Cut Snake

Viva Mexico!

2010-08-05T18:08:00.000-07:00

O.K. as for me, I left you last installment in Semuc Champey… from there I went to Flores, it was an uneventful tourist minibus, soulless but really convenient, now Flores in itself is nothing much to rave about, it is an almost island on lake Peten, which is quite pretty, though difficult to appreciate after the beauty of Semuc Champey. My visa was due to expire and there were still things I wanted to do in Guatemala so I did what any normal person would do under the circumstances and went diving in Belize.

I caught a bus to Guatemala city and a boat straight out to Caye Caulker, met a brilliant English chick on the way, so we planned to get a room together on arrival, we arrived and met one of those "Ex-patriot alright g'uvnor I'm your man" types, wicked, fixed us up with an Irish and a Scottish girl and we got a really cheap place together, terrific. As luck would have her way, we had arrived on lobster festival weekend! So we ate lobster (seriously every day we were there) it was delicious! Every time!
I had a marvelous few days scuba diving, went to the "blue hole" an undersea cave system, stalagmites and sharks everywhere, it was great fun swimming in and out of the limestone formations, some serious cave diving practice, but I was really glad to get back above the thermocline (freezing). The next dive site was called the aquarium and seriously, I have never seen so many rays in my life, massive mantas, I love the way they swim, like flying through water, they are truly beautiful to watch.
We stopped on another little caye for lunch, the home of… wait for it… RED FOOTED BOOBIES! O.k so not the blue footed ones I've set my heart on going to the Galapagos to see but still, Half moon caye, is the nesting place for hundreds of these birds, the look out is so close you can almost reach out and touch them, i was such a kid in a candy shop… excited!!!! All round an excellent week. How does that Jaques Cousteau guy get it right every time? Not bad for a dead French guy.

I arrived back from Belize in time to find a group hiking to "El Mirador" the next day, great, so I get in on that, we have been warned, about the mud, we have been warned about the mosquitos, we have been warned about the hike, but I'm still game.
The day before the hike begins it rains, the night before the hike begins, it rains. The morning of the hike we are packed into our mini van and heading out into the jungle, we drive till there is no road left and then we (well not we actually some other local type dudes) load up the mules and we head into the jungle proper.
Ah yes, the we, no it's not the royal we, there are six of us in our party, yours truly (defying simple superficial categorisation). Sandra, she is Danish, she is in her last year of med school and an ex-gymnast, she is patient and easy to be around. Rik and Yoyo are Dutch, they are both students and bundles of fun, they live in Amsterdam and act like European big city kids, (aspiring Eurotrash in the nicest sense of the word). Then there are the Germans, the slight pretty almost silent Nadine and her garrulous, bumptious boyfriend Sebastian.
As soon as we pass the sign that declares we have entered the park, a cloud of mosquitos appears, big, black and ominous, I can hear the jaws theme at a high pitched whine in my ears and the mosquito cloud settles in to follow us reminding me exactly of the dust cloud which perpetually follows young Charlie Brown's friend "pigpen" through the "Peanuts" cartoons.
Oh my God, going to the loo was a challenge seriously swarms of mosquitos. Luckily the camp sites were some what less infested then the trails, the Germans went through 5 cans of deet. Anyways, when we finally got to El Mirador we were in luck.
As it is rainy season the archeaologist and his team were working on the site (they can only work two or three months a year in rainy season due to lack of water otherwise) it was great, they showed us around and let us in places and explained stuff, it was great, I actually wouldn't recommend El Mirador to people who aren't real archeaology freaks though as most of the place is still under jungle. The hike is flat but muddy as hell if it rains, apparently the Argentinian ambassador had to wade through chest high mud the week before we went in. Tee hee, but you know me, born under a lucky a star, I had a great trip. Finally dirty, sweaty, muddy, made it back out of the jungle, saw the biggest snake I'd ever seen in my life, loads of spider monkeys, had been awoken by the haunting cries of Howler monkeys and of course saw birds and jaguar footprints. Climbed the biggest (pre-industrial) man made structure in the world, from which you can see nothing but trees in every direction, it must be one of the last places in the world where this is the case! You can see great big mounds under which you know are more pyramids and causeways, and lives lived, it's cool, a whole civilization lived and died here only to be swallowed back into the jungle.

Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

(I know it was written about Ramesses the great in Egypt, but I still got pleasure quoting it here and on the top of the pyramid in El Mirador)

The next day Sandra and I headed for Tikal, we stayed in a tent next to the site so we could see sunrise and sunset, the early morning fog was eerie and cool but there was too much cloud cover for a real sunrise (or set). still it was fabulous to wander round the ruins. I got attacked by a Coatimundi (hillarious) it wanted my snack, but all it did was make a hole in my new raincoat (curses), ah well at least I escaped with my life (tee hee) saw lots of Tucan's, for some inexplicable reason that bird just makes me happy every time I see it, one of my favourite books as a child was about a Tucan. I think that is why they make me so happy, that and the fact that they look totally preposterous!

So then finally I crossed the border into Mexico and threw away all that dodgy paperwork from Honduras, here they are really generous with visas and give you six months on arrival!!! Wow, I am super impressed, and they asked no difficult questions at the border, it was sweet, I blended with all the other tourists (imagine it, me blending, how's that working for ya?).

So Mexcio, first stop Palenque, Yes, more ruins, I am kinda getting over ruins a bit at this stage, but I heard good things so I went, it was very manicured, I don't like my ruins manicured, I like them wild, so maybe EL Mirador is more my thing after all. Having said that the reliefs are amazing here, I went to the museum and the tomb is incredible, carved out of one giant slab of rock, (how on earth did they ever get that thing up the stairs and into the pyramid???). It was definitely the coolest thing about the whole place, I wasn't though very impressed with Palenque town and headed out to San Cristobal las casas as soon as I could.

San Cristobal is fabulous, I fell in love with it immediately, what a cool little town full of funky bars and cafes, bizzare churches and cobblestone streets. Every time I think I have seen everything I walk into another church and there is something even weirder going on. This time it was a baby Jesus, dressed up as a Dr!!?! Yes he even had a stethoscope, white coat and Dr's bag (with the inscription Dr Jesus on it). and the temples here also love the grovelling Jesus, weird, a humiliated crawling Jesus, this time I really have seen everything right?

Then there was the day I spent visiting Sumidero canyon, crocodiles, pelicans, yellow footed storks, iguanas, waterfalls and of course the place where hundreds of Indians threw themselves into the canyon rather than surrender to the Spanish, the stuff legends are made of.

Onwards, I kind of had to move on faster than I wanted at this point as there was a festival happening the next weekend in Oaxaca and I wanted to be there! so I pushed on. When I got here I discovered Oaxaca is even nicer than San Critobal, I love the place, poor old Pachuca is really going to have a lot to live up to. Oaxaca rocks, it has bars, it has dancing and pool playing (yes I brushed off the old cue, and you will be pleased to know I am still as shit as I ever was) but luckily I had met a Scottish lass who absolutely kicked ass (not to mention who has the amazing ability to make men fall in love with her at 50 paces) hillarious to watch, she is amazing!, more churches, the Santo Domingo church is the most baroque over done gold curlicued thing I have ever seen, the art here is so much fun, the dancing, did I mention the dancing (wait breathe N.J., breathe), OMG I am having so much fun, did I mention the mescal, it''s all kinds of flavours here (trust me that does nothing to improve the actual joy of consuming it though). all I can say is FIESTA.

So now I am back in Oaxaca, from the beach, tomorrow I have to wise up, get serious, get on a bus and go get aquainted with my new home, cross your fingers and toes for me.

Besos y abrasos N.J.

