Fiji

Monday 5th November - Sunday 11th November

Next we flew to Nadi, Fiji! I didn't really know much about it before going there. We spent all our time in a really lovely resort called The Beach House on the south coast of the island, Vitu Levu.

It was all very beautiful and exotic, as you would expect. We had such a relaxing, fun time and met loads of really cool people from all around the world. The resort was big but cut off from anywhere else on the island. So everyone tended to stay within the vicinity and it was like living in a small, isolated community for a week, with the dynamics altering each day as people came and went.

On the first day we tried to sunbathe on the beach but that didn't really work because it was so windy that we spent most of our time wiping sand off of ourselves. But the water was beautiful - very warm and quite clear. The area is famous for diving and snorkeling but it was all too expensive, so I just went kayaking, which was free. It's not really comparable to going under the water but it was still possible to see some sea life and coral.

One of the highlights of the weak was a trek through an area of jungle near to our accommodation. It was just Briony and I, a dog and the guide, Jiunta. He has lived in the village next to The Beach House all his life and so knew everything there was to know about the jungle - his city, as he described it. On the way, a family called Jiunta over and asked him to get some medicine from the jungle. Jiunta said that everything needed to live could be found in the jungle. He told us about a proud moment from his childhood when he and his father lived inside the jungle for a week, gathering lots of materials.

On the way to our destination, a waterfall, he picked us a ripe pineapple, a coconut and a tapioca. We were also lucky enough to meet two hunters returning to the village with their kills (two wild boars). With a straight face Jiunta joked that the boars were sleeping. I naively wondered for a split second how they could possibly be napping so peacefully, until I saw the bloody gashes on their necks.

Jiunta told us about some of the functions and uses for bamboo. It's really clever stuff! We saw three functions in action (or rather post-action) by the fire that the hunters had used. One piece was used both as a spit and a pot to cook some boar meat, and another as a water bottle. We walked through lots of mud and rivers before arriving at the waterfall. He told us to stop worrying about stepping in mud and water and just get stuck in. He walked bare foot all the way. We swam through a pool to get to the fall. Jiunta kept insisting we climb to certain parts of the waterfall so he could take photos, including one of us standing directly under the falling water, where it was not easy (actually quite painful!) to stay still long enough for the picture.
I took off my shoes to climb up the rocks, so I could get a better grip, but very quickly got bad cramp all the way up my dodgy leg, and so didn't get very far and just had to sit to sit down stranded for a while.

On the way back we waited for about twenty minutes altogether while Jiunta disappeared to find the medicine - the bark of one particular tree which helps with upset stomachs and stiff joints. Then we said goodbye to the very sweet and excitable dog who'd followed us all the way to and from the waterfall, and thanked Jiunta for our experience.

I played volleyball everyday. Or rather, I made lots of noise and flayled my arms about for a couple of hours everyday. It was really fun! We had a really good time in the evening as well; playing games and sharing stories. One night, a big group of us played drinking games, which ended in both tears and loads of laughter, as well as indecent exposures, sickness, fighting, people being thrown into the swimming pool (just before the fighting), singing, a cracked open head (just after the singing) and other generally raucous behaviour.

Melbourne

Sunday 28th October - Sunday 4th November

We arrived really early in the morning in Melbourne and my cousin kindly came and picked us up. It was bloody miserable weather most of the time we were there so we spent quite a lot of time just hibernating in my aunt's flat, where we enjoyed spreading out in our own space and cooking our own meals etc.
I spent most of my time catching up with my cousins, but the few times we ventured out as tourists, we visited Federation Square in the centre of town and caught the free tram (another known as "The Tight-arse Tram" around town. We also went to the botanical gardens and did a bit of shopping and went swimming. Not exactly a fast-paced week but it was nice just to sleep in the same bed for a week and not have to do anything in particular.
I really like the feel of Melbourne. It has a cosmopolitan, yet cosy vibe to it.

Night Safari and Sentosa Island

Friday 26th October

With our very last bit of money we bought an international phone card and managed to call my bank to sort the problem out. They gave me access to my card just before the money ran out! We were so desperate because my debit card was our only way of accessing money after the mugging. We didn't even have enough money to pay the call connection fee in the hotel we called from, but the staff let us off!
Once we had sorted the problem, we decided to celebrate by buying a drink. So we went into a traditional Chinese health cafe and tried some plum juice, just for something different. But it was disgusting!

