Like China, But Better

The first hostel we stayed at in Taiwan was called Happy Taipei, and this name seemed to set the tone for the entire country. It is a very happy place, populated with an exceedingly large number of really friendly and smiley people. Several times we were helped out by random strangers who could speak English, one of whom actually left a restaurant where she was eating to take us to another one and explain to them about vegetarianism. And everywhere we stayed the owners were all too eager to offer us extra help, even extending to free bike hire on grounds that we "seemed like nice people." It's that sort of place.

Granted, we may be a little biased. After travelling for over three months it is amazing how much one appreciates the small things, like a curtain around your dorm bed. Or a provided reading light. A hot shower with no time limit on it. Free toast in the mornings. At one place, even a free washing machine. While these may seem like small, nay logical, concessions for a hostel to make, they are all surprisingly uncommon. But man do they make a difference. So, having been provided with all this luxury we were understandably in a good mood as we began to survey Taiwan. Still, it really does seem like a great place.

It has many of the strengths of China as a holiday destination: great food, dramatic scenery, beautiful old buildings and a fascinating culture. It even has the world's largest collection of Chinese art and antiquities, said collection (originally housed in the Forbidden City in Beijing) having fallen into the hands of the Kuomintang as they fell back from the Communists in the 1940's. However, it is missing the absurd overpopulation of the mainland (or of Beijing and Shanghai anyway), the thick smog and the oppressive regime. It is almost enough to restore one's faith in capitalism. Almost. Certainly good for faith in democracy anyway. Modern Taiwan glories in its distinction from the mainland, and makes a determined practice of democracy (since the mass demonstrations of the 1980's forced the issue anyway) and equal rights for all citizens. This is undoubtedly part of the reason that Taiwan enjoys a profusion of faiths and ethnicities, and has a good relationship with the island's Aboriginal communities (fun fact about Taiwan: it has Aborigines. Not the same as Australian ones). So, basically, it is a lot like China except much less depressing. Also you can get facebook.

We visited three different cities on the island: Taipei, the modern capital, Tainan, the ancient capital, and Hualien, home of Taiwan's most famous national park. This last, the Taroko Gorge, is an absolutely spectacular sight. For one thing, it's a marble gorge so the whole place looks like an expensively upholstered kitchen. Only with a giant river running through it instead of cupboards. There are caves high in the walls of the gorge, formed from groundwater seeping through the porous rock, that end in little waterfalls over the river. These were only small trickles when we visited, but I am reliably informed that they turn to gushing spouts after a heavy rain. In Taipei we hiked up a mountain inside the city; it is a somewhat strange experience to be climbing a staircase set into a hillside, only to turn around and see a block of flats rising beside you. Fortunately the hill was higher, so it turned into an amazing vista, albeit one that you need very sore legs to appreciate. We also saw Chiang Kai Shek's memorial complex, feeding the koi carp in his expertly manicured gardens with food from a vending machine shaped like a giant fish, and visited the former home of the British consul. It was exceedingly strange stepping into the familiar surroundings of a Victorian English country house while surrounded by gawping Taiwanese exclaiming over how weird everything is. In Tainan we spent two days exploring the old city in Anping district on foot and by bicycle, visiting no less than three colonial-era forts and shopping on Taiwan's first ever street (built by the Dutch in the 1600's. Of course, the Formosan Aborigines were already present on the island for the previous 30,000 years or so, but they weren't much into roads).

For a country that we decided to visit because I saw some nice pictures on my Windows home screen, it has turned out incredibly well! Both of us have been left with the distinct impression that there is a lot more to see in Taiwan and that we would like to come back and see it. For a small island, there's a lot going on. If any of you happen to be in the area and looking for somewhere off the beaten track, where there are few enough tourists that you can experience authentic life, but enough for everything important to be written in English, I highly recommend Taiwan.

Happy travels my friends :)

Taiwan Is A Pretty Place

Our first night in Taiwan, looking off the balcony of our hostel to the distant mountains (which you can't really see). It was a pretty nice hostel!

