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‘This where the Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) bounced off Temple floor then slammed into the 1000 year old wall’ said the Cambodian tourist guide. Of course he was too young to have actually been there during the fighting, but at almost half my age the terrifying part was he was alive during the War. Then he says, ‘Look here, these holes, they come from AK47′ (Kalashnikov AK47 Automatic Assault Rifle). He looks at the floor and shakes his head, he looks up sadly and says, ‘Many people die here in very bad fighting’. I touch the holes in the wall and peer out through the ornate window trying to see where the rounds came in from and there, on the other side of the moat is a small clearing in the trees. I speak not of a War fought many years ago, I speak not of a War where most people who fought are old and dying or dead, no, I speak of a War that was fought between 1975 and ended incredibly only a few years ago when we were all still dancing to Kajagoogoo, wearing our Ray Ban’s and just discovering this new Fast Food place called MacDonalds.

I am going to keep this commentary as light as possible but personally I had no idea what happened just a few short years ago. If this sort of thing is not for you then skip down to where you see this ######### and the fun will continue, but please try and read a bit. For example, I did not know that between 1975 and 1980 The Kymer Rouge (Communists) murdered an estimated 2 Million Cambodian people through torture, execution, starvation, disease and forced labour. To put that into perspective, that is One Forth of the entire population of Cambodia.

As we travelled from Thailand into Cambodia we did not really know what to expect and we were certainly in for quite a surprise. The land is exactly what you would think of when someone says to you to close your eyes and think of CAMBODIA. The people are short and sort of funny looking but always seem to be smiling and doing, stuff. Everyone is working no matter if they are young or old. Very akin to South America there is a very strong work ethic and the towns bustle along all day and night in a dizzying hub of electricity and smoke from little road side street vendors selling their sweat and tasty goods from doughy dumpling things with a fine mince paste in the middle up to green things that come wrapped in leaves and tied in a little bow with some vine leaf. I do not know the names of what I am eating, I do not know if it went ‘Woof -Baaa- or Meow’ when it was alive but it tastes great. It tastes fresh and really fills us up. It becomes a funny cycle of poke it with a chopstick, tentatively poke your tongue into it and then smile or spit, there seems to be nothing in between. I truly can say that I have eaten some of the best food I have ever tasted in this wonderful country.

Armed with a Lonely Planet guide book and a waving arm we seem to manage to convey most instructions or questions to our new little friends. ‘AMERICAN’ they yell at us. ‘DO YOU MIND!!’ we shout back, ‘British I’ll have you know’. Then always the same exchange ensues, ‘Manchester United - Lovely Jubbly - London Capital City - Jade Goody’……..hang the fluff on a minute? Jade Goody? Jade Goody? What The Fluff? How I ask you? How? And crossing the road becomes a very real game of virtual Frogger as you move from lane to lane desperately trying not to get hammered by one of the 2,000,000 plus mopeds that act like small rocket ships with jet engines blasting around the cities, town, and fields at a million miles an hour.

With a couple of 6 hour stints spent bouncing along various degrees of roads/garden paths in a bus we arrive at Siem Reap. For those more astute amongst you, this is the home of the great Angkor Wat Temples. (The largest religious Temple in the World stretching some 25 km). For those less astute and slightly more, Playstation, this is where they filmed none other than Miss Two Guns Angelina Jolie running around shooting stuff in, ‘TOMB RAIDER’. Also for the more, romantic amongst you, where they filmed the beautiful Disney movie ‘The Two Brothers’. Angkor Wat is the Buddhist equivalent of Mecca. After walking around for 2 complete days and seeing/climbing on around and through many of the Temples we came to the incredible decision that Angkor Wat is as beautiful and awe inspiring as Machu Pichu itself. The Two comparisons as so completely diverse yet they seem to have a unique draw that is difficult to describe and really needs to be witnessed to understand. It just captures a sublime blend of 1000 year old intricacy of craftmanship. Unlike places we have visited whereby the builders were forced at whip-point to build stuff, these sites just seem to have a finer detail where people loved the Gods so much that they truly worshipped their work and you really get a feel for the love created in each and every room/chamber you walk into. Bugger Me I sound like Darius ‘How much love is there in this room! Danesh’ (aka Pop Idol self abuser).

I will let the images speak for themselves at this point. There are lots but then, it is ranked as The Eighth Wonder Of The World so will form part of a large album/book.

Moving South again on a honking and hooting 6 hour jaunt of sheer terror on a bus we narrowly missed in excess of 3000 mopeds, 4 cows, several 100 chickens and a dog that bounced off the windscreen we finally arrived in the berserk hub that is Phnom Penh. With stories of torture and death ringing in our ears and minds from the books the every street sellers pimps to you at every turn we see the million mopeds, dirt, dust, heat, stench, sweat, sewage, rats, posh restaurants, Tuk Tuk’s, funny looking chicken things all strung up by their back legs hanging off the handle bars of bicycles and before we know it we are, thrust from the silence and calmness of the country to the utter madness that is the city. Here’s a question, if you need to get two large pigs to market and they have to be a) alive and b) all you have is a moped how do you do it? Answer below. Live piggies remember. Also what makes us crack up laughing is when you see someone with a moped and a 3 seater sofa on the back, or a filing cabinet, or even an 8 foot tall pane of glass!

We tentatively booked a Tuc Tuc with a funny looking bloke called October, and headed off with our new found travel buddies Sara ‘Where-Are-They-Going’ Williams and Daniel ‘That’s-L-Not-C’ Lunt. We bounce through the dusty streets to a place named simply, The Killing Fields. Some of you may have seen the film of the same name about the American Journalist and Dith Pran who covered the Cambodian War. If you haven’t, go and rent it on DVD. When we walked through the gates a silent hush deafens the air. The birds seem not to sing here, the grass seems reluctant to grow and people walk in a humble way that cries dignity and rage all in one breath. Heart breaking signs of pity and devastation detail how in a small field some 17,000 men, women, children and babies were executed. In 1980 the 129 mass graves were exhumed and a glass sided monument filled with some 9000 skulls. This bit is harrowing so skip on if you want.

