See Ya Later Saigon

18.12.2002

G'day

Well I have now left smoking Saigon and arrived back in Sydney this fine morning. I was somewhat disappointed upon landing that they didn't play "I Still Call Australia home" but it's Cathay Pacific so I guess why would they? They also seem to have become a little lax with the spraying of the airplane...you know how they strut through the aircraft spraying some obnoxiously scented spray (I suspect DEET mixed with fermented boronia) tha tis supposed to ward off foreign nasties.

Since I last updated...

On Thursday I took a motorbike up to Cho Lon (Vietnamese for "big market" but affectionately known as 'Chinatown' after its predominantly Chinese population) and visited the Andong Market there. I had been informed that this was the place to buy genuine imitation designer shoes eg. Prada, Gucci, Fendi etc....and I was mildly enthusiastic about the possibility of making half a dozen (or so) purchases. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything I really liked. I'm quite picky with my shoes in general and even if they are cheap, well I don't want "el crappos".

After another market escapade....I caught a cyclo down to the riverbank where I stumbled upon the Fine Arts Museum and spent some time there looking at the politically acceptable artworks housed in the museum. Then back to the markets.... for some more shopping.

I went with Arne (German) and his room-mate (Jean-Pierre or something else quintessentially French) to the Vietnamese Institute of Traditional for a 1 hour long massage from a blind masseuse... it wasn't bad for about $AUD3 an hour... apparently though if you want a really good one though you have to go to Cambodia - didn't quite make it there this trip but am looking forward to heading back to SE Asia very soon.

When i got to Saigon I was strongly considering ducking over to Cambodia, but would have only had, at most, 5 days there, and with the hassle of changing my flight to Sydney, decided itwas too much...of course on the discovery channel on the plane on the way home they showed a documentary on Angkor Wat, just to torture me about my decision not to go Bastards!
We had dinner at a pho (Vietnamese noodle soup with greens, lime, chilli and who knows what else) stall in a kinda dingy alley-way near my hotel. The food was quite delicious and for 5000 dong (60 Aussie cents) a great bargain. Of course because it was so cheap we went out for second dinner at a nice Vietnamese restaurant which is a copy of the one I visited in Hue - run by a hearing-impaired group of people who cook rather well - I didn't get a home-made bottle opener this time though.

Friday and Saturday I spent doing a trip around parts of the Mekong Delta. Delta Adventure tours, the group with whom I took the trip, advertise their tour as better than the others because it is "More boat less bus" - not wrong there! Quite enjoyed all the scenery along the way. It was really interesting to see the locals going about the everyday activities from the boat: washing dishes and clothes in the river; fishing; doing business; swimming etc etc.... It felt a little intrusive peering from the boat into their lives, however the people, especially the kids, seemed to enjoy the attention! Tour groups go through the same areas every day, so I would have expected the kiddies would be sick of us all by now...but they appeared overwhelmingly delighted to make contact with the "people from the other world".

Thankfully my tour guide for this trip didn't have exceedingly long black hairs sticking from a mole on the side of his face like the last one did....I had my tweezers in my bag and was very tempted to get them out and pluck away (I read in the Monday SMH on the plane that there is a bit of a campaign to get going on Johnny Howard's monobrow....could be a goodbusiness opportunity there, monobrows and molehairs)...but of course I did not. He was a little quirky though - insisted on calling the toilets "dunnies" and sung and bopped to his favourite Vietnamese disco diva music for our enjoyment.

My motorbike guide from Sunday informed me that Vietnamese men like to grow these hairs because it is thought to be quite lucky - or is it wealthy? So perhaps that explains the increasing frequency with which I am seeing these grotesque hairs. I was also informed today that the reason why many Vietnamese men have disgustingly long fingernails is that it is a sign of wealth. Only 'wealthy' men can ever hope to have long nails as the hard agricultural workers have their nails worn down by their hard labour. Of course these 'wealthy' men also have an advantage if they ever decide to take up the guitar I guess it's similar to the rather plump blokes in Tonga who consider their size as a status symbol - men are fat because they don't need to work due to their wealth. Apparently the government are approaching Jenny Craig about setting up shop there to curb this epidemic of folk with extra adipose tissue.

Back to the Mekong Delta though...we visited a few floating markets - one at Cai Be, and another at Cai Rang where all sorts of fruits and veges are for sale (oh and also soft drinks, for the sake of us foreigners). If you don't know who is selling what, it's not hard to work out as the vendors have large (bamboo?) poles sticking from their boats with whatever they are selling attached to it. Some vendors sell not only potatoes, but also eggplants, kumara, cucumbers.....and so on. We hovered round one of the pineapple boats for some time where the lady chopped up fresh whole pineapples for us - very tasty (and messy). Even the very cute puppy got stuck into the leftover pineapple pieces...

We did a couple of stops on the An Binh islands, where we visited a popcorn factory, rice processing factory, vermicelli noodles factory, coconut candy factory (VERY nice indeed - no wonder dental health is a big problem in Nam) and went for a ride on one-speed Vietnamese bicycles around one of the localvillages with locals frequently stopping us so they could practice their English.

On my final day in Saigon I hired an Italian guide to take me to a couple more places around the city. I had been recommended this guide when I was in Hoi An as he has been living in Vietnam for a couple of years, has travelled all over the world, plonking himself for 2-3 years on several countries. He also speaks good English and (almost) good Vietnamese. I think in many ways also, a foreigner who spends much time in another country, is able to perceive a place in ways that a jaded local cannot possibly.

When people ask me about Australia...I really don't know what to tell them (some of the Europeans I met on this trip can probably vouch for this!) to accurately describe Oz. Sure I can tell them what sports Aussies like, a LOT about the language, and a fair bit about the fine foods on offer (Iced Vo-Vos anyone?) but I think I take for granted the uniqueness of Australian culture because it is just ordinary for me...it's difficult I guess to see something for what it is when you are a part of it...maybe I'm wrong...quite probably - who cares? Aside from this, I have hardly seen any of Australia...Perhaps I should get off my arse and hit the domestic route...

Anyway so I hired an Italian guide...who took me to about a zillion different places I hadn't been to in Saigon. Some of the more interesting included the Quan Am Pagoda, Notre Dame Cathedral (yet another one), Central Post Office (not quite as nice as the Palacio de Comunicaciones in Madrid), Vietnamese funeral carriage-making parlour, Saigon Caodai temple and an amazing pho restaurant - a favourite of businessmen with long-fingernails, wearing sweaty tuxedos and favouring Mercs to Motos.

At the Quan Am Pagoda my guide bought some sparrows and let them fly away into the distance (part of a prayer offering). The funeral carriage-making place was quite interesting. Unlike in Christian funerals, where the hearse just carries the coffin to the burial site, in Vietnamese (or more generally Buddhist?) funerals, the whole family (and sometimes friends) travel in the elaborately decorated and colourful funeral carriage with the coffin. If they don't all fit in the one carriage (often the case) they may have 2-3 or several of these carriages following behind.
We also witnessed part of one of the ceremonies. They hire a group of experts to carry out the proceedings because it is important the deceased is sent off in the right manner. Most of the family were dressed in white rather than black and they had a celebratory feast after the ceremony. Mourning is not considered highly appropriate... My guide told me that because ancestor worship is very important in Vietnamese Buddhism, the Vietnamese typically believe in the life of the soul after death and that the soul of the ancestor serves to protect the descendents.

In many of the fields you see in the countryside, you will see many tombs...in the middle of rice paddies, built into the lakes etc...this is to help their next harvest. If the body of the ancestor is in the fields, he/she is able to help the next yield - I think is basically how it goes anyway.
Spent my last afternoon in Saigon doing some more shopping... more CDs and anything else I could find that was interesting. Had dinner with some Pommie girls who did the Mekong Delta trip. They too are moving to Sydney.

It's difficult to sum up the past 4 and a bit weeks except to so eloquently declare that Viet Nam rocks - beautiful people, incredible scenery, delicious cuisine , maniacal motorcyclists, and I won't even get started on the shopping. Shame it was only four weeks as there is still a lot I haven't seen but no doubt I'll get back there one day - hopefully very soon.

Now it's back to work for me...need to start saving for my next trip (maybe the Andes or Himalayas)...oh and possibly a motorbike.

See ya
Bel x

Smoking Hookah-pipes in Saigon

12.12.2002 33 °C

Hola amigos...

Have finally hit the big smoke, once again, after 2 days of R&R in Hue and 4 more (mostly relaxing in the sun) in Hoi An. I have also developed a quite nice tan (the Hungarian chicks who frequent tanning salons to resemble oranges would be most envious) - thanks to my natural tendency (ahem) for 'olive' skin and doxycycline (anti-malarial medication), which is purported to make me photo-sensitive....

On my last night in Hoi An, I had lost all the troops I had befriended along the way but wound up having dinner with two very zany Australian women and a Scottish chick who has been based for the past 2 years in Saigon. Had a nice time comparing notes on our "same same but different" experiences in Nam, and conversing with the chef and waiter from the restaurant, Cafe des Amies. The food was absolutely divine. I had been referred to the restaurant by a Swede (who else?! It's impossible to escape them) and was not disappointed. They bring out plate after plate of exquisite food and just when you think it's all over...more food comes - all for a bargain price of 60 000 Vietnamese dollars (about $AUD7). Definitely worth the (relative) splurge. Quite enjoyed the 'surprise' milkshake too, although I still have not been able to figure out what the ingredients were. Sometimes it's better that way though right?

Caught a flight from Da Nang down to Saigon on Monday (Ho Chi Minh City, take your pick, my motorbike driver, 'Bic' (as in the brand of pens) claims that either name is perfectly acceptable. Upon my check-in for the flight, I was a little concerned to not see a flight to HCM City on the departures screen - well there were of course flights, but certainly not one at the time i was due to fly. Hmmmm....I had been warned that Vietnam Airlines liked to cancel unfull flights but surely not my flight!

I anxiously approached the check-in bloke, who tried to allay my concerns - "check in 5 minute counter 2 and 3". After 5 minutes, counter 2 and 3 began flashing up a flight, but not to HCM City....it was to Pleiku? Plei where? Strange....I checked the number of my flihgt VN433.
Uhoh.......