In the evening we went to a night safari. There was a Halloween theme. It was actually quite scary. There were actors spotted around the safari park, who jumped out of the bushes and crept up on us as we went through the dark in an open, slow train. It made us quite jumpy! We saw quite a few animals including elephants, giraffes, rhinos and leopards. The animals' environments were set up so that they were similar to their natural habitats, although the areas were very small and the leopards were behind glass, so it wasn't all that natural.

Saturday 27th October

We went to China town in the morning. There was not that much to see or do really - mainly just shops and markets. Then we went for a very brief visit to Sentosa Island which has artificial beaches. We caught the clean and efficient metro service to the coast and then a cable car over to the island. It was a strange, abstracted place. We wondered around and then got the cable car back again! All the activities on the island were really expensive and we were short of time because we had to catch a flight to Melbourne that day. So it was a bit of a bitty day all-in-all. But I think we got a feel for Singapore.
We caught our flight to Melbourne in the evening.

On to Singapore

Thursday 25th October

In an effort to be more careful after the mugging, we had put all our valuables straight into the safe when we arrived at the hostel. But just before we boarded the bus to go back to Kuala Lumpur, we realized we'd left them there and were about to try and make our way out of the country without our passports, which would have made for an interesting story - but not one I would have liked to tell. I ran back to the hostel to get the valuables and we still got the bus on time. The driver of the bus was one of the most hilarious human beings I have ever encountered. The bus nearly broke down so many times and the driver got a little stressed. I thought this might be why he didn't talk, but shrieked. But in fact he shrieked throughout all of the five hour journey. I thought that there was a woman at the front of the bus with a really annoying, shrill voice, shouting at the bus driver, and realized only after some time that it was the bus driver himself. It was literally impossible to communicate with him. A couple of people tried to make inquiries about the journey but he just dismissed them with shrieks and hand gestures. It was like he was on a constant warpath. I wondered whether he was particularly jumpy because of a sensitive complex over his involuntary high-pitched tones, or whether his shrieking was a result of his temperament. I guess I'll never know, but I was very glad to debark.

After a couple of hours we were straight on to another bus to Singapore and went through the quickest immigration process so far. We were thrown off our bus once and were given no direction and had to figure out where to go and what to do. We showed our passports etc. and then jumped back on the bus again. About two minutes later we had to get off again and haul all our bags off and through security, before getting back on the bus again. When we terminated, at night, there was not a taxi driver or tout in sight, and we were slightly at a loss in this new city. We walked and hailed a cab and asked the driver to stop at an ATM machine so we could get some local currency, but my bank card would not work. I had had this trouble in Malaysia as well and had to make three international phone calls to sort it out. I was promised that the problem would not occur again (barring the card because of 'unusual' activity, i.e. possibility of fraud). So we had no money. Luckily the taxi driver was very generous and dropped us of at our hostel and said we could pay him the money the following day. We had some emergency fund left, in U.S. dollars. We used the last of that to exchange with the hostel owner, who gave us Singaporean dollars in return. We then gave almost all of that back to pay for the accommodation! We could not, for the life of us, make a successful international phone call to correct the problem, because the phone boxes and mobiles inside and just outside the hostel would not work. We didn't really want to venture out to try and find another phone as it was late and I'd managed to book us a hostel right in the middle of the red light district.

More tea

Wednesday 24th October

Amanda, Briony and I made our own way to a larger, well-known tea plantation in the morning. There were some fantastic views, but unluckily our expectations of a fresh cup of tea at the end of a steep climb were not met, as the tea cafe and factory were closed for renovation, starting from that day and lasting for only three days. So, we didn't time it well! With the uncanny memory of a family holiday in Wales hovering over me, we got some inferior takeaway tea instead and sat outside - until the rain started again - and then we moved inside to drink our takeaway tea on a bench, staring at a wall and breathing in paint fumes. Good times!

Amanda got the bus back to the hostel but Briony and I walked back. It was a lot longer than we anticipated so we got caught in the rain and ended up walking about 15K altogether that day. By the time we got back to the hostel, we were completely drenched and my feet felt like a separate entity to the rest of my body.

In the afternoon I chatted with others at the hostel, all of whom were leaving the Highlands the following day because of the miserable weather. We decided to do the same. In the evening we all sat round and had a beer by a cozy fire, drying our shoes and listening to the strange sounds of one of the hostels owner's friends playing the guitar and 'singing' everything from the Beatles to Ronan Keating, in between swigs from his bottle of Whiskey.

Cuppa teeeeaaa!