Sir Winston Churchill I believe once said ‘Lest We Forget’ and the Cambodian people silently follow these thoughts. ‘We must never forget and we must always make sure the world knows what happened here’, said a haunted looking man to me as I shook my head at the thought of what had happened at this place of execution. As we walked along a little path that wound its way around the big holes in the ground, marked simply by many signs saying ‘MASS GRAVE - 600 bodies’ we noticed that there were torn rags of cloths coming through the dry earth, and upon closer inspection we noticed that what we thought were white sticks sticking up out of the ground were actually bones, human bones. The entire area is littered with bones, skulls and things that we choose not to look at too closely. I am going to stop here as what we saw was just simply too horrifying for words and the most harrowing thing that I have ever seen. Bizarrely , situated right next to the Killing Fields there is a school and echoing across the grounds as we left were the haunting sounds of children’s laughter. A heart moving and difficult thing to comprehend but that as tick follows tock and night follows day, life does follow death as the wheel of life continues to turn.

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So, here we are ready for some of the funny travel stuff. We went to the World Famous FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) in Phnom Phen. Marvelous images adorn the walls by the famous War Correspondent Al Rockoff and thoughts of people like Brian Hanrahan, Kate Ady and John Simpson reporting ‘LIVE FROM CAMBODIA’ spring to mind. But then all these images fall away, the hazy fog of a dreamy memory clears and there, smack bang in front of us, is…….a hooker! Yup, a real live hooker. Drinking a beer is a ’seductive manner’ she keeps smiling at Sara. We all immediately chuckle and giggle like small children as the lady of the night opens and closes her mini-skirted legs. Then she spies an old dude sitting there quietly reading a newspaper and in she goes. The next thing we know she’s sitting there in what I can only describe as a scene straight out of James Bond meets The Pussy Stroking Villain. (if you get my meaning) In a calm and mature manner we all pointed, let out a large ‘phwoooooar’ and ran from the famous FCC in fits of giggles.

A slightly regrettable incident followed shortly afterwards when Sara who is absolutely terrified of rats came face to face, with one of the squeaking foot long rodents. She ended up standing on a bar stool screaming suffice to say. The current rat count is so high that we have now stopped counting. Trust us all when we say that we now poke the food we are eating with our chops sticks just a little bit longer, and Ratatouille is most definitely off the menu.

Ho Chi Mihn City followed next after a flurry of border crossing and telling several nasty little Vietnamese Immigration Guards checking for ‘Swine Flu’ to bugger off in no uncertain terms when they tried to shove an ear thermometer in our ears after doing the same to a bus load of people without cleaning it. In a scene not too reminiscent of the great Mohammed Ali we were bobbing and ducking and diving trying to avoid the man attempting to stab us in the ear with his toy. After a barrage of expletives from me he finally understood our resistance and dutifully wiped the ear piece on his trousers before coming at us again like an enthusiastic Javelin chucker. Finally, we ended up with the four of us with thermometers stuffed under our armpits. Swine Flu my arse, er actually, I hope they don’t start checking that temperature!

It was at Ho Chi Mihn City Zoo that we had an awesome and frankly humbling experience. We somehow managed to break into the Zoo without paying and headed off in search of wild stuff behind bars. Within minutes we found, and I still cannot believe this, we found a keeper sitting on a bench. Nothing incredible about that? Well only the fact that he had just taken a 6 year old male Orangutan out of its cage and there it was, sitting on the bench next to him. A few people walked up and touched it, or tried to shake its hand. All I did was get close and take a few images. Each time I shot, I looked away from the camera and smile directly into the Orang’s eyes. Then it happened. The Orang who we named Ofa - Ofa Orangutan (get it?) well it looked straight back at me with with almost human like eyes and moved off the bench towards me. It reached forward and took my hand. Then in true Sir David Attenborough style or even Tarzan meets Cheetah Ofa took my hand and patted the back of my hand against its forehead. This in the monkey/ape world means ‘FRIEND’. So I did the same, then we just sort of looked at each other, nose to nose. These images speak for themselves but what then followed just got more and more wonderful. Ofa then reached his huge hands around my neck and was gripping my face, as you can see.

Having watched so many National Geographic documentaries and Wild Life On One over the years, it just sort of came naturally. Despite thinking at the start of the Round The World Tour that I would jokingly hug an Orangutan in Borneo I had no idea that this was going to happen. After the face to face experience the Orang slid off the bench and essentially sat down in my lap. With an ever increasing crowd I did not even notice apart from what was happening between my legs. After some 20 minutes of being pulled, preened, poke, pushed and licked, I said to Daniel (Sara’s BF) to try and slide in to have a cuddle. At that point it went from a unique Life On Earth experience to something that I will laugh about when I’m 60.

Ofa liked Daniel a little bit more than he liked me, quiet a lot more actually. So much more infact that if it were on video it would possibly only be given a XXX rating. Ofa stood to his full height of some 3 feet 3 inches infront of Daniel and then rolled forward and…..buried its head on his lap and would not let go. With a loud cry of ‘Ewwwww’ from the assembled crowd poor Daniel was being sexually assaulted by a Ginger Ape. Now these things are astoundingly strong at the best of times but when they have a stiffy they are on a mission, well what can I say. With both the skills of the keeper and my force in trying to prize the Apes mouth off Daniel’s nether regions we finally succeeded but not until the keeper was sadly forced to jam his thumb quite hard into Ofa’s eye socket. We all walked away looking at each other wishing that our encounter had ended on a slightly higher note. Ofa gave me a look that sort of said, ‘Er sorry for trying to hump your mate’, the keeper just sort of shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘this is not normally a gay monkey’, I walked away stunned and jibber and jabbering about my once in a lifetime experience. Daniel, poor Daniel just sort of rocked quietly in the corner as we all downed cold Cokes saying, ‘I’m not gay, I’m not gay, why did that monkey try to do gay things to me.

