Friday 28 May 2010
Hot skinny on the side
So we arrive in Australia, where the temperature is 15degree lower (a welcome relief) and we don't need to haggle for everything, though Ronan did try a few times and got very strange looks from the Auzzies.
A lovely welcome at the airport with Ronan's brother Jarlath waiting to pick us up and whisk us to a comfy bed as we had not slept at all on the way over, I did a marathon 5 films on my personal entertainment system and was feeling a little jaded...
Jartlath had already planned to whisk his little bro off the next day to do some knarly mountain biking so I was kindly invited to go for a girly bunch with Pip and some of her lovely lady friends. This brunch was my initiation into Melburnians and their coffee. We had been told that the coffee was really good here and taken prety seriously but I was still a bit bemused when the orders from the other three ladies at the table were 'short black with some hot skinny on the side', 'skinny flat white', 'soy latte'.I wasn't really sure what half of that was so I sheepishly ordered an expresso, though I have developed quite a liking for the flat white since then.
We spent the next few days enjoying catching up with Jarlath and Pip who were great hosts showing us round Melbourne and hanging out with us as luckily we had arrived on easter weekend. Over the next few days 'the english invasion' as Pip called it began with Ronan's brother and his wife, his parents and three of Jarlath's friends all arriving from England.
We decided to give the almost weds a bit of wedding prep peace and headed off to the great ocean road for a few days, a fabulous rugged coastline full of amazing beaches and the famous 12 apostles, though apparently there are only 7 of them, I think the Oz tourist board should be done under the trading standards act. I did manage the spent the equivalent of £10 to see a lighthouse as well which was possibly the most underwhelming tourist experience of the trip so far.
Speaking of money of my god we were shocked by that when we arrived. Both Ronan and I have been to Oz before and remembered the srong pound meaning we could live pretty well down under, this is no more with the exchnage rate have dropped from about 2.5 to 1.5 and now Melbourne is more expensive than London. we had to become the stingy ones in the corner ordering the cheapest stuff on the menu and rifling through the reduced to clear section at the supermarket!
While in Melbourne I also managed to catch up with a few people. The lovely Laura Kerr, a very good friend from my days as a geeky teenager. Listening to her is brilliant with the accent veering between classic Leicester and proper auzzie.
Also great to see the fabulous Dave Carswell again (someone I met on my last travels) who acted as our guide to all things cool in Melbourne and taught us that every bar worth going to is down the end of an alley, off another alley which is full of wheelie bins.
In our two weeks or so there we really grew to love Melbourne; sometimes a bit grimy, always uber cool and very much a city that needs to be slowly discovered and doesn't put it all out there.
All too suddenly it was time to head off to the hills for the big Leyden wedding!
A lovely welcome at the airport with Ronan's brother Jarlath waiting to pick us up and whisk us to a comfy bed as we had not slept at all on the way over, I did a marathon 5 films on my personal entertainment system and was feeling a little jaded...
Jartlath had already planned to whisk his little bro off the next day to do some knarly mountain biking so I was kindly invited to go for a girly bunch with Pip and some of her lovely lady friends. This brunch was my initiation into Melburnians and their coffee. We had been told that the coffee was really good here and taken prety seriously but I was still a bit bemused when the orders from the other three ladies at the table were 'short black with some hot skinny on the side', 'skinny flat white', 'soy latte'.I wasn't really sure what half of that was so I sheepishly ordered an expresso, though I have developed quite a liking for the flat white since then.
We spent the next few days enjoying catching up with Jarlath and Pip who were great hosts showing us round Melbourne and hanging out with us as luckily we had arrived on easter weekend. Over the next few days 'the english invasion' as Pip called it began with Ronan's brother and his wife, his parents and three of Jarlath's friends all arriving from England.
We decided to give the almost weds a bit of wedding prep peace and headed off to the great ocean road for a few days, a fabulous rugged coastline full of amazing beaches and the famous 12 apostles, though apparently there are only 7 of them, I think the Oz tourist board should be done under the trading standards act. I did manage the spent the equivalent of £10 to see a lighthouse as well which was possibly the most underwhelming tourist experience of the trip so far.
Speaking of money of my god we were shocked by that when we arrived. Both Ronan and I have been to Oz before and remembered the srong pound meaning we could live pretty well down under, this is no more with the exchnage rate have dropped from about 2.5 to 1.5 and now Melbourne is more expensive than London. we had to become the stingy ones in the corner ordering the cheapest stuff on the menu and rifling through the reduced to clear section at the supermarket!
While in Melbourne I also managed to catch up with a few people. The lovely Laura Kerr, a very good friend from my days as a geeky teenager. Listening to her is brilliant with the accent veering between classic Leicester and proper auzzie.
Also great to see the fabulous Dave Carswell again (someone I met on my last travels) who acted as our guide to all things cool in Melbourne and taught us that every bar worth going to is down the end of an alley, off another alley which is full of wheelie bins.
In our two weeks or so there we really grew to love Melbourne; sometimes a bit grimy, always uber cool and very much a city that needs to be slowly discovered and doesn't put it all out there.