The rather magnificent Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall. It's now a theatre.

The amazing view of Taipei 101 and the city from the top of Elephant Mountain, at the end of a ludicrously long staircase.

Panda selfie! There is a panda bear in the background there. We also saw another one at this zoo which actually moved! Which was quite a surprise.

We are now in Hualien, which was a lot bigger than we expected. So this day we just explored our nearby area, and this gigantic pagoda was the most interesting part of it. It did have a nice garden attached to it though, and an excellent Indian restaurant.

This is the real reason we went to Hualien, home of the Taroko Gorge. Which, as you can see, is awesome.

On a high-speed train! Very exciting stuff. If you're into trains. It's actually quite unremarkable from the inside. Goes real quick though.

The Anping Tree House in Tainan, former capital of Taiwan. Terrible photo but cool place. It's not a treehouse, as I thought, but in fact a building completely overgrown with banyan trees so it now looks like it's made out of them. Very peaceful and pleasant place.

We went cycling again! It was fun, and allowed us to visit the beach and some tourist attractions. So efficient.

...And one of the things we saw was this ridiculously ginormous gun!

Our last day in Taiwan saw us high-speed training back to Taipei, then taking a cruise round one of it's many, many night markets. Super cheap and tasty way to get dinner, provided you like meat on a stick.

And finally here is me earlier today with my new buddy Iron Man, who was for some reason hanging out in Taipei airport.

Vietnam: If You Follow The Rules, You Die

Vietnam! Land of historical conflict and chaos, which today is reflected in its citizens approach to traffic management. It is also the home of, it turns out, about a billion different tribal ethnic groups and a whole bunch of places that start with H.

For us though, it will probably mainly be remembered as the place where we were joined on holiday by our lovely friends Lizzy and Dan, who foolishly decided to throw away their hard-earned annual leave on spending two weeks with us. But we appreciated the sacrifice, as it was really nice to see someone we know from Britain again! It has been a fair old time now, much of it filled with meeting various other interesting people which, while excellent and fun and interesting, is pretty draining in the long run. Anyway, we had a great time hanging out with Dizzy, as they have now been christened, and we're very grateful to them for coming to meet us! Top class friending there.

So. Vietnam is a country drenched in history. It has three thousand years of continuous cultural development behind it (which is unusual for the region, most countries having been invaded and displaced by someone new at some point), all of which makes for a vibrant and interesting society to be twisted almost out of recognition by the horrors of thirty years of near constant warfare. The legacy of the war, first against France and then against America and itself, is evident everywhere in Vietnam. There are the obvious things; museums, extant minefields in the jungle, Vietcong tunnels outfitted for tourists, the Communist party... And the less obvious things; the unusually high number of people born with deformities and mental illness thanks to the after-effects of chemical warfare, the tools and clothing made from cleverly recycled bits of American military hardware, the every-day-could-be-your-last attitude to life. Everything about this country was thrown into upheaval and what remains today is a different land and people to what came before. Even in the Hanoi Women's Museum, the message of feminism was mostly espoused by way of womens' (substantial) contribution to fighting in the war. For a pair of historians, all this makes for a very interesting holiday!

The main reason why Vietnam is a fun place today is that seize-the-day approach that the country seems to have adopted as its national character. Every day is a new adventure, and I personally believe that this atmosphere makes a significant contribution to the frankly insane way that everyone drives. The title of this post is a quote from our tour guide when describing the experience of actually driving in Vietnam. The gist was that there is one rule, which is flexibility. As in, if you see an opportunity, such as a tiny gap between a car and a wall, just go through it! Don't worry about red lights or any of that nonsense. This is the way that life is lived. It does have its charms. Certainly by the end of our time we had become very proficient at crossing these crazy roads.

