Surfers Paradise Hit List #4: Our 2 Favourite Pastimes

From now on, if anyone ever asks us what our interests are, our answer is going to be "Surfing.... and brunch."

Surfing time

So on our last weekend in Surfers, like many weekends before, we did just that. Actually, we hadn't done much surfing in the past few months, thanks to winter rolling around and it getting a whole lot colder, and thanks to not owning surfboards or wetsuits. Luckily, we'd just learned of some cheap early-Saturday-morning surf lessons ($15!) for locals that were happening at the surf school just down the block from us.

We almost chickened out when we saw the weather forecast for the day -- 41 km/hour winds! Eek! -- and saw the giant waves crashing on the beach. But then again, what better time to learn? So we showed up at Cheyne Horan Surf School at 7:45am that Saturday morning and just tried our best not to look at the waves on the way there.

When we arrived, it appeared it would be just us and four giggly high school girls, who were all competing for the attention of Mark, our surf instructor. He seemed slightly relieved not to be alone with them, and gave us a few really good pointers once we got down to the beach. This time, we were practicing on spongey foam boards, so there was less of a chance of getting smashed up by our surfboards (yay!) despite the wind and the waves. And the big water was actually a good thing -- with more waves to catch, there wasn't much waiting, and plenty of room to practice. And though our lesson was only a little more than an hour long, we were totally exhausted by the end! And starving... surfing kinda works up an appetite.

Heaven.

So then it was onto the next order of business: having our very favourite breakfast in town once again -- the very awesome $10 all-you-can-eat feast at the Surfers Paradise RSL (the local veteran's club, which once inside looks less like a Canadian legion hall and more like a combination of casino, pub, and Holiday Inn restaurant, complete with patrons in Hawaiian shirts, informal dining and gaudy carpet). But ever since hearing about it, we've been hooked. And we're surprised the place isn't packed every day, because it's delicious! Your ten bucks gets you not only a cooked breakfast of eggs & meat, or various omelettes, or a beautiful French toast topped with sauteed mushrooms, herbs, and sundried tomatoes.... plus unlimited brewed coffee (Adrian's favourite), orange juice, croissants, pastries and fruit (and toast and cereal, if you're still hungry)

The only problem we can see is that it's all over by 10:30am... but we do usually manage to get a good half hour of eating in before it shuts down. It's got to be the best-kept secret in Surfers! We're thinking maybe they're keeping it hush-hush from all the students, or else there would be no room for the elderley folk and tradies (aka construction workers) who are always in there. But if you ever find yourself in Surfers, it's the best deal in town! Wow, we're getting super hungry just remembering our last meal there.

Surfers Paradise Hit List #2: Our Favourite Form of Exercise

It's hard to call a 45-minute walk on one of the most gorgeous beaches ever exercise, but doesn't that just make it even more rewarding?

Giant jellyfish!

From the day we first set foot in Surfers, we've been trying to make sure we never take the beach for granted. At any time of day, there's many more people like us doing the exact same thing; in fact, one of the local papers even publishes the exact best times to walk on the beach (according to when the tides expose that lovely flat, packed, walkable sand) with the daily weather report. So one of the things we have been doing the most since deciding to move to Brisbane is taking long strolls along the beach.

Living by the beach and seeing it every day, you realize how the landscape is constantly changing: after a windy couple of days, the dunes are bigger, smaller, or even in other places. After a bout of big waves, sometimes the sand has been carved into small cliffs, even along the water. And the sandbars in the water build themselves up, flatten themselves down, and move along as well. It's always cool to see what the waves have washed up, too: some days it's seashells, some days purplish jellyfish, and one day we came across a jellyfish the size of a truck tire. It was pretty crazy.

Bird lesson in Kurrawa Park

One sunny morning, we thought we'd walk down to Broadbeach, the next suburb south, and grab a coffee for the walk back. It's about a 45-minute stroll and was lovely. On our way into the cafe strip, I was taking photos of some of the flowers around the seaside park in Broadbeach when we met Brian, a retired guy with a soft spot for birds. He was an interesting fellow, and on his daily walk to the library, he always carries a bag of mince (ground meat) in his pocket -- and his friends the Butcherbirds know it. We learned a lot about the Butcherbird from Brian as they landed on his shoulders and arms, and swooped in as soon as they spotted a little meat in his fingers. Adrian even fed a few of them too. They're pretty cute but great hunters-- in fact, they eat insects, lizards, and even other birds. He also told us about all the other species of birds --and snakes! -- that live along the coastline, even amongst the urban sprawl.  It was a bit of a lesson in appreciating the smaller, simpler things in our environment, and it's good to know there are people out there that don't let all the amazing things in our neighbourhoods go unnoticed.

Brian tells us all about the amazingly intelligent Butcherbirds

Inquisitive little devil!

In Love With: Beach Concerts

Dayle has just started a job helping out run the Surfers Paradise Festival, a huge three-week-long arts & culture fest that's run by a city-council-funding marketing team, designed to inject a little fun into the city in wintertime, draw in some crowds, and really just to show off how much great talent there is in Gold Coast (something we've been feeling a real void of... but it is indeed out there!).

The festival kicked off this week with a huge free beach concert - such a lovely way to watch live music. We weren't too familiar with a lot of the acts prior to the event, but apparently the headliner, Pete Murray, is kind of a big thing here in Oz, and lots of the other Aussie indie bands are gaining in popularity fast-- like Clare Bowditch, Busby Marou, and the John Steel Singers. It ran all day in the sand, and though it got a bit chilly at night, everyone bundled together under blankets, sat under the coloured lights and finally the fireworks... which were shot into the sky under a very creepy red moon. A wonderful time! Here are a few photos from the beach concert....

