Beach Party Animals

Indian beaches are working beaches.

You'll find fisherfolk landing catches, cows grazing or just wandering and the local dogs marking out their territory. On the more tourist developed beaches you'll find hawker selling bedsheets, bangles and clothes.  Almost everywhere you'll find food and drinks on offer.

it's less likely that you'll find horses, but my beach of choice for Diwali has seven of them that happily mingle with the tourists and make the effort to appear at sunset for photo opportunities.

Indonesian postcards

I'm in Indonesia, one of those places I have called "home" as I spent my High School days here.  It certainly has a comfortable feel about it as so much is familiar.  I'm able to get by in rusty and grammatically simplistic Indonesian, it makes me ashamed of how little Hindi I speak - about a dozen phrases and two cuss words.

However I feel I'm missing out on the usual tourist pictures, yesterday I saw a group of Dutch tourist clicking away merrily at a becak - a cycle rickshaw and I thought "why, it's just a becak?" However, with apologies for  not showing the usual sights - so far not even a paddy field or a water buffalo although I've seen plenty of them, a few pictures from my holiday in Indonesia.  Things you can buy:

You could buy an owl in the bird market

 and caterpillars, presumably to feed to birds.

 

You might fancy a painted, live, hermit crab as a pet.  I had no idea that this was a thing until I googled it, I can't imagine that a hermit crab makes any more interesting a pet if it happens to be spray painted with an angry bird or a hello kitty.

You can buy bubbles in the park, I nearly did that.

You can buy fruit everywhere.

Or a ticket on a twelve hour bus ride to Jakarta complete with live karaoke and a dedicated smoking area.

I have not bought any of the above.  as I've mentioned before I am not a good shopper.

Shop sign, Malacca

I went to Malaysia and saw this:

I don't know what they sell but it's bound to be Fok Sing Long.

Trading

I can't begin to understand how difficult it is to make a living from selling simple paper garlands.

Street Eaters

Dogs, cats, rats and cows are all fairly common eaters of things on the the street. I don't have any pictures of those at the moment so offer some alternatives:

Found everywhere but usually moving too fast for me to capture them.



Pigs were unexpected scavengers in Jaipur but they seem to do a pretty good job in clearing up the edible, and less obviously edible, junk.

Morning

Sunrise isn't usually as spectacular as sunset but, since Indian cities don't tend to get moving very early and I do, it's a quiet and lovely time of day.

Phnom Penh

We made a quick visit to Phnom Penh at the end of the summer break simply because we had a few days spare and hadn't been there for over two years. The broad walkways along riverside are now fully completed and make for a pleasant strolling area despite the current threat of brick attacks which started to be reported during our time there.

Having seen most of the usual attractions, rifle range excluded, it was an excuse to do a little browsing, a little cafe time, eat some pretty good food, hit the second hand bookshops and settle in for the remainder of the break with a cool drink.

Child Safety Vietnam

I used to get very worried about children on motorbikes without helmets but, as with most things, it's become perfectly normal now. People tell me that it's difficult to get helmets for very young children and that, even if they could, they are too heavy for their necks. So this is how young children are protected on the move:

They have a little chair to sit on, this one is made of chrome but you see rattan ones too. On their heads are hats to protect them from the sun and netting to keep off dust and insects. In front of them is usually a booster cushion shaped like a teddybear or some other cute animal. It is attached by elastic to the bike and provides both a soft landing incase of sharp braking or bumps and a handy place to put your head for a quiet snooze. As someone who's been known to nod off on the back of the bike I'm considering attaching one to the Man for added comfort.

Phu Quoc

Phu Quoc. It's a Vietnamese island in the Gulf of Thailand just a few miles off the coast of Cambodia. It has clean beaches, warm waters, lovely scenery and incredible sunsets and you'd beter get yourself there now before the international airport the cruise ship docking facilities and the mega casino do.













A fifty minute flight from HCMC.

Hue Hey

Hue, pronounced something like "whey", was an interesting place for a couple of days stop off. It's got a much slower pace of life than Ho Chi Minh.



And a Citadel to see.



It was the hottest place I've been in Vietnam, some tourists took great pains to protect themselves from the sun.



While others tried hard to blend in:



...and if we go down here I think we can each get an Ao Dai too.


There were some interesting sights and the river was particularly picturesque. The local cuisine was excellent but we had some of the most awful faux-French food and an especially bland curry. I suppose it serves us right for not eating local.

Holiday Travel

We joined the world traveler set and got ourselves an open tour ticket from Saigon - Mui Ne - Dalat - Nha Trang, a trip of around 700km at a cost of $15 each. There are several buses that do these tickets but we opted for An Phu travel which we booked through the TNK Office on De Tham who offered the times that suited us best.

I've read long tirades about the open tour buses but generally I found this a good way to get around with a few provisos. First of all we were promised "We garanteed all buses are A/C, brandnew with more leggsroom". They're not, they don't and they haven't. However they all left around the time they were meant to and arrived where they were meant to nearly on schedule.

I didn't get any pictures of the first bus we were one which was a pity because it was half sleeping bus, half sitting. I snagged a horizontal seat once we'd spent an hour tootling around Backpacker District picking up stray passengers and snoozed most of the way to Mui Ne only fully waking up when our driver got particularly enthusiastic with the brakes.

On arrival the tour buses operators will try to sell you a room in one of their hotels or trips during your stay but you're not held captive, there are options.

1. Pre book your hotel (or say you have) and after a while the bus will take you to the door of your accommodation
2. Have a look at what they have to offer, it might not be so bad after all
3. Jump a Xe Om, get a Taxi or walk to where you're going

We chose option 1 and had a cold beer in their affiliated cafe for half an hour and watched the world do very little indeed

We confirmed our travel the day before we left and our next trip to Dalat was in a less attractive bus without air conditioning unless you count open windows.



On the HCMC to Mui Ne route there was a stop at a petrol station to pee and buy fruit and snacks, there aren't any such facilities on the way to Dalat but they did manage a scenic stop to cool the bus and stretch your legs on the way.



Look carefully, you should be able to see the extra brake. The scenery was outstanding on the way and made up for the bus being a bit on the rough side. When we arrived we opted for a taxi the quicker to get a shower and wash the dust off.

The Dalat Mui Ne run was in a little Mercedes Ben - not a typo.



Which was comfortable and well driven and, after essential repairs, got us into Nha Trang in three hours.





So Open Buses, not a bad way of getting around, I'd happily use them again, just remember it isn't always exactly what it says on the tin.

Hoi An

covered bridge
Originally uploaded by amasc

We've been off on a jaunt to Hoi An. Flights cost $100 return per person, hotel £10 per person per night. Tailors were accurate and cheap as were shoemakers ( we had to buy another bag for the return trip) and Hoi An is one of the prettiest places we've see. More on our trip tomorrow but we have clothes to unpack

The couple above supplement their fishing income by posing for tourists going past on boats. Very enterprising and worth a few thousand dong to grab a picture.