Very odd....my flight number was the same but didn't mention anything about Pleiku. Why on earth would I go to Pleiku - had heard of the place but where on earth was it? I quickly referred to my guide....SW of Dalat, in the Central Vietnamese Highlands. Bastards tricked me - although my ticket didn't indicated it was a connecting flight and only said DaNang-Saigon, it was apparently an indirect flight with a layover in Pleiku....grrrr. The bloke at the counter suggested I cancel this ticket and buy a new one for a direct flight - not likely!

Within 5 minutes of politely bickering with the Vietnam Airlines staff they had issued me (free of charge thank goodness) a ticket on the next flight to Saigon, on Pacific Airlines, the other national carrier. Woohoo! Problemsolved.

I had been a little anxious coming to Saigon....I had been warned that it was a crazy place. So naturally I approached my wanderings with a degree of caution. I hopped straight on a cyclo and went like a maniac through the wide boulevardes (and narrow streets/alley-ways) of Saigon to the War Remnants Museum. Until a few years ago, the museum was known as "The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes" but deciding this name would offend the "Number One Americans" and do little to strengthen international relations with the Chinese, renamed it.

Name change or not, the message from the museum is pretty clear. It details, quite graphically, in photographs andwritten accounts, just how evil the Americans were during the war (mind you, the exhibition is quite one-sided). The photographs are very graphic (I'll spare you details) and the stuff in the bottles is also quite grotesque. The museum quite dramatically drives home though how war makes savages out of people who often don't really seem to know what they are fighting for (and in many cases have little choice in the matter)...and serves no purpose whatsoever - aside from death, heartache, environmental degradation and a screwed-up economy.

Anyway, after that, I walked down to the Reunification Palace (closed for a meeting - grrr) and so continued on a walking tour of the city, seeing the Hotel de Ville (aka the People's Committee Building), Uncle Ho statue (bastard is following me again) and shops Also ran into the Irish couple from Halong Bay. Nice to see some Halong people....they had been the first I had seen since the trip finished over 2 weeks ago. Dinner was served at my hotel at about 7.
My hotel is named originally named "No. 64". Áround the corner, is "No. 24" where an Irish friend Liz is staying, and Arne is staying at "No. 65"! You´d think they could use a little creativity!! Rani (Pommie friend) actually had a name for her hotel - though I can´t remember it right now.

On Tuesday I did a trip out to the CaoDai temple at Tay Ninh (10km from Cambodian border). CaoDaism is a very peculiar religion with about 2 million followers in Vietnam. CaoDaists worship the evil eye (I was informed it was a left eye - something to do with the heart being on the left side of the body) and their religion is a blend of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Catholicism and maybe one or two more....a 'bitsa' religion. CaoDaists regard Victor Hugo as their patron saint (true!) and also have Louis Pasteur, Shakespeare and Marilyn Manson (ok so I made that one up) as their holy dudes.

Also visited the CuChi tunnels (where Viet Cong had their underground world during the American War. Quite fun....even though they have widened the original tunnels to cater for fat tourists, it's still fun...and some of the tunnels are still their original size - really very tiny! Thankfully, I'm the height of the average Vietnamese superhero and not especially wider so it wasn't that bad for me. I was hoping to fire an AK-47 there as I had read you could do it for $USD1 a bullet, however the Nazis there have a minimum 5 bullets so it's a rip-off. Met up with Rani and Arnie (gotta love rhyming names) as well as an English and Irish chick for dinner.
We settled on this glitzy Vietnamese restaurant but after perusing the menu for a while ("Deep-fried Goat's Penis" anyone? Maybe "Brain piggy"?) decided against it. We settled for a plate of spring rolls and hit a local Italian restaurant instead

Yesterday I was delighted to have "slept in" til around about 7am. Perhaps it would have been later had I not been awoken by construction workers on the floor above me. I had no grand plans for yesterday...well actually I was going to just go shopping but thought that could get somewhat tiresome with the hoardes of vendors chasing the blonde woman around the city streets. I decided at the last minute to go in search of the "exotic animal market". It was one of those "Oh God, I really don´t need to see it because it´s horrible" but "I´m curious to find out about how it really is" situations. Perversely curious, I was, I guess. But, I was unable to find it - I´m not sure if that´s because it has now closed (hopefully), or because it´s forbidden for moto drivers to take foreigners there. So he took me to a street filled with (relatively well-looked-after) pets.

From thereI went to the beautiful Jade Emperor Pagoda before being invited to my taxi driver's home to check out his CD collection (he worked for the hotel I stayed at and seemed like a genuine bloke). It was quite an amusing experience - he only seems to listen to boy bands - his favourites are Westlife, Five and N-Sync. He was very disappointed when I told him that Britney Spears had dated Justin Timberlake. He was however relieved to hear that their relationship had since fizzled so maybe he still had a chance!

After too much listening to rubbish boy bands, I hit the markets, and then the CD shops....For AUD1.20 each, you can´t complain too much - even if the covers are photocopies and the quality is not always top-notch.

After yesterday's market expedition, I found the local beauty salon. Checked out the place - looked alright....so why not? So I settled on a haircut. And then they suggested I have a manicure at the same time...Ok...sounds good. Ok...and what about a pedicure? As well????? Ummm....had to say no there are my feet were pretty grotty from cruising about town in my sandals all day. So a hair-cut and manicure for a whopping 45000 dong...$6! Damn...good value.
Met up with my friends last night...before heading in search of art shops - some very good reproductions of Monet, Dali and Klee on offer..some not so good though. I´ve seen better Van Gogh done by a 5 year old!

Off tonight to the Institute of Massage, where blind masseuses offer 1 hour long massages for $US2. Not bad! Then it´s a birthday dinner for Arne, and maybe a look at some of the discotheques/karaoke bars downtown.

Am about to head to Chinatown to do some more shopping - hoping to find my same driver from yesterday. No doubt he will be waiting outside my hotel as he was an hour ago Gotta love their loyalty.

Tomorrow off To Mekong Delta for 2 days.....then more shopping in Saigon. Only a few days left!
Cheers

Bel xo

P.S. By the way, the subject line that headed the email was just for my parents sake and doesn't reflect in any way any shenanigans in HCM City.

Ole Ole, Ole Ole....Feeling Hot Hot Hot!

07.12.2002 34 °C

G'day

The sun finally decided to rear its ugly head (actually it isn´t at all ugly!), and did so with a vengeance....my second day in Hue was even hotter than the first and now in Hoi An....ouch!
Just after I wrote my last email, I ran into a friend from SaPa, Monique, and made friends with a a Pom (Rani), German (Arne), and Aussie (Marcia)....it's nice, because they are all heading south and on a similar time schedule to me so I suspected I would again bump into them in Hoi An, and Saigon........all the other people I had met had either come from the South or were about a week ahead of me.

On Wednesday, I took a motorbike taxi out to the Royal tombs surrounding Hue and also visited the Thien Mu Pagoda. One of the more famous images people see of Vietnam ( I think so anyway) occurred at this pagoda, where in 1963,the monk Thich Quang Duc, self-immolated himself to protest the then dodgy president's policies....scary stuff! A band of monks also followed suit soon after. According to my guidebook, the self-immolations themselves, were somewhat less shocking than the reactions of the president's sister-in-law, "Dragon Lady", who declared the burnings to be a "barbeque party" and with much glee, added "Let them burn and we shall clap our hands"....Very evil wench indeed....

The Royal tombs were quite interesting (by the way, "interesting" in this case, is not a term used to depict any sense of underwhelment, but rather just an easy choice of word for someone who is lexically challenged). Firstly I went to the tomb of Tu Duc, which LP says is "set amid frangipani trees and a grove of pines" - very lovely! The complex itself was quite exquisite, as was the one around the Tomb of Minh Mang. Tu Duc lived it up when he was emperor....he had over 100 wives, many many concubines but no kiddies...what a man! The Tomb of Minh Mang was similarly lovely and was surrounded by the "lake of impeccable clarity"....probably this was the case during the 1840s...but not so much so now

One of the main reasons I wound up in Nam was because of an episode of Pilot Guides (Globe Trekker) on World Food Vietnam a few months ago. And one of the more interesting restaurants they featured in the episode was one in Hue called Lac Thanh (I'm getting commission for this plug). It is run by a charming gentleman, Mr Lac, who can neither hear, nor speak, but is a great sociable character. In fact the whole restaurant is run non-hearing/speaking people. They cook the most divine food....I had stir-fried tofu, which you put together with lettuce leaves, and roll up in rice-paper crepes and dip in a spicy satay sauce (Kath, you would love it!!). Mr Lac also took great glee in cracking open my bottle of coca-cola with his home-made bottle opener (basically a piece of wood with a nail hammered through it). He signed one for me and I got to keep as a souvenir... he's a very cool bloke.

In true Vietnamese style, some other deaf-mute folks have set up restaurants on either side "Lac Thien" and "Lac Thuan" - they are, I suspect, "Same Same But Different"!
I don't think Vietnam had any copyright laws until a few years ago. My German friend pointed out to me that in LP Vietnam guide, they have a write-up on the Vietnamese bottled water-brands. Very interesting...not only can you buy La Vie, but you can also buy La Viei, La Vu, La Vi and La Ve...but wait there's more...La Vif ("The lively"), La Vide ("The empty"), and La Viole ("the Rape" - don't ask me....). Weird stuff! They all taste the same though; still, maybe it´s advizable to stay away from Rape-water!

On Thursday I caught a bus from Hue to Hoi An, with stops at the Hai Van Pass and Marble Mountain. The caves at marble mountain were quite nice....a good escape from the opressive heat and the non-air-con bus and outside world. I had my own personal tour-guide, a 7 year old girl with a dim flashlight...who tried to scare me by telling me their were rabid bats flying about the roofs of the caves....arrrrggggghhhh.

Coming to Hoi An, I had been expecting the temps to be in the mid 20s at the most...it is, after all, winter in Vietnam. Also, reports from fellow travellers who had been here a week or so ago, had warned of the rain....but it´s really really hot - and dry!

I'm staying at a nice hotel in Hoi An - a bargain $14AUD - own bathroom, TV complete with Vietnamese channels, one French channel and English cable channels with white-noise, oh and even a fridge! It's quite a conservative place...on the back of the door to my room they stipulate the guest rules...including Hotel Regulation No 7 -"bicycles, motorbikes, pets, fire-arms, explosives, stinking things, and even prostitutes are not allowed in the hotel" - glad they cleared that one up for me. Hmmm...