Under the shadows in the afternoon (the white building in the centre is our apartment)

Clare Bowditch

Pete Murray

Creepy red moon

 

 

After-show fireworks

The Art of the Last-Minute Trip

In a very strange turn of events this week (proving once again that life is full of 'big question marks'), our blog will return to being a travel blog for one random week — because, today, Dayle has found herself in Mexico.

Yup, you're reading correctly. I'm in Mexico!!!

In a nutshell, my parents had a week booked in Cancun starting today; however, earlier this week my grandfather ran into some serious health issues, landing him in the hospital and keeping my mother in Canada to look after him. So I'm subbing in... sort of a pinch hitter for vacations.

So yes — for this week, I'll be updating in between eating huevos rancheros and beach bumming. It'll be interesting: the first time I was in Cancun was my first time ever in Mexico, and even then it felt a bit like an extension of the U.S., and not so much like a foreign place. Hopefully it still carries a bit of the exotic, not too much Spring-Break vibe, but definitely some nice weather. It's also a bit weird travelling with such mixed emotions: sad my Mom couldn't come and that I've left behind my ill grandfather, feeling a bit irresponsible for leaving work at the drop of a hat, a giddiness that comes in waves that I'm going on an unexpected vacation, and a wee bit of doubt at how the more-cynical me will fare in such an easygoing, party-hard tourist town like Cancun after fighting my way through places like Burma and Jakarta.

So after a terribly crazy day and a half (I learned I was going on Thursday), I ended up in Waterloo with way too many clothes for the trip and spent all night repacking my old trusty NBought some hair dye just before the drugstore closed at midnight and packed that along with my nail polish and everything else to primp with when I arrived in Mexico — while some people get manicures and such before a trip, I didn't even have time to return my library books! After a super early morning and a smooth four-hour Air Canada flight (along with my Dad's adorably giddy assistant, who took the same flight as us to Cancun), we hopped off the plane today to clear skies and about 26 degrees... muy bien! A few hitches with our room not being ready on time, so we sleepily hit the poolside restaurant for some much-needed lunch and cervezas. Even if everything else is not the cheapest in touristy Cancun, beer is still a steal: two happy hour beers for 65 pesos ($5USD), even at the poshy hotel bar.

Eventually we got to our "villa", a really nice apartment-sized place in the monstrous and new Westin Lagunamar with views of the turquoise ocean and the gigantic hotel pool (biggest in Cancun, says my Dad). No luck on swimming today though; sun sets at 5:30pm and there's a cool breeze. But there will be plenty of time for that... Adios for now! I'll be back for more updates soon.

Oh, Indonesia: How to Bribe a Cop and Island Hopping

Yes, we have a bit of catching up to do... we have said our sad goodbyes to Indonesia, but there were definitely a few surprises waiting for us in our last few weeks in that crazy country.

And yes, as the title implies, we had to bribe our first cop.

We thought we'd take in a bit of the Balinese countryside and rented a motorbike from our guesthouse in Ubud. And since whizzing past the rice paddies and up and down volcanoes on the eastern side of Bali was so much fun, we opted for a second day on our motorbike.

There was no real plan, just a general direction (this is the more interesting way to travel), so that day, our direction was 'North'. We were riding for a little while when suddenly the air got really cold - this was an omen! Because not five minutes afterward we came upon a 'checkpoint' where 3 cops stopped us.

Out came the registration, and it was all going good and they were quite friendly until he asked for our international drivers license.

"Oh, this is problem," was the cop's observation when we couldn't produce one, but we knew what was coming - so why not have some fun with it?

"Oh well, I guess you'll have to write a report." Adrian said.

"No, no, you know-- I want to help you."

"Great, so you're giving us a warning - thanks!" Then we start to mount the bike.

"Wait, no!"

"You're not helping us now, why?" We asked.

"Um, you have big problem, big fine, 200,000 rupiahs (20 dollars)."

"Okay, I guess you have to write a report."

Adrian managed to continue this circular dialogue until it became quite painful to watch and continue with the conversation. Dayle on the other hand was not amused and would put veiled stabs in where ever she could.

All in all we had bartered him down to 50,000RP (5 bucks), and went on our merry way. After some fuss from the corrupt cops, we even managed to get change for our bribe, as we only had a 100,000 Rp note-- something we thought had to do with our bargaining skills.

"What about when we come back, more problems?" Dayle asked.

"Don't worry, I remember you!" Was the officers surly reply.

At first we thought it was cool, but then later we felt dirty, and soon after that we were just ticked off. Returning the bike to the shop, we related the story to the owner, who chuckled a bit.

"50,000 rupiah? This is normal price." At least we got away without paying the "tourist price"... or did we?

---------------------------

From Ubud it took us an entire day of bus-ferry-minibus-refugee boat rides to cross to the next island of Lombok, where we made way to some smaller islands called the Gili(s), just off the northwest coast. As soon as we arrived-- at dusk-- on Gili Air, we encountered our oh-so-familiar problem of no accommodation. This time we somehow lucked out, and met a local girl, Susie, who worked at one of the bars and graciously offered us (and some friends from the bus) rooms with breakfast at her mom's house. We heard many people end up sleeping on the beach for a night or two! Instead, we woke up to chickens running around the house, and a lovely banana-pancake brekkie cooked by Susie's mom. We weren't huge fans of the squat toilet though.... and eventually moved out to a beachside bungalow entirely made of the squeakiest bamboo. The porch had a hammock and the ocean was right in front of us, as was the main road-- barely one lane made completely of sand. It was incredibly peaceful, with the wave noises interrupted only by clucking chickens, electronic Christmas tunes (the ice cream man's songs), and the jingling of horse carriages that served as the "Gili Taxis"-- there were no vehicles on the island at all.