So, we've had a fun time in Vietnam. A lot of highlights of the trip; a drunken snorkelling trip out of Na Trang (Vietnam's only city starting with a letter other than H), a bike tour around Hoi An (a preserved historical city where everything is quaint), a motorbike tour of the old Imperial capital of Hue and surrounding (extremely beautiful) countryside, firing a machine gun at the Cu Chi tunnel complex (oh yeah, forgot to mention, I fired a gun! An M-16 for those who are interested. It was fun), a ride on a water buffalo, learning to play Hanoi's local variant of hacky-sack with a giant shuttlecock (and being joined, and totally outclassed, by a bunch of locals)... and of course many a nice drink, dinner and general chat with Dan and Lizzy.

And that about does it! I feel like I have forgotten some of the cool things that we did, as the two weeks were so fast-paced, but it was a great time!

Until next time,
Happy travels friends! :)

Vietnam in Pictures

Or, more specifically, in selfies.

Our first full day in Vietnam we met our good friends, the lovely Lizzy and Dan. As you can see they were super excited to be involved in my epic selfie quest.

This is the entrance to a Vietcong tunnel! Or at least, to an enlarged, concrete-lined and electrically lit tourist friendly version of a Vietcong tunnel. It was still super uncomfortable.

We're on a boat motherflippers! Off the coast of Na Trang, the only place we went to that doesn't start with an H.

This is us looking slightly bemused in a mud bath. A first for both of us. Weirdly not unpleasant.

Mel's amazing skills as a bicycle-mounted photographer continue to shine in this picture, which proves that Dan and Lizzy were still with us the whole time. We just don't like taking pictures of them apparently.

This is from the same day as the above, but the rice harvesting hats were too good to pass up. Sadly we were not allowed to keep them.

Picturesque Hoi An, looking picturesque. It is an extremely nice place.

These are wishing candles, which the people of Hoi An like to let float on the river to make the wishes come true. It is very pretty, except that if you're a tourist they make you wear a life-jacket to do it.

More of Mel's bike-photography mad skillz, but this time on motorised bikes! Gasp!

Gigantic cannon! These cannon are in fact so big that they were never intended to be fired; they exist purely to intimidate anyone who walks through the gates of the Imperial Palace in Hue and says "dang, that's a big cannon!"

Kayaking in Halong Bay, which was very fun. Also it looked a lot less brown when the sun came out.

The cool bridge to a temple in the middle of a lake in the middle of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

This is a very small part of the very large queue to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, including his mummified corpse! Fun times. But more importantly, I'm wearing my hat again! Priorities.

Sadfie the second: our last day in Vietnam, having to say goodbye to Dizzy. Nice dinner though.

Bangkok Has Them Now

I would like to preface this entry by pointing out that I actually wrote it two days ago but due to bum Vietnamese internet this is the first time I've been able to post it. I'm sure this delay has caused you all terrible distress. Anyway:

After an entire day or so of travelling, we finally made it to Thailand. First impresions: it's so dang hot! Thirty eight degrees it turned out to be that day, and 95% humidity to boot. But, riding a tuk-tuk at dangerous speeds does generate a good breeze so we cooled down soon enough. We eventually found our hotel, sweaty and dishevelled after wandering the grounds of the university in which it is inexplicably located, and basically just showered, ate biscuits and went to sleep.

The next day we set out to explore the many delights of Bangkok. While walking in the vague direction of some temples, we were accosted on the street by two seperate incredibly friendly English-speakers who were very keen to tell us about all the cool stuff to see and where it was. Weirdly, they weren't even doing it for a tip; they were literally just being nice to some haples white folk. It was very strange. But their good moods may have had something to do with the fact that we had once again accidentally walked into the middle of a public holiday of some kind. This meant that lots of things were cheaper than usual and loads of people were off work, all of whom seemed happy. But the best thing was that this meant that the Temple of the Lucky Buddha was open, for just this one day of the year. So obviously we went there and got blessed with luck. So that was fun. We also saw a bunch of other temples and palaces and the like, several of which were, as usual, under construction. Our new-found luckyness manifested itself in the acquisition of a government employed tuk-tuk driver, who took us around the whole day and waited outside half a dozen temples for forty baht, a.k.a. about ninety pence. He also took us to the place where I bought my new suit, for which I imagine the commision made up for the low rates. Still cheap though!

