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Wow, what a special place! We had a great time on the Kinabatangan: we could almost kid ourselves it was deep jungle and not a stretch of regenerated bush a couple of hundred meters wide each side each side of the river. As environmentally reprehensible as this is (you could park by a seemingly intact piece of forest and hear the plantation machinery working behind the trees) it does have the effect of concentrating the wildlife in a narrow area. The river was easy to navigate - broad and deep once you passed into the main river. During the day we would meander slowly up it (not much else we could do with a 2 knot current against us), sun awning spread, doing our African Queen impression, admiring the scenery (and dodging barges and giant logs hurtling down the river) and wild life spotting. After we had done an exhausting 3 hours or so, we would pull over to the side of the river and anchor to watch the evening monkey show. Around 4pm there would be a loud crashing in the trees and monkeys would start appearing to feed and socialise before settling in for the night. They were great fun to watch - the large proboscis ones were the most impressive and would do some amazing flying leaps between trees, but the macaques were the most fun - lots of little babies learning to climb and nearly falling out of trees, mock fights etc. One night we were most peeved because the proboscis monkeys came to sit in the trees about 30 meters behind the boat and while we could see them, we couldn't get decent photos. The next morning we got up at dawn and went outside with our coffees to see if they would come closer, but to our amazement, the trees by the boat were inhabited by three orang -utans quietly feeding in the branches. We watched them for an hour or so until a speedboat came past and frightened them away.

 

After 4 days of progress, we made it to the small village settlement of Sukau, where most of the wildlife lodges are located and anchored off the village. While we were there we took the dinghy up one of the tributaries and got to see millions of monkeys (and tourists). We also went on a night trip with one of the local guides. He had the most amazing eyesight and could spot tiny birds in the trees. We saw lots of birds really close-up, as we would sneak up under their trees in the boat then spotlight them and photograph them, poor buggers. Also saw a pit viper way too close up for my liking - the guide parked the boat right underneath the branch it was curled around (about 3 feet above us) and extolled the venomousness of it and encouraging close-up photography while we were both cowering back in our seats. I had my exit route planned...

 

After a couple of days we headed back down the river, hoping to spot one of the herds of wild elephants that live by the river, and as we went past a likely spot I spied large brown shapes moving in the trees. We did a fast u-turn, dodging floating logs and fighting with the current to come alongside the bank where I'd seen them. We peered in with binoculars to see big brown eyes peering back curiously - it was a herd of cows (henceforth known as "cowlephants") that was the closest we got to big game. One of our downriver anchorages was beside the entrance stream leading to a huge and very beautiful oxbow lake, which we planned to explore by dinghy. Coming in to anchor we spotted what we initially assumed was another "logodile" (log which looks like a crocodile at first inspection) but when we looked closer, it turned out to be a 3 meter crocodile basking on the bank. Bruce offered to set the dinghy up so I could go in and photograph it, but I declined his kind offer. We still had to go near its sunning spot to get into the lake, which was a little frightening - I had my oar ready to repel boarders.

 

We left the river with no untoward incidents, a far more relaxed trip than the ingoing one, as we knew we could follow our track in and have deep enough water, and headed back to Sandakan to clear out and provision up for the overnighter to Kudat. The trip to Kudat was uneventful (I love that in a trip) and we are here now catching up with friends we haven't seen for ages before heading around to the west coast of Borneo.

 

So, that's it from us!

Cheers,

The Daemons

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More from the Daemons

 

Hi all,

Well, we dragged ourselves out of Kudat (love that little town!) and headed down the coast of Borneo to the bright lights of Kota Kinabalu. Again the trip was uneventful (I've stopped counting cowering in the cockpit on anchor watch during the usual evening thunderstorm as events), and we stopped at some nice anchorages on the way, particularly Pulau Mantanani and Pulau Gaya, which is in the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, a stone throw from the centre of KK.