In truth, how can I put down in words just how lucky I was. Like the flight in the War Bird Catalina in New Zealand, or catching the Humpback Whales breaching on film in Ecuador, or like having only 10 people on the whole mountainside of Machu Pichu (or Mount Picachoo as Ali ‘No Alice Actually’ Day says) or even sharing a sunset with a wild Dolphin and Karen, how can I say how lucky I was. When an Orangutan which, incidentally means Old Man Of The Forest takes your face in its hands and pulls you so close to its eyes that you can smell its breath and hear it breathing, you know you are experiencing a truly wonderful and magical event. I am sure I will regale many of you with this story over a dinner table and a bottle of wine but when people ask me why I have such a huge desire to travel, let these images speak for themselves.

Next a 12 hour train journey took us up to Nha Trang where we took a PADI 5* Scubu Diving course at one of the only National Geographic Master Dive training schools in the world. A 4 day course was condensed into 3 and after some general head scratching and pencil on teeth tapping I surfaced through the 27c waters off Sea Horse Reef as a qualified PADI Open Water Diver. This is something that I have always wanted to do and now I have achieved it. So next stop is PADI Emergency First Responder.

Stupidly we opted for a night bus from Nha Trang up to Hoi An, a simple decision that is no understatement to say could have very easily been a fatal one. With as much honking and revving and screeching as the front row of the Chav Street Car Vauxhall Corsa Challenge we blasted off into the night on a sleeper bus. Picture if you will a bus with three rows of almost fully reclining seats  on two levels. Then drive at 100kmh on the wrong side of the road for 12 hours with the horn going constantly, going head to head with lorries and a driver that at midnight was falling asleep at the wheel. Passing on massive coach crash that blocked the road, enough was enough, so I got up and sat in the front of the coach with the driver. I don’t speak Vietnamese and he didn’t speak English but certain translations cross many seas. So I punched him in the shoulder and suggested that he ‘wake the fluff up’, and I kept hitting him and poking him until he pulled over 20 minutes later and swapped drivers. Travelling is all about experience but we choose this option over the train because we saved $8 each. At what cost safety? At what cost a life? Suffice is to say, we will never ever do that again.

We stopped at Hoi An (the place where Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear Team stopped off and had their suits made). The pace of life here is where they take the urgency out of Manana Manana. Well I got straight into the diving and did my PADI Advanced Open Water Divers Exams, and after Search & Recovery, a dive to 100 feet down, deep navigation and numerous tests and exams, I passed and am now a fully qualified PADI Advanced Open Water SCUBA Diver. Whoop whoop.

So if you have never dived before, let me explain what it feels like. You know those dreams you sometimes have about flying and out of body experiences when you glide effortlessly above the ground, leaping from building to building with the ground whizzing passed you many feet below, and then you stop and hover over something, slowly you float down as light as a feather and touch down with the grace of a ballerina. (or crash head long into a rock if your buoyancy is wrong). You float in a way that makes you hover like an Astronaut  and with the use of an inflatable jacket called a BCD you add or remove air whilst underwater. With noises like a space ship coming into land on the moon you touch down with a gentle puff of sand before lifting off again like you are a whispy spirit or a silent ghost (jemus who writes this stuff) well that is what SCUBA diving is like.

Daniel and myself dived a few days ago all the way down to 30 metres as part of our Advanced course. 30 metres is equivalent to 100 feet below the surface of the ocean. As they all say, ‘No one can hear you scream at 30 metres’. At that depth Nitrogen bubbles form in your blood stream and even the simplest of tasks like writing your name backwards becomes difficult to almost impossible, and actually quite funny. In almost zero visibility I managed to touch the back of my leg with my dive tank and damn nearly had a hot chocolate pudding moment in my wetsuit! On every single dive I have seen so many fish but these little fellows called Lion Fish are possibly my favourites. As for freaks of nature like Flying Gernard Fish which is a cross between a fish and a seagull!

By the way, a small interesting fact, Vietnam isn’t Vietnam. It is actually two words! It is Viet Nam. It means Cham (as in the Cham people) and Nam meaning South East Asia. A small but interesting fact. The other interesting thing here is the war crimes museums. They still hold America guilty as war criminals. They really dislike Americans (something that I am starting to realise is echoed all around the world). Americans are possibly the most despised race on the planet. Having said that, the museum was ruined for me by the absolutely ridiculous way they portrayed the Viet Nam War. It was just absolute propaganda and stitched history together like Frankenstein’s Monster. It made me quite, cross to see such twists of facts and lies to tell a story. But then having said that, when you see what the good old US of A did with Agent Orange you sort of see both sides of the story. I’m sure if you think of Viet Nam and stare out of the window and try to imagine what it is like you will possibly not be able to do it without hearing the words distantly in your mind like, ‘Jonny on the wire’, or ‘the gooks are out there’ or even, ‘Nam, Man you weren’t there, you don’t know what it was like man’ (whilst tugging at your hair), but of course, who could think of Viet Nam without hearing Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer yelling, ‘Goooooooooooood Morninggggg Vieeeeeettttt NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM from the DZ to the DNZ on the Ho Chi Minh trail and Hanoi Hanna’.

So we only have about 55 days left of our Around The World Tour 2008-2009. We have passed the 300 days on the road marker and to be honest are absolutely terrified about coming back. Blondie wants to see all her friends again and so do I, but I just do not know how I am going to settle. Again in the words of Tom Paxton ‘I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound’. Wedding plans are still in the offing so more updates on that next time. As for us, well we are still heading North up through Eastern Viet Nam and will then cross into Laos, possibly back into Cambodia, then into Thailand, then Malaysia and finally fly out of Bangkok on 15th August, so if you want a Prada/Gucci/Boss Handbag or a Boss belt or tie then get your order in, and if you like Ray Bans then here is the place.

Best regards to you all and hope all is well with you all.