We'd chosen Gili Air for its reputation as the quiet yet civilized one of the three islands (Gili Trawangan was party central; Gili Meno was all but totally asleep) and did some fantastic snorkeling just off the beach. There were fish of every colour and shape a quick swim from shore; snorkels cost about $2.50 to rent for the full day and there was no end to the underwater discoveries: silly-looking mantis shrimp, clownfish, squid, angelfish, technicolor coral, and a sheer drop where the shallow reef became deep ocean (a bit scary to swim alongside!). Not to mention the beach was lovely and lined with just enough restaurants with laid-back bamboo huts to dine and drink in. At nighttime, green fluorescent dots appeared in the waves: some sort of glowing algae. You look up and there's about a billion stars to see. And the few days we woke up early enough in the morning-- visible on the mainland was a massive volcanic peak, Rinjani, which sat in front of the sunrise and towered over Lombok. The island was stunning. The food was some of the best we'd had in the country, and the island was so small we were soon greeting everyone by name along the main sand street. Unfortunately for our relaxation plans, we met some fabulous companions-- both travellers and locals-- and found the nightlife laid-back yet quite excellent on Gili Air.

Too many Bintangs later, somehow 7 days slid by and we topped off our stay with the best dive ever experienced. As soon as we descended to the ocean floor, a huge Manta Ray flapped its way past us; 4 Reef Sharks (one of which was 'asleep') circled us as we prayed we wouldn't be lunch; giant round Green Turtles cruised by us; and a Banded Sea Snake completely freaked us out as it wiggled out of some coral and started heading towards our dive group (which Adrian hated - he doesn't like snakes... and this one was actually a poisonous one!). We could've gone out for the afternoon dive, but chose to go for a quick snorkel instead -- because there's no way we can top that one last (fabulous) dive.

Leaving Gili Air was torture: as Lombok is well on its way to having an international airport, we fear the next time we're back the island will have utterly lost its rustic beauty and laid-back attitude. It was back to Bali for a little souvenir shopping and to catch our onward flight to Kuala Lumpur for 4 days of sights and sounds--it was a crazy yet somewhat unrewarding city to explore after all the great places we'd encountered over our six months-- and a killer 14 hour flight to England. No pain, no gain!

I blame the beach!

We’ve been quite tardy on the blog, and there’s only one way to put it: it's because of the beach.
Standing on these pristine white-sand beaches, mango shake in hand, looking over the clearest water ever... yup, it’s the hard life.

Earlier back in Bangkok we’d met up with an old friend from our fruit picking days in Australia. What luck, Birte had finished a month living in a monastery on the north-east of Thailand. Monastery living was similar to what we’d encountered in Burma only there’s no Junta, the roads are 1000 times better, plus there’s electricity and running water.
Well, as you can imagine we all decided quite quickly that the islands of Southern Thailand were definitely the place to be for some R&R. With our joint tickets bought (via sleeper train & boat) we set off.
Train travel was very fun, it’s addictive especially when you can travel and sleep at the same time – it’s just so appealing to me. Round about 9ish a porter comes by and transforms your seat into a bed, I recommend the lower bunk – you get the window. Then at first light the porter returns to wake you from your peaceful dreams yelling at the top of his lungs about the next stop coming up.
The boat was fun too; it’s a 2 hour ride from Suratthani to Koh Samui – this allows you to get your “base tan” going, so that when you arrive on the island you don’t blind everyone with your white skin.

Koh Samui was a great place to get to working on our tans, we found some beach bungalows for 400 Thai baht on the sunny beach of Lamai – that’s on the east side of the island. Then something funny happened:

Nothing.

It seemed the entire time we were there we did nothing of any substance. Pure gluttony.
The travel gods took out their vengeance by giving Dayle “Shingles”, but we didn’t let that stop us! Before you ask – YES, Dayle stopped growing a horn on her face and is in full recovery, if not fully recovered thanks to the plentiful (and cheap) pharmacies of Thailand.
On Koh Pha-Ngan we went back to our old haunt on a northeastern beach, Thong Nai Pan Noi. Lucky for us we were very far from the “Black Moon Party” where neo-hippies get bashed on ecstasy and listen to trance and swap patchouli oil and talk about how they mastered the ‘dog pose’ so well they can sniff their own butts. Seems there’s a big ‘party’ for every single moon phase – even ones you never knew about, like; the “3-7ths of the first quarter Full Moon Party”. Yes, naturally all this builds toward the actual “Full Moon Party” where the dreadlocks really fly and the patchouli is rank on the beach for days.
Our beach at Thong Nai Pan Noi had a great sheltered bay, with 400 baht bungalows, and we even got to see a schooner moor in it – Adrian was very excited that it had 5 masts.
Wanting to get some diving in, it was a quick jump to Koh Tao. We did two great dives among batfish, angelfish, barracudas, and even a scorpionfish (very poisonous!), and were sad to leave. Each dive went for a bargain 1000 baht and we rented an underwater digital camera for another 1000 baht. The pictures, just like the dive, came out amazing – and as our luck would have it the battery died just as we surfaced from our second dive!
Somehow that’s the summation for our past 15 days; sun, sand, hippies, and diving. It’s really not our fault; we blame the beach!

