Thanks for looking me up, but this website is distinctly unpolitical; it mainly documents my various travels around the world whenever I have had some time away from work.

Do have a read, but I can’t guarantee you won’t despise me if you’re sitting in a grey office on a rainy day right now.

More interesting however, was the style of commentary used by the tour guides for the remainder of the trip: it was very much in the realm of the superlative.

Our entire trip would be within Fiordland, New Zealand’s largest national park; it’s also one of the least explored areas of the country. We started our journey by taking a ferry across Lake Manapouri, which is the fifth-largest and second-deepest lake in New Zealand. The skipper was keen to point out Pomona Island (the lake’s largest island) on the way for some particular reason, but we had reached our superlative quota for the minute, so it passed us by. Instead we enjoyed the view from deck.

On the other side of the lake was the Manapouri Hydro-Electric Power Station, New Zealand’s most controversial infrastructure project of the twentieth century. Original plans had intended for the water levels in Lake Manapouri to be raised by 30 metres, but massive nationwide protests prevented this from happening.

The power station is at the beginning of New Zealand’s most expensive road, which leads to Doubtful Sound. (It is not part of the road network and was built only as a supply route for the construction of the power station in the 1960s). We boarded a coach to be taken over a mountain pass and down to our boat in Doubtful Sound via the “million-dollar view”.

Once we arrived at Doubtful Sound (New Zealand’s second-largest fjord; the largest, Dusky Sound, is accessible only from the ocean by boat), we were able to check out our new home, the Fiordland Explorer. After a week living in a campervan, the promises of a soft bed and having meals cooked for us were very reassuring. The boat was quite a heavy beast, but had masts and some sails which we thought were probably just added for decorative reasons.

As soon as we set off, we were assured about what an amazing trip we were going to have. Most tourists visit Milford Sound to the north, but Doubtful is “three-times longer” than Milford, and has “ten-times the surface area”. “Oh good,” muttered the crowd. Furthermore, we were told we were the luckiest tour group for some time, as we had such amazing weather; it normally rains 300 days per year.

As we proceeded to the deepest point (430 metres) of the fjord, we looked up at the exceptionally steep sides of the fjord and we wondered how it was that the trees and bushes were able to grow on near vertical slopes…

The tannoy kicked into action and a reassuring voice, reading from script, informed us that:

“Mosses, lichens and liverworts grow on the damp exposed rock, which lay the foundation for hardier colonising shrubs, which in turn allow trees to grow.”

It was a phrase we were going to hear many times over the remainder of the trip.

The boat had a number of kayacks available, and I made use of one primarily to escape the running commentary.

After an (intentional) swim in the 11C water (which was fairly bracing but great fun), we cruised towards the mouth of the fjord. It is named “Doubtful” as Captain Cook was doubtful of whether he would be able to sail out if he entered.

We passed Secretary Island, which is New Zealand’s fifth-largest island. At this point, Hadyn and I were beginning to wonder if it was really necessary to mention a fifth-place ranking, particularly one specific to quite a small country.

As we endured more statistics being reeled off, we were delighted to be joined by the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. For what must have been the better part of an hour, around ten dolphins were jumping in front of the ship or in its wake. I really got the sense that they were enjoying themselves and that we were one of the highlights of their day.

The next morning produced far more typical Doubtful Sound weather: rain, and lots of it. Not one to be affected by the conditions, I donned my rain jacket and grabbed a mug of tea before proceeding to the deck to be informed again about the mosses, lichen and liverworts. Nonetheless, the fjord took on an aura of mysticism with the low clouds rolling by and the sound of rain pattering away.

It was time to retreat from this fairytale kingdom and head back to the campervan. We saw some marvellous scenery, and although listening to the consistent onboard commentary was fairly laborious, we ate very well and were looked after by staff who must have to do the same thing over and over for each group on the boat.

On the coach journey back to the jetty, our driver decided to run a quiz to see which nationality could remember the most statistics (Hadyn and I did the UK very proud). Finally, as the driver pulled up to the jetty, he remarked with a grin on his face:

“Of all the groups we have had on this trip, I’ve great pleasure in saying that this group in particular has been the most…

…recent!”

Finding someone to share a vehicle with seemed sensible, not just for cost efficiency, but to stave off any madness that might come with driving around alone for three weeks. I checked a few adverts that were in my youth hostel in Christchurch, but nothing seemed quite right. So instead I decided to prostitute myself with the poster you saw in my last blog post.

Not sure whether I would get any responses or not, I went out to explore the city.

Christchurch is very quaint. Wandering around the city centre, you really do wonder whether someone is having a bit of a laugh by creating this little piece of Britannia on the other side of the world. In fact it’s more English than England; everybody’s manners seem to be impeccable, wearing wool seems to be a national pastime, and the main park in the city has its trimmed hedges and colourful flower beds. It was also much colder than autumn would have been in London!

They must have even imported a few punts from Cambridge or Oxford; something I was very pleased to see, given that I was a punter at school. (But I was disappointed to see the punting is done Cambridge-style here.)

Back at the hostel, I was delighted to see I had received a few messages responding to my advert. I arranged to meet the first guy that got back to me, and it was obvious Hadyn and I were going to get on famously, so we planned to get a campervan together.

The next morning we picked up our new home-away-from-home, made a trip to the supermarket for important supplies (we would be cooking for ourselves in the back of the van) and ventured out into the countryside!

Ideally when sharing a campervan with someone, one should be able to split the driving. The slight hiccup we encountered was that Hadyn didn’t have his driving licence with him and so all of the driving would be down to me until his licence had been couriered over from the UK. Thanks to Fraser Island, I had somewhat increased my experience since passing my test last year, but only a little. This probably explained why we went for the highest level of insurance we could on the campervan (i.e. no excess).

With my driving responsibilities fixed for the next week or so, Hadyn became known as The Navigator (much to his chagrin).

We drove that afternoon as far as could from Christchurch, southwards towards Mount Cook. As it was getting dark, we set up camp at a camping ground and tucked into our first of many van-made meals.

The sleep wasn’t too uncomfortable, and I woke to find The Navigator preparing breakfast. Perfect!

The summit of Mount Cook is beyond the reach of the non-mountaineer, but we made use of the freedom our campervan gave us to drive to Mount Cook village (at the end of a 50km dead-end road) and go for a walk in the nearby valleys. Once again we were stuck by how friendly everybody was; nodding and saying “Hello” to everybody we passed on the track was virtually compulsory.

When we reached a glacial lake, I wasn’t quite convinced that the large lumps of ice were real (since it seemed pretty warm), so I went in for a paddle to check. To water was exceptionally cold (just above 0C would sound about right), but of course I put on a brave face.

That night we had our first of many nights of dubious legality by the side of the road. It didn’t seem necessary to go to a campsite every night as you don’t really need a warm shower and electricity everywhere you go. As we settled in for a beautiful sunset by the side of a deserted lake, I did lock the doors from the inside, lest we be visited in the middle of the night by an angry local farmer brandishing a shotgun!

The next morning we drove past four cars (of which two were police cars); where was everybody?? And to really rub it in, we were held up by a farmer and his flock for a few minutes.

Later, we arrived in Oamaru, a charming town on the south-eastern coast of South Island (our first signs of civilisation for a couple of days). We asked the friendly staff at the place we ate lunch, what we could do in the town.

"Ummm, well you could go to the cinema."

Even though this part of the country is stunning, we were beginning to realise that there’s not much to do around here. We eventually managed to tease out a recommendation to see the Moeraki Boulders, strange rocks that are almost perfectly spherical.

That evening, we returned to civilisation (i.e. a campsite), if only to make use of the hot showers. Hadyn had been avoiding the alcohol since we met, but tonight would be his first night off the wagon, so we ventured into Dunedin city centre in a bus from the campsite to get merry. Dunedin is the student capital of South Island, so has a great bar scene. (We heard that Freshers’ week a few weeks previously had got dramatically out of hand for the nth year in a row). It is also the start of a strip of New Zealand which has a predominantly Scottish, rather than English heritage. Does my travelling companion look drunk in this photo of the end of the night?

Dunedin also has the strange claim to fame of having the steepest street in the world. We decided against driving the van up Baldwin Street in the morning and instead planned a run to the top instead. Halfway up, we decided against this also.

The next "Scottish-themed" town on our route was Invercargill, the most southerly city in the world. On the way, we stopped off to admire some of the marine wildlife of Nugget Point. There are actually hundreds of seals in the photo below.

Unfortunately the weather was rather depressing when arrived in Invercargill, and we beat a hasty retreat to some of the nearby attractions instead. The Rough Guide to New Zealand really came up trumps at this point, as we directed ourselves to a random waterfall in the middle of nowhere…

… and a random cave in the middle of nowhere …

Of course, caves have their dangers, but here I demonstrate how to deal with a fall from grace in style.

If you can’t see this video or you’re reading this blog on Facebook, you will need to go to http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=559757546455 to see the video.

Exhilarated by our random trips into the middle of nowhere, we later arrived in Queenstown, possibly the exhilaration capital of the world. I was determined to do a bungee jump, and this was the place to do it. Oddly enough I didn’t really feel particularly worried about doing one; I’ve never had an issue with heights and a bungee seemed like it would be a good chuckle.

A.J. Hackett were the people who brought bungee jumping into the mainstream. They have three different jumps in an around Queenstown but rather than spend my time working up to the biggest jump, I thought I would just sign up for the biggest straight away and see what all of the fuss is about.

The Nevis Bungee is done from a suspended platform that is 134m (440ft) above the Nevis River about 30km outside of the town. Coach transport was arranged, and as we travelled to the bungee site, no one was talking and the driver was playing death metal rock music at full volume. Our party was only then starting to realise when we were getting ourselves in for; you could smell the adrenaline in the air.

Our group was winched over to the bungee platform suspended over the middle of the canyon, accompanied by the occasional sound of screaming and a body-shaped object falling over the side of our destination. Once we had arrived, our harnesses were checked and each had to wait their turn. This gave us an opportunity to inspect the rope (really just lots of rubber bands bundled together) and admire the jumping technique of those before us (dive, don’t drop).

The whole time I am holding my (self-delusional??) smile; I’m still really quite excited.

My name is called out. Must be my turn. I have to sit down in what looks like a gynaecologist’s examination chair for the final straps to be attached and checks to be made. Yes, still smiling…

Once we’re happy to go, I’m instructed to shuffle (my feet are tied together after all) onto the “meat slab”, essentially the modern day equivalent of walking the plank. “Don’t look down” is the advice we’re given. And I don’t; and I’m still smiling.

1 – 2 – 3 …

If you can’t see this video or you’re reading this blog on Facebook, you will need to go to http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=559720425845 to see the video.

It was at that very moment, as I dived off (or toppled off?) the meat slab, that I realised how much I had been kidding myself the past few hours. How actually it’s completely ridiculous to jump into the void, with the ground so far away.