The next day the same driver picked us up again and we hit a few more temples, then a cat cafe. Which is like a normal cafe except with a dozen cats rubbing round your ankles. Then it was time for our main Thai attraction to begin; we decamped to a hotel much fancier than the on we booked to meet the rest of out tour group! This is not the sort of thing we would normally do, but in a country as busy and bewildering as Thailand it seemed like a good idea. Also, having spent over two months just the two of us we thought it might be nice to see some new faces. And we were right on both counts. We ended up with an amazing group of people with very similar notions of travel to us. It was mostly Britishers and Canadians, with a token investment from the USA, Australia and Europe. But despite our widely varying opinions on gun control, it was a very harmonious group and we have made a lot of new friends (it's on facebook so it must be true).

I'm not going to try and blow-by-blow the tour as they crammed so much into those eight days. We came out quite sleep-deprived. But there were several awesome highlights: one night we stayed on some river rafts in the middle of the jungle - the main entertainment was flinging yourself into the river's strong current and floating downstream to the bottom of the rafts, then walking up and doing it again. We swam and waterslid in the Krung Sri waterfalls with some fish that ate our skin. We ziplined between treetops on a mountain (the longest zipline was 800 metres!). Mel learned some Muay Thai. We both learned how to cook some Thai food. Both instances of learning were very sweaty in thirty degree heat. We bathed some elephants. We crossed the bridge on the river Kwai. We bicycled between ruined temples. We ate a lot of Thai food, and Matt, our illustrious tour guide, found the only bar in Thailand that has cider. All in all, it was an amazing time an an excellent way to see a lot of Thailand in a short amount of time. Does make you tired though.

To combat our tiredness, the obvious solution seemed to be to go trekking through the jungle for three days. Elementary. We thought Thailand was hot before, but we were so very wrong. There is no heat like the heat of jungle trekking. It is the sweatiest I have ever been, by some considerable margin. Luckily, we had a quality shower of a bucket of cold water waiting for us at the end of the each day. Which was actually really nice. Not to be all complaining though; it was truthfully a really fun experience. Exhausting, yes, but rewarding also. We got some incredible views from the hilltops, and I've never had to machete through the undergrowth to find a seemingly-mythical waterfall before. And at one of the villages we stayed in the local children decided to make Mel some kind of nature princess, with jewellery and make-up made entirely of plants. It was fascinating to see into the homes of the people who live in these remote villages, whose lives, we learned, have been revolutionised in the last five years since the government installed water pipes and they got a few solar panels put in. It is a very different world, which is quite humbling to look in on.

As always, we had a great time. And I haven't even talked about Thai massage. Anyway, that last little adventure finished off our Thai times, and we flew down from Chiang Mai, centre of northern Thailand and home to famous temples, spice markets and Italian restaurants, to Bangkok and then onwards to Vietnam! Where I am now. And I'll probably tell you all about in two weeks after we leave.

Happy travels friends :)

Island Hopping

Our travels in the Philippines took a long time to get going. First we had to fly there from Australia, which understandably took a long time. Then we had to change terminals in Manila airport, which involved talking to four different airport staff members, each of whom told us a different way to do it, and then talking to five different other passengers trying to do the same thing, before accidentally blundering in to the poorly-signposted transfer area while looking for something else. It was free though. Fortunately we had about six hours to kill in Manila, so we had plenty of time to work all this out.

The next step was an internal flight to Puerto Princesa, the largest town on the island of Palawan. From there, now late in the evening, we got a transfer to our little hotel and went gratefully to sleep. The next morning, a minivan arrived to take us on the six hour drive from Puerto Princesa up to El Nido, a small town at the northern end of Palawan, which was where we were actually trying to go. And then, we just had to get from El Nido bus station to our hostel.