 

We are now in the marina at Sutera Harbour Resort and in a quiet state of bliss, not least because I don't have to worry about the said nightly thunderstorms. The marina is an extravagance for us at $25 NZ per night, but it is attached to a 5 star resort and we get to use all the facilities for that. As a room at the hotel is US$300 per night, it is quite a bargain! We have a choice of 3 swimming pools, ten pin bowling, free luxury shuttle bus to town, a super cheap laundry service (so we don't spoil the look of the pace by draping washing over the boats), lots of restaurants (if we could afford them) and wonderful, wonderful showers, all marble and frosted glass with free bath caps & shampoo and soap and baby powder etc and to top it all off, they issue you with fresh towels every time you go near a shower or a pool! And the towels haven't been two months between washes and used for mopping up spills, rainwater ingress etc etc. Absolute, indescribable bliss! I found myself standing in an exquisitely-designed airconditioned marble and carved wood lobby the size of an aircraft hangar reciting "It was worth giving all this up to live in a cramped, damp, hot space that rolls all night. It was worth..." I'm telling myself I'll get bored quickly. Check out www.suteraharbour.com and drool.

 

Yours decadently,

The Daemons

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More from the Daemons.Update

 

.. OK, not really, but after the horrors of Labuan Marina, being anchored and free to swing with the tide and wind at Muara in the Sultanate of Brunei is pretty damn pleasant!

 

As predicted, luxury palled fairly quickly (day 2, "Hmnn, I've stayed at better...") and just in case telling myself this wasn't working, their berth spaces and our budget ran out at the same time, so we had to move on. We went out to Gaya Island and anchored overnight before heading towards Labuan Island. We had planned to anchor at Pulau Tiga, Ground Zero for the Survivor tv series, where the first series was filmed. Tried to get photos for you, Ross, but the weather was foul so we had to move on without stopping.

 

We got to Labuan a couple of days later and saw friends were in the marina, so we pulled in and tied up there as well. BIG mistake! The marina is only 2 years old and cost 30 million NZ$ but it is in very bad shape. It seems to have been designed and built by the same group of monkeys, who, if put in front of typewriters, would produce the complete works of Shakespeare in several thousand years. Well, obviously they had only given this bunch of monkeys a couple of hours at the drawing board because the design and build in no way took into account the conditions marinas experience. All the floating pontoons were one rigid boardwalk with no provisions for flexing, so when swells, surge or boat wakes came in, they whiplashed themselves to death. The few fingers left to tie to, seemed to be nailed not bolted to the main walkways and while we were there two self-destructed. Several of the smaller ones had no supporting piles and had come adrift and tilted over long before. There is a small team of workers constantly trying to patch it up, but they seem to be concentrating on things like lights and cleats and ignoring the disastrous structural failure. To make matters worse, it is the catchment area for all the rubbish thrown from the stilt villages further up the harbour, so all around the boat is a solid layer of rubbish, which stinks and bangs against the boat. Annoyed by a persistent thudding against the hull one night, Bruce went out to remove the offending item and when I asked what it was, he said it could have been one of two laundry baskets, a hard hat, one of several logs or boards, a kitchen cupboard door or one of many bottles. Add vege waste, plastic of all descriptions and dead fish to that lot, cook in the sun & humidity and you have some idea of the stench. However, it is free. There is a very posh marina office which is brand new but has never been opened. What a colossal waste of money.

 

Anyway, we tied alongside one of the walkways, with the prevailing SW monsoon winds holding us off. Well at least until the second night when a huge squall came through, with 50 knots of wind from the NE blowing us right on to the jetty. It was absolutely terrifying - we spent 2 hours in howling wind and driving rain on the jetty shoving the boat off so she didn't slam on to the jetty. Waves were breaking over the walkways and soaking us as well. It was horrible, but we managed to stop her hitting, although it was 3 days before I could raise my arms above shoulder height again! As soon as the winds abated enough to launch the dinghy we spider-webbed her with ropes across the fairway to hold her away from the jetty. Something I hope I never have to do again. The next day we walked into town and there were trees blown down all over the place, so it was definitely a howler.

 

We spent a few days in Labuan doing boat stuff, finishing my last essay for the year and stocking up on duty-free booze, as Labuan is a duty-free island. Actually got some decent wine (Chateauneuf-du-Pape)for only NZ$7! Very drinkable - a change from the usual yachties standards where a "sophisticated" wine is one that doesn't make you grimace and shudder for he first 3 sips. And they had my fave 42 Below passionfruit vodka from NZ as well! Booze in Mayalsia is taxed to hell, as it is a Muslim country, so this was an opportunity not to be missed. When the time came to get out of the marina (yes!) we found our engine wouldn't go (no!). There seemed to be some electrical failure, which Bruce & our friend Mike from Kantala spent the afternoon trying to track down. The gods were obviously looking after us (probably feeling guilty about the squall!) and tied up beside us was an electrical engineer! Within 15 minutes he had diagnosed a failed battery switch and in another 10 had fixed it. Phew!