Not long after stepping out the front door of my hotel, I was befriended by a local tailor. She offered me a ride on the back of her bicycle down to the cloth market, where I was given several brochures to look through to decide what clothes I wanted to have tailor-made for me. Of course, being creatively-challenged, I opted for some rather boring items....If I have something specially made, I figure I want to have something that's going to get te wear to make it worth the effort...anyway, fun experience.

I also got shown the way to the alley of beauty parlours where I was offered a manicure for 5000 dong (65 Aussie cents)and a Vietnamese leg wax for 20 000. The beauticians smooth a talc stone on your leg and then attack it (your leg that is) furiously with fishing wire or something....can't quite explain it...I got a free 20cent coin size sample....quite bizarre!

Yesterday was a good day too...I started off by heading back to the cloth market to pick up my new clothes....On my way there, I was asked a grand total of 25 times, if I would like clothes made or a manicure....I finally found my trusty tailor and tried on my new clothes...not bad...but needed a few adjustments so I returned later in the evening to pick up the final products.
I then hired a high-tech Vietnamese one-speed bicycle (I think maybe a 1983 model) and did the 4km ride to the beach - I quite enjoyed dodging motorbikes, other bicycles, cyclos, dogs, buffalos, and pedestrians who decided to stop in the middle of the road for a chat or whatever! I ran into my German friend, Arne at one of the beach cafes and we spent much of the day soaking up the sun and swimming at Cua Dai. We had countless women come and offer us jewellery, drinks, coconuts, pineapples, bananas, mangoes, Pringles, beer nuts, even foot massage, manicures and leg waxing (like on the beach - yeah right!) Arne ended up telling the ladies that he couldn't buy from them because he was "promised to someone else"....I told him that that meant he was going to go to another country to meet his arranged-marriage bride and maybe that wasn't the best thing to say

We befriended a rather gammy looking old lady who decided my sarong was a good place to park her buttocks for a good 20mins in hope that we might buy some pineapple If I see her again tomorrow I might even buy some....in exchange for a gammy photo of course After too much sun, we wound up at Treat's "Same Same but Different" Cafe to eat Cao Lau (Hoi An speciality - basically a Caesar salad with noodles - the water the noodles are cooked in comes from one of the local wells so you can ONLY eat it in Hoi An!) and play some pool.

I spent this morning doing a tour of the Champa ruins at My Son. The Cham people had their kingdom at My Son between the 2nd and 15th century AD and according to our trusty guide (who promptly deserted us upon arrival at the ruins; I suspect he was in search of Karaoke), the Chams were not only 'dark people', but also pirates -hideous isn't it - well he certainly seemed to think so?!?! Because of the frequent trade with the Indians, the Cham people adopted Hinduism (Shiva was their 'patron saint' and is depicted in many of the sculptures), wrote in Sanskrit and had an Indian artistic bent (Yes, I looked this up!) Anyway, the Vietnamese like to compare the Champa ruins with those at Angkor in Cambodia....hmmm... Still it was very interesting and the surrounding scenery was quite picturesque. Much of it was bulldozed during the American War and consequently you have to kind of mentally reconstruct the sites in your mind...For now, it'll have to be my Angkor.

When I got back to Hoi An, I had lunch (including yet another banana lassi) and met my friends at the bike shop. We cycled to the beach and soaked up the afternoon sun. Just like yesterday, we had vendors come and sit on our sarongs offering to sell us everything under the sun.

I'm off now to meet some people at Tam Tam Bar. I'm also hoping to run into more cyclo-popcorn-vendors playing Lambada or Happy Birthday as they pedal through the streets of Hoi An - very amusing

Tomorrow I was considering hitting some of the pagodas but I'm getting a little pagoda-d out....so might wait til Saigon til I venture into them again. There are some fantastic art shops here so must head back to them too!

The nice gentleman at the reception desk of the hotel has kindly decided to crank up the juke-box with Richard Claderman music... maybe I'll stay here and soak up the lovely atmosphere some longer

But enough writing for now....
Ciao
Belinda x

P.S. I am considering starting up a rental-assistance business in Sydney. So far I have two (potentially three) clients... A Pommie chick and German Guy....they've both promised me dinner at 41 in Sydney if I can find them a place to live. So if anyone has any rooms for rent or knows anyone looking for a housemate for 3-12 months, please let met know.

Chasing Ho Chi Minh

03.12.2002 32 °C

I awoke for my last day in SaPa to the heavy patter of rain on the roof of my bamboo hut. OK, so I was staying in a hotel, but the roof was bamboo on the interior and there was pattering rain. It was a shame because I had been planning on heading back down the valley to CatCat village and saying goodbye to the cafe owner and family I had met a couple of days before... I also had grand plans of taking another motorbike taxi to one of the nearby villages, just for fun. It's quite a thrill to ride on the back of a Honda Om like a lunatic around windy streets through tremendously beautiful countryside and wave to all the locals (occasionally poking out the tongue doesn't hurt either). I'm constantly chanting "please don't crash" the whole time, but of course everything has been fine.

Considering the amount of traffic on the roads (so far) anddifficulties encountered as a pedestrian, it is quite surprising that I have not (yet) witnessed any road accidents. Actually, I think the Vietnamese aren't terribly bad drivers after all....after all, no-one actually drives any faster than about 40km an hour, their honking system seems to work quite efficiently, and, they are a fairly relaxed people so the road rage typical of many drivers in other nations (Portuguese men for instance), doesn't make them top candidates for road accidents. Then again, I think the stats on road accidents here would contradict what I'm saying so it's probably better I don't even mention 'em.

I was informed yesterday that Vietnamese road laws (say what?) stipulate that you must wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle and there are to be no more than 2 people on a bike at a time. Well.....I don't think most people can afford a helmet and I have seen motorbikes carrying at least 5 people on occasion - I have also seen a motorbike rider quite competently balancing 5 fat pigs ('com le' - I learnt a new word!) and several balancing as many as 30 geese!

Anyway, I wound up having lunch with a very pleasant American in a nice Vietnamese restaurant...it's funny how much mutual foreigness and power-failures get people talking. After getting chased up the main street of SaPa by one of the H'mong girls with a tennis racket (I kid you not, she was bitter that I didn't buy any more of her wares), I boarded the night train for my return journey to Ha Noi.

Lao Cai would have to be one of the more fascinating border towns I have visited. It sits about 3km from the Chinese Border and is an aesthetic gem by night! It's star attraction would have to be its miniature replica of Paris' Eiffel Tour. From our fair-dinkum Vietnamese diner we had a spectacular view of this architectural masterpiece - all 10 metres of it! The fact that we had one of the guest's dogs sitting at our feet for the duration of our dining experience, added to the whole Parisien feel. I am positive the Vietnamese Tourism Bureau is going to abandon it's "Vietnam, a destination for the new millennium" of recent years, and replace it with a "Lao Cai, a destination for the connosieur of fine Vietnamese cuisine"....

One problem with the night trains in Nam is that they leave and arrive at rather peculiar times. My arrival back into Ha Noi was at about 4.45am Sunday morning. It was too late for even the Karaoke noodle men to be up and boogying. In fact, I was beginning to wonder whether or not the train had truly arrived in Ha Noi as there was not a honk to be heard...I caught a taxi back to near my hotel and it was quite eerily silent...Actually the greatest amount of noise appeared to be coming from the hotel at which I was to be staying - the hotel manager's snoring! Because it was so jolly early, I was quite content to sit on the steps of my hotel and wait for them to open up shop. The lady in the hotel next door opened up quite early though, around 5ish and insisted on phoning my hotel so they would let me in. Within seconds I was ushered into the hotel foyer (the family living room) and given blankets and a pillow so I could sleep on the comfort of their lounge chair (a church pew!)!

The foyer was a hive of activity at this early hour and I didn't get a wink of sleep....too much interesting stuff going on. Firstly I had the hotel cat running around like a loony before settling happily in the basket on the front of the motorbike parked in the foyer. Secondly I got to see the garbage collection lady stroll past. And even more interestingly, the hotel manager's wife, whose turn it was to keep watch in the foyer, was quite a colourful sleeptalker. Of course it was in Vietnamese, so I had no idea what she was saying, but still very amusing. I was half expecting her to break into some somnambulistic trance around the hotel, but I had to be content with the sleeptalking ramblings.

On a more serious note, since Sunday morning, I have been constantly paranoid that I am being followed around Ha Noi. It all started with my visit to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. I caught a motorbike taxi over to the mausoleum (much to the disgruntlement of my pedometer) and queued up with the masses for my 'pilgrimage' to see the glass sarcophagus of Uncle Ho. Everyone who goes to the mausoleum must approach it in single file along Ba Dinh square and is watched with great scrutiny by the seriously underwhelmed guards. It is very tempting to try and get the guards to crack a smile. Somehow I didn't think it would go down so well at the mausoluem of Uncle Ho, so I resisted. The temperature grew colder and colder as I entered the mausoleum and finally I arrived in a dimly lit room where HCM lay at rest.

It was very very creepy...he looked rather like a wax museum model but the booklet I was given when I bought my ticket assured me it is really him....Anyway, since this creepy encounter, I have been seeing HCM lookalikes all over Ha Noi, particularly on the trek to perfume pagoda yesterday...

The rest of Sunday I spent wandering the markets of Ha Noi and perfecting my "Woo-woo" cyclo catcall in response to the invitations of cyclo drivers. I have yet to get the hand-waving motion down pat - give me a few more days and it'll be sweet. Some poms from the hotel and I found out they were showing a Man United/Liverpool Soccer match live at one of the nice cafes inthe Old Quarter so spent the evening down there. We probably could have ducked in to any house we walked past however as the Vietnamese are soccer-nuts.

Yesterday I spent doing a trip out to the Perfume Pagoda. Lonely Planet laud the pilgrimage to the pagoda and surrounding scenery as "something not to be missed", so I had pretty high expectations. Needless to say, it was a little disappointing. Whilst the scenery on the walk up the mountain was quite lovely, the pagodas were nothing out of the ordinary, and at the end of a 3km mountain hike was just a cave. It was an interesting day nonetheless, I met an Italian aeronautical engineer, and some MORE jolly Swedes! Swedes are good value.... maybe I'll do my next trip to Scandinavia. I also provided entertainment for the Vietnamese folk who werevery amused by my Vietnamese flag T-shirt. I'm not quite sure what was so funny, but I must have had at least 30 comments and cheesy grins from the Vietnamese people doing the pilgrimage to the top of the mountain.