We went on a six hour trek with a local guide called Kali. Another woman, named Amanda, joined us for the trip. It was really hard work, partly because of the high altitude. It was very overcast, misty and rainy, so unfortunately, after our 1 1/2 hour hike uphill, we couldn't see a thing. Then we started walking through very thick jungle on a track that evidently hadn't been trodden down by many before us. There were some amazing, peculiar plant life to see. Kali made us two bracelets each, using one of the plants. When he was making the first two, he kept suddenly stopping and staying dead silent, trying to work out what the rustling, treading sound was, quite close by us. We were a little apprehensive as about 5 minutes before this he told us about the tigers who live in the jungle but don't like to go near humans. If it wasn't for the fact that we were having to be quiet, I was going to ask whether this applied to all tigers, including those who were hungry or having a bad day, for example.

It was very slippy and muddy and Amanda and Briony went over on their arses several times during the day. I didn't fall over but was concentrating so hard on not doing so, that at one point I walked smack, bang into a tree branch, banging my head an shattering my teeth together!

A little light relief from the intense exercise and concentration, we arrived in a small village next to a tree plantation. All the children knew Kali by name. Word got round quickly that we'd arrived, and all of Kali's sweets he'd brought for the children disappeared just as rapidly.

Then Kali took us right inside a plantation and we watched two workers cutting the tea leaves. The best quality tea leaves apparently used to be picked by hand from the top, but now it is done by machine. The next stop was a tea house where I had a divinely beautiful cup of tea (as well as a scone and half a brownie!) After scoffing ourselves we had lost momentum somewhat, so when faced with the choice of hitching a ride back to town with one of Kali's mates, or another 1 1/2 hours of vertical climbing on a different route, in the rain, we opted for the sensible cop-out.

Kuala Lumpur

We went on a city tour with a driver and a really friendly Australian couple, Susie and Peter. We went to see the Royal Palace, a war memorial, a tin shop, a watch shop, a chocolate shop and the Batu Caves. Going to the shops was a waste of time, as everything was really expensive, and we went to the caves last and only had about ten minutes there! We just had time to climb the very steep steps up to the caves, looked around the entrance area, and came back down again! In front of the caves is the most ENORMOUS, golden Buddha - towering into the sky. And all the way up the stairs were lots of flurrying, confident monkeys. One of them would not let Susie pass until she gave up a pink plastic bag poking out of her rucksack. It was very fascinating watching them and their very human behaviour.

Next on our whistle stop tour of Asia we got a bus to the Cameron Highlands. We didn't have any accommodation booked so it was a bit scary arriving in the misty, cold and black highlands not knowing where we were going. But we found a really cool hostel with its own bar and cheap rooms - and hot showers!

From Cambodia to Malaysia

On the bus back to Phnom Penh, a friendly woman kept speaking to me in Khmer. Eventually I gave up making gestures indicating I wasn't following her line of thought, and just smiled and laughed. She could tell that I didn't like the papaya I had bought during the journey (it tastes like poo) so I gave it to her and she offered me some of her fruit. Presumably still as part of this sharing culture, she helped herself to the wooden stick I was using to eat my fruit with, peeled is slightly to make it thinner, and used it to clean our her ears. Erm, yeah no worries - I wasn't using it anyway...



We got dropped off at the airport and caught a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We stayed in an eight-bed dormitory. I got hardly any sleep as a couple of inconsiderate dicks arrived late in the room and made one racket after another. And then one of them took the bunk below me and throughout the night, tried to carve his own body shape into his mattress, with the amount of wriggling he was doing.

Sihanoukville

Wednesday 17th October - Saturday 20th October

We caught a bus to Sihanoukville, a smaller town on the coast. We stayed just by Serendipity Beach, which is very beautiful. I got wrangled into having my legs waxed by the young women and children who immediately flocked to try and sell us their goods. It's quite painful: they take a piece of string and hold it between the teeth, and then push down and encircle it around the hairs, before pulling up sharply. Basically, it's a more painful but meticulous, long drawn-out version of waxing!

We just took it easy during the week, not doing anything in particular. The next day I met an extremely charming Chinese woman on the beach, who calls herself 'Shelley'. She approached me asking if she could practise her English with me. We ended up talking for hours, until it got dark, about every subject under the sun. She had come to Cambodia two years previously to learn English by speaking to foreigners, and to earn a better living, so she hoped. But she now misses home and her living conditions were marginally better in China anyway, where she worked as a surgeon, a paediatrician and in Chinese medicine! And she will return in a few months to try and get a job as a translator.