 

So, off we went to make the huge ocean crossing to Brunei. Four hours and a nasty squall later we were there, and are now anchored off the river by the yacht club, enjoying the clean, flat waters of the Brunei River mouth. Weather permitting, we'll probably head down towards Miri for the Brunei Yacht Race.

 

Cheers,

The Daemon

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Spent nearly 3months working out of Labuan, was told where the marina was going to be built and even then the seawall / barrier that had been built was trapping all sorts of crap, we used the wall as a landing point to get ashore to the Waterfront, the stench was amazing in late afternoon on a still day. Booze very cheap.

Labuan seemed to be the bottle store and whorehouse for Brunei - every Friday afternoon after prayer the boats would arrive from Brunei.... and the exodus would start on Sat morning.

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Yeah, we wondered why the bottle stores were selling sawn-off half cartons of beer until we worked out that you could only take a dozen cans per person back. You can imagine the Malaysian government getting pissed off with Brunei for not joining the Malaysian Frederation and deciding to dump the Islamic version of Sodom & Gomorrah on their doorstep!

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Hold on to your hats the Daemons are making a flying visit.

 

Update

 

Until we head back to NZ. Daemon is tucked up in the bay at Brunei, with 3 lots of people keeping an eye out for her, so fingers crossed she'll be fine.

 

We have had a good month relaxing and doing a bit of sightseeing - not a lot of sightseeing, as a) Brunei is tiny and b)there isn't a lot to see. We took a day trip with one of the guys who runs a tour company as well as being heavily involved with yachting here, and visited the two main mosques, the water village, the museum housing the Sultan's regalia, the Brunei Museum (proudly announcing its first exhibit collected in the 1960s was a road kill owl) and a stop outside the Sultan's Palace to peer through the gates at the palace (see the website http://retardzone.com/2008/03/06/how-to ... on-dollars for a look at the life style) which has 1788 rooms with 257 bathrooms, is 200,000 square metres and houses some of his 5000-odd cars. It is the largest private residence in the world. Another trip highlight was stopping at the Empire Hotel (http://theempirehotel.com) to pick up another couple doing the tour. It is a "six star" resort, with an amazing decor and huge atrium, zillions of swimming pools etc etc. I swanned past the designer stores (Bvlgari, Hermes etc) wearing my best $8 Vanuatu market skirt and my $3 Kota Kinabalu market shirt, accessorised by stylish Croc sandals and a backpack, with my personal hairdresser (Bruce) in tow.

 

Apart from that, we have had a great rest and the Yacht Club library has taken a thrashing. We're now ready to head home to see all our friends and rellies we have been missing. Take care everyone!

 

Jill & Bruce

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Thread drift - I'm related to someone who is related to someone who knows someone, anyway she got a job as a pretty piece of fluff at the palace in Brunei (claims that was all :?: ).

Came back after 12months with stories of private 747 rides to Pommy land to go to Harrods etc and $1m US for 12 months "work".

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Xmas Update from Jill & Bruce :-)

 

Hi all,

Remember us? We're the ones doing all the sailing stuff and who have been too lazy/busy/preoccupied to write. So here is what we have been up to since we last wrote:

 

We spent our last week in Brunei finishing boat chores, reprovisioning, filling up with diesel (NZ 30c per litre!) and buying a new solar panel - NZ$ 230 for a 75 watt panel - excellent deal. Maybe now I can do emails etc without the power-consumption police glaring at me. We were befriended by a local expat couple who were very generous with the use of their car, and also took us for a burn down the river to the Malaysian border town of Limbang for lunch one day. That caused some concern as we got half way (about a 30-40 min trip) and realised we didn't have our passports with us. Much hilarity ensued as the idea of anyone at Limbang checking passports was apparently absurd. And sure enough, we just tied the boat to the jetty, hopped off, had lunch. looked around town and got in the boat and went back to Brunei. Border security in this part of the world only exists in the minds of bureaucrats. The Indonesian officials who were astounded that the Malaysian terrorist leader could get into Indonesia undetected to mastermind the Jakarta bombings are either naive, stupid or lying.