But hang on, the ground is getting closer. Is this going to work?? The wind is sweeping past my body and there are no signs of slowing down. Besides the wind, it’s also quiet. Having been pumped up with loud music for the past few hours, it now seems eerily quiet and I feel strangely alone. Am I going to die alone??

Needless to say, I did slow down (amazing this modern technology) and I bounced up and down a few times before unhooking my feet and returning gracefully back up to the platform. For an 8½ second experience it did seem to last an awfully long time, and once I got back to the campervan, I tried to sleep it off, but the experience echoed in my head over and over again. For several days afterwards, the experience would spontaneously recur like a scratched CD, and even now my stomach plummets whenever I watch the video, (I can’t imagine what my parents think). Would I do it again? Possibly not. But that’s the point of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

THREE-WEEK TRIP AROUND NORTH & SOUTH ISLANDS – LEAVING CHRISTCHURCH A.S.A.P.

Alex, 28, from the UK, looking to meet a fun but chilled independent traveller for car / campervan rental.

Flying out of Auckland on 29 March, so I have just under three weeks to explore and get off the beaten track.

I’m up for all of the usual adventure and cultural activities, wouldn’t mind meeting the odd Kiwi, and am very easy-going.

Boy, girl, gay, straight, any nationality, all welcome!

Sarah was no longer in town, so I was staying in a hostel this time in Sydney. Even though I had made a booking on Hostelworld, the hostel refused to honour my booking. “Haha,” the clerk said, “we’ve been fully booked for four days. It’s Mardi Gras you see?” Being well aware that it was Mardi Gras and that it would be impossible to find anything else in town, I refused his offer to refund my deposit, started being terribly British and explained to him the principles of leaving deposits to secure a booking.

After several minutes, he conceded, but only on condition I didn’t tell his boss he was letting me stay. I didn’t enquire as to quite how he had managed to conjure up a spare bed, when five minutes previously he was “fully-booked”.

The three boys from Stoke I was sharing a room with, really didn’t get the hints I was dropping that it wasn’t advisable to make homophobic comments in my company. I really need to practice my camp accent!

I wrapped myself up in my Pink Jack and went to meet up with Sarah’s friend Katie for the parade. Her group did really well securing one of the best spots on the parade route, and we got some marvellous pictures.

Matthew Mitcham (gold medal Olympian) leads the parade…

An event for women and children too…

The Aussies have stolen our flag!

Surf Rescue Club

Pam-Ann: please take your positions for take-off!

Do NOT feed the bisexuals!

The Scottish contingent…

No big gossip on the evening I’m afraid. I had a 7:30am start the next morning to get to the Blue Mountains (see below), for my final day in Australia before heading off to New Zealand.

Zzzzzz, the next morning, I was in Hervey Bay, gateway to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. The plan here was to embark on a four-wheel-drive safari for a few days, and once again cut myself off from the mainstream of Australian culture.

The hostel I was staying at was going to arrange everything. We would be put into groups of ten and packed off to the 4WD rental agency. In fact, they were so efficient, they treated us more like cattle and barked orders at us (not great for 6:30am in the morning). Our mutual dislike of the barking woman made our group gel pretty quickly.

We started to wonder what we were getting ourselves into after arriving at the rental agency. We were informed about the numerous ways we could damage a 4WD and have our deposit (several thousand AUS$) taken away from us. Due to lack of sleep, I nodded off several times during the informational video, and so relied on everyone else to update me later.

Admin over, now time for the fun bit (mildly disrupted by the revelation that Liz had spent AUS$14 from the kitty on a watermelon while doing the food shopping)! [Don’t worry Liz, we didn’t mind really]

A 4WD was absolutely necessary for Fraser Island. As soon as we drove off the ferry, we were bumping up and down sand tracks in the middle of a forest. There is no earth on the island and anything that grows, grows in the sand. Once we got over to the other side of the island, we found Seventy-Five Mile Beach, the equivalent of the M6 Toll in this neck of the woods.

In the evening we were able to cook for ourselves at the well kitted-out campsite.

Nat in charge of sausages.

Left-to-right: Joachim, Martin, Josh, Jørgen

Left-to-right: Mary, Emily, Anne Line

The next morning we had our first close encounter with the local wildlife. While cruising along at 80kph on the beach with all the windows open, someone notices a huge huntsman spider on the rear windscreen [follow the link, they look pretty scary]. Cue outrageous screaming from everyone… We’re all tied in with seatbelts so there’s nowhere to go. Ten people hopping up and down screaming in a fairly tight space was certainly entertaining. Then the spider starts to move towards an open window! Cue more frantic movement as everyone rushes to close their window. The poor spider, possibly sensing the loud noises, then disappears.

Two minutes later, the same spider appears behind Josh’s head (fortunately still outside of the van). Josh seems terrified when everyone points at him and starts screaming again!

We never saw it again, although we endured the rest of the journey to the next headland with all of the windows closed. Happily I was able to enjoy a cool breeze once we arrived.

Bad news at lunch: the ice water has leaked into our remaining meat supplies. The only items of food left are some vegetables, lots of bread, crisps and Eric the watermelon (having now acquired a name).

Resisting the urge to ration, we dig into Eric immediately. Liz bids fond farewells to her love…

…and we gorge ourselves…

That afternoon I had my first go at driving the 4WD. I can’t quite remember how many people I had told I had only driven two times (thanks Kirstin and Bosun!) since passing my test last April, but the reactions were fairly positive as I was speeding along at 90kph on the beach (except the time I shifted from fifth down to first gear – I was aiming for third).

On our final day, we explore more of the island interior, which as well as having forests is covered by the odd vast desert…

… and a scattering of crystal-clear freshwater lakes…

…before a manic Martin videos himself driving…

… on the way to catch the ferry back home.

Full photo album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/alxdxn/tags/fraserisland/

Video of Martin’s driving at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj3kpg7TY1s

Unfortunately I discovered they day before I was hoping to dive it, that the trip had been cancelled due to bad weather. Short on time, I converted my 7-hour coach ride into a 12-hour one, and just kept going to my next destination, Airlie Beach. I suppose that means I’ll have to come back to Australia some other day to do the Yongala!

Airlie is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, a magnificent group of volcanic peaks separated from the Australian mainland by a narrow passage of a few kilometres. It is also quite a pleasant, compact town with plenty of backpacker accommodation and agencies arranging yachts for charter.

Upon presenting myself at my hostel’s booking desk my first morning to book a sailing trip, I was asked whether I wanted to join a “party boat”, “traditional boat” or “racing boat”. Having had quite enough to drink at The Woolshed in Cairns, I erred away from the “party boat” and went for the racing option even though it was considerably more expensive. “Right, well there’s a boat leaving in 45 minutes,” the agent declared. Keen to make best use of my time, I jumped into action.

One hour later a group of eleven of us, and two crew, are sailing out of the the Abel Point Marina on former America’s Cup contender the Southern Cross. Definitely a “racing boat”! Here she is.

Provided there were enough other volunteers, we could really help out as much or as little as we liked on the Southern Cross. However, with respect to one’s personal property, there are some basic precautions one should we aware of before volunteering. Unfortunately, we were not prepared and within fifteen minutes of leaving the marina, Tobias (Switzerland) and I had lost our sunglasses overboard! (And I had only bought the sunglasses in Sydney two weeks previously.) Andy the skipper, who really should know better, also had his baseball cap blown overboard, but given that this floated we were able to make a detour to pick it up.

Given the fairly tame wind conditions, the boat picked up some good speed, and we were leaning heavily away from the wind. Just a couple of minutes down below to use the loo was enough to make me quite seasick (and I rarely get motion sickness). After some time we arrived at out first destination, Whitehaven Beach, where the sand is supposedly some of the whitest and finest in the world.  We all hopped into a rib (called a tender in Australia) to be taken to the shore. It got a little cloudy as we arrived, but we enjoyed the beach (in our stinger suits given the jellyfish issue). From left to right: James (UK), Tobias (Switz), Maud (NL), Jenny and Hans (Sweden), and Rutger (NL)

After a fabulous sunset (see below) and slap-up supper on the boat, the stars came out. The moon set shortly thereafter and we had a perfect view of the stars of the southern hemisphere, including the namesake of the boat, the Southern Cross. Unfortunately the rocking deck meant there was no opportunity for long-exposure photography,  but here is the sunset I mentioned earlier.

Feeling all soppy and overwhelmed by the stars, I fell asleep on deck. When I woke in the morning, I saw James and Maud had done the same.

The next morning was quite dramatic: Rutger, who had been seasick since we left dock, started having heart palpitations, and had to get urgent medical assistance. A call was put out over the radio, and we altered course to take us to the nearest hospital on a private resort island. About half-an-hour later, we were met halfway by a high-speed boat that we transferred Rutger to to take him the rest of the way. There wasn’t much anyone could do while we were waiting, and we discussed afterwards whether we thought the response should have been quicker. I thought that given we were so far away from habited land, and yachts don’t react particularly well to helicopters, half-an-hour was as good as anyone could have expected. We heard over the radio later that afternoon that Rutger had been airlifted to the mainland from the resort island hospital.

With two members of our crew down (Maud had accompanied Rutger to the resort to help with translation) and not much else we could do, we carried on with our excursion. This included the opportunity of swimming to our own island and laying on the beach for the rest of the afternoon.

Reunited with Maud later that afternoon, we had another great meal and sunset.

We visited another island the next morning…

… and given we were covered in salt water, the private waterfall was useful.

Unfortunately it was then time to sail back to Airlie Beach, but before we could do that, there was another dramatic development: as we switched back to the motor for our final approach towards the marina, the rope supporting our mainsail got stuck within the mast i.e. we couldn’t bring the mainsail completely down. Andy, the skipper, was going to have to climb up the mast and cut the rope from the other end. N.B. The mast of the Southern Cross is 100 feet (30 metres) high!

Andy was going to need ropes, lots of ropes, to help pull him up to the top of the mast, support his weight, deliver equipment to him, and eventually bring him back down without him falling off. Although Andy was really the only one who knew which ropes were going to do what, he was over 30m away, and was going to need us to do the leg-work. We must have learnt a thing or two about how the ropes work over the three days, as everything seemed to go swimmingly (with the help of the Portuguese deputy on deck level). My role was to translate between native-speaking Andy thirty metres away, and the mainly continental group on deck.

With that drama out of the way, we were able to bring the original drama to a close when we saw Rutger greet us on the marina as we docked.

That night we celebrated with a drink or two (as demonstrated by Sandy below)

The English Channel is cold. At university I decided it would be great fun to learn to scuba-dive with the sub-aqua club. After a few months of Monday evenings at the University of London Union in the classroom and pool, we were sent down to Plymouth for a week of fun in water that was only 12 Celsius and very murky.

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR), off the coast of Queensland, on the other hand is supposed one the best diving locations in the world. Diving the reef was an opportunity not to be missed. In particular, as a BSAC Sports Diver with over 40 dives under my belt, I now consider myself a pretty good diver who could really do the GBR justice. I signed up to a three-day live-aboard all-in trip with Prodive, Cairns. They promised eleven dives (including a couple of night dives) at a number of different sites on the reef.