Beauty and the Beach

A quick hello from pretty Koh Samui, Thailand where we've been soaking up a few rays since Thursday now. It's a nice island, which we didn't hit on our last trip (due to time and its reputation for being a flashy, expensive, party spot) but are quite enjoying. The tourist shortage is hitting here pretty hard as well, with lots of empty restaurants and bars, so maybe our experience has been a bit quieter than most peoples' on the island. Of the many beaches here, we chose Lamai Beach, a gorgeous stretch of sand with palm trees, beach bars, and a number of poshy-looking resorts (though we still managed to find a reasonably priced one, thanks to much practice at bargaining!). Perhaps a few too many girly bars and dogged suit-shop salesmen for our liking in the town part of Lamai, but we've been having a really excellent time travelling and catching up with our German friend Birte, whom we worked with waaaaay back in the day as tomato-sorters in Echuca. Good times! Next on the itinerary is Koh Pha-Ngan, a gorgeous island not far away that we still dream about from our last trip, and we'll get in some diving at Koh Tao again before we do a rush trip down to Kuala Lumpur to catch a flight to Indonesia on July 3rd (wheeee!). Not sure what to expect from Indonesia but it'll be cool to get one more altogether different country into our trip before we start making the trek back to Canada (via England). We have a month to island-hop, taking in the best of the massive country's beaches, volcanoes, cities, and hopefully some Komodo dragons too!

But back to the "beauty" part... and no, I'm not referring to Samui's beaches here. Once in a while, even after all this travel, the most surprising and weird things can get in the way of a tropical exploration-- this time resulting in our first trip to an Asian medical clinic! Nothing serious really, but on our last few days in Bangkok, I (Dayle) started transforming into something resembling a unicorn, or perhaps more a rhinocerous-- yes, at first what looked like a skin blemish on the left-middle part of my forehead grew bigger and bigger and redder and redder, until on our second morning in Samui, I woke up incredible pain around my left ear and my left eye half-swollen shut. What the hell?? It's the strangest medical problem I've ever come across, so we thought it was worth a trip to the doc before I started growing hoofs to match. Luckily, Thailand's medical facilities and doctors are pretty excellent (cheap too!) and there just happens to be a million clinics on Samui (sooooooo lucky this didn't happen in Burma, as we'd heard a lot of weird medical ailments befall fellow travellers there). Following some sympathetic looks from the (flawless of course) secretaries, I was escorted into an office where I met a very nice, soft-spoken doctor who looked at my hideous face with fascination.... he did some red-and-blue pen drawings of my big "horn", as well as the little ones sprouting up around it, and explained it was something to do with chicken pox (the virus stays in your system forever apparently), set off by a mosquito bite most likely, and aggravated further by too much sun (and yup, we had quite a full-on sunburn day on our first day in Samui). I left the clinic with a cocktail of pills and cortisone cream, and now have to pull out my granny-bag of medication at every meal with some embarassment! On the bright side, I guess the doctor must have been OK after all, as my face started going back to normal by the next day-- but it's just so funny how no matter how careful one may be when travelling, getting shots beforehand, drinking bottled water, devotedly eating malaria pills, the weirdest jungle diseases can still take you by surprise!

Catching up—10 days in Hoi An

It’s well established on the Vietnam tourist trail, so we weren’t sure how we’d like it after spending a few days as the only tourists (and thus quasi-celebrities) in Quy Nhon. It’s unlike any other spot we’ve been to—on one hand, a somewhat quiet & conservative town that goes to bed around 9 pm, but it’s also a mad mix of history, shopping, and quaint charm. By our third full day of exploring the easily walkable and incredibly picturesque town, we were far from that feeling of “we’ve seen it all”.
Hoi An has been a trading port since the 17th century located on the Thu Bon River, just a little inland from the South China Sea. A stroll through the narrow streets past the old, comfortably decrepit buildings one can feel very much like you’ve stepped into another time. Various influences—French, Chinese, Japanese—blend together in the architecture, making “Ancient Town” a charming collection of buildings with faded yellow plaster walls, mossy roofs, dark wood shutters, and bougainvillea… many of the houses have been passed down within families for hundreds of years; there’s many ornate temples and congregational halls to explore, and then there’s the old tea warehouses, which convert beautifully into restaurants and shops! It’s all set along a (slightly stinky) river and with a strict ban on cars (only “primitive vehicles and walkers” allowed, according to signs), it’s a little reminiscent of one of the islands of Venice.

And then there’s the shopping…

Besides being a magical and historical place, Hoi An is tailor central. Thanks to the availability of gorgeous silk of every colour and texture, about a zillion tailor shops offer to make shopping-hungry tourists custom-made clothing unbelievably quickly and for supercheap. At first, these shops are a bit overwhelming—there are so many of them, for one thing! And then there’s the sales tactics—pressure, more pressure, lots of false flattery, calling out to you to come into the shop as you walk by… just walking down the street can be a bit harrowing, so we avoided them as much as we could for the first few days.
Inevitably, we all get a little braver and enters their first shop. At first we tried to enter and leave as quickly as possible—get the basic info (prices, how long everything takes to make, and take a peek at fabrics and clothing samples) and a business card and get out while you can. We browsed many good and bad reviews of various tailors online before coming, and perhaps were a bit warier than some after reading quite a few horror stories. While Dayle was thinking more about a few dresses (something that can’t be messed up too badly), Adrian was hoping for a nice suit. We visited about 12 shops or so—from tiny and dusty, to high-end ones with elaborate fishponds and lounge areas within the shop—and finally settled on Mr. Xe, a guy who’d gotten great reviews online for his tailoring. At $85 USD for a tailored wool suit, he was somewhere in the middle (we found $60 to $120 was about the average price) and very firm on needing a few days to sew everything well and fit it properly—while some prided themselves on speed, we had a good feeling about the very flamboyant Mr. Xe (if not mixed feelings about the very friendly and extremely “encouraging” salesgirls). And our instincts turned out to be right—Adrian’s suit (and his dress shirts, and pants) turned out great! On the other hand, the dress Dayle asked for to be copied out of a magazine (in a way, to see how well they’d do) turned out to be a little more Amish than Lily Allen. Which brings us to our first lesson of Hoi An tailors: they all have their fortes, so work with them, not against them! Later we found another shop, Blue Rose, with a couple of very trendy shopgirls and clothing samples and great fabrics. The garments we got made—a mix of dresses, casual shirts, and a sporty jacket—look fantastic on, but the sewing and construction is pretty much nowhere close to Mr. Xe’s in quality. We even went to a third shop, which we found to make gorgeous silk dresses and really cool winter coats, but the tailored items were definitely not up to the fit standard we now had to compare to. But we still came out with a lot of cool, really original and well-fitting clothes made for a fraction of the cost you’d find them for in a store back in Canada or Australia (and sometimes for less than what we’d pay just for the fabric). And we had a great time doing it! So Lesson #2: if you go in to have some fun, and don’t expect haute couture for $25 a dress, you’ll leave with a great experience and a wicked new wardrobe.Another thing to think about if you’re going to Hoi An and planning for some tailoring, give it time! Not that we spent 10 days in fittings, but nearly every day there were a few adjustments (and often new orders to make). One of the most frustrating experiences was when Dayle had a pair of shoes made (honestly, she would have been happy just to shop around til one store had the right size). Somehow the cobbler must have cut the shoe too small to begin with, and though each fitting found them a little bigger, there was still that toes-jammed-against-the-front feeling (Ouch!) until they finally agreed to redo it completely. And you feel a bit bad making people adjust things so many times, but you wouldn’t purposely buy shoes a size too small normally, would you? So Lesson #3: Allow time to get things fitting properly, and don't be afraid to be picky! All we lost was time, and we managed to discover many great restaurants and street scenes in the many walks back and forth between tailors and the shoe shop.