 

Despite thoroughly enjoying our time in Muara/Serasa it was time to move on, so we up anchored and headed down the coast, picking our way through a thicket of oil rigs just off the coast. Our first stop was Jerudong Marina, which strictly speaking, we should not have been in, as it is the private marina of Prince Jefri, the Sultan's brother, built at great expense (about twice the size of Westhaven) to house his superyacht, "Tits" and its tenders, "Nipple 1" and "Nipple 2". Classy guy. There are even artificial islands in the marina to provide extra shelter from the swell. However, his boating days seem to be over, so the marina is now unused, apart from passing yachties and sheltering fisherman, and the security guards seem to have given up hassling anchored boats, so it is now a very welcome piece of shelter in a coast pretty much devoid of good anchorages.

From there it was up the river to Kuala Belait, a booming oil town with a huge expat population where we spent a couple of nights and checked out of Brunei and then headed down the coat to Miri in Sarawak, Malaysia.

 

We passed the giant seahorse (don't ask) at the shallow, rolly entrance to Miri Marina (some of these designers have never been on a boat) and friends from Melric & Pied a Mer were on the dock (N04'23".09, E113'58".3)to take our lines. Miri was a great little town, lots of good cafes and shops that sold useful tings (canvas, hardware, jerry cans) and a great sense of the absurd in commerce. My favorites: Classy Inn (SO not!), Divine Crust (a toast restaurant. No, really.) and my all-time winner, Frank-ly Delish, a frankfurter restaurant with the catchy billboard slogan: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sausage". I hope that read better in Chinese. It was also difficult to go past the staff tshirts in the wonderful Ming Cafe (huge plate of mudcrab, laksa, baby green veges, 2 handles of beer and 2 ice coffees for NZ$20!) which proudly announced "I've been to Borneo and pissed at the Ming Cafe!". Either they've left a word out or we are subjected to way too much information.

 

From marina world in Miri, we headed out for a 3 nighter sail down to Santubong, on the mouth of one of the rivers going to Kuching city, which is where we will spend Xmas. The sail was good, gentle winds from astern, not much motoring, but a hell of a lot of thunder and lightening during the night. I prefer to think of it as god having her fairy lights out for Xmas. Speaking of which we are about to string Daemon with her lights and have hoisted Cap'n Santa, our inflatable Father Xmas, up the mast. It is slightly unfortunate that Cap'n Santa looks like a reject from a Chinese inflatable sex doll factory (he has a very willing-looking mouth) but as we got him in Papua New Guinea last year, choice was a little limited. It stops me missing the Creepy Whitcoulls Santa - I can't believe they gave him a makeover!

 

So, here we are, parked under a dramatic little mountain in a peaceful river, almost on the equator, with no other yachts about (N01'42".99, E110'19".77) deciding on what to cook for Xmas lunch. Whatever we have, we'll raise our glasses to all you guys, wherever you are.

 

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year! (And a belated happy Hanukkah to the Crackas)

 

The Daemons

PS: I know we've only just left, but we'll be back in NZ in March - Bruce has some contract work lined up to top up the cruising kitty. So, if anyone has six month's work for a highly motivated yacht wench, experienced in marketing & operations management with a particular focus on retail, but not at all fussy, drop me a line.

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New Year Up Date from Daemon

 

Well, this is more like it! Apart from a preponderance of giant kitsch cat statues (Kuching fancies itself as cat city) Kuching is a very attractive and interesting city. As many of you had picked up, we weren't quite so enthralled with what we had seen of Borneo as we may have been. This is mainly because of the destruction of most of the northern part during the war, and the consequent rebuilding of the cities hastily, and in an incredibly ugly and brutal concrete style, which paved the way for similar architecture to follow. Kuching however, has lots of lovely old colonial shophouses and warehouses around the town and an attractive waterfront along the river's edge where you can sit and stroll. It also has the old "white rajah" forts and colonial courthouses etc which are well-preserved. And as for the food! Yesterday for lunch I had roast pork noodles with a beer for NZ$3!

 

There is also a lot of interesting old curios here - the rest of Borneo had had a huge amount of ugly tourist crap, but there are some nice pieces here. Not necessarily genuine, but nice. We picked up an old parang, or headhunter sword, as our souvenir - not sure the sharp weapon on a boat thing is a good idea, but what the hell. Now as Bruce will tell you, a parang is not to be confused with a palang, which is a decorative penis insert employed by the local indigenous men in order to a) imitate the Sumatran rhino which has an appendage naturally embellished with one and B) excite the women. There was a display of them at the local museum, with a head and shoulders photo of a local guy above the exhibit. I presumed from the stunned expression on his face he had had one. Despite all my "...if you REALLY loved me..." comments, Bruce remains steadfast in his refusal to try this local custom. Wimp.