This afternoon I arrived in Hue, in Central Vietnam - not far from the former demilitarized zone. It was quite muggy here on my arrival - at least 30 - and very humid. I headed straight out to the spectacular Citadel and Forbidden Purple City. The citadel contains some beautiful temples, palaces and gardens. Even though much of the city is in a state of ruins, it is very beautiful. Tomorrow I'm thinking about heading out to the Royal TOmbs of the rulers of the Nguyen Dynasty...and perhaps visit some more pagodas!

Will be heading further south to Hoi An on Thursday and may spend a day bumming on China Beach before hitting Saigon and Mekong Delta.

Gotta go, dinner is beckoning.

Bel xx

J´adore Tres Jolie Sapa

28.11.2002 18 °C

Xin chao!
I'll preface this email by stating that this computer is seriously dodgy and things are jumping all over the place so if the continuity is somewhat lacking, that is the reason why. This is my third attempt at writing this mail....grrr

I am now in beautiful Sapa in the NW highlands of Vietnam. Actually for the sake of Ruben and Greg (from my Halong Bay tour) who didn't make it here...let's just say the place really sucks so don't feel as though you have missed out on anything!

Sapa was built as a hill station back in the 1920s and is not far from the Chinese border. Upon my arrival in Sapa at the crack ofdawn on Wednesday, I was thinking the whole highland mountain trekking was a very bad idea as it was very cold (around 11 degrees) and there was incessant drizzle and very ominous clouds. Thankfully I awoke yesterday morning to see a delightful sliver of sunshine peeking through the curtains of my hotel room and the view from my balcony was truly amazing. There were fluffy white clouds shrouding the higher mountains around the town and it was quite ethereal

I'm staying in a nice-ish hotel with very very hot water in the shower (and bath!! woohoo!), a comfy bed and awesome views over the mountains and valleys below. Oh and I have Cable TV. I have a new favourite song too. I was watching MTV Asia yesterday morning (very scary stuff)and came across a song called Boogie Woogie Number 5. It is a dance track by two very cheesy Japanese chicky-babes and is a cross between Aerobics Oz style, Tellitubbies on smack and Abba (not that there is anything wrong with Abba - they are Swedish after all).I've decided I'm going to join the groupie circuit and follow them around the globe on their next world tour - or maybe NOT!

Sapa is a relatively peaceful place after Hanoi, and a good place to meet the local H´mong people - who are ultra-friendly and constantly wishing to make conversation with you. The H'mong people (one of the ethnic minority groups in Vietnam) live in and around Sapa in the valleys of Cat Cat and Ta Phin (didn't see any cats though, just dogs, pigs and chickens..... I went for a walk down to their village when I got here on Wednesday and came upon a small cafe...a tiny bamboo hut covered with tarpaulin for rain protection. It was raining quite heavily at that point so I really just wanted to get out of the cold. But I ended up staying there for several hours with the cafe owner and her daughter. Soon after my arrival, I was greeted atvarious stages of my visit by 15-20 of the Black H'mong (there are also the Red, White etc etc)girls who showed me their "tres jolie" goods. At one point I must have had 10 of them hovered round me showing their goods. Normally such a situation would be quite overwhelming and somewhat suffocating but because of their genuine warmth, kindness and friendliness, it didn´t seem so bad.

They were very curious to know all about me! Their English is quite good and many of them also speak a little French. They´re especially friendly and talkative if you happen to buy anything from them - which of course I did - a dozen or so bangles, and even a musical instrument (a thing you pluck and blow at the same time). Tricky to get the knack of but with about 8 enthusiastic teachers, I finally got there......

The other major exciting event of Wednesday was my first motorbike ride! It was quite a hoot....I had been walking for about 5km (go the pedometer!)and it was getting pretty muddy so I jumped on the back of a motorbike to get back up to Sapa. Good stuff....bumpy all the way but we didn't do an Evil Knievel (sp?) or anything into the rice fields so not too bad. There are some seriously crazy motorbike drivers in Vietnam. Not all of them are locals either. You sometimes get crazy Dutchman who have had too much Tiger Beer and wake up the next morning with no bike but the scars to prove it (not to mention any names Ruben!). Watch out those of you Down Under as the flying Dutchman is coming to a town near you very soon! Arrggh - the horror, the horror!

On my way to dinner on Wednesday night, I was again greeted by the beautiful H'mong children. They wanted to know where my husband was. I said he was having a hair cut and massage before heading off to a Karaoke Bar to eat noodles. No....they saw my ring and thoughtit very odd I was on my own. This time they started playing with my hair, touching my skin ( i guess to see if it was real!) and kissing my hands. Many of them are only very young yet they happily wander the streets in hope of finding new friends and are eager to communicate with everyone.I feel bad because I can´t remember all their names! No doubt they will remind me several times over when I am shown more of their "tres jolie" goodies.

Actually this afternoon I ran into many of the same children I met yesterday. Instead of calling them by their names, Ma, Zhang, Chi and Pi Ka Chu (isn't that one of the Pokemon dudes?) etc, they are encouraging me to call them Clever, Silly, Crazy and Lazy - seriously!! I have also been dubbed "clever" so I think I have made it as an honorary H'mong.

After my plucking up the courage to hop on a Honda Om motorcycle on Wednesday, I was keen to hit the road again and thus hired a local motorbike taxi dude to drive me up around the Tram Ton Pass - the highest mountain pass in Vietnam. As it was a truly beautiful day yesterday, it was a good day to do this trip. I could see for miles in all directions, and even when thick clouds coated the valleys, they would move quickly and so the views were generally pretty good. He drove me about 15km up and around Sapa. Really good stuff. I also visited Thac Ba, or the "Silver Waterfall" on the way. Because there had been so much rain of late, the waterfall was abundant and truly beautiful. Every Tom, Dick and Harry along the way was wavingand saying G'day to me (Ok not G'day but Xin Chao). I think theywere like, what the? Crazy blonde foreigner on motorbike. It must have hit about 24 degrees yesterday and the sun was very powerful. I came home rather red in the face from my motorbike sunburn. I think the anti-malarial medication I'm taking (Doxycycline) is helping me bronze up because it makes the user photosensitive.

This morning I ran into my motorbike friend from yesterday and he drove me down to the village of Tai Phin to visit the home of the Red Dzao people. When I got down to the village, one of the ladies invited me into her mud hut - I had initially thought maybe it was sheer generosity, but it turned out that it was an opportunity to sell me stuff. Grrrrr.....

I had dinner with a Israeli guy last night - at first he seemed lovely, but then he started to moan about the locals...and he turned out to be a complete jerk. He resents how, as he sees it, the H´mong make a career out of their poverty and demonstrated to me, his despicable contempt for the H´mong people - it seems he thinks that to be a "real man", you have to be a complete prick! It´s tough to know how to deal with the poverty here though. On the one hand, the H´mong are seriously underprivileged and preying on hapless backpackers IS their main source of income. So of course you want to try and help them by buying things off them. But then, you can´t just keep buying 100 bangles, just to help someone out....And is it really that helpful if they have a little more money, but no access to clean water, and basic education? I dunno...You also reach a point where you just don´t want to buy any more, and you get sick of being asked. And a simple "No thank you" can be occasionally met with a torrent of abuse...Now, that´s not going to win any customers over!

The other major event of the past week was my marriage to a Romanian Mafia dude.

Just testing to see if you were still reading!

No, I visted Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. I had seen pictures of Halong Bay in National Geographic magazines and been told by the dude who sold me my backpack how spectacular it is but you cannot describe it with only words and pictures. The whole "I cannot heave my heart into my mouth" (aka Cordelia in King Lear) is quite appropriate here. If you have been to the Karst area of Thailand, it is (I suspect) quite similar. Even though the weather was a little chilly and overcast....the place was very enchanting. The water was lovely and warm when I finally got up the courage to jump in. Quite fun jumping off the boat for a swim in the middle of the beautiful limestone islets of Halong Bay.

The troops from the Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island trip were an extremely groovy crowd of people, and I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet them all (how corny do I sound?). The trip consisted of the Swedish delegation, a Kiwi, 3 Dutchies, 4 Frenchmen and an Irish couple. The tour guide was pretty cool too - she taught us all that if you want to marry a Vietnamese man you are best off going for a "rice man"and not a "noodle man" because "noodle men" like karaoke bars too much and oh boy is that pretty scary stuff! I have yet to check out the karaoke scene here. As part of our tour to Halong Bay we were supposed to check out the nightlife on Cat Ba island, but all the karaoke bars were pretty dead. We wound up in the extremely pov local discotheque to hear about three songs from the 80s recycled over and over and only 3-4 people on the dance floor (all of whom were absolutely shocking boogiers).

Our trip to Halong Bay started with a bumpy minibus ride up toHalong City, where we then boarded a boat for a cruise out onHalong Bay. Halong Bay is part of the Gulf of Tonkin and is filled with limestone islets similar to those you see in Southern Thailand (I already said this didn't I? Testing you again!). There are lots of caves there too.

It's quite fascinating cruising around the bay as you come across floating villages and schools. Interestingly, there seem to be as many dogs living in these villages as there are people. Perhaps in case they have a bad fishing season! Halong Bay is prone to typhoons in the Summer ( I think) so I have no idea what the people do in such catastrophic circumstances. I certainly wouldn't want to be living out there if a typhoon was looming.

We spent the second day of our trip hiking on Cat Ba island anddoing more sailing. There was a particularly interesting crewmanwearing a Russian hat and smiling quite cheesily for photographswith everyone on the boat. I think he was a noodle man who enjoyed drinking Vodka. Good value entertainment though. I suspect that all the tourists doing this trip have their photos taken with him so he is quite the performer. Maybe he is considered a sex symbol in NE Nam. He should really start charging people - maybe a couple of thousand dong per picture.
We did a hike up the second tallest mountain on Cat Ba island onthis day also. The mountain was only a couple of hundred metreshigh but because it had been raining recently, the path was quite muddy and slippery. My butt managed (somehow) to stay dry - must be those genuine imitation Nikes I picked up in the shoe market in Hanoi for a ridiculously uninflated price. The lunch after the hike was nice though, and we shared it with the local cat and dog

Upon our return to Hanoi on Sunday night, we had dinner at theTamarind Cafe (vego restaurant affiliated with the tour group) and played Jenga. I was kinda sad for the trip to end because I really liked everybody, but we'll possibly meet up again one day on the road - somewhere in this big wide world.