Fitting 11 dives into three days was going to necessitate a lot of early starts. The first morning was no exception as we met at the Prodive centre at 6:15am. Along with 35-or-so people, we were driven over to our boat in the Cairns marina. By no means luxurious, it was well kitted out with a large lounge and sun deck, a galley with full-time cook, twin bunk cabins and lots of scuba equipment; what more does one need for a fun three days?

After a two-or-three hour journey out to the reef and the first of many great meals (although I can never fault with any fried breakfast) it was time for the dive briefing! As an “experienced” diver, about 12 of us were separated from rabble and taken to the top deck for an illustrated induction.

I was actually really impressed by how professional everything was, and by the trust and independence the crew gave us. Everyone is overly concerned with safety in the UK (probably justifiably given the cold and murky water) and my other trips in the tropics have seemed more like guided tours. Here, the message was very much about having fun and feeling free to explore.

Marie, from Sweden, and I linked up as dive buddies. It was to become a successful relationship as we both used modest amounts of air and so could stay down longer than many other dive pairs over the next couple of days. We would frequently be the first couple into the water and the last pair out. Here we are enjoying the sun deck.

Another reason for being very lucky to be paired with Marie, is that she had an underwater camera. Here I am!

In case you are wondering why I appear to be wearing a wetsuit in tropical waters, it’s actually a stinger suit used to protect divers from the jellyfish that inhabit these waters at the time of the year.

At times it really did seem like we were on the set of Finding Nemo. Although I don’t know the names of the fish, I was constantly recognising characters from the film. Strangely enough, it was the fabled clownfish (Nemo himself) that was hardest to find, but here is a magnificent photo that Marie took of two we found.

The two night dives didn’t lend themselves particularly well to photography, but they were both great. Each diver gets allocated a fluorescent glowstick (attached to the air tank) and a torch (tied to a hand with strict instructions no to lose). For most of the dive you don’t see anything except these items on the other divers – very eerie. Nonetheless some different wildlife comes out at night. As our second night dive was starting, the crew were throwing away the leftovers from supper over the side of the boat. Then the Jaws theme music starts being played over the tannoy! As we were kitting up, we could see about eight reef sharks swimming around the boat. Reef sharks supposedly don’t eat humans, but the group was fairly hesitant as we were signed out of the boat. My cries of “a life lived in fear is a life half-lived” went down a storm. Needless to say, everyone made it back okay.

Once back in Cairns, we all met up for drinks. Cairns itself is a bit of a hillbilly town, which is somewhat pleasant but wouldn’t have enough to keep anyone entertained for more than a day. However, in backpacker circles, a bar by the name of The Woolshed is legendary. Here it is acceptable to dance on tables (yes I did join in, if not lead the way). One can also watch groups of young ladies take part in something called a wet T-shirt contest. The guy with the jet-spray wasn’t looking as happy as I would expect someone with his job should.

And yes, photographs of the girls were allowed. (Not sure why I ended up with a front-row view, but it was probably because the bouncers had to kick me off the stage where I was dancing)

So I hope to have reassured you all of the cultural aspects of my great trip abroad!

I arrived in Cairns airport at 6pm with nowhere to stay and a five-year-old copy of the Rough Guide to Australia taking up 1kg of my luggage allowance. After picking up the rucksack I am to become fairly attached to, I was relieved to see a huge accommodation board in the corner of the terminal with a free telephone to check availability. Two phone calls later and I am sorted.

There are no taxis and two huge red-necked middle-aged Australians at the taxi rank. To my surprise, when a taxi turns up after a few minutes, they invite me to share a cab with them into town. I probably only spoke to two Australians that I wasn’t buying something off in Sydney, so this was an opportunity to double my tally. Although I tried to act cool by dropping in lots of “mate” and “cheers”, they immediately label me a pom.

My two new friends have just flown in from Wongamolla or somewhere equally bizarre-sounding. They have very little luggage, but a large polystyrene box with some impressive yellow tape wrapped around it emblazoned with the words “PASSED QUARANTINE”.

“So mate, what’s in the box?” I ask hesitantly.

“Ahhh mate, it’s a turtle…”

Apparently, one can hunt them in the place they just got back from, and the two of them had made a boys’ week away out of it. Then again, perhaps I just didn’t get the Australian sense of humour.

I had a couple of days to kill before my liveaboard diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef left from Cairns. So encouraged by my roommates at the hostel, I arranged a two-day trip up to Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns. Cape Tribulation was so named by Captain Cook in 1770 when his boat hit the reef and he had to stay put for three months to make repairs. This mishap combined with searing tropical heat and unfriendly locals lead the captain to name the cape after the trials and tribulations he experienced when based here. Nowadays the cape is magnet for backbackers who want to experience the fun of the World Heritage listed Daintree tropical rainforest.

When booking my trip to tropical Queensland, I had not properly investigated the weather, and although the south of Australia is in summer (even given the rain in Sydney), the north of Australia is actually in “wet season”. Within two hours of leaving Cairns and in the middle of a boardwalk (a trek through forest on a walkway) our entire party gets completely drenched within a couple of minutes. The extreme humidity also means our clothes can’t get dry until we return to civilization in Cairns.

I check into the Cape Tribulation Beach Hut with Clio (UK) and Khanh (Canada). “Hut” in this respect means “close to nature” (we are eco-tourists after all) and so all huts in the complex appear to have been colonised by these huge golden silk orb weaver spiders. Fortunately the colonisation has been limited to the exterior of the buildings and the insides appear to be invertebrate-free.

Golden Silk Orb Weaver outside my hut in Cape Tribulation

First adventure activity of the trip is jungle-surfing! This involves being kitted out in hard hat and safety harness and zip-lining between trees within the forest canopy about twenty metres above ground. Great fun had by all.

Alex aka Crocodile Dundee kitted out for zip-lining in Cape Trib

Khanh prepares to take a leap

Clio in mid-surf

Next adventure activity: a night-time rainforest walk. All the best wildlife is meant to come out at night, however I was a bit disappointed and getting a bit bored towards the end of this excursion, particularly when our guide started explaining the “three stages of spider web evolution”. Next adventure activity: how to get back to your hostel two miles away in the pitch black with more tropical rain threatening to make an appearance. Khanh, Clio and I had came to into Cape Trib town to enjoy a few bevies with some of the other people on our tour bus including Helen (UK). Once the bar had shut we needed to get back to our beach hut which was further away than promised – Khanh and Clio had already made the journey one-way. The solution? Get two Aussies to give us a lift in the back of their pick-up truck (called a “Ute”)

Next day, and the adventure continues: how about some horse-riding through the rainforest and along the beach? When my horse had two hooves in the sea and two on the dry sand, I was in theory inside two different World Heritage sites at the same time (the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef). The group got up to a canter which was great fun considering some of us had little experience (my childhood memories of trotting in the New Forest now eclipsed).

Taking the horse for a little wander along the beach

For elevenses, we stopped off at a creek with a natural pool. I went for a swim and took along a biscuit to break up and feed to the fish. I misunderstood the advice from the guide however and didn’t realise I shouldn’t go swimming with the biscuit. Within seconds I’m surrounded by fish nibbling at my hand. Shocked by the creatures I can’t see, I let go of the biscuits sending mushy pieces all through the water. One obviously confused fish then mistakes my nipple for a tasty bit of cookie… my yelp was mistaken by some in our group as the start of a crocodile attack!

On the way back to Cairns, Helen, Clio, some more in our group and I swam in the famous Mossman Gorge. However, this was no creek, and anyone swimming in it has to make sure they aren’t swept down the river into the rapids!

All-in-all, Cape Tribulation was a little expensive (I suppose I did do a lot) but tremendously fun. I just had to make sure I got enough rest for the 6am start the next day to go diving; apologies to Helen for not making it out that evening

Sydney seems to have a lot in common with London. I was greeted with continuous drizzle for my first few days in the city. On my first night, I met loads of Brits and Irish down the pub. Everything seemed very familiar, yet also different. Perhaps I had arrived in an, as yet unvisited, English town.

My main reason for visiting Sydney was to catch up with Sarah, formerly a best friend from university, but who has virtually disappeared and no one has really seen in the UK for years [I’m hoping this comment will aggravate her]. She lives in Bondi, which is famed for its beach full of glorious fit and tanned bodies. Alas, due to the rain, it was a few days until I was able to truly appreciate this spectacle.

A rather deserted Bondi Beach on an overcast day

The poor weather did give Sarah and me a good opportunity to catch up and share stories from the past couple of years. She will be back in the UK soon, so all of those missing her won’t have to wait too long to have her cackling on the end of a phone again.

When the weather finally improved we took a trip on the famous Manly Ferry. The ferry runs to the northern suburb of Manly and passes by the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, giving its passengers fantastic views from the water. Here Sarah poses with the Opera House in the background.

Sarah poses with the Opera House in the background

The whole area around the harbourfront is to Sydney what the Houses of Parliament are to London and the Eiffel Tower to Paris. Some days later, Sarah and I checked out the Opera House (surprisingly covered in ceramic bathroom tiles) and the view from the bar underneath the Opera House esplanade. We were very lucky to get a table right by the harbourside where we proceeded to drink champagne (one can call any sparkling wine that here) and gin and tonic. Great fun! Perhaps most astonishing was seeing a colony of thousands of bats fly over the harbour as the sun went down.

Sarah and Alex in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Obviously a natural poser

One of the reasons I am travelling is to explore some of the other global cities around the globe. (This is why I am also visiting Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing.) Compared to London, the Sydney CBD (central business district) has a modern feel with its many high-rise buildings, yet is familiar enough not to be too disconcerting. (The main street in Chinatown shares my surname afterall!) It is however more expensive than I imagined (I suppose food is subsidised heavily in Europe) and I gather from people that work here that the working hours are not much better than the UK, and the vacation allowances are less generous. All-in-all however, I had a marvellous time and this could well be a place I choose to work in the future.

Next stop, tropical Queensland!

More Sydney photos on this Facebook page

Those used to travelling to the United States will know how bad the immigration experience can be; fingerprints, photographs, plain rudeness. Not in Singapore; here you are greeted with beaming smiles and a professional manner. To top it off, after everything had been checked, stamped and found to be in order, I was offered a mint…!

“Welcome to Singapore”

Too tired to tackle the city on my first night, my first adventure was to find breakfast the next day. Guided by a Wikitravel page insisting that I eat a traditional Singaporean breakfast, I walked a few blocks from my hotel to Orchard Street, the main shopping street in the city, to find a place to eat. Breakfast typically revolves around “kaya”, a sort of coconutty butter spread on toast, accompanied by soft-boiled eggs with soy sauce and strong coffee with condensed milk. I had no idea what to do with the two eggs and bowl of soy sauce handed to me, but the cashier came over to my table to help explain everything. (“Break the eggs into the bowl of soy sauce and give it a good stir”)

Typical Singaporean breakfast

Food in Singapore is brilliant. Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and European food is readily available, and often brought together to create a Singapore fusion cuisine. I met a coursemate from Imperial College for lunch. Neil took me to a food court where around twenty different stalls were selling different foods, which all smelt fantastic. We ate on a roof terrace overlooking the city.