 

Anyway, despite wishing to spend more time here, the days are moving on, so today it is off to Johor Bahru, which should take us 4-5 days, and is not a trip I'm overly looking forward to, as the shipping traffic in the area is notoriously heavy. Oh well.

 

Anyway, we sign off, now as apparently there is a big croc on the riverbank I should take a look at. Nnnnm, OK, hope our anchor isn't snagged!

 

So, all of you have a great new year, and think of us on the high seas while you celebrate.

 

All the best,

Jill & Bruce

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Hi all,

Well, we've been travelling for a couple of weeks now and it seems

like ages! Our first stop was in Phnom Penh in Cambodia, which was a

complete cultyre shock. We went from steamy humid and regulated

Malaysia and Singapore into dry dusty and chaotic Cambodia. The tuktuk

(2 seater trailer with canopy towed by a scooter, seats up to 8 with

luggage) ride in from the airport aged me 10 years, as the Cambodian

traffic is the worst I have ever seen. The only road rule is that you

have right of way, and it is up to you when/how you choose to enforce

that. A 4 lane road will have anything up to 16 lanes operating on it,

with anything from pedestrians, ox carts, elephants, bikes,

motorcycles, tuktuks, cyclos (passenger vehicles like pedal-driven

wheelchairs), cars, SUVs, trucks and buses all going for it at high

speed. To make matters (more) interesting, which side of the road you

travel on depends on how you feel on any given day, so crossing the

road is an absolute nightmare. Bruce used to make mo do it before

coffee and I'd be standing on the side of the road looking at the

utter chaos and crying. After a few days you got to be able to stare

down cycles and motorbikes, but grabbing a tuktuk and heading to a

restaurant was usually the least fraught option. People had warned us

about the traffic in Saigon, but at least that has some reason - Phnom

Pehn is just madness. That being said, we absolutely loved that city -

it just bursts with life and good humour - I didn't stop smiling

(apart from crossing the road or being hounded by begging children)

all the time we were there.

 

One of my least-wanted-to-do trips was the whole genocide tourism

thing, visiting sites from Cambodia's civil war, but somehow you can't

avoid it. You can't walk for 30 seconds along the street without a

tuktuk driver shouting "Killing Fields? You go killing Fields?" at

you, so we yielded to the pressure and went to both the Killing Fields

and to S21, the detention and torture centre set in a secondary

school. I can't say it was enjoyable, but I am glad we did it.

 

(Bit of history - skip it if you are familiar with the woes of

Cambodia. During the years from 1974-1979 the Kmer Rouge government

killer a quarter of the population of the country - over 2 million

deaths. The main city of Phnom Penh was emptied out by force and all

the city dwellers forced to evacuate to the country to become rural

peasants (many starved to death) and all intellectuals, teachers,

doctors, engineers, lawyers, even people who wore glasses (and were

thus suspected of being intellectual) were killed along with there

families. This has had a major impact on the country today, as a whole

generation of people with the skills to run the infrastructure were

lost, so they are starting from the beginning again. We talked to some

expats who have been there for several years and they say the

improvements in the last couple of years have been amazing, but it is

still incredibly poor and lacks basic facilities.)

 

The Killing Fields are around 15k from PP and consist of several

excavated pits which were the mass graves of about 9000 people. There

is also a large memorial tower, with glass sides displaying the

clothes and bones of the people who died there, but you can still see

bones surfacing from the ground in some areas, and many places have

not yet been excavated. S21 or Tuol Sleng is where prisoners were held

and interrogated prior to being tortured and killed. It is a very

ordinary-looking school that has been retained as a museum to the

genocide of Cambodians. The rooms are arranged as they were found, and

the walls have photographs of the bodies found in them when the school

was liberated. There are several rooms with displays of thousands of

mug shots of people who were taken there and never got out (only 12

out of 17,000 survived), and the looks on their faces are just

gut-wrenching. It was horrific viewing, but the full shock didn't hit

me until later in the evening when I realised the true horror was how

ordinary the places were - they weren't dark evil paces, but just

everyday fields and schools, emphasising how it could happen anywhere.

I was uncomfortable initially about how the places were being

exploited for tourism, but talking to Cambodians they want people to

bear witness to their experiences to get a better understanding of

their country.