Cheerio from a 36c Denang, Viet Nam

Chris and Blondie xxx

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Please click here to be taken to the latest batch of images. This is now PART TWO

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Well that’s it for the continent that is Australia. Three months, 16,106 kms, 38 different placed to sleep and we are so out of there. It is difficult to describe the experience really but you know that noise a mechanic makes when you ask him what is wrong with your car? I jest not. If you were to ask me about Australia firstly I would look at you blankly and then sort of screw my cheeks up like someone had just made a bad smell, followed by making a sort of sucky noise. Did we enjoy it it? Yes. Was it worth the visit? Sort of. Would we go again? Probably not. Don’t get me wrong there are lots of incredible things to see and do, but, it just, well it’s just a bit over rated really. A bit tacky, a bit up itself and well, just not that great. To be honest it was like Britney Spear’s beaver, we all wanted to see it, we even paid to see it, and well, when we saw it, we just sort of wished that we hadn’t.  Sorry if that upsets Oz lovers and Britney Beaver fans.

I will say though that not all Aussies have that intensely annoying flick at the end of every sentence like everything is a question. Not everyone says ‘G’daymatehowyougoinggoodbonzahaveanothertinny’ in one breath. Their customer service isn’t great and  everything just seems to be too much effort or too much of a laugh to be bothered with. The weather for almost the whole 3 months was pretty poor, most days lucky to get above 20c and almost the entire East coast is just, well its just a bit, disappointing really. Key names like Bondi Beach, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay etc are just, well, just totally over rated and either dirty or just, tacky. I know I really sound as though I’m coming down hard on Australia here but travel is all about experience and diversity and, well, to be honest, it just isn’t that impressive. 

The West coast however was a different matter. But even so, France has more to offer and beats Australia hands down. Even key names like Margaret River were just a small town with nothing really to say for itself and bizarrely a tiny stream that classes as The River. Anyhoo.

Our car, bless her, our ford Falcon Station wagon mustered an incredible performance which saw us wonderfully through over 16,000kms before going phuttt on the home straight with just 200km to go and slowing to a speed only matched by Elton John driving through a School Pick Up Zone. A really simple problem that went rather annoyingly and badly wrong when a completely incompetent mechanic was let loose with a spanner, a crowbar and lots of surly ill will. Cut a long story short, he was an idiot, I told him so, and with all the planning and forethought of a ship wreck victim I told him he was an idiot, he yelled at me, I yelled at him, I called him a very rude word, he then told me to take my car off the ramp, and rolled it into the road in the middle of Hicksville Town, Interbred City…..and truth be known, there she still sits. All $2600 just sitting at the side of the road with a cost of just $30 to get her running. Was it worth calling the little nasty round like a weeble man a very rude $2600 word…Yes and I only wish that I had punched him in his burger filled bottom as well. (I am no longer permitted to use the word fat on this website for fear of being duffed up by a lady Belgium kick boxer who can be quite scary)

So let us talk no more about Australia apart from the Whale Watching Sydney people who took us out on a 50 knot + Rigid Inflatable with 3 x 300 HP outboards to see some Whales. Again a long story short but there were tears, nasty bruises, no Whales, a situation whereby we almost called the Coastguard and to be honest, 100% honest, I truly thought we were going to die. It was the most scary experience of not just the whole trip so far but possibly the most scary in my entire short life! When I was thrown clear of my seat and landed on the seat next to me at 28 knots and being airborn I thought that was it. So if this posting seems a bit down on the normal fun and hijix, it is. But then Australia is now behind us.

(I nearly had a heart attack when I saw this….!)

Karen’s aunty Sandy joined us for a two week blast up and down the East coast just before we left to take in all the sights which was a really nice thing to do. When people read these travel commentaries we always hear how people would love to experience it, and she certainly did. We saw the most amount of rain that Oz has seen in 17 years, 25,000 were forced from their homes in 4 days thanks to the floods, more Shark attacks have been reported this year than in the last 17 years put together which just puts you off going anywhere near the water.

The best part was when we went to Fraser Island. We decided that rather than taking a self drive 4×4 tour (4 people have died doing it so far this year), or rather than packing in with 18 smelly students into one jeep that we would opt to Flashpack, and so we did. We took the Executive Hummer Tour. There were just the 3 of us and our personal driver. Tea, picnics, Champagne and Strawberries on our own little lake. But the best bit was this. The main route along the beach was closed due to the Utes (4×4) coming from a huge fishing competition so we could not get to the Wreck. So our driver got on the phone and within 20 minutes this landed right on the beach smack bang in front of our Hummer and up we went for free. Special thanks to www.hummerexperience.com and www.airfraserisland.com for the great day.

Finally I got to meet up with a long lost friend (ex Orange) none other than the wonderful and ever stunning Stephanie Raggett, who is now married to Steve and has two beautiful daughters called Mikayla and Caitain and a beserkly wonderful Spaniel called Mikey. These huge Fruit Bats live at the bottom of her garden so of course I had to go and see them.

Well there is loads more to tell about Australia but in truth, I just would rather move onto new stuff and get back to the REAL photography and the REAL travel, so here goes. Fifteen Swine Flu cameras and two body searches later we arrived in the transit hub that is Singapore, home to some 4.5 million people on an island a little under 20km by 25km (think Isle of Wight). The first thing that grabs you is the shear and utter heat when you step off the aircraft. 32c may not sound like much but when you factor in a humidity up in the high 60’s and 70% then you begin to understand. For those of you who have not experienced this sort of heat before there is a very simple thing that you can do to replicate it back in the UK. Walk into a swimming pool wearing a suit and winter coat, stay there for 5 minutes. Or alternatively, bend over your oven wearing glasses and open the door quickly. Talk about sweating, jessh, I mean you sweat here more than Gary Glitter sweats at a 5th Grade School Sports Day.

Singapore itself is incredible. It is an example that Project Management does actually work. It is clean, there is no graffiti, there is little or no crime, the lawns are cut, the lights work, you feel safe. It is just a massive machine geared up for the sole purposes of shopping. 24-7 you can shop. I don’t just mean for the odd bits and bobs, no I mean full on Oxford Street Christmas shopping 24-7-365. Buy a car at 3am not a problem. There are shops after shops selling potions and lotions, we even frequented an Adult Store by accident (I thought it was a camera shop), well I can tell you the stuff we saw in there! Apparently their highest seller of the week was none other than Anal Ease Cream. Their other top seller was a huge and really heavy tube of Viagra. I picked it up and spilled a bit on my back, I’ve had a stiff neck for 3 days now - I thank you.