She seemed a bit alienated and lonely but very optimistic and grateful for the human contact and stimulating converation, I think. At about the same time the following day, and the day after that, she returned and we spoke non-stop until the sun set again. It was quite sad saying goodbye to her! But she wrote to me saying she had grown in confidence a lot.

Back to Phnom Penh

Monday 15th October

We got an early bus from Siem Reap back to Phnom Penh. We went straight to the embassy to collect our temporary passports but they were not ready, so we had to spend another day and night in Phnom Penh.

Tuesday 16th October

We collected our passports and were robbed for what we hoped was the final time in Cambodia - by the British state, who charge $150 for a one-year temporary passport. Scandalous. Then we had to pay $40 each for exit visas (twice the price of normal visas).

The highlight of today was seeing an elephant sauntering along the road! He was so enormous, as elephants tend to be; just cruising on down the main street in Phnom Penh. It was an amazing sight and made our extra couple of days in Phnom Penh worthwhile!

Angkor Wat etc.

Saturday 13th October and Sunday 14th October

We hired bikes from our guesthouse and made our way to the Angkorian National Park, where we visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and other temples. It was amazing but very touristy, which was to be expected. I think we enjoyed ourselves even more on the second day when we were able to take it easy and absorb it all in a more leisurely way. This was partly because by the second day we were more familiar with the layout of all the temples, whereas we spent most of the first day unintentionally finding out what roads to go down, by finding out all the places not to go and working on a process of elimination! But we preferred to see the temples by making our own way. The park is so vast, so a form of transport is necessary to get around, but hiring a tuk-tuk and a tour guide was another expense which we didn't need.

As well as being very impressive structures, the temples also have lots of very fine detail throughout. The environment around the temples is very beautiful. The more remote, less frequented ruins have a fairytale-like quality to them.

We must have cycled about 20 miles across the two days - a bit too much for my granny knees and other parts of my anatomy to handle. My whole body was in pain, but I survived and it was well worth it!

All the temples have varying degrees of beauty, depending on the time of day and the light. We made a comic balls-up during our last moments there, waiting for the sunset to fall behind Angkor Wat. "Where's this bloody sunset then?" We must have sat there for about 45 minutes before turning around to see the sun disappearing behind us. It is in fact sunrise that you can view over Angkor Wat, and sunset is behind another temple entirely. Oh well, we still had fun while we waited! There were lots of monkeys around the temples, and while we had our backs to the setting sun, I got a classic photo of a monkey holding a cigarette packet and looking very cool.

Having waited around too long, we had to make our way back through the park and the town in rush hour in the dark, which wasn't the safest activity as our bikes were a bit run-down and didn't have any lights or bells or even fully-functioning breaks! But this meant I forgot about the pain in my knees and crutch while I concentrated on not getting myself killed.

Siem Reap

Friday 12th October

We wandered around Siem Reap and got lost a couple of times, but saw more remote parts of the city because of this! We really wanted to try out a massage in Cambodia, so we went for an all-body option, which lasted an hour. It turned out to be not a wholly enjoyable experience, however, as the masseuses were not very good! We had to put on what looked like pyjamas, which were very comfortable. But the tiny room we were in had way over the top air-conditioning, so we were quite cold by the end of it. Due to the temperature, My legs and feet felt like they were on the verge of cramp throughout, and several times my left leg seized up. I think I frightened my masseuse a little with my sudden jumping motions and cries of "oooh, aaahh, oh shit it's gone again".
In the evening we had a buffet meal while watching some traditional Apsara dancing. I was really looking forward to it, but I found the dancing a bit dull, to be honest. But we had some delicious food and a fun evening.

Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

Thursday 11th October

We finally got out of Phnom Penh and caught the six hour bus to Siem Reap. Because of all our plans being thrown into disarray, due to the bastards on the bike, as they will now be known, we rolled up to Siem Reap without any accommodation booked, which was a little stressful, as it was dark by the time we got there, but we borrowed the mobile of a guy who was running an internet cafe and made a local call to a guest house.
Siem Reap is more run-down and smaller than I was expecting. I kept having to remind myself how underdeveloped Cambodia is, even in the tourist areas. A lot of the development is superficial - just a front line to greet tourists; a very fine line, behind which are families living in construction sites and cardboard boxes; children running around naked in muddy shacks, and men, women and children everywhere wasting their talents by trying to eek out a living, selling their skilled but often useless services to monied people.