 

The next day we lightened up by visiting the Royal Palace and the

Silver Pagoda - so named because the floor of the pagoda has 5000

kilos of silver floor tiles! It also has a life size Buddha made from

90kg of gold with almost 10,000 diamonds on it. And outside people

live in abject poverty... We also went to Cambodian Cooking Class for

a day, which was excellent - we are now guns at spring rolls, banana

flower salad, fish amok (sort of a steamed curry) and sticky rice with

mango.

 

We then got the bus up to Siem Reap to visit the Ankor Wat temples.

The trip was not improved by spotting the tour bus that left an hour

prior to ours rolled down a bank and into a rice paddy! The roadside

cafes also left a bit to be desired - hmmmn, fried locusts or

tarantulas? Vats of "spare parts"? Um, I'll have a bunch of bananas,

please. (We did start to get into the local thing at a PP

bar/restaurant down the road from the hotel: the sort where the staff

panic when white folk arrive. We called it the "Dare Cafe" as we kept

daring each other to eat stuff on the menu. I dared Bruce to eat the

beef with giant red ant (only to be disappointed when the red ant was

a whimsical description of a whole chili) while I had frog, which was

BBQed and served with a dip of black peeper and salt dissolved in lime

juice - absolutely delicious! By tacit agreement we avoided things

like "Spare Parts with Pickled Vegetable", "Appendix with Fried Rice"

"Steamed Brain of Pig" and the tantalising"Interesting Beef Paste".)

 

Siem Reap was a great little party town which enjoyed immensely, and

the temples were mind-blowing. We had no idea of the scales of the

place and spent 3 full days hoofing it around there and still didn't

see it all. The ring round around the temples is 23km! From there it

was back to PP, where we caught a ferry down the Mekong to Chau Doc in

Vietnam.

 

We spent a few days on the Mekong, one day hiring a small sampan and

boatman and spending 8 hours cruising the river and canals and

visiting the floating markets. From there we headed to Saigon, and

spent time wandering in the city, fighting off persistent cyclo

drivers and sunglass sellers and visiting the Reunification Palace and

the War Remnants Museum (formerly known as "The House for Displaying

War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South

Vietnam"). Vietnam is a communist country (although you wouldn't know

it from the rampant capitalism of the streets) and there are red

banners emblazoned with the hammer & sickle everywhere, as well as

lots of Uncle Ho propaganda murals. (We dined to the accompaniment of

a Communist Party rally, complete with martial music near the town

square here in Dalat the other night.)

 

We then did the 8 hour bus trip (with the woman behind me puking for 7

hours) from Saigon up to Dalat in the Central Highlands where we are

now. Dalat is famous for its cartel of motorcycle guides called the

Easy Riders who take you for trips around the countryside on the back

of their bikes. being nonconformists, we elected to go with the

anticartel cartel called the Free Riders, and hopped on the back of

bikes with Tien ("Terry") and Chau ("Joe") and spent the day on the

back of motorbikes visiting coffee and flower farms, silk factories,

rice wine producers, pagodas, waterfalls and other local sights. They

tried to tempt us into a longer trip, but although we had enjoyed the

day, I have to confess the scenery of Vietnam is pretty blah. What

wasn't killed by US defoliation during the "American War of

Aggression", as it's known in these parts, has been comprehensively

dealt to by slash and burn farming, so the landscape consists of dusty

fields and scrubby trees, with a constant parade of ugly concrete

shophouses continuously lining the side of the road. Not somewhere we

wanted to linger. Tomorrow it is the night bus to Hoi An, which

purports to be historic, but we shall see! At least the food here is

excellent and very cheap - huge meals of several dishes for $5 for 2

of us!

 

Well, that's about it from us,

Cheers,

Jill & Bruce

PS: Facebook people - sorry, can't update - Vietnam seems to have

blocked access to the site.

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Update from Yacht Daemon

 

Well, we made it to Hoi An, but foolishly I delegated the bus ticket

buying to Bruce as I had reached the "rip people's throat out" stage

of culture shock and needed to hide for a while away from motorcycles

running over my feet. Bruce arrived back with tickets, for seats 9 &

10. I commented that they sounded close to the back of the bus and I

hoped our bed wasn't one of the quadruples across the back seat. Bruce

looked perplexed and said "But they don't have beds, just seats.".