Old ISE coursemates: Alex and Neil overlooking Singapore

The majority of the city seems to be covered in distinctive high-rise office buildings, luxury appartments and shopping malls. However, each of the different communities in Singapore has a cultural heartland: Chinatown for the Chinese, Little India for the Indians, Arab Street for the Malays (and I suppose the old Colonial district represents the European heritage). They each show a quirky side to the city that once was before the massive development that has taken place over the past 40 years.

Arab St – the Malay quarter

Little India, Singapore

Chinatown, Singapore

Singapore Cricket Club with skyscrapers in the background

On my last day I visited the resort island of Sentosa. Connected to the Singapore mainland by cable car (and monorail), much of the island has been extensively developed into a pretty excrutiating family theme park with observation towers, beaches and cinemas connected by covered escalators piping out elevator music. Prices were also very high compared to the mainland, and my cash vanished far more quickly than I had expected. Nonetheless, there was a very good aquarium which made the journey worthwhile. My cable-car trip back to the mainland that evening also afforded some fantastic views.

For my last few hours in the city I walked along the riverfront and really experimented with all of the different settings on my camera to create some fantastic nighttime city images.

Singapore Harbourfront skyline

Last stop Raffles Hotel (apparently the place to be seen, but not to stay) then I was on my way to Sydney with another mint from immigration!

Hot Alex in front of the Raffles Hotel, Singapore

So I haven’t written anything on here for a while. In 2004 and 2005 I was somewhat ahead of the times in having my own web log (or more specifically, a travel web log).

Then it died.

Mine wasn’t the only one. Gartner speculates that blogging peaked in 2007 and there are now in the region of 200 million blogs which are not being updated (apologies for the lack of reference, but this is from Wikipedia, so it must be true).

I left my job before Christmas and am now travelling around Australia, New Zealand and China, so this seems an ideal opportunity to resurrect the blog.

Hopefully you’ll be hearing more from me on these pages over the coming months. I will be back in the UK on 24 April.

Notes and photos from my Kilimanjaro diaries written in 2007. Uploaded to my blog in 2009 but posted with a 2007 publish date.

Eerie walk over the Saddle, and afro-alpine desert of screen with little gradient and just a few patches of moss and small flowers near rocks.

200 metres or so to our right, the Saddle dropped off and a vertical wall of cloud obscured the view.

Packed lunch at a collection of boulders that also seemed to be the base for some very nasty looking crows that must have known we would stop there for lunch.

Exhausting final push to Kibo Hut, arriving about 4:30pm, for an early dinner before settling down for some sleep before waking up at 11pm to get ready for our midnight departure for the summit.

Notes and photos from my Kilimanjaro diaries written in 2007. Uploaded to my blog in 2009 but posted with a 2007 publish date.

Pretty cold when waking up, but glorious sunshine sets an amazing scene over the clouds covering the world below.

Start walk to Mawenzi Tarn Hut in time for lunch. Lunch had an Arabian feel as we ate in the food tent: sun and shadows danced across the wind-knocked canvas.

The camp itself was inside a small crater with a shallow pond at the foot of Mawenzi Peak. After lunch, we headed off on an “acclimatisation walk”. One of our party wasn’t able to make it due to his delicate diarrhoea situation but the rest of us got an idea of the style of hiking we would have to perform on summit night (relentless zig-zagging across steep slopes).

We did this for about 90 minutes (summit night would be for 6 hours) and ended up half-way up Mawenzi Peak on a rocky outcrop … stunning views over the edge. Looking the other way, we could also see the true summit of Kilimanjaro – Kibo Peak – and not much higher than where we were, the shining roof of Kibo Hut where we would arrive tomorrow afternoon for our summit attempt the next day.

Coming down was great fun and for once I was grateful of having my walking poles which really helped with stability and speed. Very pleased with the wrist straps that came with the poles too, as they made it very easy to flick the poles out ahead of my feet.

Had trouble sleeping (very unusual for me) – must be the altitude. Had to wake up in the freezing dark for a loo break (without contact lenses)

Notes and photos from my Kilimanjaro diaries written in 2007. Uploaded to my blog in 2009 but posted with a 2007 publish date.

Slept in boxers with no sleeping bag liner to test I wouldn’t be too cold. Woke up mildly chilly but was reassured that I still had several more layers of clothing to wrap up in as we ascended the volcano.

The daily routine that I would get used to involved a 6:30am wake-up with tea in bed. Breakfast from 7am (porridge and jam) with the aim of having everything packed up and ready to go by 8am.

As I left my tent to get breakfast, I could still see Kili from the camp, but by the time we left at 8am, the clouds had rolled in again. We set off from our campsite and as we progressed the thick bushes became shorter and shorter until we realised the lack of vegetation from hereon would mean there was no privacy for loo breaks.

The milestone of breaking through the cloud line seemed to continue to evade us all morning, but around lunchtime we entered the thick cloud and had lunch in the fog near a cave. Several hours later we emerged from the cloud into strong sunshine and uninterrupted views of Kibo Peak for once.

Progression seemed odd from here, as we were not walking towards Kibo, but instead towards her sister Mawenzi Peak for a day of acclimatization. The two peaks are very difference in appearance: Kibo appears almost flat on top, while Mawenzi is sharp and jagged.

Washed feet at camp. As the sun set it got cold very quickly. People were tired so there was no will to play card games like last night. Straight to bed.

Drive: Marangu to Rongai
Walk: Rongai (2000m) to Simba Camp (2627m)

Notes and photos from my Kilimanjaro diaries written in 2007. Uploaded to my blog in 2009 but posted with a 2007 publish date.

No hot water in the hotel for a final wash before starting our trek. Braved some cold water instead. Divided all my luggage into day bag, main bag and a bag to leave at the hotel i.e. stuff useless for the climb such as phone charger, shower gel etc…

Set off in minibus to our start site  A few people already have diarrhoea which didn’t make a pleasant journey for them. The bus drove around the volcano at a height of about 1500m-1800m (thanks GPS phone) to get to Rongai, our starting point near the Kenyan border on the north side of Kilimanjaro. Not much to see on the bumpy mountain road for about four hours except for plenty of shops advertising and selling just Coca-Cola.

We kitted up at the start and were pestered for the first kilometre or so by local kids asking for “chocolate / money”. My lunchbox was on display at the back of my backpack so I was a primary target.

The start of the route was exceptionally dusty and my Nordic walking pole extensions were fairly useless. Enjoyed getting into the rhythm of using the poles and started to appreciate how useful they would be. The dusty path gave way to a path through forest where we saw several black-and-white colobus monkeys.

After a fairly leisurely walk for four or so hours, we emerged from the forest and tall bushes into a clearing where the many porters had set up our tents. Sharing with Aman, I got out my Thermarest and sleeping bag to set up my bed for the night before it got dark. We were handed a bowl of hot water to wash with before dinner, and made out way to the massive food tent where we all played card games before a sumptuous meal.

As the clouds cleared after sunset, we finally got our first glimpse of Kibo Peak, the summit of Kilimanjaro.

Early start and long drive to Tanzania.

Nairobi is a handsome city in parts with pleasant government buildings on a hill overlooking the city centre. Lots of civil servants and other office workers all heading into work as we left. Giant herons flying around the football stadium!

Good road out of Nairobi until the airport where the quality deteriorated rapidly. Great scenery on the way to TZ border, but no sight of Kilimanjaro (not really possible this time of year due to haze). The most striking features of the journey were the large anthills and Masai tribesmen.

KY-TZ border is crazy: 200m of no-man’s land between the two border posts full of parked trucks and buses, and many souvenir touts asking you to look at their “free” bracelets. Couldn’t take photos.

Arrived and Nakana Hotel in Marangu. Went for an exploratory walk with Aman and Gary into the local hills before dinner.

Overnight flight from Heathrow to Nairobi. Cloudy cool day in Nairobi, doesn’t seem too different from London! Check in to Heron Court hotel.

Given “Sunny and sweet” breakfast – sausages, fried egg, maple syrup pancakes. Delicious.

Visit Lea Toto project in Nairobi slums to check the type of work VSO is doing supporting HIV+ families. Children gave a role-play about stealing and honesty, then sang several songs and read poems. Unfortunately we weren’t able to meet any VSO volunteers due to holidays.

We were taken off on a tour of a local slum by some of the centre workers (Gertrude, Leonida and Carolyne). We met one family (mother, child and niece) who were left by the father. The mother runs a market stall nearby but she has lost business as her main competitor spread rumours that her food was unsafe since she was HIV+. The mother then made a complaint to the local community leader, and the competitor fortunately made a public apology.

Back to hotel. Great buffet dinner. Trying hard to remember the names of the twenty-six other people in our group.

Millions of people in the UK associate their childhood with a particular music that rings along residential streets in the summer months. Since I’ve lived in central London for the last few years, and have just recently moved to north London, I heard an ice cream van for the first time in years.

I ran out of the house with a friend Lucy and rapidly ordered two “99 Flake”s. The ice cream man said he starts at the beginning of April and continues for 6 months. Long may he continue!!

Sandra: Hello Sandra speaking
Alex: Hi Sandra, it’s Alex Dixon from the billing team
Sandra: Oh, hi Alex
Alex: How are you doing?
Sandra: Ooh, I don’t know yet.. what have I done wrong?
…

A housemate, Simone, asked me yesterday what the highlight of my day was. This would be my vote for today.

Watch out – Alex Dixon strikes fear in the hearts of co-workers…

Vienna?? Yes, I’m on holiday, and since I had such a great time skiing in the Tyrol two winters ago, I’ve decided to come back and sample the Alpine lifestyle in the summer.

I came into Vienna on Saturday afternoon. As we touched down, all the Austrians on the plane started applauding, which I had never seen before – although to be fair it was a rather good landing.

I arrived at my hostel by noon. The Porzelleum is a student hall of residence that opens up to tourists over the summer months. I did manage to get a single room, but the whole place seemed rather bleak and institutional. Vienna city centre however is absolutely amazing. I think it would be fair to say that it is a little too stunning, and they have too many nice buildings that they’re not really sure what to do with – like the district police station that had cars racing through its delicate domed entrance.

Being on a tight schedule, I hopped on a tour bus that evening to be taken around the main sights of Vienna with commentary in four languages. The Danube tower is one of these Toronto-style viewing platforms (although considerably smaller I expect) that offers excellent views over the city. Afterwards we were all taken to one of the Heuringen on the outskirts of Vienna where wine is grown and produced on the premises. Austria concetrates more on its white wine than its red (so it would have fans amongst many 20-something British girls), and I tucked into my complimentary tankard of the stuff (I’d give it 7/10)

Back to the city and the Rough Guide directed me to a nice little restaurant that was open late where I ordered the compulsory Wiener Schitzel. I went back to the halls at about 12.30am, and the entire city seemed to be completely dead (suprising for a Saturday night).