And we must mention the restaurants! Hoi An has a few culinary specialties of its own—ie. the noodle dish Cao Lau, made authentically only with the water from the ancient Ba Le well, located in a tiny laneway in a residential area of town. We were never up early enough, but apparently there’s a daily pilgrimage of little old ladies to the well. And Cao Lau (which also comes in a splendid vegetarian version) and Adrian’s favourite, fish grilled in a banana leaf, are the perfect foods to eat at a riverside restaurant, under glowing silk lanterns and washed down by 4000 dong (that’s about 40 cents) glasses of bia tuoi (draught beer).

On the complete other end of the scale, there are the posher eateries, like Tam Tam Café, set in an old tea warehouse with a menu of fantastic salads and French-style sandwiches (hard to find in Vietnam!). And across the street there’s Cargo Club, part white-tablecloth restaurant and part patisserie, which we’re positive makes the best chocolate mousse on the planet!

And if it is possible to get bored/sick of Hoi An, there’s always the peaceful 4km bicycle ride to beautiful China Beach, where American GIs used to head for some relax time during the American/Vietnam War. And there are the ancient Cham ruins of My Son, a sort of mini Angkor Wat set in a steamy butterly-filled jungle (and also decorated with bomb craters from the war), a very fun motorbike ride away from town through the rice paddies.

We must have visited at the most exciting of times too—while we were (sort of) sticking around for Earth Hour, where the town would shut off the lights with many other world cities, there was also a major build-up to March 28 which we were puzzled about. Banners around town mentioned the 28^th with a slogan in Vietnamese punctuated by an exclamation mark. Every evening there seemed to be another lit-up, music-blaring boat dressed up in brightly-coloured fabric, flags, and images/statue busts of Uncle Ho. There were musical performances in public areas and finally, a parade of blindingly bright floats covered in Ho Chi Minh, sparkles, and peace doves (complemented by a sky covered in lightning streaks and thunder!) As we noticed more and more Vietnam flags decorating the shops, we also learned in a loose translation, that March 28 is Hoi An’s (and nearby Danang’s) Liberation Day, when the Americans finally left (in defeat?) the area. So while we were getting excited to see the lights go off and candles float down the river, the townspeople were getting excited for a much more patriotic kind of occasion. It was quite the buzz… though not that Hoi An isn’t every day!

Celebs of Quy Nhon

After leaving touristy Nha Trang we thought, "Why not get off the beaten path for a few days?" and soon found ourselves in the sleepy beach town of Quy Nhon. We couldn't figure out why it gets missed by travellers-- it's an unbelievably scenic horseshoe bay of blue-green water dotted with fishing boats, hugged by green mountains and lined with a long esplanade of carefully manicured parks. We scored the marble-pillared top-floor room (more like presidential suite!) of a great little hotel with a giant balcony and a sea view for $11 USD. Our hotel was right across the road from the loveliest outdoor cafe, which was part Hollywood poolside patio and part ancient Hoi An teak house and served delicious iced coffees. All this and barely another Western tourist in sight. It was practically heaven!

There were a few cons to having the town to ourselves. The usual glut of restaurants was nowhere to be found and we were soon introduced to dinners of bony fish and "bitter melon" with scrambled eggs. We tried freshly pressed sugarcane juice for the first time, since that was all the street vendors were selling next to the university by our hotel. (OK at first, then progressively grosser, sip by sip.) And we couldn't walk down the street without everyone yelling excited "hello's"... not to mention anyone who did speak English was dying to practice with us. Renting a motorbike (or even a bicycle) to get to a beach a kilometre or two out of town was pretty much out of the question-- there wasn't enough competition to knock down prices, so we opted to walk... this ended up in us missing the turn-off and heading into the mountains for a steamy hike at noon, until a motorbike driver just happened upon us and drove us the 2 or 3 kms remaining to another--very nice-- beach that we realized was town's weekend hangout as well as the local leper colony... seriously! All because we couldn't ask for directions. On the bright side, there was an ice cream vendor on the way back, where we paid the local prices for a yogurt popsicle-- about 10 cents. Hooray!