All too suddenly it was time to head off to the hills for the big Leyden wedding!
Monday 10 May 2010
Temples and shit
Still doing very badly at catching up with my blogging but I will endeavor.....
So time to leave Thailand for the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, we booked ourselves what we though was a nice easy all the way through bus and were up bright and early for our 7am pick up.... 1 and a half hours later we were still waiting, what they call 'thai time' over here.
Our border crossing was a relatively distressing experience where, despite about 3 years backpacking between us we managed to fall for the classic exchange rate con on the border, I knew that guy was talking crap but somehow let myself get carried along by it,, too old to backpack clearly. Anyway we lost the equivalent of about 4 pints in London so not life threatening and arrived in Siem Reap as hardened hagglers and bull shit detectors.
We'd picked up a random dutch guy and a the most mature and interesting 18 year old brit backpacker on the way and proceeded to drag them around town to find hostels that didn't exist. Anyway we soon found somewhere not in 'the bible' aka lonely planet but good enough and headed out to revisit a town I had had an amazing time in lat time I was there. Suffice to say the Angkor What? bar seemed a lot louder than last time I was there.. ah well as I said too old to backpack really. Should probably change the name of this blog to that....
Next day we decided to be intrepid and visit the famous temples by bike, a lovely idea and great exercise but managed to give the poor Irish boy heatstroke which took him out for about 24 hours bless him.
Revisiting the temples was just as stunning as the last time I was here, the intricate stone carvings everywhere you turn, giant alien trees slowly trying to take them back by growing giants roots through them and just the sheer scale of these ancient Khmer kings to show how good they were. I read an awful lot of descriptions of the wheres and why fores which I have immediately forgotten except the fact that all their names ended in varman, still for me its not really about the facts but just soaking up the atmosphere of the place.
Best experience of the two days we spent in the complex was sneaking back into the main Angkor Wat temple after it closed and watching dusk set in with absolutely no one else around, not a common experience in the major attraction of Cambodia which is usually full of Japanese and american coach tours. It was pretty special.
Our whistle stop visit was over too quick, having learned our lesson we did the trip back without an all through bus, a much more peaceful trip. So back to Bangkok with us and one final night before heading off to Australia and to be honest we were quite relieved at the prospect of not having to worry about being ripped off all the time of sweat buckets before even finishing breakfast. It was lovely and totally weird to bump into Liz on a soi off the Khao San road, who I had met in Morocco about 1year and a half before. The world is too small sometimes.
Australian adventures with the extended Leyden family to come soon, also will upload an album full of photos of Cambodia to flikr for you to look at if you fancy, I know it looks like a lot of old rock but it reall was very impressive in person.
So time to leave Thailand for the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, we booked ourselves what we though was a nice easy all the way through bus and were up bright and early for our 7am pick up.... 1 and a half hours later we were still waiting, what they call 'thai time' over here.
Our border crossing was a relatively distressing experience where, despite about 3 years backpacking between us we managed to fall for the classic exchange rate con on the border, I knew that guy was talking crap but somehow let myself get carried along by it,, too old to backpack clearly. Anyway we lost the equivalent of about 4 pints in London so not life threatening and arrived in Siem Reap as hardened hagglers and bull shit detectors.
We'd picked up a random dutch guy and a the most mature and interesting 18 year old brit backpacker on the way and proceeded to drag them around town to find hostels that didn't exist. Anyway we soon found somewhere not in 'the bible' aka lonely planet but good enough and headed out to revisit a town I had had an amazing time in lat time I was there. Suffice to say the Angkor What? bar seemed a lot louder than last time I was there.. ah well as I said too old to backpack really. Should probably change the name of this blog to that....
Next day we decided to be intrepid and visit the famous temples by bike, a lovely idea and great exercise but managed to give the poor Irish boy heatstroke which took him out for about 24 hours bless him.
Revisiting the temples was just as stunning as the last time I was here, the intricate stone carvings everywhere you turn, giant alien trees slowly trying to take them back by growing giants roots through them and just the sheer scale of these ancient Khmer kings to show how good they were. I read an awful lot of descriptions of the wheres and why fores which I have immediately forgotten except the fact that all their names ended in varman, still for me its not really about the facts but just soaking up the atmosphere of the place.
Best experience of the two days we spent in the complex was sneaking back into the main Angkor Wat temple after it closed and watching dusk set in with absolutely no one else around, not a common experience in the major attraction of Cambodia which is usually full of Japanese and american coach tours. It was pretty special.
Our whistle stop visit was over too quick, having learned our lesson we did the trip back without an all through bus, a much more peaceful trip. So back to Bangkok with us and one final night before heading off to Australia and to be honest we were quite relieved at the prospect of not having to worry about being ripped off all the time of sweat buckets before even finishing breakfast. It was lovely and totally weird to bump into Liz on a soi off the Khao San road, who I had met in Morocco about 1year and a half before. The world is too small sometimes.
Australian adventures with the extended Leyden family to come soon, also will upload an album full of photos of Cambodia to flikr for you to look at if you fancy, I know it looks like a lot of old rock but it reall was very impressive in person.
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