Miscommunication - I had expected to pay the extra $2 for soft sleeper

tourist bus seats, while Bruce went to his favourite local bus company

and booked sit up, Vietnamese arse-sized seats on a 15 hour trip

through the mountains, dropping us 10km from the centre of Hoi An

instead of at the hotel door. I was not impressed, especially when we

boarded the bus and saw the number of sick bags provided. Sure enough,

half an hour into the trip about 5 people were away. Then the babies

started screaming, the egregious mobile phone rings started up... it

was a long night.

 

However, after Dalat (the Palmerston North of Vietnam) Hoi an proved

to be the Parnell of Vietnam, touristy and historic, but also very

pleasant, It escaped bombing during the war and is now a World

Heritage site, with lots of old buildings, bridges etc. It is also

famous for tailors and cobblers, so i succumbed and had some boots and

shoes custom made, as well as some tops and pants, at ridiculously

cheap prices.

 

So, tomorrow we taxi to Dalat, then get the reunification Express

train to Hue, where we get royal tombs for a few days before flying to

Hano for Tet, the local New Year holiday, which is bigger than Ben Hur

in these parts. The streets are currently decorated in Chinese

lanterns and the whole place looks just amazing. Hanoi should be great

for it.

 

Well, time for bed!

 

Love,

Jill & Bruce

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Hi all,

Well we finally made it out of Vietnam without me killing a local,

although I did come close a few times. There is a saying that to

travel in the north you need a sense of humour and that is pretty much

spot on. Life wasn't improved by me managing to catch a stomach bug in

Hue, which will now always be known to me as "Huuueeeeey!". Despite

that, it is a very pretty city and I wish I had seen more of it. The

train trip to Hue from Danang was another classic - train an hour and

a half late, then took 4 hours to go 100km! Floor awash with rubbish &

vomit etc etc - we flew to Hanoi after that. Hanoi was fun, but very

cold, down in the low teens, which came as bit of a shock.

 

We had a great time wandering around the old quarter dodging traffic

and we did the visit to see Ho Chi Minh lying in his mausoleum - very

bizarre. We did a 3 day trip cruising on a junk in Halong Bay, which

was a welcome but of luxury, even if we froze. (see

www.oriental-sails.com). Being Vietnam, it wasn't the cruise we had

booked, which didn't have enough passengers to run, so we were

arbitrarily transferred to this one and not told until we were on the

bus on the highway to Halong. It was fine though, food was excellent

and the scenery stunning. We even braved the elements to go kayaking.

 

From Hanoi we flew in to Luang Prabang in Laos (after a near divorce

when Bruce suggested taking the 30 hour bus there) where we are at

present. When we arrived we thought we had gone deaf, as the silence

was tremendous after the tumult of Hanoi*, where everyone drives with

one hand on the horn and foot flat on the accelerator. No one was

driving over our feet on the footpath or screaming "You buy! You buy!"

every time they saw an approaching walking white ATM. You'd have to

try hard to be run over here.

 

Today is temple visiting day, tomorrow we head down the Mekong to

visit some caves full of retired Buddha statues, then it is off to

spend 2 days learning how to be elephant mahouts (drivers), a skill

you never know when you'll need.

 

Well, I'll sign off now before I go nuts - the keyboard I am using to

type this has all the letters worn off, so I'm getting a headache

trying to touch-type!

 

Cheers,

Jill & Bruce

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Hi all,

Well, we survived our elephant training experience, which, while being

huge fun, was bit of a joke as the elephants knew exactly where they

were supposed to go, as they do the route 4 times a day. This was

handy, as my mispronunciation of "go right" in Lao may have had them

wondering "Why is she shouting "bird flu! bird flu!" at me - I always

go right here!". We got to ride on their necks and take them into the

river to bathe them, which caused a disturbing loosening of bowels

(mainly but not exclusively) on the elephants part, and I can tell you

that you don't want to fall into that lot!