Not sure what's on the agenda for this afternoon. I don't want to spend anymore money while I'm up here...ok, maybe ONE more motorbike ride, so I may be best to duck for cover in a cafe for the afternoon and sip Ca Fe Seu (Vietnamese Black Coffee). I just saw some young fellow walking past with a snake hanging off a stick....maybe I'll go do some taste testing at the Chapa Restaurant....or maybe not. There is a snake village not far from Hanoi and I'm goinn to head out there when I get back to Hanoi in a couple of days.

Tomorrow is the market day in Sapa - supposed to quite a gathering of people. So that's the plan for tomorrow. Then back to Hanoi on the O'nite train for a couple days before I head South.

Ciao
Belinda xo

Honk if you Love Hanoi

23.11.2002 24 °C

Honk if you love Ha Noi....

This seems to be a fitting way to begin this email and I'm certain that when I reach Saigon, it will be even more apt.

I arrived here on Thursday afternoon and was delighted to be greeted by two smiling faces at the arrivals area of Ha Noi's Noi Bai airport I had my name written "Be Lin Da Brooke Roy" on a piece of cardboard! I've always wanted to be greeted at the airport by a cardboard flashing local. I felt most special indeed. Honk!

The ride from the airport was certainly an adventure. Field after field of rice and vegetables and people riding motorbikes, bicycles and carrying yokes filled with tomatoes, kumara, star fruit etc etc. You name it, they had it. Amidst all the rice paddies, there were lots of little villages - with beautiful maisons juxtaposed with rubble from the American war. Along side of the road, vendors had set up shop for the day.... I think come rain, hail, shine or the other one (mental blank) perhaps snow?...they are there everyday selling whatever they can.

Now back to that honking.....it is certainly something which could be considered a national sport! Everyone with a motorbike honks passionately to assert his/her space on the road. I think perhaps the motorcyclists take tremendous glee in their honking behaviours which certainly work well at terrorizing the travellers. Those who have bicycles similarly ring their bells. And jolly loud bells too! The women with the yokes don't have bells or horns so they just do their best to avoid being converted into minced-meat. In downtown Ha Noi (Vietnamese is apparently not mono-syllabic but they do write everything as though it is... anyone understand?!?), the honking is even more of a cacophony. It is ceaseless too. Any time of the day there is honking honking honking. I can even hear it when I'm away from the traffic - of course, something that is quite infrequent.

That said, the hotel at which I am staying is on a quiet alley way in the Old Quarter of Ha Noi. It is run by a Vietnamese family and guarded competently by their ankle-biter dog (Mi La) and cat (originally named "Kitty"). It is very spartan but clean and safe and the family are lovely. Upon my arrival, I was greeted with bananas and artichoke tea. Quite a peculiar taste but very pleasant.

Speaking of hot drinks, Vietnamese coffee is jolly good stuff! It is about 10 times as strong as Aussie coffee but really good. In the local English paper, Viet Nam News, they were pleased to announce that Vietnam had just become the major provider of coffee to Spain! Must be good if the Europeans are getting stuck into it.

I treated myself to some fine dining on my first night in Ha Noi, a posh restaurant called (most originally I might add), Ha Noi Garden. The restaurant appears to be a favourite with over-dressed diplomats, Japanese businessmen and the ex-pat community. Very nice food, but a tad characterless... I also indulged in some (mostly) window shopping. There are some exquisite art, musical instrument and handicraft shops not far from where I am staying, as well as silk shops.

I followed the walking tour in my LonelyPlanet Guide yesterday morning around the Old Quarter. It takes you through the cities 36 "Pho Puong" (36 streets) which is essentially a massive marketplace. Each street is named after the product in which it specializes. For example, Pho Hang Giay is the shoe street, Pho Hang Ruoi is where you go for clam worms, and Pho Hang Gai, is where you go for hemp (for wearing, not smoking in this case). Chicken street was interesting...here you can buy a chicken fresh and take it home to kill and prepare for dinner. You can also buy deep fried chicken feet, chicken heads, and chicken gizzards. KFC - Vietnam Style! It certainly puts a new spin on the whole fast food thing. Hey at least you KNOW it's gonna be fresh - oh and definitely doesn't have rabbit in it!

I spent the afternoon walking around Hoan Kiem Lake (there is a Loch Ness monster character that stole the sword of the 15th Century emperor, Ly Thai To in here), visiting the Ngoc Son Temple (Jade Mountain Temple), going to the Temple of Literature (where Vietnam's first uni was started in the 11th Century), listening to an enchanting concert with instruments similar to lutes, tubular bells (made from bamboo!) and cymbals and cruising down to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and Musuem (both closed but I think I will get to see Unkie Ho when I get back from the North).

I visited a handicrafts shop somewhere along the way and learnt about some interesting things from the salesman - Apparently if you have carp (alive or as a sculpture) in your house it will bring you good luck, if you have a cat, it will bring you wealth, a statue of a Buddha, will bring you happiness (I think a pot-belly is also useful), and the goatee-Buddha (not sure of his title) will afford you longevity. So far Caesar (my cat) hasn't afforded me any wealth....grrr....maybe I should get some carp when I get home for him to play with!

Perhaps though, as Vietnamese spirituality has Taoist/Confucian influences (the Temple of Literature is Ha Noi's centre of Confucianism), the wealth is more intrinsic...in which case I'm getting there. I did become a millionnaire twice over yesterday when I took out 2 million dong from the bank (there are 8000 dong to the Aussie dollar so you do the maths!). I was very excited. Who needs Eddie McGuire when you can achieve millionnaire-status in Nam!? Honk honk honk!

Today was a very exciting day which started with me being mistaken for a mosquito by the local motorbike drivers. There are believed to be 10 million motorbikes in Vietnam (population around 78 million, 13th most in the world would you believe) and you certainly notice em. It takes quite some skill to cross the road in Ha Noi. First of all, you look to the left....actually maybe it's the right. I don´t think anybody really knows! In Nam, you are supposed to drive on the RHS of the road, but really everyone just drives wherever they can fit! As for pedestrians, well what an adventure! It is actually easier walking on the road, towards oncoming traffic, than on the footpaths as they are covered with motorbikes. The only problem is, you are a very easy target for the incessant cries of "Madame", "Where you going?" and "Taxi madame". In a stretch of maybe 100 metres, you will guaranteed be asked 5-10 times if you want a ride.
Smiling sweetly and saying "No No merci" seems to work. The dudes are actually pretty good about it....they don't follow you and psychologically torment you like the hawkers in Paris. The ladies with the yokes (is there a technical term for this when people carry the baskets?) also follow you. I don't know how the heck they walk with those things but they practically jog with them. Some must weigh several dozen kilograms. In the Kangaroo cafe, you can buy exclusive tea shirts that say (in both Vietnamese and English) "No cyclo, no taxi, no shoe shine, no hat, no cigarette lighter".....I'm thinking of making an investment. Could be very handy.

I was delighted to read in today's paper that by 2010, the local government anticipates there will be good roads in the Ha Noi area. YEAH RIGHT! I think even if they did go to the trouble and expense of fixing them up, they would get hammered very quickly from constant pounding by motorbikes and trucks etc....I don't know anything about roads though so maybe it is a feasible expectation. I was even more delighted when I read tomorrow's newspaper today! It had an article on yet another Pommie-thrashing game of cricket. Go Aussies go! Another gem was that a study conducted in several European countries, Canada and the States found that only 9/10 18-24 year old Americans could ID their own country on a map. Some 50% could ID fewer than 10 countries. Shocking!

This morning I visited St Joseph's Cathedral and also the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. This prison was essentially a concentration camp for anti-colonial revolutionaries during the late 19th/early 20th century. There are some rather ominous looking guillotines on display their (complete with draining baths) where the nasty French dudes did their best Marie Antoinette impersonations. Very scary looking apparati. During the American War, the Vietnamese used the same prison to house American pilots shot down in combat (it then became known as Hanoi Hilton). As the info provided to the tourists says, the Americans were treated very well and were very happy there. There are countless pictures of the shiny happy Yankees plastered all over the museum walls to attest this claim. Shiny happy prisoners?

This afternoon I spent at the History and Revolutionary Museums. The history museum was not particularly engaging, however the Revolutionary Museum was quite fascinating - one Ho after another Ho after another Ho.

Some other cool things about Ha Noi....
1. As in Australia, the garbage collection is ridiculously early in the morning. However, unlike down under, there is not a garbage-truck but rather a lady with a wheelbarrow who dongs on a cymbal-type instrument. When she starts a-donging, all the people in the nearby houses come a-running with their garbage for collection.

2. It seems every second old dude (i.e. over 60 - life expectancy isn't particularly high here) wears one of those metal army hats you see in movies like Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket etc. Even better is when they go all out and put on army fatigues too.

3. Nobody seems to have an indoor kitchen. Rather, you see people sitting out on the pavement in front of their houses doing their cooking on gas-cookers or hot coals. They will sell you some of their dinner if you ask. And instead of sitting round on chairs at a table, an awful lot of people squat down and do a tremendously good job balancing whilst munching on their fine foods.

4. They have amazing fruit drinks/smoothies here. For lunch for instance, I had a "tamarind exotique" which had tamarind, sugar cane and pineapple in it. 5 Honks!

I'm off to Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island tomorrow and then on to Sa Pa (NW Vietnamese mountains) on Tuesday night. May be offline for a week but please keep the emails up.

Ciao Belinda x
P.S. Honk Honk!

Cane toads, Mahjong, Incense and Swastikas

21.11.2002 27 °C

Hi everyone from expensive Hong Kong!

I arrived here Sunday afternoon after a wonderful flight from Melbourne. Not much has changed since I was last here - it is still a frightfully expensive place and I'm still not vertically challenged like the rest of the locals! At a grand height of 5'5, this is very encouraging.