The one thing that takes some getting used to is the change from air con to the temperature back on the street. It sort of kicks you in a way only comparable with interfering with the working parts of a particularly well endowed Donkey. It really throws you. The smells that surround you as you travel from the Indian quarter to the Chinese quarter and through to the MacDonalds quarter are quite astounding. The smells and tasted don’t just touch you, they fully assault you in a way I have only experienced before in Sri Lanka. Peppers, spices, dried anchovies, beer, curry, pizza, fresh fruit, poo, it’s all there. The people smile, the children hide behind their parents legs to get a better look at the strange looking white people and it is just generally what travel is all about. We took a cruise down the river, a trip up in the biggest London Eye style wheel thing in the world and even an open top bus ride around the City. Then the next day we high tailed in over the boarder and up in Malaysia to really kick off our travel again.

Melaka was our first stop and it did not disappoint one bit.  These images are of a water fountain and as per my moto ‘No Photoshop, they are shot free hand with no edits other than a crop. We stayed in the old China Town and immediately got straight into some food. This was served on a metal griddle plate, sizzling like an ex wife’s spit. They cook these dishes in under 30 seconds and you sit there poking it with a chop stick not sure about what it is or what it is going to do to your insides, but then, you are travelling to experience, experience, experience. In I went……out I came 3 seconds later with a face the same colour as a sunburned tomato and breath that could burn the mono-brow off a 15 year old Goth at 100 paces. Then the food sweats hit and the runny nose starts. Trust me, a runny nose is about acceptable, but nothing else is permitted to be runny!

The part that you will not know about unless you have done this sort of travel before is the complete depth of patience that you must develop as a traveller. Now I am not the most patient person on the face of this planet but I am learning, slowly. What I mean by this is, you rely quite heavily on a book called The Lonely Planet Guide To ……etc. Well it doesn’t always work. For example, if you were say in London and you wanted to get to the South of France, you would go to the tourist info office and be told how to get there. 1) Fly 2) Train 3) Drive 4) Bus 5) Walk. Well the same goes here but you get 50 different versions from 10 people (even the tourist info haven’t got a clue half the time). So you sit in a queue for an hour at the train station clutching a ticket and watching the numbers slowly ticking by until it is your turn, desperately trying not to think about needing some downtime after the anal Armageddon that is stirring in your lower tummy (is tummy an acceptable word for a hetro-sexual 39 year old male to say?). Finally, you get served by the bloke who gave you the ticket 60 minutes ago, and in until 9 seconds tells you that ‘All The Trains Are Full Sir for a Week Good Day’. So you try the bus station.

This I hope will cause a further wry smile on travellers faces as it recalls a memory. Bus transit stations. These places are just incredible. The heat, the smell, the acrid diesel fumes, the revving, the beeping, the shouting, the fear, the old men with cracked faces and no teeth who smile and wave at you, the people pulling at your clothes and yelling destinations that you have never heard of let alone can pronounce, the beggars with no heads, the man holding a large dead fish under his arm wrapped in an old newspaper, the uncertainty of if you make a wrong call you will end up getting on the wrong bus, the worry that you could be mugged or dipped at any point, then, out of the blue, someone thrusts a map into your hand and points at the correct bus counter (1-100 in most main hubs) and incredibly, the man knows where you are going. Finally you board the bus and sit there sweating like a Chicken in Ethiopia that has just finished the 100metre lunchtime dash.

As I write this we have managed to secure a train ride from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia all the way up to Bangkok in Thailand. When I asked the toothless wonder that was the customer service helpful agent (I know this because his name badge told me so), when I asked him how long the journey was he looked at the broken clock on the wall and said Friday 11am! The day was Tuesday and the time was 11am. So, Malaysia is streaming passed our carriage windows and we are surrounded by beltingly wonderful smells of food and people who are talking a dialect that I can neither speak nor understand. But if they see you looking at them whilst they eat, you are then on the receiving end of a handful of something wrapped in a banana leave that looks remarkably like something a cat would leave for you on the kitchen floor if you left it locked up for too long. You tentatively touch it with your tongue which immediately recoils at a speed only matched by someone whispering into your ear ‘ITS A LADYBOY’. Thankfully I am a happily almost married man so this fate will not befall me. Unlike our friend Jo…..how was the Chick-with-a-dick ha ha ha Big hands, Adams apple, huge bulge in G-string should’ve known really.

  Imagine waking up and the dude saying, ‘You came here and we took wong eye out’ ha ha

So there we go. We are fully back on the road back packing again and will be updating a bit more often with less words and much better quality images. I’ve been struggling to produce good work in Oz but here, my God here the images are back to leaping into the camera and I am so excited about what we will be doing. Thanks again to everyone who always supplies us with great comments and feedback on what we are doing. Oh by the way, the wedding plans are coming along so we will be in touch with most of you personally before too much longer to let you know our plans and dates. Clearly, as I have no family left it will be really important to me to have my special friends and Karen’s are there so keep a close eye on the emails/voicemails. We are looking at having a much smaller venue with fewer people but in an incredible location so there are a few logistics to sort out that we will explain soon. Possibly involving a helicopter, a ferry, a short flight and a rather rusty bicycle, oh and a Lama!

Best regards to you all and enjoy the images, normal service will be resumed next time.

Chris and Blondie xx

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PART ONE

For those of you who think this camping malarkey is akin to a Swiss Carry On Camping movie with lots of young, nubile blondes running around the place in tiny bikinis that resemble a piece of cheese wire with huge heaving buxom inflated chests, and a general persona of a film that should have a working title of Farmyard Back-Door Adventures I have news for you. It is not like that one bit. The closest that you get to anything Swiss is driving past IKEA on the freeway. But, a few days ago there were a few Swiss chicks on the campground and as you can imagine old Romeo here caught their eye. One small problem, in less than 4 seconds it was all over, I didn’t see them walking towards me one morning as I was brushing my teeth outside the tent. Foaming at the mouth like a drunken rabid dog, I shoved the toothbrush too far down my throat and sort of half balked a sound remarkably like Gollum himself choking on a large Halibut and then half coughed foaming toothpaste through both nostrils whilst releasing a truly quite impressive and hugely thunderous burp right into the path of the two hot Swiss chicks who squealed and ran off in the opposite direction. Nice one.