But Quy Nhon, for better or worse, holds some of the most vivid experiences we've had yet in Vietnam. Stumbling across the most kick-ass vegetarian restaurant (next to the Buddhist pagoda), not really ordering anything but "2 meals", and getting treated to a smorgasbord of veggies and tofu cooked in about a million ways. Delicious! We also had the chance to learn a little more Vietnamese, by locals who were only too happy to teach us. And we also discovered the cool local hangout-- bizarre as they come-- a dark bar where karaoke is sung to a background of a live band (in Hawaiian shirts) while semi-professional dancers do the tango in front of the stage... for about six songs until the place ramps into high gear and a DJ cranks some cheesy dance/pop music for another five or six songs. And so on...

Nha Trang in a Nutshell

It's crazy how easy it was to spend an entire week in the beachside city of Nha Trang (and how happy we continue to be that our visa extensions allow for this kind of travel). When we left this past Tuesday, we had finally felt we'd seen and experienced enough of the city to feel OK with leaving-- but it wouldn't have been that hard to lose a month there.

Beach culture in Vietnam is altogether different than in Australia (well, duh!). In fact, many of the locals don't come to the beach for a swim until about 5 pm-- we're pretty sure this has to do with staying pale and avoiding a tan. The beaches are generally crowded with people, hawkers, and often trash. Peace and quiet can be hard to come by when you're getting bugged to buy snacks, drinks, and paintings (yes, really) every two minutes. We watched one English guy react very badly to this... but no matter how annoying the sales pitches can be, you've got to keep your cool-- yelling at a little old lady won't accomplish anything aside from giving the rest of us tourists a bad image...

And maybe it's for this reason there are so many people saying how much they dislike Nha Trang on travel forums online-- sure, it's very touristy, some things are a bit overpriced, and the beach isn't pristine-- but in our opinion it was a nice, scenic place to relax for a while! We actually haven't gone sunbathing in ages-- the scorching Aussie sun made it a very dangerous and painful endeavour. So we delighted in being able to throw down a sarong in the sun and just be lazy. And we did splurge a little one day and rented lounge chairs & got served drinks all day at the private beach of a great local brewery/restaurant, the Louisiane Brewhouse.

But besides the wide, long beach (OK, the sand wasn't close to as soft as some beaches we've been to) surrounded by mountains and carefully manicured boulevards, there's more to Nha Trang than just the scenery. There's a certain vibe to the place-- an easygoing attitude that allows one to wear beachy clothes around town without getting stared at (normally everyone's quite covered up in Vietnam!). There's also a wealth of nice hotels at very competitive prices-- our room in the Nha Quyen was huge and well-located, with a balcony and a/c for $12USD-- and about a zillion restaurants to choose from in the tourist area. For those in need of culture, there are the ancient Po Nagar temples built by the Cham civilization around the 7th to 12th centuries (we're not experts on this, but we gather they were a Hindu kingdom which occupied the area around that era), and countless Buddhist sights to take in. There are many snorkelling, diving, and island boat tours-- which we opted against, as we've heard whisperings of "dynamite fishing" being done not so long ago in the area, and now many of the reefs are a bit lunar-looking and devoid of sea life. The number of dried seahorses for sale at the local market made us a bit suspicious of the underwater scenery too.

We also made some really great local friends in Nha Trang-- while indulging in some excellent Italian food at a little restaurant called Olivia one evening, we ended up chatting for hours with our very bubbly waitress (who we later learned was the owner). We exchanged some English for some Vietnamese, shared some laughs, and suddenly Kim Anh had elected herself our personal tour guide, taking us to the local vegetarian restaurant with her cousin (we'd arrived in the midst of a monthly? Buddhist rite when everyone eats veggie for three days around the full moon), another day around all the important Buddhist temples in the city--even for a feast with a bunch of young monks!-- and later on to her family's house for the meatfest that ends the vegetarian days (eek! says Dayle), where we drank beers with the uncles and her grandfather and learned a bit more about everyday life in Vietnam. We feebly tried to repay the kindness with an introduction to the almighty fajita at a place called El Coyote...

The moral of our story is that we're realizing more and more how important it is not to have expectations about a place before going there, and to stop feeling the need to see every sight/going to all the tourist traps to get the real vibe of a place. Sometimes not being a total tourist can work in your favour-- if we hadn't slowed down and had some beers on our balcony instead of hitting the bars, we wouldn't have noticed the goings-on of the local brothel across the road (in daytime it appears very much like a nail salon!). If we'd run screaming at the first sight of a cockroach in the bathtub, we wouldn't have had six very bug-free nights-- and lovely days on the beach!-- after that.

Enjoying some Broome Time...

Ah, Broome. Anyone who's been here gets all nostalgic and dreamy about the place when it's mentioned, which we never really got 'til we arrived. It's pretty much the most northern town on Australia's west coast (accessible settlement, that is). After days of driving west through more emptiness -- though surprisingly quite green, as it is in the Wet season-- and wishing we had a 4WD to cross the Kimberley's unsealed and rocky Gibb River Road instead of the main highway (Oz's great "last frontier"-- about as remote as it gets, and gorgeous!). The main highway's remote as it is though-- cattle crossing the two-lane road anywhere they want, and those bottle-shaped boab trees started showing up everywhere. We were happy to see road crews building lots of high bridges, as the highway is known to get flooded and impassable at a moment's notice (it was right around New Year's, we heard)-- kind of takes the fun out of things though. We spent a night camping high up on a cliff and managed to roast some marshmallows as we watched a distant lightning storm... the Outback's lovely at night when the flies go to sleep.