The main addition to HK (as far as I can see) is the very spiffy new Metro. Very clean, very efficient and quite reasonably priced. Curiously, it seems to be run by the Power Puff Girls (the Noughties answer to "Hello Kitty"). There are posters up all over the place with the Power Puff girls spreading important messages such as "please take care of the elderly" and "look after children". There is also a message flashing on various screens as follows "Be safe, be considerate, be a millionaire". Well I don't know who that philosophy works for, but it certainly isn't me! Grrrr.

On Sunday night I went walking through the Causeway Bay and Wan Chai districts on Hong Kong island. It was quite unlike Sunday night in Sydney....there were people everywhere and all the shops stayed open til 10pm! No wonder people go silly here with all the shopping. So far all I've spent money on is accommodation, food, transport and entrance to sites...and that is costing me an arm and a leg. Anyway, whilst wandering about, I was surprised to find what appeared to be sizable gathering of women in Victoria park...they were all sitting on the ground in large groups eating veges wrapped in banana leaves. When I asked someone what the significance of it was, they said "they are just eating dinner"! Very peculiar indeed.

Also discovered some Mahjong parlours where people sit around tables and flick domino type bits of plastic with pictures on them over and over and group them in some strange way. I don't quite understand the game from watching it. It is all too fast and furious to pick up quickly i think. Perhaps it is a Chinese version of Gin Rummy? A quirky looking fella followed me as I looked in all the parlours and advised me I wasn't allowed to go in...but I think he was just being mean. I enjoyed watching the frenetic pace at a local ping-pong club and how dexterously 3 year olds could hit the balls time and time again. I think Forrest Gump must have spent some time in HK when he was in Nam. He probably came to HK to recuperate after he got shot in the bum with that bullet Who knows!

Along Cannon St (2 streets back from my hotel), there are about 50 or so pet shops with exquisite cats and dogs. None of those big rotweilers and german shepherds etc.....but lots of shit-zus and pekingnese as well as himalayans, chinchillas and the odd feral kitty-cat. They have them in large enclosures with synthetic trees! Very adorable.

My last stop on Sunday night was at one of the markets....very smelly but quite fascinating...you can buy ginormous catfish, chickens hanging from the neck, shark fins and cane toads (they were about 100 of them nestled together in a container ready to be taken home and boiled/deep-fried for cooking). No doubt they have developed some fancy way of extracting the poison!

I awoke early on Monday and walked all the way down to HK Central (quite a hike!). The waterfront is quite interesting though and you really get a sense of just how utterly vertical HK island is! Not much sunlight penetrating the city cause of all those tall buildings. Surely that is very bad Feng Shui! I was talking to an American guy (a Noo Yawka) on the ferry back from Lantau island on Monday and he was saying that the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation building (at least I THINK that's what HSBC stands for), was not built following consultation with a Feng Shui practitioner and whilst the building is quite an aesthetic delight, it is a Feng Shui nightmare! According to a book I was reading just before I left (The Power of Place - highly recommended), most Chinese people will consult a Feng Shui practitioner when they build a house/skyscraper/duckpond (etc.), particularly if they are setting up a business. You would think that such an important institution as the HSBC would have gotten their act together!?!?!

Anyway, I spent most of Monday out on Lantau Island, the largest but most sparsely populated of the 235 or so islands that make up HK. The reason for visiting Lantau Island was to see the Po Lin monastery and the giant Buddha. Can't give you stats on the Buddha, but it is the largest outdoor seated bronze one in the world. Very impressive...you walk up about 267 steps to get to the buddha and underneath him is a little museum with important Buddhist relics (some as small as grains of rice!). I was very curious to note that the giant Buddha had what appeared to be a swastika on his chest....I don't at all understand the significance of this, so if anyone is more cluey than I am, please feel free to englighten me (no pun intended). The monks at the monastery cooked up a very delicious vegetarian meal for lunch. Broth, chinese tea, rice, stir fry veges, tofu (I think Sanitarium pinched their recipe for "Not-Chicken" off the monks here), some tasty dim sim type things and scary looking and tasting mushrooms.

Monday night I took the Peak tram up to Victoria Peak to get a spectacular panorama of the city lights....the peak tram was set up in the late 1800s and was the first tram in HK. It must have been quite an engineering feat for its time...parts of it are pretty damn steep! I wandered back down through Hong Kong Park and ducked into the Hong Kong Shan-gri-La hotel for some dinner -NOT! I actually went in to check out the impressive foyer withbeautiful chandeliers, paintings and tapestries. Couldn't afford anything on the menu!! Ah well... I was going to go up Central Plaza (8th tallest building in the world at 374m) as well, but didn't think I'd be allowed to...there is the World (?) Accountancy Conference on in HK at the moment and there were policeman everywhere! I must have seen a couple of hundred in a block! Will probably try again tomorrow night.

Tuesday I started off the day by walking through the SoHo (South of Hollywood St) district of HK island and also visited the fresh food markets up towards Robinson Heights (not far from Victoria peak). There is a hillside escalator link here which goes for about 800m up the hillside. It's a pretty cool way of seeing the city suburbs. Of course I walked up the hill instead of using the escalator (i'm trying to get fit ok?! ). Passed lots of grocery shops selling sun-dried delicacies and I think the locals were as fascinated as I was with my fascination with their delicacies (tu comprende?). I also visited the Man Mo temple, the oldest temple in HK - it is dedicated to the Gods of Literature (Man) and War (Mo) and has huge incense spirals (much like Chinese lantern shaped mosqito coils) hanging from the roof and lots and lots of joss sticks (incense) people bring in and dedicate, along with fruit, to the Gods and Buddha. I can still smell it now!
On Tuesday afternoon I caught a ferry out to the island of Cheung Chau. Michael Palin visited the island on his Around the World in 80 Days trek so of course, I had to do the trek also. Cheung Chau was a nice change from the business of HK island...there are no cars there ( just mad cyclists and golf buggy drivers) but there are lots of boats nestled in the harbour like a Greek fishing village. There wasn't much to do there, but it was a charming place to spend a couple of hours meandering through the villages - got to watch people playing Mahjong again too - I don't get it at all, but I am utterly intrigued.

When I got back to town I hit mainland HK starting from Kowloon. I walked all the way up to Mong Kok (too far!) and visited some of the night markets. I was surprised to read (somewhere) that Mao Zedong was a huge fan of Kung Fu movies.

I clocked up a total of just under 16km on Tuesday so you can imagine my feet were a little sore by the time I finished up. I picked up a pedometer from the Australian Geographic Shop (retail prince of $29.95 - bargain!) a couple of months ago and it's a great motivator. It also tells the time which is particularly useful when I'm not travelling with a watch. Today (Wed) I've only managed 13.957 km, but I'm yet to go out for dinner so no doubt I'll hit above 14

OK so finally today.... I was umming and ah-ing about what to do today as everything is so
jolly expensive here and all....... I figured that I may not come back here for quite a while though because of the exorbitant expenses - as much as I thoroughly enjoy the place. I settled on Macau, and a quick duck into (The PR of) China (I had made the effort to get the visa, considering I was originally going to be in Hongkers for 6-7 days). Good choice. I got to go through immigration a whopping 8 times! In spite of the handovers of HK and Macau (in 1997 and 1999 respectively), they are places which very much have separate identities (not to mention currencies and bureauxracy) and you still need a visa for China, and also must pass those lovely smiling faces of customs officers to visit all of them.

Anyway, I didn't spend that long in the city of Zhu-hai (Special Economic Zone) because there isn't a whole lot to see there. I think Sun Yat-Sen was either born there or spent an important part of his life there, but aside from that the place is of little interest....Got to take snaps of the border gate though (without having my film thrown away by security) and wandered through some more markets! Also got asked at least 30 times if I would like a taxi (no thank you very very much).

Macau is quite lovely....it is very much like a grungy version of Lisbon, however the 'tourist' strip is quite polished up and reminiscent of a seaside resort (like Cascais, Denise). The most picturesque site in Macau would have to have been the Ruin's of St Paul's Church. The church was (according to my sources), designed by an Italian Jesuit and built in 1602 by Japanese Refugees who had fled anti-Christian persecution in Nagasaki. There was a whopping big typhoon back in the mid 19th Century when it was pretty much ruined. The museum below is purported to contain a special relic (the right arm bone) of St Francis Xavier! I also went to the Kum Iam temple where there are lots of joss sticks and lanterns and 18 gold plated men encased in glass - one of them is supposed to be Marco Polo, ie. the one with elephantrhinitis.

Also went to Monte Fort (old Jesuit castle ruins), Camoes Gardens and grottoes ( very very pretty), the Lisboa Hotel/Casino (no money with which to punt, alas), and walked part of the Macau Grand Prix track! They had the GP last weekend so the place is still abuzz. And last but not least, I visited the site of the changeover ceremony when Macau was officially returned to the PRC. A pretty gold lotus flower blooms at the site.

I'm off to Nam tomorrow (Yipeee!). Met a Canuck guy (who likes clocking up countries by working for various NGOS all over the globe) last night who spent 2 years living in Saigon who gave me lots of good advice......i.e. make sure you don't have a hairy chest if you are lying on the beach because whole families will come and take turns plucking your chest hairs! Lucky for me I'm not a hairy chested/backed bloke!) Anyway Not sure what the access to Net will be like there but hopefully I will get online every few days. So please, keep the emails coming

Belinda x

Paris to Madrd - again!

27.01.2002 15 °C

Hola.....
Back in beautiful Madrid! (actually I seem to be saying that about a lot of places but there are truly many beautiful places here and we have visited many).

I left Paris on Wed morning after 6 fantastic days........Our last day there was mostly looking for postcards and souvenirs etc.... We also visited the Pere Lechaise Cemetary where you get to see the graves of folks like Jim Morrison (complete with lots of flowers and love poems written to him), Edith Piaf, Balzac, Chopin, Pisarro, and many others. Almost got locked in too as we arrived about 45 mins before closing time and the security guards came chasing us out the gates with stern warnings! In the evening we headed down to the non-existant Bastille, did some meandering around the Marais district (the centre of both Paris´ Jewish community and its gay life - interesting combo!) and went to our favourite little Chinese restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. I tried to persuade Denise to try some escargots but she shuddered at the thought. I can´t say I blame her - for me it was absolutely a once off thing....maybe frog´s legs one day though.