Sunday was similarly quiet, but I headed for the cinema to see the film that every tourist guide plugs: Der Dritte Mann (or the Third Man) – a late 1940s film set in occupied Vienna.

Overall, Vienna is a stunning city, but I found the whole place to be extremely quiet and unexciting, and not really brilliant for young people. Perhaps I’ll come back a little later in life and bring some company.

Now southwards to the Austrian Alps and then Slovenia. Watch this space for more blog updates!

After 4 days in the wonderful beach town of Unawatuna, 5km (3mi) south-west of Galle in southern Sri Lanka, it was time to move on, so I was waking up and preparing to pack my bags on the morning of Boxing Day (26th December).

I was staying on the first-floor of Surfcity Hotel, which is set about 10 metres (35ft) back from the beach, so it was normal for me to hear the relaxing sound of waves crashing onto the beach. As I was reading my Lonely Planet: Sri Lanka in bed, to plan the next part of my trip, the sound changed to that of water crashing against rock, followed by some people’s excited wails. I rushed to the window and saw a small wave pass over the hotel’s terrace restaurant. After a short pause another “wave” came in, picked up a tuk-tuk parked on the track between the hotel and the terrrace, and flung it into a wall. This “wave” also burst open the window of the adjacent gem shop, spilling its contents into the water.

In the time it takes me to get to the door and run onto the balcony, the water level had risen a further 3 metres (10ft) and was surrounding the hotel. Priam, one of the guys who worked at the hotel, appeared from below and managed to climb onto the balcony, escaping the water. For the first time he wasn’t smiling. He hurried off to the stairs, and with the rapidly rising water levels, that seemed like a good idea.

Everyone seemed to be on the second floor balcony, with faces full of fear and confusion. I walk to the far side of the balcony to look over to the side of and behind the hotel. A new view opened up: where once there used to be other buildings, I could now see rushing water extending 100 metres (110 yards) inland to the Galle road and the high ground behind it. On the roof of the building opposite me were two separate tourists: a man screaming out for “Ella” and a woman frantically pleading for people to “save the children”.

After perhaps 5 minutes of standing on the balcony feeling helpless, the waters suddenly retreat, pulling out a lot of debris with it. Damaris, the girl staying in the room next to mine, appears with us on the balcony soaking wet. A sensible-looking English guy staying on the second floor says that we should be prepared to leave in a hurry, but before there is a chance there are calls of “Get Out! Get Out!”

Fearing the stability of the building (it was one of the few that appeared to still be standing) we all rush downstairs without stopping to pick up anything. Ravi, the hotel manager, who’s also wet, tells us to go to the main road. The ground is still under about half a metre of water (1.5ft), as the beachside buildings (or debris) are preventing the water from running away.

Starting off in convoy, but disintegrating as people start to travel at their own speed, we wade to the main road as the water continues to drain past our feet at speed. Two shoed girls hurried off without helping the shoeless, who were stumbling all over the place. With no idea how deep the next step is and what I was stepping on, I manage to cut open my foot quite badly.

It’s a relief to finally reach the main road with its firm tarmac surface, although it’s still under about 20cm (8in) of water. Locals tell me to walk further up the road towards Galle as “another one may be coming”. On the side of the road is a motionless body with white foam spilling out of his mouth.

The man who has been screaming out for Ella all this time continues to cry, but for a different reason, as they find each other on the road. Ella herself is smiling as she sees his desperation turn into delight.

At the crossroads of the Galle road and another road into Unawatuna a crowd has developed. Tourists (some still in their bathing costumes) and locals are running out of the road from the village and are not sure what to do or where to go. A lot of the people are wet and some have rubbish in their hair. People start to discuss what happened: it was a full moon that night, perhaps it was some kind of freak wave? Thinking that maybe the southern coast of Sri Lanka is a frequent victim of freak waves, I ask if this has happened before. It hasn’t.

Further along the road a pick-up truck is loading itself up with people. With Gideon, an Englishman staying at my hotel, and some other tourists and locals we pile into the back. The truck takes us up a side road up into the hill behind the village. The driver drops us off and tells us to climb further up the hill, before he drives back down to collect another group of people.

Along with Penny, Martin, Emily, Cristian and another British couple, Gideon and I walk to the top of the hill, past a local Buddhist temple until we come to someone’s garden with a view over the Unawatuna Bay. The bay looks normal, but after a few minutes we see the waters of the bay retreat, exposing all of the coral. A number of people, who only appear as small specks due to the distance, run out onto the beach. A couple of minutes later and the waters return, completely covering the beach. This process repeats a few times over the next 20 minutes.

Soon after a radio confirmed what I had begun to suspect: that a tsunami had hit the entire coastline, and this wasn’t just a localised freak wave. What we saw though didn’t fulfil the typical impressions of a tsunami – that a huge wave, or wall of water, bears down on the coast; for us, it was just rapidly rising water with the normal waves breaking on top (although the waves didn’t retreat).

Kalu, a Sri Lankan who works at a hotel in Unawatuna, comes along and tells us that his mother has died. He has, however, rescued a Dutch girl who can’t find her parents, so he needs a Dutch speaker to speak with her. Keen to do something, I volunteer, believing that my Dutch is probably good enough to speak with a 6-year-old girl. We end up going on a wild-goose chase, but while walking around, I get a view back down to the Galle road, where I see another wave come in higher than before.

In the end, the Dutch girl, Ayla, had already been happily reunited with her parents – the mother, Karin, being the woman who had been screaming “save the children” in the building opposite me during the first flood. Karin and her husband Luc therefore had all of their four children safe.

With the Dutch family were most of the Surfcity Hotel crowd, including Damaris (UK), Odette (Canada), Aidan (Oz) and Lilia (France). Also a Czech couple, Denisa and Petr, and two British friends Raja and Louise who were staying in the Peacock Hotel nearby to Surfcity.

The house they were all staying at, was owned by a charming Sri Lankan lady called Silva. Her, her daughter and Karin, tended to my foot, which I only then noticed was bleeding quite badly. Since I had managed to rip open the crotch of my low-cut thai-style beach trousers while climbing over rocks earlier, Silva also gave me a towel and later a pair of shorts to protect my modesty, as the split in my trousers revealed a little too much when I sat down.

Silva managed to serve lunch for about twenty of us: an amazing act of hospitality. Over the meal, we were all able to exchange stories. Denisa, Petr and Karin had managed to climb over from the wooden Peacock Hotel to the adjacent reinforced-concrete one. From there Karin was shouting for people to save her children and was thinking of going back down during the flood to find them; thankfully Denisa stopped her. Meanwhile Luc was helplessly holding onto a tree as the waters rushed around him.

Damaris, who I had seen soaking wet immediately after the flood, was on the beach just before the “wave” hit. She had seen a man on the beach run off with his daughter, leaving his bag and mobile phone on the sand. Unaware of the approaching water, she had gone to pick them up, before being lifted up by the water and swept into the kitchen of our hotel. She managed to hold on to something as furniture and debris was being washed into the room, and the waters approached the ceiling of the kitchen. As she was managing to swim out of the kitchen, the waters dropped, after which she ran up to the second floor to join the rest of us. A very lucky escape.

Silva managed to bring out a radio for us and we tuned into some world news. The enormity of the situation struck us: the largest earthquake for forty years in Indonesia; a huge tsunami strikes Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

We realised that this was going to be headline news back home, and as people would be waking up back in Europe soon, it was important to get messages back home. However, neither of my parents was staying at home this year and I had no idea of the telephone numbers of the places they were staying at. And since I didn’t have my mobile phone with me, I had no idea what anyone’s mobile numbers were (it’s amazing how much we rely on our mobiles nowadays). Strangely enough the only mobile numbers I could remember were of an ex (Joost) and a school-friend (Aqib) who’s had the same number for yonks (and from the days when you were used to having to dial mobile numbers directly). The best I could do was to arrange to have Raja’s brother back in the UK leave messages on my mother’s, father’s and grandmother’s voicemails.

During the afternoon, both Odette, Karin and some of her children had gone back down to Unawatuna and had managed to come back up with a lot of their stuff. Desparate to go back and get my mobile phone to contact my family, I announce my intention to go down myself, at which point everyone says that it’s not a good idea and that it’s not safe down there. Odette offers to take me down herself, but everyone else’s advice gets to me.

That evening everyone starts getting cheerful as a bottle of wine is brought out. Not feeling up to the festivities, as I am the only one who hasn’t been able to reach my family, I quietly excuse myself and walk to the nearby Buddhist temple.

The temple has become a refuge for many of the people in town, and about fifty people are lying down on the temple floor, about to go to sleep. Unable to find a space, I take a seat on a bench and put my head and hands on my knees to fall asleep. One of the monks comes over to me and offers me his bed for the night. Thinking that he’s only asking me because I’m the only westerner there, I politely refuse. But after doing so about ten times due to his persistence, I finally accept. He takes me inside and gives me his bed, while he shares a bed with his roommate – again the hospitality amazes me.

The next morning I return to Silva’a house. There’s a French-Pakistani man there who insists on having a political debate and starts attacking virtually every government on the planet for the effects of the disaster. I didn’t exactly disagree with him completely, but I tend to play devil’s advocate in situations like these, as I think that people are too quick to blame governments for everything, as they are an easy target. Anyway, he seemed to think I was loony for challenging his opinions, and with the stress of still not having contacted my family, I had a bit of tantrum and stormed off. Fortunately it was just the motivation I needed to ignore everyone’s safety advice and go back down to the village.

Some of the buildings alongside the main road were completely destroyed. A pair of stone gateposts that must have been several hundred years old had been mercilessly knocked over. However there were many people milling about on the road, so I assumed it must be safe. There were no cars around, but several bikes and motorcycles were travelling along the road, their riders frequently having to get off to pull the bikes over some pieces of debris obstructing their path.

Surfcity Hotel is still there, but is surrounded by devastation. In particular, the Peacock Hotel where the Dutch family and Denisa and Petr were staying is now a pile of timber and corrugated iron. The route I took from Surfcity to the main road yesterday with bare feet is covered in rubble, glass and corrugated iron, which would explain why I and so many other people cut their feet in the escape. There is an eerie silence on the beach: nobody is around, the beach has changed shape, the glorious weather of the past week has been replaced by grey skies, and the occasional helicopter passes overhead.

I pack up all the stuff in my hotel room. My passport hiding place has been discovered by looters, but fortunately they have only taken about $40 of cash and left all my important documents and valuables (camera, minidisc player) behind. My flip-flops have also been taken, as someone else has worked out the importance of footwear after natural disasters.