So basically it was a long old trip! But we got there. And I think it's safe to say that it was worth it. El Nido's main attraction is as the start point of four different island hopping tours, each of which goes to a diverse bunch of islands, beaches and coral reefs over the course of a day. We had time for the two best rated ones (wanting to spend a day not getting sunburned in between, this being the inevitable side-effect of a day on and in the sea). There is a particular beauty to a shining blue lagoon, just as there is a particular beauty to a craggy mountainside. The inlets of the Philippine islands combine the two in a very pleasing way.

All the islands have a unique style. They look for all the world like glacial valleys: steep-sided, ragged edged, very tall and plunging deep beneath the waterline. But obviously there hasn't been a lot of glacier action in the Philippines, being pretty close to the equator. In fact the islands might more properly be called undersea mountains (that just happen to poke out of the sea a bit). They were once the sea floor, and are made up largely of fossilised coral beds (which I am led to believe is why they are in such steep towers). Geological uplift has pushed the tips out of the water, and naturally-occuring acid rain has picked holes and sharp crevices into the soft rock, giving them the distinctive appearance they currently enjoy.

And a pretty fine appearance it is. Our time in the Philippines was, therefore, spent largely in admiring these rocky outcrops and lazing around on a variety of beaches. But the best moment was undoubtedly on our second boat tour, when we stopped at an otherwise deserted coral reef to go snorkelling. This was easily the most colourful and vibrant reef that I have ever seen, covered in a profusion of interesting, and friendly, life (except for a couple of jellyfish, who I cannot in good conscience describe as friendly). Someone in our group even inexplicably saw a squid. It's hard to describe the magnificence of a coral reef unless one is David Attenborough, and I (sadly) am not. I think it's best summed up by saying that it was one of those times when you think to yourself "man, I wish I had a GoPro." It was something like swimming through an aquarium.

Other cool things included kayaking around an enclosed lagoon into a small cave, climbing to the top of one of the islands (this is the picture at Matinloc Shrine in the earlier picture post) and visiting not just the Secret Beach, but also the Hidden Beach (different place) and the Secret Lagoon. Lot of secrets. We also had a good time away from the sea, exploring El Nido's limited collection of vegetarian-friendly restaurants and extensive survey of beachfront bars, many of which are visited by various people performing various tricks, usually involving something that is on fire.

Then, after a worrying day in which El Nido's only functioning ATM decided not to accept any of our cards (it doesn't like Visas, except sometimes when it does) and we almost ran out of money, we just had to repeat the entire arduous adventure to get back to Manila airport, and thence to Thailand, for yet another leg of our adventure.

But that is a story for another post. Probably one I'll write this evening.

Until then, happy travels friends :)

...And a bunch more! Yay Thailand!

Getting ready to go ziplining on the Flight of the Gibbon course near Chiang Mai, which is basically Go Ape but in the jungle.

...and here we are mid-zipline, because Mel is getting worryingly good at this whole selfie-ing business.

This was an attempt to capture the sunset at Pai canyon, which was very beautiful, but it is so washed out by the smog that the camera can't get anything at all. Nice for us though!

Elephant! At the Elephant Nature Park, a lovely conservation park with very friendly animals. It is also a sanctuary for dogs, cats and water buffalo. Obviously.

Back in Chiang Mai, atop the old city walls. This was the last day of our tour, which was super fun and we were sad to be leaving, so Mel found this bit of castle to cheer me up. She is very thoughtful like that.

Our next little adventure, hiking up some hills in the jungle to meet local tribespeople. In 35 degree heat! Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Our second day of hiking, after sleeping in a village hut, led us to this beautiful little waterfall. It was very cold, which was great as we were ridiculously hot.

Third and final hike day took us to this temple cave. This part of Thailand was conquered by Burma in the 1700's, and when they found a cave in the middle of a pre-existing temple complex they couldn't understand why the cave wasn't full of Buddha images already, and duly filled it.

And that finally catches me up! On pictures anyway. Actual describing words to follow!

Happy travels friends :)