Some of the funny things you get here are the road side gas stations that sell stuff. Yes, you can just walk in and buy what ever magazine you want, and I do mean whatever you want.  For sure you get your FHM, Maxim, GQ, Esquire and a various assortment of chicks mags but then they have the Zoo and Nuts stuff too, which is cool. But then they have mags like Picture and let me tell you, you get quite a a shock when you open them up. The only thing missing is a pop up 3D working model of the female bits. Essentially, they just don’t wear clothes, nothing, nada, you see, well you, er, how do I put this, you see it, well you sort of glimpse it, but not much. So, I was furious, cheated, robbed and I was in serious do-do with The General for purchasing a Grot Mag or Art Pamphlet as I defended, or at least attempted to. Despite my insistence that it was a simple error, I was treated like a pariah and banished from the tent. To make matters worse, quite simply much worse, I was tried and treated like a criminal and I had not even purchased a hard mag! However, I did briefly notice as I merely glanced upon on the front covers some quite interesting articles on the subject of Hot New Facials and a potentially very enlightening nature article on Great Snarling Badgers.

So we have now driven over 13,000 kms in a little over 9 weeks and have managed to get from one side of Australia to the other. This map will give you an idea of the route that we have taken and just how big the place is.  Once again, this is going to be a long story, sorry. I am still having problems with my Canon gear and photo edit suite so excuse the lower quality 

Spiders in Oz, let me tell you about Spiders. Well they are here alright. Any house, park, garden, where ever you look in Oz is full of the 8 legged little killers. Seriously, Funnel Webs, Red Backs and Huntsmen abound where ever you look. Take a stick and go into the back garden and there, hidden inside a white web (that looks like a small funnel) is a little black spider with a red strip down its back. Poke it with a stick and out it comes, poke it again and it leaps at you, poke it three times and it takes the stick off you, whacks you over the head and then chases you down the path with it. Oh and the other small piece of advice is never, I repeat never, use a bush loo (long drop) on a high wind day. Without drawing you a complex diagram let us just say you feel like Horatio Hole-Blower.

Skipping back a few weeks we crossed what is called The Nulabor Plain. This is essentially a vast expanse of land, and when I say land, that is all there is, just land and runs between Adelaide on the bottom South South East side of Oz and Perth on the West Coast some 2500kms in a wobbly line away. 99% of visitors to Oz don’t bother with this crossing as it is just too far to drive. Perth to Adelaide is like driving from Buckingham Palace in London to MOSCOW!!! Several people tried to talk us out if it, but we wanted to do it, so we did. Three whole days of 900km, 800km and 800km and we stood at the desk of the Tourist Info Finish Line and were handed a bumper sticker and a certificate each (certifiably bonkers said one Ozzy bloke who wondered past our car seeing the sticker). Well we did it and the stuff we saw was quite incredible. From nothing in any direction, to huge Eagles sitting on the road, to massive Kangaroos sitting outside our tent and the straightest road in the southern hemisphere all 149 kms of it, like a runway.

One thing that left me a bit stunned about Australia is that as a Brit you tend to carry yourself just a bit over the rest. You hold your head a bit higher and say United Kingdom with a certain sense of pride when you are asked where you come from. You place your passport on the counter rather than slapping it down. But, not here. Not in Australia. Personally, I really don’t think we have the right to. This came as a real surprise to me so I am going to write as I find and it is just my opinion. What I discovered, unearthed, or realised is just what Great Britain did to Australia that in my opinion makes us not quite so great. Here goes and do read this bit because it will surprise you.

First skip back a few years to 1601. Some Dutch stoners had just discovered Western Oz by crashing into it after a few years of sailing around in circles off the coast of Indonesia in a haze of narcotic smoke and eating strange little cakes that helped them see Goblins. They arrived and promptly set up on the beach with a nice chilled BBQ and a couple of tinnies and, well, that’s about it. Great Britain on the other hand acted entirely differently 5500kms away on the East Coast. So badly did they act infact, I actually feel ashamed to be British for the first time in my life. Football hooliganism makes you look away in disgust, losing at any British sport in the semi-finals is a national institution. But what we did here makes you feel true shame.

Okay so this is a bit long but well worth the read, so it is the 17th April 1770 and Zachary Hicks up in the rigging on board ‘The Endeavour’ yells “LAND HOOO” down to Captain James Cook just down the coast from Sydney Harbour. Into a small rowing boat they drop and put to shore where they are met by two dark skinned, curly haired blokes carrying spears and wearing little but an animal skin across their choppers. Cook’s people pull a musket on the guys in seconds and fire warning shots above their head. They run off but return later. The same thing happens again over the next few days until the strange looking men return with friends. The British explorers then incredibly unfurls a Union Jack and sticks it in the sand yelling, ‘I claim this land in the name of King George III (before the Dutch stoners or the Froggies get their hands on it)’. The name of this place they claimed, Botany Bay because of the wonderful wildlife and plant life. They then set up home quicker than an asylum seeker in England and send for their families.

Skip forward a few years to 1788 and 11 ships arrive from England (10,505 miles away) carrying 751 criminals and 250 soldiers. They don’t like Botany Bay so cruise up to a place called Eora and rename it Sydney Harbour. An Aboriginal man called Bennelong meets them and befriends the funny looking sailors. He lives on a little bit of land called Bennelong Point (the site of the Sydney Opera House). The Brits give the Aboriginals the following trade for their lands, alcoholism, smallpox, and despair. The Aboriginals, not being used to alcohol, western culture and violence soon are in disarray and before long are a broken people. Their spears are no match for muskets so they fight but are out numbered. This bit upsets me. The order was then issued by The British Government to search for land and off they went, killing and raping as they went. Any dissent showed by Aboriginals was to be met with deadly force.