Leaving Honduras

2010-07-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

Thankfully the school year is over, and I am hanging up my teaching hat for a while.
Leaving Honduras made me happy, I can not begin to tell you how claustrophobic and parochial Gracias (and pretty much all who sail within her) is (are).

And so a line (a lifeline) written before the tyranny of distance and narcotic influences of time erase the zeitgeist of the "Honduran era" of my life.

Leaving Gracias, after a sleepless night, I was sick as a parrot, and had managed to lie in bed all night willing myself to sleep, to, of course, no avail, My flatmates had held a party for me the night before, I had been too sick and wretched to enjoy it, I was the first to leave for bed. So bleary eyed I found my way to the bus, said my last goodbye and clambered aboard the ridiculous yellow school bus (another reject from Estados Unidos) the bus was blaring "Betty Davis eyes" and other hopelessly overdone love songs from the 80s' at a ridiculous volume, the reverb distorting and richocheting off the windows was ludicrously real, it was a mixed blessing that the bus was going all the way to The Entrance (saving me a bus change but taking years off the health of my ears). I managed to not cry for at least half a minute (o.k. maybe it was only quarter of a minute) anyway it was dark on the bus and no-one was paying me any attention and to be truthful it was two or three tears of relief, the scenery on departure was breathtakingly beautiful and I actually surprised myself by feeling a little sad about leaving the place. Mostly though, I will not lie it was with the feeling of a great weight slipping off my shoulders that I felt the distance between me and Gracias, Lempira lengthen.

So I arrived in Copan and then made a dash for the border, entering Guatemala was easy, apparently my passport is legit enough for immigration to not mind all the dodgy goings on that the school lawyers have (we suspect) been involved in for the past 10 months.

I arrived in Antigua as New Zealand tied with Italy in a world cup (soccer) game, apparently this is such a monumental happening that it may yet be declared a public holiday in New Zealand. Antigua is quite lovely, I was a little overwhelmed by the number of tourists, but I love the sushi and bakeries…

Antigua is basically a poor man's Cuzco, it's charming and sweet and FULL of ruined churches, astronomical numbers of ruined churches crumbling back into cobbled streets. My favourite of the old churches is accompanied by several small museums and set rather bizzarely amidst the middle of a rather posh hotel. I struggled to find the entrance (eventually entering via the multilevel car park, I went down into a posh lobby area. Dispite some initial misgivings I knew here I was on the right track as the walls were lined with niches displaying items from the museums which were my ultimate target, so I passed the young men in their penguin suits and the check in desk where the hotel lobby opened into a beautiful inner sanctum, full of gaudy McCaws still in last night party frocks sleeping off their excesses on roosting perches amidst a pretty gardens surrounded by ancient ruins. It is an interesting juxtaposition it appealed to me in it's oddity, The place is well set out, the ruins clearly labeled their are bones, bells, a fascinating candle workshop and precolombian artefacts (what more could a girl want).

There are so many ruins here because of all the nearby volcanoes and tectonic activity which regularly sends pieces of Antigua to it's knees, in fact there was a recent volcanic erruption only a couple of weeks before my arrival, the godesses (or Mother nature) underlining the dangers in case we humans might forget our place in the cosmic food chain. Of course given such provoa\cation I felt compeled to climb a volcano, the one which had in deed just errupted, I found a guide willing to take me and then as we set off one of my party informed me what we were about to do is now illegal, the government having banned climbing because of the five people who died the fortnight previous. Oh great I think, too late now, I also think as we begin our assent gingerly picking our way up onto the crusty blackened old lava flows now rigged with the cold. As we climbed higher, footing became more difficult and walking less gingerly it was hot despite the drizzle, the smoke seeped up around us through small fissures in the black lava, where the smoke was hottest the edges of the lava was grey soot rather than the hard black spiny dragon back ridges we were used to, I could see flashes of orange in parts and new what I was seeing was part of the molten core of our planet (pretty amazing).