With my camera safe and sound, I used the opportunity to take some photographs of the area:

The view in front of my hotel towards the beach

The view behind my hotel towards the main road – before the tsunami the main road was completely obscured by buildings

The new Unawatuna beach

Galle Road

More pictures at gallery.alexdixon.info/tsunami

Back at Surfcity, a group of youths is sifting through the sand outside the gem shop hoping to find something. I take loads of Sprites and Fantas from the upturned fridge in the kitchen, as I’m not sure when we’ll get the next bottle of water. The two girls (with shoes who ran off yesterday) and their boyfriends come along and say they need to break into the hotel safe to get their passports and documents out. One of them called Dave says he’s been in contact with the British High Commission and they agree with the idea, as long as he brings back any other passports he finds in the safe. After 2 minutes of banging at the rather weak safe (more like a filing cabinet), they succeed in retrieving the documents, and also pick out Gideon’s valuables, which I offer to take back for him.

With my full rucksack and a wooden staff I picked up to help with my damaged foot, I managed to hike back up to Silva’s house. Instead of rationing the Sprites and Fantas when I returned, we immediately tucked into them as treats! It did however allow me to sit down and talk with the Dutch kids. The only other languages I speak are French and Dutch, both at a barely intermediate level, which is a rather unfortunate combination: many French don’t want to listen to my French unless it is perfect, and many Dutch do not have the patience to listen to my Dutch, when it would be easier if I just spoke in English. The Dutch children however allowed me to speak to them in Dutch (although with a little help from Yoni, the second eldest).

Later, I finally managed to get a Sri Lankan mobile network to allow me to subscribe to it, and was able to send some SMS text messages back home, which cheered me up no end.

Silva’s Refugee Camp

Now, with a phone with no credit limit in hand, I started phoning the British High Commission in Colombo, to see if they could offer some advice. All their lines were busy, but I did manage to get through to the Dutch embassy, so I passed the phone over to Luc and Karin. Apparently, they could offer no help except to tell us to get to Colombo where we would be looked after. They couldn’t suggest any way for us to actually get to Colombo, as we had heard on the radio that the coastal road had been washed away. I get through to the British High Commission later, but they say pretty much the same thing.

The Surfcity dog, Milkshake, made an appearance later that afternoon and became our token dog refugee. Unfortunately Silva’s dogs were not as hospitable to Milkshake as Silva was to us, and there were lots of fights between them for the rest of the day.

The French-Pakistani man, who I had the argument with earlier, came over later and we both apologised to each other. His French mother however was much more hostile after the argument. She lives in the area and had managed to organise some minibuses to take some people away to the central highlands. Of course anyone who had had an argument with her or her son (specifically Odette, who had defended me after I stormed off, Damaris, and me) was not near the top of her list of people to help!

The Dutch family, Aidan and Lilia were going to get the minibuses that evening, and it was all quite emotional as we said farewell to each other. It turned out there wasn’t enough space for them anyway, so after walking around in the dark with all of their luggage for a while, they all came back and so Silva’s Refugee Camp was reunited for another night, but with plans to leave tomorrow morning.

We get woken up around midnight by Uli, a German man who was staying at Surfcity a few days ago, but left for Kandy in the highlands on the 24th. He had driven for twelve hours down from Kandy with a minbus full of water and food to “rescue” us – he’s also a web journalist so he also brought a video camera

In the morning, he asks some of us to share our experiences in front of the video camera:
Damaris’s and Yoni’s stories 56k | 256k
Alex’s and Gideon’s stories 56k | 256k
(Uli’s editorial licence makes me appear a little too left-wing, but I was just telling it like it was – but at least I seem to sound like Ben Fogle off Castaway!)

The minibus runs an errand into Galle, and from what we hear, the town is in a pretty bad condition – Odette, who went along with them, is particularly shocked. When the minibus returns, they load up with the Dutch family, Damaris and Odette. When it transpires that there might be space for one or two more people, there’s a bit of an undignified scramble, but the resulting sardine can full of people makes those left behind glad to be exactly that.

With Denisa and Petr away on the minbus, the rest of Silva’s Refugee Camp links up with Penny, Martin, Cristian, Emily, Ralph and Melody who have been staying with the family next door. They tell us that the British High Commission bussed out 80 foreign tourists in the morning and will be arranging more buses for that afternoon. Apparently the Hotel Paradiso further down the hill has been looking after huge numbers of tourists and they had no idea that there were more tourists like us who were staying up further up the hill.

Thinking that it’s better to be more centrally located, we thank Silva and her family for their enormous hospitality, and walk down to the Hotel Paradiso. There, Dave, the guy who broke into the Surfcity safe the day before, is running the show and has since become to British High Commission’s representative in Unawatuna! (He used to be an embassy warden.) There should be some more buses arriving in a few hours – so we wait.

With the prospect of arriving in Colombo late at night, I send SMSs to two friends in the UK who have family in Colombo. Both Sala and Pritiva send messages back saying that they should be able to arrange something. But at this point my phone is running dangerously low on battery.

When we hear that the bus has arrived, we traipse down to the road with all of our luggage. The road has now been cleared and is quite busy with traffic. I get a last look at Surfcity Hotel before our bus moves off. It really is one of the last remaining buildings in this corner of the beach:

The green wall is the back of Surfcity

Further along the road, we stop to pick up more tourists from the other side of Unawatuna. They all seem far more stressed than we are: there are about a hundred of them and they’ve all been staying at the same hotel that day. Pete, an English chap who I met on Christmas evening, climbs on board with his friends; it’s good to see at least one of the many people I got to know over the past week in Unawatuna. There were still many other people that I hadn’t seen since the flood.

Once we’re settled down, a photo-journalist climbs on board and takes a photo of all of us waiting to leave. Most people are pretty angry at being photographed at this sensitive time, so furiously tell him to go away.
A few days later I stumbled across his photo on the Reuters website:

Reuters image: Foreign tourists being evacuated from Unawatuna

Ten minutes later the bus passes through the main southern town of Galle. Just a few days ago, I had been to the market here, but now there was nothing. Hardly any buildings on either side of the road were still standing. There were even two boats that had been swept inland:

Since parts of the main coastal road have been swept away, the bus turns inland. We stop to grab some food from a shop, and Emily and Martin supply the whole bus with biscuits and miniature bananas! We also pass a petrol station where we see hundreds of Sri Lankans forming an orderly queue to get fuel.

Just before midnight we arrive in Colombo. I was expecting we were going to be dropped off there and left to fend for ourselves, but am pleased as we get invited into the British High Commission. Inside the incredibly well-spoken staff give us food, water, first aid and a phone call. They also want to know who else we have seen, and they are pleased when I tell them that Emma and Eugene, who stayed at Camp Silva for one night, were okay, since they had been reported as missing. As I’m waiting to make a phone call, I get to sneak a look at the email account of the official looking after me: I see tens of emails in her inbox about British government statements, lists of missing people in Phuket and Arugam Bay etc.

I phone Pritiva’s sister and mother who had offered to put me up for the night. Ten minutes later they arrive at reception. While all the other tourists are taken to the main Colombo concert hall to be given a mattress, I’m whisked off to a family home, a lovely meal and a nice soft bed.

Epilogue:
I spent the next two days with Pritiva’s mother Indira, sister Anjalika and aunt Chun, in Colombo. My family were keen to have me home, but it was only when I got a chance to watch the horrific images on BBC News, that I thought it best to come back to the UK immediately, rather than carry on with my trip to Thailand. I was able to arrange a flight to take me home the next day.

Links:
Uli’s Internet TV site with videos of Unawatuna – www.web62.com
Please donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee
Wikipedia article on the 2004 Earthquake/Tsunami
Alex’s pictures of Unawatuna

I am okay, but was caught right in the middle of it (most of the Sri Lankan coastline was).

I was in my reinforced-concrete hotel as 4m (13ft) high waves exploded from the beach and knocked down almost everything around us.

The British High Commission evacuated us to Colombo yesterday (28th), and tomorrow (30th) I am flying back to London.

However, in the meantime, please, please make a donation to an international relief agency to help the Sri Lankan people who have looked after us, but now face dire problems over the coming days and weeks.

Please visit Oxfam or the Disasters Emergency Committee, or telephone 0870 60 60 900, or visit a bank or post office collecting donations.

Galle is 5km from where I was staying, and the BBC has been sending many reports from there, including this one (to give you an idea): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4130899.stm

When I arrived, most of the children were staying at the Trust’s farm 7km away from the village, and so had no school classes to attend. Instead the project that everyone was working on, was to fill an extremely large dip in the driveway with dirt, stones, rocks and boulders … and without using a wheelbarrow! Of course, since I was being fed and accommodated for several days I lent a hand. Unfortunately I wasn’t very good at balancing large bowls of earth on my head, so I ended up being a boulder-extractor and chief-lifting-bowls-onto-children’s-heads person. The last role was quite fun, as I got to know almost everyone. I was however I little weary of putting large slabs of quite heavy rock onto some kids’ heads, but they all happened to be much stronger than they looked, and happily scuttled away with the load on a cushion above their head.

It was while extracting one of the large boulders from the ground that a six-inch long (15cm for you Europeans out there) black scorpion crawled out of a crevice – a crowd gathered around, and everyone got excited as two children managed to loop a knot around its stinger and tie it to a tree like a dog … poor thing! Later that night I also came across a large hairy caterpillar under my bed – so it’s nice to get close to nature!

The next day the children were in school, so everything was a lot more relaxed! I had a very interesting conversation with Surendra about Mahatma Gandhi and Indian politics. Combined with later conversations with his son, Santosh, about the ills of western society and how an agricultral existence keeps him and his family very happy, I got the feeling that if I had spent much more time staying with them, I would have started wearing a Dhoti Kurta, renounced money and started waving a red-flag! Alas I had to leave shortly after, but my brother, Hugo, spent six months there and he seems to be okay

After a 16-hour train and bus jounrey, I arrived in Mysore in Karnataka at 6am absolutely exhausted. But after spending so much money in Mumbai and Goa, I was determined to try and save a night’s accommodation, and continue moving on to Melkote that day.

Melkote is a village about two hours out of Mysore that my brother, Hugo, has visited twice to do some volunteering work in a school for disabled children. He keeps in touch with and is friends with the family that run the school, and so he arranged for me to visit them while I am in India.

With my first set of instructions leading me only to Mysore, I had to wait a few hours before I could call ahead for my next set of directions (it being 6am). After several cups of koffie and after leaving my bag at the bus station cloakroom, I got a chance to look around the early morning streets of Mysore. It was quite a handsome town, and everything seemed much more easy-going than in the north: the museums do not have two-tier admission fees for foreigners; shopping is much more pleasurable and less of a hassle; and they even have women police officers!

I was given a wonderful welcome by Surendra Koulagi and his wife when I finally arrived in Melkote, i.e. I was given a good lunch and allowed to rest for a couple of hours! That evening, I caught another bus to a farmhouse another 7km away from Melkote where a lot of the children were staying for the weekend. /the children were all charming of course, but I was surprised when they asked me if I was Scottish. Now, no offense to you Scots, but it’s not particularly usual for your country to be someone’s first choice when woring out where someone is from. It turned out that actually they receive a student or two from Edinburgh University each year, so the kids new a bit about Scotland.