Britain, Great Britain then instructed the criminals to clear the land for them and essentially for every 10 bits of land they cleared, they could keep one. The Aboriginal’s named these strange people Squatters because they squatted on the land! And so it went on, field after field, mile after mile, state after state, slowly the Aboriginal Territories were destroyed and land stolen from the people, the Aboriginals were turned into workers on their own land in return for a pittance and the right to remain on there.  One entire area was traded for a box of blankets. Skip forward a few years, add the Gold Rush, skip forward a bit more to 1914 and War. Britain calls Australian men and women to arms and Australia goes to war and fight hard they do, they fight like dogs for their country.

Finally, in 1941 despite what ‘Great Britain’ had done to Australia over the last 200 years and the harm to its people, both Aboriginal and war fighter, when it comes down to it and Japan is about to attack the North of Australia, Britain, Great Britain, stated it ‘cannot spare any troops’ and Oz is on its own. Incredibly it was none other than the Good Old US of A that stepped in and saved the day. It really is quite an eye opener to what Britain used to do, and still does, but then what do I know!

PART TWO

Salami. The Salami that you get at some of the roadside food stalls is quite incredible. Stopping at one a few days ago the guy warned us that his Old Mamas recipe could be quite volatile. What he neglected to mention was the small fact that his old mum used thermo-nuclear atom splitting in her culinary processes. Three bites into the fiery death stick and my left eyebrow spontaneously combusted as I exhaled in  manner that could only be reproduced if I were to rent some Oxyacetylene welding equipment and blow torch my eyebrow off. The stench as Karen called it did not leave my body for 3 whole days.

One funny thing we did see was, and you will have to cast your mind back to 1979 for this one and none other than SKYLAB? The NASA Skylab was in trouble as was circling the earth for a few weeks hysterically out of control and about to crash with potentially devastating consequences where ever it landed. Each time it whizzed over London everyone held their breath until it shot over head at 18,000 mph, and then continued the ‘SKYLAB Disco Party’ (now called a BBQ), then it headed off to New York, where everyone held their breath before saying, ‘thank fluff for that’, and so on it went whizzing around the planet like an Apocalyptic Wheel Of Fortune until it finally crashed to earth, ready for this, yes you’ve guessed it, at a place called Baladonia on none other than, The Nulabor Crossing, killing no-one. Australia incredibly then fined the USA $400 for littering.

The travel, the journey, our incredible adventure is still going strong after some three years off and on of being on the road but this brings me neatly to a subject that I keep meaning to touch on and now seems like a perfect time to do so. I am not a clever man. I am a just a guy, just a bloke, a bit special in some ways and a bit special needs in others. I am not lucky. I am not unlucky. I am just a guy who found himself in a difficult situation and had to make a choice. and it now seems that a lot of people are heading towards a similar situation. I speak of course of the ‘Big R’ aka ‘the shove’ aka ‘R.E.D.U.N.D.A.N.C.Y’ (my suggestion is that if you sing it like Dolly Parton sung DIVORCE) it doesn’t seem quite so bad. What I want to say/share is this.

When I got made redundant 3 and a half years ago I sat there at the bottom of many a bottle of Jack Daniels wondering just where the hell my life was going and what I was going to do, and all seemed lost, truly and utterly lost. But it was a gift. It was a fresh start. Yeah for sure I miss my old colleagues but I enjoyed the tax free money more than I missed the work. Many people we speak to at the moment are staring down the double barrel of the noisy end of the BIG R gun at the moment and it must be terribly upsetting. In my experience it is not the end of the world, it is a beginning, but it is what you do with that beginning that makes you/remakes you.

Like I said, I am not clever, in actual fact I am quite stupid when I am in some circles. Here is an example, a few days ago we were with a super intelligent person who had spent days writing some stuff for a published article on the Global Recession. The title of the works was something like ‘The Global Credit Crisis Leading Sub Social Economic Ramifications Across Structured Business Groups Within The Wider Political Arena’, after much thought, head scratching and staring out of the window at a seagull I suggested a better title and promptly almost wet myself laughing. My suggestion? ‘The Credit Crunch - More Than  Just A Breakfast Cereal’…….The person in question just looked at me. I rest my case.

So, what I am trying to say is this. I did not get here by luck, nor having anyone do it for me, I did it by taking The Big R on the chin, crying like a child for days, being drunk for about a month, then realising that I was at a corner, a big corner with a big opportunity and I dived in with my eyes shut, my breath held and managed to float, Christ knows how but I did. Above all, if you can, remember these words. No-one, as in no person has ever said these words on their death bed, ‘Damn I wish I had spent more time at work!’…..unless of course you are Jennifer Aniston’s Bra fitter!

So, a bit about what we have done in Australia. So after landing in Sydney and flying to Perth, collecting our trusty station wagon, driving up the West coast to Ningaloo Reef, then all the way back down the West to to the bottom, taking a left turn and basically driving from one corner of Australia to the other, stopping or staying at 34 different places we eventually landed in Melbourne. Yes, home of Neighbours. No, we didn’t. We stayed with the ever lovely Anna and Brent (plus pooch Dennis the Sha Pay). We also met up and kited with a very old friend from France back in the good old days of Blondeair, none other that Matt ‘Super Donkey’ Von Der Muln. The weather was shocking so we got into the car one morning and drove with one focus in mind - finding the sun once again. The first signpost sadly displayed the figures 895km to Sydney at a max of 100kmh. Fuel, wee, coffee, wee, fuel, coffee, wee, wee and so on for the next 1058km until we were North of Sydney. Out of the car, pitch the tent, pump the mattress, sleep, back in the car and drive again until the figures on the dashboard said ‘You have driven just over 2000kms (1200 miles) in 3 days. Was it worth it? Was Byron Bay worth the drive? Was Surfer’s Paradise worth the hours it the car? Was it worth it to sit by the pool in the sun again? Answers = Yes to the last and 100% No to the first and second.