Anyway, Denise had to fly out of Madrid yesterday so she came straight back down from Paris while I headed to San Sebastian (Donostia) in the heart of Basque country. This place is (wait for it...) extremely beautiful.....there is the old town with lots of great shops, bars and cafes, three impeccable beaches with REAL sand, and two mountains up each end of the beach strips which offer fantastic views over the beaches and the Bay of Biscay. I didn´t actually do much in San Seb but sit on the beach and squirm my toes in the sand whilst reading a travel guide, wander about the old town, eat some Tapas at this nice little bar we found opposite the main beach and scale the (smallish) mountain on the side near the hostel. There were a couple of Aussies at the hostel and we contemplated going for a swim out to the little island that is 500m out or so from the beaches, but the water was seriously icy - much colder than in winter back home. One of the girls from the hostel and I (she was actually from Sydney which is cool because no Aussies I have met thus far have been from anywhere but Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth!)..... caught a bus out to Bilbao (a dump) to see the Guggenheim collection. It houses a great collection of modern art and an exhibition of Frank Gehry´s architectural models and furniture. He also designed the museum which is in itself, a fantastic site! Outside the museum is a ginormous puppy dog statue (Jeff Koons designed it) which is covered in flowers and is quite fun.....Julia (Sydney girl) said it actually was in Sydney a couple of years back so maybe some of you saw it then....

Unfortunately no big riots or explosions when we were in San Seb - not that I really wanted one but it does sound a bit more exciting when you talk about your holiday. We did come across some tiny protest of about 60 people outside (presumably) some government official´s workplace.....the cops were there with those riot shields and batons and machine guns (serious!) but nothing eventuated as far as I know. I was a bit disappointed to not even hear a smidgen of Basque being spoken by the locals either.....Spanish everywhere......

Anyway......back in Madrid...I am staying at the hostel which is right up the other end of town from where we stayed before. Not sure what the place is like yet as I dumped my stuff off and headed into town. I was hoping to meet up with some Aussies for Australia day but the only guy I met at the hostel was a Pom! Then again, it was mid afternoon and everyone is out sightseeing etc as they should be. Tomorrow I am going to visit the Prado (last gallery for the trip!) as it is Sunday (free day), go to the bullring and walk around the Parc del Buen Retiro (a gorgeous park with an amazing fountain, some statues and lots of chi-chi mamas with their poodles!
I´m thinking about heading out to Salamanca on Monday but it is a three hour ride one way and I am going to be doing a heck of a lot of sitting between Tuesday and Thursday (on the plane) so that may not yet happen.....Avila is much closer and so maybe I will go there instead.

OK Well this is it for me........I have had a fantasitic 9 and a bit weeks but it will be sooooooooo nice to get home to some normal food, TV in English (although it is fun to try and translate), my family and friends (most of you anyway), and of course my cat! The poor little bugger won´t remember me!

Hasta luego!

Bel x

Paris Take Two

22.01.2002 12 °C

I am back in beautiful Paris _ co,plete with strange keyboard configurations!

We decided on a whim to come here from Madrid on an overnight bus......sure; it got us here, but 16 hours on a bus qlmost completely full of skanky and smelly (or are the two mutually inexclusive?) men is not recommended.

Flicking through my travel guide we found a place on Rue de Rivoli, which is where the Louvre is, and connects onto the Champs Elysées and Arc de Triomphe. It is about as central you can get and is super value. We can see the Hotel de Ville from the window to our room. There is also a gorgeous carousel there and an ice_skating rink. Lots of streetside vendors selling crepes too....banana and nutella heaven. The night we got here we visited Centre Pompidou, a zanily designed building equipped with colourful pipes, a brilliant modern art museum and shops and restaurants.

The next day we visited the catacombs where some 6 million Parisiens were buried after the cemeteries became overcrowded. It is truly bizarre walking through corridor after corridor of bones and skulls! Also visited Saint Chapelle, an incredibly beautiful stained glass window rooved church, wandered up past the Louvre onto the Champs Elysees, back to Notre Dame and the island on which it is situated and visited the Australia shop where they sell Vegemite and Cherry Ripe bars.

Spent Saturday in Brussels - contrary to what i had been told, it is auite a beautiful city but it rained most of the day which was a pain in the butt!
Sunday I was back in Paris....visited Hotel des Invalides which houses the French army museum and is adjoined to the over the top tomb of Napoleon in the Eglise de Dome. We came across the sewer museum but it was closed!

Today we went up to a huge big market place just north of Monmartre. It was full of interesting clothes and a fantastic antiques section but it is in one of the seedier parts of town and was pretty shabby. This afternoon I wandered through the passages of the Right Bank - all the old 19th century shopping arcades with vintage clothes, antique shops, old postcards and Toulouse-Lautrec posters, and lots of sweet little cafes. Also wandered about Royal Palace gardens and saw the room where the revolutionary plans were born.

Tomorrow is more sightseeing, then on Wed I am off to Basque country to have fun with the ETA separatists.

Ciao
Belinda x

Lazy Lisbon and Manic Madrid

16.01.2002 18 °C

Hola...

Still in Madrid but we have had a sudden change of plans. We are heading up to Paris for about 5 days. Because I have been able to change my flight and it was too difficult to manoeuvre the Lisbon-Santiago de Compostelo trek, I have some extra time, and also several days on my rail pass with which to play around.

Anyway, we have had a great past 5 days here. I think Madrid is a fantastic city - definitely in my top three favourite European capitals - the city is beautiful, there is great food around the place (especially if you are a fan of ham, as there are Museu del Jamon [Museum of ham], on every street corner), there are fantastic galleries and parks and lots of great shops!

My last couple of emails, have been a little truncated...but anyway...had a nice time in Lisbon. We stayed in a superb pensao (2 star hotel) right in the centre of Lisbon. We had a view of Plaça de Figura from our window where there is a statue of some most important dude (of which there are many many all over Lisbon) in the centre, and lots of shops, patisseries and bars. The first day we had there was a little drab as we had caught an overnight train (with lousy air-conditioning) and were most fatigued upon arrival....we also went looking for one of the apparently most important churches in Lisbon, but wound up in a decidedly seedy part of town and decided to hang out in the hotel for a couple hours before venturing out again to look at shops!

A lot of Lisbon is quite seedy....and then there is the spitting....it seems that ´real men´ in Portugal must be competent in the art of forming big boluses of saliva in their mouths and projecting them at tremendous velocities towards the ground. I actually saw a chick do this last night to my horror! Anyhow, it's revolting.

We had a much better day the next day for Denise´s birthday (i think this is a rehash but bear with me)...went up to the district of Belem.....a lot of the lead up to it was just the shabby seaport, but then beyond that we saw the monastery of St Jeronimo, Tower of Belem and the beautiful Discoveries Monument.....also got my first look ever at the Atlantic Ocean (from a distance)......it looked much the same as the Pacific Ocean but it was smellier and the sun was in the wrong spot!

Spent the day after that in Sintra...it was quite beautiful and lots to see there but the city is very hilly and the points of interest are all over the place i.e. from the Pena Palace (which is great) to one of the monasteries ( it is 4km), and then there is some other stuff another 5 km in the other direction. Also went to this Moorish castle which has all but disintegrated but you can wander through all the old parts of the castle, and scale the walls for a panoramic view of Sintra and out to the sea. We caught a bus from here out to the Cabo de Roca which is the Point most "Occidental" (westerly) in europe.....that was pretty cool.....the coastline is extremely rugged and the sun in Portugal is tremendously glary....really beautiful there.

The following day was spent in Cascais.....a charming seaside resort town. Lots of wandering around the town centre first, before we wandered along the beach and up to the Boca del Inferno (mouth of fire) which is essentially a blowhole. Caught a bus back to Lisbon and went to this ginormous shopping centre...the biggest on the Iberian Peninsula...for a spot of bargain shopping.

After another day back in Lisbon we caught the overnight train to Madrid

Arrived in Madrid on the 12th (am) - wandered up to Puerta del Sol and hit the shops. Also visited the Reina Sofia (Queen of Spain) Museum....

13th - took a bus out to the Valley of the Fallen (where there is a huge basilica and statue in tribute to General Franciso Franco - even though everyone hated him they still built this huge monument for him) and to the Monastery San Lorenzo del Escorial - there is a vault here where about a zillion princes and princesses and kings and queens have been buried.....room after room of it. Also a brilliant display of ancient maps - it is fun to try and work out where the hell some of these places are as they all have different names and their orientations are not always as usual.

14th - back in Madrid today.....some more shopping, and not much else.

15th - caught a train to Segovia for the day.......it is an extremely beautiful city but it was sooooooo cold there. It is at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, and it was bitterly cold and raining for much of the day. We visited the incredible Alcazar, the Cathedral, wandered about the Aqueduct and found the most amazing hot chocolate in Spain. I am totally converted.....no more of this watery hot chocolate with milk....this stuff is divine!

16th.....today! Went to Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza (an overly wealthy Hungarian art collector) where I saw some Italian stuff, a lot of Flemish and Dutch paintings, a stack of Impressionist paintings, and some post-impressionist, fauve, avant-garde, pop art and surrealist works. Also did a circuit of the city and wandered down Gran Via (one of main streets), saw outside of Royal Palace, San Miguel Meat Market, the Palace of COmmunications (which is the post office but looks like a palace), lots of statues, the town hall, and I found the Chocalateria of Saint Gines...I think it is the oldest one in Madrid. I´m definately going there when I get back here next week! Weather here is nice.....I am down to a t-shirt, jumper and jeans! But Paris will be colder I´m sure

Off this evening to Paris.....I shall write from there.
See ya
Belinda x

Lisboa

3.01.2002 22 °C

Ola!

Given the ridiculous price of internet in the tourist information centre, this is going to be a quick one...

After a pretty decent train ride from Madrid, we arrived in Lisbon...it's a tad seedy, but the centre has it's own rustic beauty. After a quick walk around the main square, we visited the Castle of St George and the weird sculpture garden housed within it, the Se Cathedral, admired about zillion statues of various holy dudes and founding figures and looked in shoe shops.......I haven't actually bought any yet which is quite remarkable for me. Also cruised about the old Alfama quarter, checked out the aqueduct and visited the wonderful Monument of Discoveries and Tower of Belem.