But back to Broome-- perhaps it's all of that land you have to cross to get here that makes it that much more rewarding; but there's something about the town itself-- set on unbelievably turquoise bays on the Indian Ocean, sandy beaches, swaying palm trees-- that just grabs you and won't let go. The vibe here is incredibly laid-back, the Wet season (at least since we've been here) has proved more humid than rainy and the restaurants fantastic (just don't try to find dinner after 9:30!). It's a little sad we can't swim in the ocean right now-- it's 'stinger season', when the deadly box jellyfish breed in the mangroves... something we know all too well from our days in Port Douglas (ah, but the water's still so pretty to look at). Maybe what sets it apart from any other resort town is its history-- formerly a rough pearling town, full of brothels, opium dens, and basically human slavery (many Aborigines died while being forced to dive for pearls for the Japanese-run pearling ships, not that many years ago at all). There's still a working prison, right near the centre of town, and the place does have a bit of an outlaw feel at night, mixed with some posh-feeling bars with a clientele in shorts and flip-flops. But we've never been ones for sparkly-clean Club-Med-style tourist resorts now, have we?

But other than our campsite directly facing the waters of Roebuck Bay (ie. there's us, then a strip of grass and then there's the beach!), we've fallen in love with more than a few things in Broome. First there was Sun Pictures, an outdoor cinema and the world's oldest picture gardens (running since 1916). Basically, you sit in a deck chair under the stars and watch a film on the big screen nestled among trees, and enjoy the tropical evening. It takes a bit of getting used to, to not pay attention to the geckos perched on the screen, and occasionally a bat or a plane swoops overhead and scares the daylights out of you (the airport's a block or two away), but it's awesome. We went to see The Day The Earth Stood Still (yay Keanu!) on Friday and to see Australia yesterday (which, if you haven't seen it, you should! It was fantastic. The adorable kid who plays Nullah is actually from Broome, and it's all been filmed in places we've just travelled to. At one point a plane swooped down and we thought the war scenes were beginning earlier than we figured...).

Our other favourite Broome moment was taking a sunset camel ride down Cable Beach, a gorgeous stretch of sand in town. They're such mellow animals (adorable too!) and we figured it's a warm-up for one day doing a multi-day desert safari somewhere in the world. Dayle's camel, Kabul, had dreadlocks and was 27 years old-- he'd walked all the way from Byron Bay on the east coast when some rich Sydney guy decided he needed some adventure. Adrian's, Noahpad, was 26 years old and a real sweetheart who made a big camel yell when we left him at the end of the trek. We also learned that (a) camels don't spit, (b) they do not carry water in their humps, and (c) they don't really make you seasick at all. (No camel spiders either!)

So... we're not really sure when we'll actually leave Broome (we're on day 4... if we had more time left on our visas we'd probably be looking for jobs here soon!), but we hope it's a sign of how good the west coast of Australia will be!

[PS. We're sorry to say photos and video will have to wait... it seems the internet connections are the laid-back sort as well... not much luck here uploading, but we'll try again to post soon!]

What is that menacing-looking blue thing over there???

Last weekend we decided to get a bit brave and took our first train to a far-off suburb of Melbourne. Actually, the heat was driving us crazy in our apartment (it was around 34 degrees) and we knew St Kilda Beach, which is more central to downtown, would be crammed with people... and plus, that oily film on the water's surface isn't very appealing to swim in.

We heard Brighton Beach had charm, and was decorated with a row of colourful beach huts. Sounded perfect! We felt a lot like tourists again, timidly crossing the gates at Flinders Street Station (the big, grandiose mustard-yellow train station at the south end of the CBD)... but once we made it on board, we couldn't help but think how impressive the transit is here. One ticket gets you on the tram (like a Toronto streetcar, but way more frequent and on time), the bus, and the trains (which serve the outer and faraway suburbs). Single tickets ($3.50) get you 2 hours of riding around, or if you validate it after 6pm, you can use it until 3am the next morning. Since it was Sunday, we decided to try a "Sunday Saver" card, which got us all-day access to transit for the day for $5.20. We've heard it's one of the best-kept secrets in Melbourne- not anymore!


It was definitely weird to think about it being mid-February and we were sweltering on a beach, drinking wine and snacking on fancy cheese and crackers (and snapping photos), while everyone at home was getting buried in snow. Here in end-of-summertime Melbourne, the Speedos were out in full-force, and so were the jellyfish. Dayle had gone in for a dip-- still trying to overcome her fear of sharks-- when, looking around the crystal-clear water surrounding her, she noticed one, then two, then three blue wiggly blobs. EEK! She ran out of the water as fast as she could, and there wasn't a chance Adrian would go in after that either. (We were told later by local friends that "Oh, those blue ones won't do much to you" but WHATEVER!) We don't know how people handle the heat here when there's all these monsters lurking in the water. We were telling some Aussies about the Great Lakes and a swim in Lake Huron is sounding more and more appealing all the time.

Chasing the Fifty Year Storm

Last weekend we finally got away from the city routine and headed down to the Great Ocean Road-- a winding, 250-km-or-so stretch of gorgeous highway running along the southernmost point in mainland Australia (built by returning soldiers after WWI). We'd been hearing about it for ages, and so when our friends Bianca (the German) and John (the ranger) invited us to join them for this leg of their trip, we jumped at the chance. We set off last Saturday morning, girls in one car, boys in the other, equipped with VHF radios and off to see a picturesque corner of Oz none of us four had seen, outside of many, many postcards and books.

After emerging from a traffic jam around Melbourne's west end, our first peek at the coastline was in Torquay, Victoria's surf capital. With a surfing museum, surf lessons galore, and outlet stores for every surfer brand imaginable from Rip Curl to Billabong to Blunt (etc.), there's no doubt we'll be heading back to explore. But, we had a lot of ground to cover in two days, and made our first stop just outside Torquay at the legendary Bells Beach. And why does this name sounds familiar, you ask? Movie buffs, here's your clue:

JOHNNY UTAH: I knew you wouldn't miss the fifty year storm, Bodhi.

