start – man, I’ve gotta buy some new cds)).

In the meantime, Bec and I are working away in Edinburgh, and making plans for our next adventure, because this whole working for a living thing, yeah, it’s shit.

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Australia: What, me write?

April 18th, 2006

So, I’ve been home for seven weeks now. And have spent those seven weeks driving all over the state of Victoria with Bec, catching up with friends and family. We’ve knocked up just short of 4000 km (or around 2500 miles) in the car. Not a bad effort.

But tomorrow, we leave again. Unfortunately, this time it is not nearly as exciting as our previous 12 month journey. We fly to Scotland, where we plan to work for another 6 months (roughly until the end of October) before leaving the UK with our pockets stashed full of cash. Or, failing that, I guess we could buy some of those laundry bags with dollar signs printed on them. They always look cool.

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Culgoa: Dude, we’re home

March 21st, 2006

The road is straight and flat. The heat rises off the asphalt ahead of us like a mirage, as though we are chasing the endlessly receding tide of a river. The land around us is alternatively brown then yellow, and always dusty; the fields dotted with the odd gum tree, and sometimes with a herd of sheep taking refuge from the sun in the shade of the tree’s broad limbs. It is mighty hot outside, but the car’s airconditioner stops us from sweating too much. The music is turned up loud, but is still difficult to hear over the whirring of the cool air.

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Bangkok: Sweatin’ our way home

March 20th, 2006

Following our shopping spree in Hoi An, and now with our existing bags fully loaded plus an additional bag bursting at the seams with new clothes, it was time to go home. Home to Australia.

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Hoi An: The Clothes Maketh the Man

March 13th, 2006

From Mui Ne, Bec and I were headed north up the Vietnamese coast to the World Heritage listed town of Hoi An. To get there, we decided to skip through the typical tourist stop of Nha Trang, a decision we felt was vindicated when we saw how developed the town was; huge hotels lit up by neon lights lined the foreshore of this mini Gold Coast. Nha Trang was a few hours north of Mui Ne, and after an hour or so of waiting there in the early evening we caught a ten hour overnight bus ride to Hoi An.

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Mui Ne: Easyrider

March 5th, 2006

Mui Ne is only a few hours north of Saigon. We estimated this from the south-Vietnam map we’d photocopied from an old guidebook months earlier. It is situated on the coast, near some huge sand dunes (well, huge by Asian standards). But this was all we knew of Mui Ne. We were travelling aorund southern Vietnam with no real guidebook to speak of – just some random photocopied pages from a guidebook that I’d scraped together back when we were in Scotland.

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Ho Chi Minh City: The City Formerly Known As Saigon

February 24th, 2006

7.30am, and Bec and I were waiting outside our guesthouse in Can Tho for the scheduled pick-up to take us to the bus – we were off to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, as it’s now known, but no-one seems to call it that.

7.45am, and our pick-up hadn’t arrived, our bus was leaving shortly, and the last thing we wanted was another day in Can Tho, given that we’d seen the floating markets – about the only thing worth seeing round these parts. We flagged down a couple of passing motos, and hitched a ride to the bus station for a dollar or two.

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Can Tho: You Eeediot

February 22nd, 2006

Round 1 was taken by Vietnam in a TKO, and despite our hopes that things in Vietnam would pick-up, our second day got off to a less than inspiring beginning.

At 7am, as we were each half way through eating a crappy bowl of noodle soup for breakfast (in Laos, the noodle soup was brilliant, with big fat rice noodles and fresh flavours, but this was simply cabbage and raman noodles, or 2-minute noodles as we call them in Australia, in an oily liquid. Uggghhhh), our pickup arrived to take us to the bus we had booked through the rat-infested guesthouse. We pushed our soup aside – despite it’s average taste we needed plenty of food for breakfast before our bus trip to the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho – grabebd our bags, but then waited for 5 minutes whilst our unsmiling driver watched the end of a Vietnamese soap on the tv.

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Vietnam: The Wrong Foot

February 19th, 2006

February 8th, and Bec and I were back in Phnom Penh – our third stay in the Cambodian capital in little over a week. From Sihanoukville, we wanted to head directly to southern Vietnam, but could only do so via a private taxi that was prohibitively expensive. And so instead, it was back to Phnom Penh for a night; a quiet night spent at our guesthouse doing very little.

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Photos: Cambodia, First Go (sort of)

February 11th, 2006

You’ve seen how we got to Phnom Penh, and you’ve herad about the majesty of Angkor. Now, see it with your own eyes (through the eyes of Bec and me, and through the lens of our dodgy camera)

Royal Palace. The number one tourist attraction in Phmon Penh: The Royal Palace. It is an amazing garden featuring some towering palaces. Well worth the visit. view image

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