Even more amazing however, was when I learnt from Surendra’s son, Santosh, that good old Jim Cogan (one of my English teachers from school) had visited this school about 15 years ago, when he was setting up his volunteering scheme SPW (Schools Partnership Worldwide).

More interesting stories to come…. (6-inch long scorpions, 4-inch long hairy caterpillars, socialism and agriculture)

There were some changes as we moved south: people were less likely to be wearing jumpers (remember it’s Indian “winter” in the north). The drink of choice on the trains moved from “chai” to “koffie” and food from “samosa” to “masala dosa”.

About 20% of the route from Mumbai to Goa seemed to be in tunnels, which I thought must involve some pretty hardcore boring. As we went through a tunnel, I usually saw a group of people pressed up against the tunnel wall, as it seems that the tunnels are some of the best ways to get from A-to-B in this mountainous area! I also saw two derailed trains on the route, which made me wonder how often these accidents occur (or how long it takes for the authorities to clean up derailed trains).

I arrived in Goa’s second city, Margao, at about 8.30pm, and it was unfortunately too late to get a bus to my preferred destination, the beach resort of Palolem, so I got a ride to the nearest stretch of sand, Benaulim, which was only 3km away.

The place was full of couples, so was pretty sure I would leave early the next day. The sand was perfect though, as it sounded like the snow on a fresh ski slope under-foot.

The next morning I got the bus to Palolem. It was interesting to see how there are differences in how people look here, as the hair, makeup, and clothes of many of the women made me think I was in Latin America or the Philippines.

At the bus stop for Palolem I met Samuel from Sweden – who stood out because he was wearing thick jeans and had a wheelie suitcase instead of a rucksack. Anyway, we went of in search of accommodation together, and each checked into some Thai-style beach huts.

Palolem is very much a tourist destination and to be fair is not particularly Goan at all. But after several weeks of India overload, it was nice to be able to just relax for a few days. The place is full of north Europeans (British, Irish, German, Dutch and Swedish) which meant there were some interesting and some not so interesting people to meet (the British normally being boring beer-minded people).

The waiter at the restaurant Samuel and I had our first lunch, pointed out that Palolem is where they did the filming for the first scene of the Bourne Supremacy, and suddenly the whole beach seemed familiar after he said this. Furthermore, the set for the filming stood where my beach hut is now! Perhaps people will recognise part of the movie from the picture below (with still pasty Alex in the foreground).

In fact, after I went swimming and walked back to my sun bench, an Indian woman came over to me and said:
“Hello sir. You are very white – from England?”
Highly amusing….

She persuaded me to get a Henna tattoo around my arm (don’t worry Mum, it comes off after a few weeks), so I am slowly approaching the hippy category.

On my last night, the manager of the huts I was staying in organised a screening of the Matrix 1 and 2 using a projector and a white sheet, accompanied by a yummy fish BBQ (I only got through half of the tuna that was given to me).

Although I didn’t think I was going to enjoy the commercialism of Goa, I’m ashamed to say that I really enjoyed myself. However, I’m not really a beach person, so it was time to move off to the school in a village in Karnataka, where my brother volunteered twenty years ago…

Considering it was so early in the morning, the suburban train was quite busy. There were similarities to the London tube, but of course nobody bothers to close the doors in between the stations.

After finding a place to stay (three times more expensive than anywhere else I’ve been), I set off around the city to explore. The Gateway to India is one of Mumbai’s main tourists attractions, and my hotel was 2 minutes walk away, so I had to go see that:

Two things that really amazed me about Mumbai:
1/ You hear Indians speaking to each other in English
2/ They have red double-decker buses!

After buying myself a copy of Time Out: Mumbai I really started to feel at home. After three weeks of travelling through villages and small/medium-sized towns, it was quite a relief to come back to a large city, as I’m definitely an urban person!

However, Mumbai does have it’s own beach (although I wouldn’t advise swimming), and sunset over the Chowpatty Beach was quite stunning.

Feeling all urban, I decided to go to the cinema to catch up on some Hollywood movies, and managed to get myself a ticket for Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Before the movie started, we all had to stand up to sing (i.e. listen) to a rather out-of-tune Indian national anthem. The movie was fun as it was good to see a (somewhat) scary movie again. Afterwards I decided to go to a trendy Mumbai bar … alone (shock-horror)!

I couldn’t stop laughing at myself for walking into a bar alone, and for the first ten minutes I was grinning into my glass of Sprite. Then an overly-friendly woman comes along and sits down next to me. After 15 minutes of politely turning down her offers, I managed to excuse myself.

I spent the next two days sightseeing around the city, which was not overly exciting, but fun to feel the vibe of the most cosmopolitan city in India nonetheless. Below, you can see me in front of the Chatrapathi Shivaji railway terminus (formerly the Victoria Terminus).

On my last night, I bought myself a ticket for the Bollywood movie Veer-Zaara. What a fantastic way to spend an evening. It really wasn’t necessary to understand Hindi at all, as the plot was quite predictable, and the actors know how to make the right impression (sort of).

Thoughts:
1/ Bus accidents are quite common in India, as two bus crashes occurred in the movie.
2/ Supposedly well-trained Indian airmen dangle off the end of a helicopter winch waving their arms frantically like an inexperienced actor.
3/ Travelling hundreds of miles to deliver your grandmother’s ashes to a river in her homeland, only to have all the ashes blow into your feet instead of the river, doesn’t seem to matter, as long as you have an Indian airman to hold you … tightly.
4/ The women always seem to get trapped in the monsoon rains, and their saris get quite wet.

The girl in the seat next to me seemed to be crying for most of the movie, but her boyfriend was having great fun looking after her.

Anyway, when are they going to start showing Bollywood in the West End?

From Satna, I was aiming to get to the village of Kharjuraho, a village full of one thousand year old “erotic temples”. Unfortunately Kharjuraho was 4 hours away by bus from Satna, and an old lady insisted on occupying my seat on the bus. I was able to get another seat at the back of the bus, but sitting over the rear wheels, I’ve discovered, makes the whole experience more rollercoaster-like.

On arrival near Kharjuraho, I was met by an accomodation tout, who asked me if I wanted to stay at his hotel. I was a little wary of touts (particularly after Agra), but I liked his attitude and decided to go along to his hotel, as he helped me find my way into town and he offered a good deal.

Mukesh, as he was called, told me everything I needed to know once I arrived at the hotel and he even offered to invite me to his family’s home for dinner that night! So I’ve come to believe that the attitude of people is certainly a lot more friendly outside of the cities.

Of course the main reason I came to the village was to see these “erotic” temples. In fact, most of it was pretty tame, but one of the more saucy friezes is shown below:

Dinner with Mukesh’s family was a wonderful experience. I even got asked to come along to a festival at a nearby (40km away) village in two days, and was encouraged to delay my onward train ticket by one day to allow me to attend. I couldn’t entirely work out what the festival was celebrating, but the closest hint I was given was that it was a “festival of women”!

In preparation for the “festival of women”, I had a haircut in the village – rather scary as it was 20 minutes of constant Edward Scissorhands sounds.

The festival itself was great fun. Although it was a “festival of women” it essentially involved all of the women giving the men lots of food for lunch. Being the only westerner there, the kids got very excited and the women gave me lots of food, because I’m “so big”

After another exhausting four hour bus journey back to Satna, I had to wait for an hour or so at the train station. The most amusing thing I noticed was that all train announcements were preceeded by the Microsoft Windows 98 log off sound.

Varanasi the next day was really interesting and atmospheric. Funeral pyres burn by the side of the River Ganges and further down people bathe in the river waters (the chemical discharges from upstream factories apparently being more dangerous than any unburnt body parts in the water). There’s not actually much to do except sit by the river for hours and soak up the atmosphere. However on the way back to my hostel, I was convinced to have a massage, which was a little painful at times, but amusing as well. The group of middle-aged Germans on a charter holiday found my experience far more amusing though.

The next moring I got on an early morning river cruise organised by my hostel for free (yes, some things are free!). Unfortunately I was sharing with a group of eight post-military service Israelis who seemed more interested in getting stoned, but I did convince one to take a picture:

Jalgaon, my next port-of-call, was 25 hours away from Varanasi by train, and unfortunately I had to share my berth for most of the way, as I had booked my ticket quite late. After the long and arduous journey, I happily checked into an extremely cheap and clean hotel for an early night.

The Ajanta buddist caves are about 45km away from Jalgaon along a nice flat road, so it was quite a pleasant journey getting there. The caves themselves date from between the 2nd century BC and the 6th century AD, and have all been cut out of the rock on the side of a ridge. Some of the more recent caves also some beautiful paintings on the interior that have managed to survive quite well considering how old they are. All very impressive of course, but soon it was time to get back to Jalgaon to catch my next train to Bombay.

The inside of one of the Ajanta caves

Agra was absolutely packed: apparently it was a good day to get married, so the streets were full of several different wedding processions. When I got to my hotel, I was rather surprised to find that it had a revolving restaurant on the top floor! Unfortunately the food was appalling (perhaps as punishment for giving up on my three weeks of vegetarianism) and the views weren’t particularly impressive.

I managed an early morning start the next day to go see the Taj Mahal for sunrise and before most of the crowds arrived. At the entrance I bumped into the Aussies from Rathambhore, so we walked around the complex together. It turned out that the early morning start wasn’t really worth it that day, as the air quality in the city, combined with the morning mist, made my first view of the Taj distinctly gloomy. However after an hour or so and when the sun started to warm things up, things started to look much better.

Alex in front of the Taj Mahal

No visit to India would be complete without seeing a tiger – so with this in mind I headed off to the Ranthambhore National Park, which is supposed to be the place in India “where you are not guaranteed a sighting, but if you see one anywhere, it’s most likely to be here”.

After getting lunch on the rooftop terrace of the hotel, I bumped into Kevin from Newcastle (with the accent to match) who was one of the guys I met on my first night in Delhi – he’s been having a great time travelling around pretty much the same places that I have been, but is sad to be going back home in a few days.

That night I realised (after speaking to military man Kevin) that I hadn’t done any exercise since I arrived (well, probably not for a year), so decided to try and do some push-ups! Nine was the grand total of what I managed, so hopefully this number will increase in the coming weeks

The next morning I had to wake up at 5.45am to catch the first morning safari into the park. It was pretty cold, and after zooming around for a few hours and getting covered (and I mean REALLY covered) in dirt, we didn’t actually see a tiger – although there were some nice peacocks, monkeys and spotted deer.

For lunch I met Michael, Jenny and another Alex: three Aussies currently living in London and on holiday in India for 4 weeks. I think most people’s view of Australians is that the further you get them away from home, the better they are, so these guys were pretty cool (or am I saying this because I know they might read this?). Anyway, they had been on two tiger-safaris and had only managed to see about 5 seconds of tiger, so I didn’t think I had a particularly good chance for my second safari.

Michael, Jenny and other Alex decided to give the afternoon safari a miss (as sitting in an open-topped coach driving up and down a bumpy dirt track for four hours isn’t actually that much fun). Kevin and I were pretty pessimistic in the first hour of the trip, but soon after we saw a collection of 5 other coaches with tourists all leaning over one side and excitedly pointing at something.