Who can forget Keanu in his hot surfer days in Point Break? Not us. We soon learned that despite our differences in ages and homelands, all four of us were huge Point Break fans, and so visiting Bells Beach--home to that dramatic final scene in the film-- was a bit of a pilgrimage. It wasn't long before the Point Break quotes were flying back and forth on the VHF. Appropriately enough, it started to pour rain like crazy just as we left our cars for the long boardwalk descending down the cliff. THE FIFTY YEAR STORM HAD ARRIVED! We tried looking for Bodhi in the waves, but it was pretty choppy and hard to get a good look (though we're sure he must have been out there...). Visiting Bells did finally confirm what Adrian and I have been suspecting after watching Point Break over here: the final scene was definitely NOT filmed in Oz. First of all, there are no beaches lined with pine trees in Australia; secondly, the beach in the movie is a tiny little cove, while Bells is actually a long sandy beach. *Sigh* (Check online and it seems we've all been duped: the "Bells Beach" pictured in the movie was actually a beach in Oregon) We got drenched during the walk, and spent a good part of the day with the only warm clothes we packed now sopping wet. Not so much fun. [If you're craving a little surf right now, check out this live web cam (and photos) to see how the waves are down at Bells.]

After Bells, the road became more winding, often running along cliffs which dropped straight into the ocean. The views were gorgeous and reminded us a lot of the drive from Port Douglas to Cairns (except colder). Though it's not always beside the ocean, as the name led us to believe, the farmlands it travels through are pretty spectacular too. We explored waterfalls, a lighthouse, cute little towns (Lorne, Apollo Bay), and watched packs of surfers along each beach, beginning to realize that the GOR may very well be Daisy's true home. Ever since we bought her (and who knows for how long before that), she's had a Bells Beach Rip Curl Surfing Pro Competition poster stuck up on a window--which eerily enough, fell off as we were lunching near Bells Beach-- and a sticker that says "I played Apollo Bay 2000" (the Apollo Bay Music Festival is a hippie music fest held in a cute GOR town in March) along with a couple of surf brand bumper stickers as well. We're sure she was quite the happy van despite the many twists and turns en route.

One of the other coolest sights from our first day on the road came when we spotted a bunch of cars stopped at the roadside ahead of us. At first we thought "Car accident!" but then Ranger John pointed out the bare branches of the trees around-- KOALAS! We pulled over with the other tourists to snap photos and film the adorable koalas munching on eucalyptus in their natural habitat. It was just after 6pm and they were lively as ever, hopping from tree to tree in the cutest of ways. They were also brown, not the typical grey variety we see on postcards. We even got quite close to one in the forest nearby.

That night we camped among sand dunes at Johanna Beach, site of one of many shipwrecks on the coast. It was gorgeous but so much colder than Queenslander camping (we'll pack better next time!). As we ate breakfast, tiny birds with bright blue stripes on their heads chirped and flitted around us. We set off for the most famous of GOR sights Sunday morning: the Twelve Apostles, a set of giant limestone towers just off the coast that are slowly being eroded by the elements over the centuries. These monoliths, alongside the high cliffs of the shoreline, really do make for a spellbinding scene, even after seeing it in a million photos (just like the Grand Canyon, or like Angkor Wat). We took plenty of our own pics, because, who knows how much it will change by the next time we visit? It'll be cool to find out.

There were more interesting rock formations along the way -- like Loch Ard Gorge, with a giant, noisy, creepy inland blowhole -- and plenty of historical plaques dedicated to all the ship which were destroyed along the treacherous coastline. The landscape here was fascinating-- the road was slightly inland, following the shoreline along a flat, desertlike plateau that suddenly drops into the crashing ocean far below. It was also neat to think about how close we were standing to Antarctica (you sure felt the chill in the air) as the wind howled straight at us from the south. And all this, just a few hours from our home in Melbourne! We turned back on Sunday afternoon, leaving Bianca and John to continue on their grand tour of Oz, and we headed back to the city, our zest for the camping life completely revived and thankful for our good old trusty surfin' van Daisy! We'll definitely be making a trip back to the Great Ocean Road as soon as we can--maybe next time with boards of our own.

WHOAAAAA! We just found out there will be a Point Break sequel.
Vaya con dios, brah.

We heart camping

Hartley's 102
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

This entry comes straight to you from us at the trailer park. Yes, i'm writing from the inside of the van in a caravan park... the train goes by sometimes, planes fly quite low overhead (prime real estate by the airport) and yesterday morning we got woken up by a dinging seafood truck that was touring the dirt roads around the sites, trying to sell seafood at 8am! Yay for trailer park life!

Nah, it's not that bad, it's actually pretty fun. We're in the middle of Cairns city right now, after doing some shopping (neon has gotten huge here again in Aussie malls!) and we went to a outdoor concert festival that was nothing like it was hyped up to be (Edgefest was better by 1000, even the Creed one) but maybe pretty big for northern Queensland. Had some beers with our Aussie friend Bruce and his German girlfriend Iris and snuck them into our trailer park and now we're groggily waking up to head for the hills (we hear there's some gorgeous waterfalls in the mountains).

We're still pretty excited about cassowaries, but spent our time in the last week checking out crocs instead... we used Adrian's winning pass to Hartley's Crocodile Adventures and spent a day there, oohing and aahing at all the cool "salties" (saltwater crocs) and freshwater crocs. We met our first koalas (they made the WEIRDEST noise, we'll put up the video) and saw some cool poisonous snakes. But it was definitely weird seeing all these animals in pens after seeing so many in the wild in the Daintree.

What else? We found a heavenly deserted beach and spent some time there, and even saw a pair of doplhins skimming the waves. I guess we've been catching up with old friends before leaving them for who-knows-how-long. And now it's time for the open road.... don't forget to check out the full lunar eclipse that's coming on August 28 (I'm assuming it's worldwide). Miss you all lots! xoxoxo