 

After a few more days in relaxed Luang Prabang we bussed down to Vang

Vieng (no-one threw up, a first for a bus trip) backpacker capital of

the universe. Whereas LP is a tasteful World Heritage middle-class

wealthy tour place, VV is young backpacker central, based around

getting drunk and stoned. Cafes make Amsterdam look repressed: the

"Happy Menu"s offer ganja (joint, bag, pizza, garlic bread, cookie or

shake), magic mushrooms (shake, omelette, pizza, bag) and opium

(joint, tea, coffee or bag). Another feature of the cafes and

restaurants is that they all have TVs playing a particular show, so

you pledge your allegiance to "Friends", "Family Guy" or "The

Simpsons". The most popular pastime is tubing down the river to town

(through some spectacular limestone scenery) stopping at bars on the

way. Tubing, for the uninitiated, is floating slowly along on a

tractor tyre. There are about 40 bars on the first couple of miles of

river, sporting a multitude of alcohol & drug offering, buckets of

cocktails, free whiskey shots, water slides. trapezes and zip lines

out on to the river. We had seen many backpackers sporting crutches

and bandages, and wondered why until we went tubing ourselves.

Fortunately we were early in the day (11am) and most of the bars

weren't open, but Bruce still managed to try the trapeze and zip line

at one bar (with me in the background shouting "Just don't expect me

to change your nappies for the rest of your life!"). The sights that

were hauled back to town in tuktuks later in the evening were not

pretty!

 

After a few days it all got too much, so this morning we shipped out

to the capital, Vientiane, where we'll stay in out US$20 per night

luxury room (has been around US$8 recently) which would cost a couple

of hundred dollars in NZ, until we fly to Kuala Lumpur and back to the

boat. I'm about ready to be back as well. Vientiane suffers from the

extremes of rich and poor we have seen in the other capitals: maimed

beggars (landmines left over from the US bombardment in the 70s) and

Lexus SUVs and Bentleys with tinted windows belonging to corrupt

officials, and it is all getting a bit overwhelming.

 

Well, that's it from us,

Love,

Jill & Bruce

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Update from Jill and Bruce

 

Having a Coron-ary..... which is a short break in Coron while I get my last assignments for my Semester One papers completed. Coron is a lovely wee town on the island of Busuanga in the Calamian Group, north of Palawan. (N 11"59.7" E120'11.8") It is predominantly a dive place, but there aren't many tourists here, and none of the retired alcoholic sex tourists so prevalent in Puerto Galera and Sabang: much nicer altogether! The town is quite amazing - whole neighbourhoods of it are built on stilts over the water, which solves the wastewater plumbing, but means we don't swim! They have taken a leaf from Hollywood's book and installed a large "CORON" sign on top of the hill, where it is quite at home with a giant illuminated cross (so tall it has its own red aircraft warning light) and half a dozen very unscenic cellphone towers. We won't even mention the over-water bar with about a dozen giant mermaids supporting the roof. We had dinner out at one of the dive places when we first arrived - NZ25 for 4 beers, a coke and 2 three course meals (mains were marlin & chili crab) - hardly worth cooking! You did need to turn a deaf ear to the rat fights behind the woven palm wall panels though. The market is great for veges, but Bruce came back pale, shaken and vegetarian after visiting the meat section yesterday. It either looked at him (chickens in cages, squealing pig trussed on pole) or looked as if it had been involved in a chainsaw massacre, and the market stalls are all out in the open, no refrigeration, doors, screens etc. He has been waxing lyrical about lentils ever since!

 

The trip down was great, the weather was sunny, but we didn't get enough wind to sail, however that meant we could spend a couple of days

anchored at Apo Reef, a deserted reef between Mindoro and Palawan, snorkeling & relaxing and avoiding the onmipresent roosters that populate this cock-fight-mad country - the peace was bliss! Co-ordinates were N12'14.9, E120'28.7 - quite weird to be anchored in the middle of nowhere, just an island in the distance. Great snorkeling though.

 

After Coron it is off big game hunting! One of the islands was made into a game reserve, with tigers, giraffes etc imported from Africa (they had to get rid of the tigers - they ate everything else) as well as local wildlife, such as bearcats. Apparently, although it was set up as a National park, originally one of the Marcos sons used it as a big game shooting reserve. Could be fun.

 

Had a great disappointment the other day - lashed out and had a girl's day out at the spa in Sabang (the vile sex-tourism/dive resort near Puerto Galera) with one of the other yacht women for 4 hours of massage, salt & coffee scrubs and a pedicure- bliss! Despite my joy at having fabulous feet after years of skanky battered calloused yacht-person feet, I found most of my tan had disappeared in the scrubs - I now suspect it may have been accumulated dirt. The horror! Now I know why we have navy or charcoal sheets (and yes, they were that colour originally!). Working on new colouration as I write!

 

Well, that's about it from us,

Cheers,

Jill & Bruce

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