In the end we got to see two tigers for about 5 minutes, and they got as close as 5 metres to our coach.

Of course, the Aussies were pretty gutted when we got back to our hotel with broad smiles on our faces.

The Pushkar camel fair was gearing up, and hundreds of camel-owners from around Rajasthan had brought thousands of camels to the edge of town, to trade in – er, camels – and catch up with friends who they probably hadn’t seen since the year before. The scene was amazing, but unfortunately the main festivities had yet to start before I had to leave town for Jaipur.

Jaipur is very much on the tourist trail of India, and as such the locals are very much on the trail of tourists. Within a minute of stepping into the old city, a smartly-dressed young man comes up to me, and we conduct the following conversation:

Spooky Smartly-Dressed Young Man: “My friend, where are you from?”
Alex: “England”
SSDYM: “Aaaah, I used to have a girlfriend from England: she was from Montreal”
Alex: “Really? That’s in Canada”
SSDYM: “Oh no, I’m sorry [flicks his forehead] – I meant Manchester”

No doubt he was trying to befriend me to take me to a particular shop, or somehow extract money from me in some other way.

The touts really detract from the fun of a holiday in Asia, but can we blame them when so many “rich” tourists flood into their country each year? Anyhow, after a full day of walking around the (rather boring)sites of Jaipur and the neighbouring town of Amber, and still considering the tout problem, I was becoming quite tired of the whole tourist thing, and am now very much looking forward to becoming a “traveller” once I get through Agra and leave my guide Jackie behind next week.

But here’s a picture of a rude-boy monkey to lighten the spirit!

The road to Bikaner in the Great Thar Desert was not particularly pleasant – progress was really slow as the road was not in good condition. In some parts there were deep holes and the whole journey was generally rough. Jackie said that it was only like this on this particular road, and once we left Bikaner again it would be a lot better. After 10 hours of driving it became dark, and it was then that I realised that a “buttock-clenching moment” has an entirely literal meaning, as not all of the other vehicles on the road had lights. Needlesstosay, once we arrived at Bikaner, we checked into quite a nice hotel, and I could rest my aching back and neck caused by the bumpy road.

The Bikaner Fort was the first of many Rajasthani forts that I would visit, and like the others, was very impressive and full of tourists! Fortunately, the group I was placed with for the guided-tour had no other westerners and was in fact a group of tourists from Mumbai! The guide said everything in Hindi, and then walked over to me and repeated it in English, which I think some people appreciated as they didn’t hear him the first time.

Next town on the route was Jaiselmer. As Jackie said, the road was much better, but eerily spooky as we drove about 300km, but hardly passed any other cars and went through only two towns. Otherwise we were surrounded by desert. On the way, we met Claudia, a French-Canadian, who was with her driver from the same company as Jackie. She has spent three-months working at an orphanage in Bangladesh, and is about to embark on another three-months in Nepal! We had a good dinner together that night and spoke about many things in India, Canada and the UK. It also became clear that I really need to improve my French.

Jaiselmer is known as the “Golden City” for the sandstone used in its buildings, and some of the views of the city from the fort were stunning.

After a few hours however, it was time to head out to Khuri, further into the desert, to start a camel-trek. Jackie also decided to bring a long a few of his friends for the ride, which resulted in an interesting car-party.

I know that everyone says it, but these camels are so much larger than one expects. The camel has to sit down for you to get on, and when he stands up again, you have to hold on for dear life, as he lifts you two metres into the air. My camel was called “Lul”, which I found quite amusing since that’s a rather funny word in Dutch.

After the short-trek to catch the sunset, we came back to a show of Rajasthani folk music and dancing, boosted by promises of a woman dancing with seven pots on her head. Unfortunately I was rather disappointed to see only six pots on a woman’s head, but there were three women doing it, so perhaps that makes up for it. Off to bed under the stars, and it was absolutely fantastic to see so many stars – so so many – and even the Milky Way while drifting off to sleep.

The serious camel-trek started the next day, and with Lul and two guides I headed out into desert (with plenty of sunblock). For lunch, Wol Singh and Babu Singh (not sure of spelling) started a camp fire and cooked me rice, potatoes, lentils and onions – a marvellous feast. Dinner was pretty much the same thing, except with whiskey. I also made it clear that unlike most tourists I DO (really really) like chilli, and they should add as much to my portions as they did to their own.

The second day was very much like the first except I had eaten too much the day before, so it became necessary to do a number-2 in the desert… not very nice. Anyway, I was pleased when we returned to the ranch, as I would now recommend that a one-and-a-half day camel-trek is enough for anyone. I then got a chance to look around teh village of Khuri itself.

Next we were off to the city of Jodhpur, with a short stop at Pokram Fort (near were the nuclear weapons testing goes on!). Jodhpur is known as the “Blue City” as many of its building as painted blue (d’oh!), to keep insects away apparently. Again another nice fort and city. That night however was Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, and there were many fireworks in the sky. Jackie, a friend of his and I got quite drunk on some whiskey however, so the celebration did not last quite as long as I would have liked. (So if Sophie and Charlotte ever get to read this – sorry I never made it out to you guys!)

Ranakpur, home to some amazing Jain temples, was our next stop. Ranakpur is in a nice wooded valley and it was a relief to leave the desert behind us. The main temple was quite impressive, although a rather pushy priest insisted that I pay him Rs100 for what turned out to be a 5-minute tour.

That night I had dinner with Chiharu, a Japanese tourist staying at the same hotel as me. The evening took a downturn when her driver, and a friend of his, sat down to eat with us, and the friend started making lewd suggestions about how he and Chiharu could go into the jungle and “spend time together” (not that I was jealous). Anyway, we got into a debate about the role of women in the UK (where “sex is a game”, but “women have choice”) and India (where “everyone has a family”, but “some women are trapped in a place they don’t want to be”). It did make me think that many people in the West are alone and concentrate on their careers too much, but I still thought that his attitude to Chiharu was inappropriate.

The following day I went off on a trek up the valley wall to a village near the top of the ridge – with a guide who spoke no Engish. It took three hours and three bottles of mineral water to get there, but the views from the top were stunning – my guide obviously thought the same, as he kept suggesting that I take photos of everything. The hundreds of monkeys we passed on the way however, seemed to get very worked up by our presence.

Our next stop was the “romantic” city of Udaipur, where they filmed a lot of the James Bond film Octopussy. Again another impressive fort, but the city has lost a lot of its charm, as the lake on which it sits has dropped about 10 metres from its full level: there has not been proper rain in the area for the past seven years and the area of the lake is only about a third of what it should be.

That evening I rather randomly met Jules from London, who was also at Imperial, although he left several years ago. He is also a management consultant (like what I’m going to be ), and we discovered we had worked on the same project while I was on my internship in Edinburgh last year, and even attended the same meeting! Small world – huh?

Today I am in Pushkar, where the waters from the lake are holy to Hindus. I prayed with a “priest” for the happiness of my family and friends, who suggested that if I “donated” $70, it was very likely that the gods would ensure that all of my wishes would come true. The donation couldn’t even be put in the clearly-marked donation box, but had to be given to an “official representative”. Unfortunately I had to make my excuses and make my own private donation into the box (smaller than $70 I’m ashamed to say), so hopefully good things should be happening to all of you soon!

The guy who hung out of the window of the bus (but not the driver) was very enthusiastic to see me. “How much?” I asked. “Fifty” he replies. “When do you leave?” … but his English did not extend that far. I realised it was a stupid question anyway, as we waited around for a while until enough people got on. We then drove around the two terminals of the airport for 15 minutes, with the window man calling at people to come to Delhi.

The route along the highway was fascinating: an elephant took up half of the slow lane; policemen with rather archaic looking rifles were stationed every 200m along the route (for who’s safety exactly?); and there are posters of John Major everywhere (apparently the guest at a leadership conference happening in Delhi over the week)!

Managed to find a hotel without too much hassle (see mum!) and lay down to rest for the rest of the afternoon. I heard (ok – “read” in the Rough Guide) that a cafe called ‘Gem’ was a good place to hang out and of course instantly met some other westerners as soon as I sat down and tucked in to my first of many vegetarian meals.

The next day I went to the Old Delhi Red Fort by cycle rickshaw (I found out later that my fare of Rs50 (60p) was too high). The weather was perfect – a mild 25 degC – but a few Delhi-ites were wearing jackets (it’s winter here)! When I had to get a ticket for entrance to the fort, I naturally joined the queue along with everyone else (although I was a little surprised by how close the person behind decided to shuffle up behind me). Then a serious-looking security guard drags me out and escorts me to the foreigners’ window, where the entrance fee is fifty times higher than the Indians’ window – pah! The fort itself was quite nice (though not particularly impressive), but the restaurant inside served a very nice lunch.

The next day I noticed that my bogies had turned black due to all the smog and fumes in the city! Undeterred I ventured out to explore more of the city and arranged a taxi for the day to take me to some of the other sites around town, this time in the much more spacious New Delhi – Raj Path, India Gate (something between Marble Arch and Arc de Triomphe), Indira Gandhi National Museum (rather depressing stories of how her and her son were each assassinated), Humayun’s Tomb (older and perhaps more spectacular than the Taj Mahal) and the Baha’i Temple (lotus flower shaped and run by a whole group of westerners who speak Hindi). My driver (gosh, that sounds nice) was very adept at driving through the Delhi traffic – this essentially involved honking his horn constantly, and driving in a straight line until someone else honked their horn at us. He was also kind enough to point out the women he thought were prostitutes on the street (they all looked like quite respectable women to me, who just happened to be waiting on a street corner): this just goes to show how naive I am about such things, particularly since only two-weeks ago, Graham pointed out to me that Soho, London actually has some red-light establishments that I had never noticed before!

Woken up the next day by the lovely sound of throat-clearing by the people in the next room – but just as well, as I had to go and meet Lisa (a friend of my brother) who lives in Delhi. She gave me lots of great advice about travelling (and surviving) in India.

Since it was my last day in Delhi, I had to squeeze in a trip to Jami Masjid, the largest mosque in India, before leaving town. However, I found the place quite depressing as the stairs up to the mosque are lined with begging children and other beggars with missing limbs, hoping to receive some charity from alms-giving Muslims. It’s a shame that India is investing in nuclear weapons, when there are clearly more important things to worry about, but I suppose that is what the Indian contradiction is all about.

After watching the Bourne Supremacy (brilliant movie) on Emirates EK10 (great airline), I managed to sleep very well with the help of some flight earplugs (top tip for flying: you sleep better, and your ears don’t pop so often)

Dubai airport is outrageously over-the-top, but as I walked into the waiting area for the flight to Delhi and saw the change in the types of traveller, it really became apparent that my trip had begun. While waiting, I spoke with an Indian-American and a British woman living in Orissa, who both told me to “be careful”. Compounded with everyone else who had told me that in the past few weeks, I did begin to feel nervous.