I don’t mean to be a snob but it just sucks. It is like Spain will be in 2020. It’s super posh, it’s hot, it’s by the beach, you can cuddle a seal, ride a dolphin, horseback ride a Doodong (seacow), stroke a drugged tiger, play hopskotch with a humpback whale, you can bungy jump from a hot air balloon, fly upside down in a helicopter, you can get a BJ in a limo at 3 o’clock in the afternoon whilst going through MacDoogals drive through, you can do almost anything that you want apart from sit by yourself on the beach and wonder at nature. Well saying that, you do actually wonder at nature here quite a lot, you wonder where the fluff it went. A real shame but then I guess it is all about diversity and for some, it floats their boat.

By the way we have finally managed to find a word for what we do, as in all this penmanship and photography. It isn’t really travel writing nor is it a blog so we have come up with ‘TRAVEL COMENATARY’.

Oh here is a quick suggestion. Bigger is not necessarily better. Namely, in Oz they have a real penchants as they do in the United States for making everything available in bigger sizes. ‘YOU WANNA DRINK?’ they yell at you, ‘Er yes please’ you reply meekly. And do you ever get one. I asked for OJ. Good old Orange juice and what I got was not 500mls, nope, not even a litre, nor 2. I got 3 litres of freshly squeezed OJ with bits, that contained ‘A GARENTEED 30 ORANGES’ yelled the big bird from behind the counter. Well it was a hot day and I was thirsty so I began to drink, and drink, and drink. About 1700mls into my experiment my tummy rumbled and gurgled. Unbeknownst (that is such a good word) unbeknownst to be high dosage vitamin C can have quite a catastrophic effect on the human body. NEVER again shall I drink OJ in such quantities. 

The Great Ocean Road. It is so impressive that it needs the royalty of having just it’s own name in a sentence. It is more a statement than a name. It runs from Adelaide to Melbourne, or Melbourne to Adelaide dependant on which side of the car you want the view on. Feeling like a white van man you drive about 700 meters and then leap out of your car to view another breath taking vista before jumping back in to repeat it over and over again. The days that we drove it, there was one heck of a storm blowing so we were lucky enough to catch King Wave aka Rogue Waves aka huge white lumpy things that were 2 or 3 times the size of most sets. Sadly, due to the fact that my trusty Canon 40D is absolutely and completely shagged, more shagged in fact than Brad Pitt at an Anne Summer’s ‘Try Before You Buy’ Lambrini Party for 30 something divorcees. So, I’m back to missing shots and a jamming camera. BUY NIKON (and it hurts me to say that), unless you live in New Zealand, then BUY CANON.

You can see from the images that these waves are just stunning to watch and yet still a few people each week are washed to their deaths by ‘paddling in the rock pools’. Mother Earth is quite a thing to marvel at, and marvel we did at this superbly diverse coastline. Like watching a scene from a Benny Hill TV show the Japanese tourists bus in, screech to a halt, run off, run around, buy icecreams, bow lots, bow some more, smile, with 200 camera flashes per second going off just as if Britney Spears and Paris Hilton had both just arrived to do a ‘No Holes Barred’ out of Limo ‘Beavers-At-The-Ready’ photo-shoot. Then, just as fast as they arrive, vroom and they are gone again 700 meters down the road to the next stop.

Wild Koalas and friendly Kangaroos is something that I just didn’t expect to find here. You kind of just expect them to all live in Zoos or in sanctuary’s, but no, oh no. 4am and that noise outside your tent is, yes a hungry and nosey Kangaroo. Drive down a country lane and there is a sign saying ‘Koalas’, hop out of your car and look up, and there, sitting in the tree are a whole, er, flock or Koala Bears just looking at you. Some are asleep, some are eating and some just sit there looking at you as you shout ‘Hello Mr Koala Bear’ up into the branches. Apparently Koala Bears are one of the least intelligent animals on the planet with up to 20% of its brain activity dedicated to eating/digesting poisonous eucalyptus leaves. Which leaves very little in reserve so they sleep which takes up another 10% to not fall out of the tree. To put that into perspective, Albert Einstein was reported to have used 20% of his brain capacity.Jo Public uses (on average) only 12% of their brains true potential. Koala’s use 30% on just surviving, so have nothing left for anything else…….I know what that feels like!!! So, in theory, Koala’s are 30 times more stupid than me/us. But, could you fall asleep in a tree on a windy day and not fall out of it?!! Huh, Koala’s ROCK!!  

So we headed from Melbourne all the way up to Brisbane, as in 3 days of solid driving and 2100kms later we arrived at the legendary Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. Admittedly it is a tad Las Vegas and manages to scream both Puerto Banus and Skegness all in the same breath. An interesting fact is that allegedly the bikini was invented here so chicks walk up and down the shopping malls wearing things like this, ‘No I wasn’t looking darling I was just, er, um, er, well’…..and so on.

Head to the beach and lots of serious looking surfers are riding the waves. However, this was an actual announcement that was tannoyed out across the entire beach to several hundred people, ‘SQWEEK - WILL THE MAN ON THE IN FLATABLE GREEN CROCODILE PLEASE GET OUT OF THE SURF AREA AND RETURN TO THE BEACH’………with a half inflated bright green crocodile tucked under my arm I endured the walk of shame back along the beach whilst being laughed at by loads of people…..keeping it real, keeping it hard core. A bonus point for noticing the sign in the back round!

Okay well that is it for this time folks. Remember to buy Nikon and not Canon if you want good customer service.(apart from New Zealand Canon who are fabulous but the rest are utter baboons in my opinion). Finally here is a thought to leave you with. We were at Sydney International airport a few days ago at the arrivals gate waiting for Karen’s Aunty Sandra to come and join us for 2 weeks on the road. As we stood there waiting and watching hundreds of people walk around the corner and seeing such wonderful reunions and emotions of people meeting and greeting each other from all over the world, I started thinking. If I had the power, the ability, the skill, to be able to make anyone of my choice walk around the corner who would it be? Obviously I would want my Mum back just for 2 minutes so say Good Bye again and have one more hug, but who would you choose to have walk around the corner, what situation would you like to have over again to resolve, fix, or change all in a maximum of 2 minutes. What would you do different, what would you say and who would you say it to. If you could Play it again Sam what would you do? and I leave you on that nice gentle thought. Thanks for taking the time to read this and look at the images

Big Hugs

Chris and Karen

(Sydney Australia 2009)

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