Jan 8 - more of Lisbon.......lots of shopping for Denise´s birthday!

Jan9 - went to Sintra, a lovely old royal town just north of Lisbon

Jan 10 - spent day at the beautiful seaside town of Cascais before heading onwards to the Cabo de Roca, the most westerly point in Europe and my first visit to the Atlantic Ocean! not that exciting really, but it was really lovely at sunset!

Jan 11 - back in Lisbon today.....visited the Museu Calou Gulbenkian.....this guy was a Turkish bloke who struck it big with oil (like the Beverey Hillbillies!) and spent all his money on art......it is quite an impressive collection. A good range of middle eastern and far east sculpture, ceramics, furniture, ornaments and tapestries, and also a collection of European paintings. Then we went over to the Museum of Coaches....not something I would normally go for, but all the tourist brochures give it 5 thumbs up so we checked it out.....then off to the Cultural Centre of Lisbon to see the Gilbert and George exhibition which had just opened.....these guys are absolutely crazy......they are two ordinary looking middle aged guys who are are mixture of conservative and camp....the exhibition was pop-art and they featured in all of the artworks....a lot of it was a little crass but mostly it was just really bizarre and amusing. Caught a night train to Madrid........

Jan 12 - just arrived in Madrid this morning and we´re staying at the same place we stayed last year.....it is in the centre of the three main art galleries and within walking distance from all the interesting stuff. Had breakfast at our favourite little cafe, and gorged on Andalusian toast (with a tomato-garlic sauce) and thick, thick hot chocolate, then we headed straight for the shops. Denise has managed to find 3 pairs of shoes today, to my one. I think the rest of today will be spent shopping and also looking for some a good tapas bar for dinner.

Adios
Belinda x

Cascais, Portugal

Sunny Sevilla and Grandiose Granada

08.01.2002 19 °C

Hola!

OK...here is a catch up on the past week or so.

Due to the overwhelming number of tourists in Barcelona for Xmas, we wound up getting stuck there for a couple extra days than anticipated which somewhat threw our plans into chaos......or rather, it put us behind a few days. Barcelona is wicked though, so I really shouldn't complain!

After checking out a bit of Barcelona, we went to Figueras to visit the Dali museum. The town itself is, as Lonely Planet correctly terms it, a dive, but the museum is bloody fantastic......it is like you are walking inside a gigantic surrealistic lollipop. There is room after room of drawings, paintings, sculptures, and in the centre of the building is a quaint little courtyard which has bizarre scupltures and a beaten up old car in the middle with mannequins sitting inside. Trippy music plays in the background and if you put a coin in the slot it actually starts ´raining´ inside the car!

The next day we visited the monastery of Montserrat, which is nestled amongst the mountains to the NW of Barcelona. It is in the middle of nowhere and you have spectacular views across the valley and of the curiously shaped rocks that form much of the mountain range. To get up there, we caught a funicular up about 800m. It was pretty damn cold up there but it was incredibly beautiful and the views were spectacular.

Apparently Montserrat is the most important site of pilgrimage for Catholic Spaniard´s - they go to see the black Madonna, which is a pint sized statue encased in bullet-proof glass. Up at the monastery we also got to chase around the feral cats - one of my absolute favourite European pasttimes! Sad, but true!

When we got back to Barca we went to the Picasso museum. We had visited the museum a few years ago and really enjoyed it as it has a tremendously diverse range of his work. Unfortunately, we discovered that they were refurbishing the place so half of the place was closed and only his typical stuff was on show, but still, it was pretty amazing. Also, as the city was inundated with tourists, and this was the first day the museum was open after Xmas, the place was a little overcrowded.

Feeling like a further injection of quirky art, we went to the Joan Miro museum - turned out to be a lot more fun than Picasso. Lots of weird and wonderful sculptures and paintings. They actually gave us free audioguides which was nice, though it did remind me why i never pay for these usually! They talk such bollocks! Also went to the Iglesia of Santa Maria de Mar, and the wonderful Palau de la Musica Catalunya - basically the multi-purpose music centre for Barcelona....it is an extremely beautiful and colourful building, but it kinda seems as though it is a little too flamboyant for anything classical and the decoration would perhaps be distracting if you wanted to take in the music.

After more than a week in Barcelona we jumped on a 12 hour train trip to Granada as we couldn´t get on an overnight service. Quite nice scenery along the coast.....especially between Barca and Tarragona. I think the highlight of the day was trying to communicate with this wacky old lady who needed help with her luggage. A gentleman sitting a few rows down from us informed us she was at "one o´clock" (i.e. a bit mad). We seem to be finding more and more people at that time as the trip progresses.....I think one of the folks we saw yesterday was at about half past 3!

12 hours on a train makes you pretty happy to arrive anywhere, but especially somewhere like Grananda!! First we visited the old Islamic quarter of town, before winding up looking like drowned rats as a result of the torrential rain! We got chased by gypsies around the cathedral who were trying to get us to buy lavender and other herbs from them. NYE was a bit of a write-off.......after last year´s NYE in Berlin, and hearing a few wild firecrackers go off around Granada.....we decided to bail on the celebrations and crashed early....Í don´t think the Spaniard´s are quite as batty as the Germans, but I don´t like fireworks being chucked in the air and exploding at random. So I'm a wuss!

After a pretty decent night's sleep for NYE, we wandered up through more of the quaint Alcaceira (Islamic Quarter) and saw several caves in the rocky hillsides where the local gypsies live. Also checked out the zillions of souvenir shops and chased the feral cats around the city.

The next day, the weather had thankfully turned delightful and we had a fantastic day. We got up at the crack of dawn to head to the Alhambra at the top of the hill. This was the old Moorish palace and the last fortress of Muslim power in Spain. The buildings are gorgeous and there are incredible gardens with fountains all over the place. Thank goodness we arrived early as it become flooded with Japanese tour groups very quickly.... We had to race around to take photos of everything sans tour groups, and then wander back through more slowly to properly absorb everything

After we had done that, we sauntered back down the hillside to find people lining the streets - literally everywhere! We thought there must have been some royal family member or dignitary about to come past.....but it turned out to be a parade. For the 2nd of Jan is the anniversary of when the city of Granada fell back into the power of the Christians in 1492......Granada was the last Muslim city in Spain and on the night of Jan 1/2 the conquistadors captured the fortress and reclaimed the city.....anyway big party all round. Caught an afternoon train to Seville.....

Following a good sleep in Seville, we visited the Alcazar and Cathedral. The cathedral is apparently the 3rd biggest in the world, after St Paul's in London and St Peter's at the Vatican City - quite impressive, I have to say. With bright sunshine streaming through it's windows it was truly ethereal. A nice change from the relative darkness of a lot of cathedrals in much of Europe. We also wandered through the tiny little streets and looked at shops. Also went to a bullring and museum of Torreadors. I still don't get the whole thing with bullfighting though! It's such a horrible sport! In the late afternoon we went to Plaza de Espana which is a semi-circular building with little curved seats all around it which have mosaics which commemorate the joining together of all the different parts of Spain to form a nation.....there is a huge fountain at the front and you can row boats around the water. It is really quite delightful

Jan 4 - went to Ronda for the day. This place is incredibly beautiful and we wished we had had more time there than in Seville or Granada.....We visited yet another bullring (Ronda is the home in bullfighting in Spain), wandered down the gorge to see the gorgeous (no pun intended) bridge and look at views over the valley, and visited the museum of Bandits! They trace the history of bandits in Andalucia, show you comic books featuring legendary bandeleros, show you costumes they used to wear and play schmaltzy music as you go through....it's quite a fun place. I didn't realize there were also female bandits that used to reek havoc about the place but apparently they were quite nasty.

Jan 5 - went on a day trip to Cordoba......mostly to see the Mezquita, apparently the greatest hybrid of a mosque and cathedral anywhere in the world. It's truly bizarre to walk through this mosque that has St Mary and Marthas and Antonys and whoever else in portraits all over the walls. Also visited the Palace of Mondrian, the Jewish quarter and ate some fantastic Churros con chocolate...I think they need to get this stuff happening back in Oz. Long doughnuts that you dip in thick hot chocolate - divine...sublime... In the evening back in Seville we went to the Three Kings street parade where all the children are thrown lollies from floats passing through the streets. The three Kings are dressed like Santa Claus, but one wears red, one wears green and the other blue! Any excuse to party in Spain, it seems! The streets were absolutely choked with people and the amount of lollies thrown from the floats was unbelievable..........we weren't even trying and scored 135! It is quite peculiar to Spain.......it seems as though there is a constant siesta......the 2 weeks I have been in Spain we have had about 6 holidays and about 4 parades! All people seem to do in Spain is shop, eat, drink and party.........which is fine if you are there all the time but somewhat frustrating if you want to see stuff.....

Jan 6.....everything was closed so unfortunately there wasn't so much to do. Also as we had had quite a spat with the manager of the hostal the night before - who quoted us an exceedingly inflated price for the room -something we only discovered when we happened to spot a price list that was hiding in the corner of the room... so we weren't really happy to leave our things there so just up and went! Caught a night train to Lisbon last night.......quite a long trip. Took about 13 hours on the rickety train but it also didn't cut down sightseeing time so a pretty sensible option.

Anyway, will write more from Portugal

Adios

Belinda

Sunny Sevilla

06.01.2001 20 °C

Hola...

Still having lots of fun. Been very busy the last week or so. Am currently in Seville and heading to Lisbon tomorrow night. Spent today in Cordoba, came back and watched the Three Kings parade in the street (for Epiphany or something) (we managed to get 135 lollies that the multicoloured Santa Claus impersonators and overweight tellitubby kids throw to the multitudes of Sevillians), and then went back to the hotel to tangle with Spanish bureaucracy - dodgy hotel man quoted us a price that differs to the price we found listed in a hidden spot in the hotel.........grrrrrrrrrr not impressed. Won't be patroning that hotel again...

In the last week we have visited the incredible Dali Museum in Figueras, the beautiful Monastery of Monserrat, the Picasso and Miro museums, spent a couple days in Granada, the day before yesterday in Seville, yesterday in Ronda (this is fantastic!), and today in Cordoba.

Will write in a few days or when I can get online.........

Belinda x