The climb got harder and steeper, there was no path we just followed the guide who with goat like agility hopped from crumbling crest of frozen wave to wave. After three quarters of an hour the steam rising up through the crevices in the lava became noticably more and we soon found ourselves walking beside a river of lava we followed it up to a point where it forked and flowed round a corner as the skies darken and the rain settled in we could hear the sizzle of raindrops on molten earth. So we began our descent.

The next day I went to Panajachal on Lago Atitlan, the trip over the mountains was scenic and beautiful, arriving in Panajachal was a surprise, it is a strip of tourist shops, comparable to seeing Koh San rd (Bangkok) for the first time. Brightly coloured cloth everywhere, ladies carrying baskets cushioned on their multicoloured wrapped hair bands, baby's strapped in papooses on their backs, I found myself a quiet guesthouse away from the mad crowd in the old part of the city and went to the river to enjoy the sunset.
The lake here is truly beautiful. In the next few days I took the time to hike to the next little town around the bay, the weather held the whole time I was at the lake, though in the evenings the sky would darken threateningly, full of the promise of rainy season. I spent a day at the market in Solola, up a steep winding road from Panajachal the place was teeming with activity, I sat in the park watching people come and go avoiding the pandomonium in the actual market proper.
On I go, heading to Quetzeltenango or Xela as the locals call it. I arrived, found a hostel and acquainted myself with the centre of town, a grey day, grey buildings and here, at least, the rainy season is in full swing, by 12:30 the rain had settled in, I dug the jumper out of my backpack visited the cathedral and then gave up for the day. The next day opened with leaden skies and stayed that way all day. The morning after was at least light grey skies and no rain, I scurried to the bus station and went to el veijo Palmar, a ghost town destroyed by mud and lava flows from the local volcanos, most famously known for the fact that vigorous volcanic activity had changed the course of the local river which caused a deep ravine to form through the middle of the old church, all traces of the church are now gone but the deep ravine, the river was an absolute raging torrent that I watched pick up a large log and turn it into a lifetime supply of matchsticks in the muddy barrage of water that was hurling itself under the wooden suspension bridge that hung perilously over the roaring brown monster. Apparently you enter this area at your own risk, the abandoned houses all about stand in mute testament to all those who choose to no longer live such hazardous lives. Of course by now it was again persisting down with the rain so I took some quick snaps of the river and beat a hasty retreat to Xela.

The next morning I headed to San Andreas Xecul which is a cute small town where every second house is festooned with great hanks of thread drying in the open air after being dyed, it's imminent future revolving around being woven into some of the striking Guatemalan fabrics which I only wish my backpack was empty enough to allow me to purchase. The whole town is a riot of colour, not least of which is the church, an ochre yellow complete with bizarre gaudy relief sculptures. Inside the church are the usual tortured bewigged statues of Christ, Mary and a roll call of various saints. the dome of the church on the outside has been gaily painted to imitate a hot air balloon rising behind the main vestible helping the crucified Jesus with his ascension.

I returned to Xela as the rain (once again) began it's usual afternoon patter (of little footsteps over rooftops and streets alike). So I headed to the "Museum of Natural History" for my (indoor) afternoon entertainment. The first few rooms were full of old bakerlight phones, telephone switchboards, a genuine computer from 1980!!! an old "Pan Am inflatable life vest a cell phone that looked more modern than mine, (perhaps the curator had left his in there by mistake last time he was dusting). there was a room of musical instruments and documents concerning Guatemala's history. We then went upstairs (to the photography free zone where of course the cool stuff you really want to photograph is), here is all the precolombian (Mayan) artefacts, they have some really well preserved petroglyphs and rock carvings, pottery and statues. There are accompanying pictures and text showing you the Mayan Gods and Goddesses in all their glory, they look, well, terrifying, I totally understand the need to placate these Gods with whichever kind of sacrifice they demand!

This morning I caught the chicken bus again, this time in the drizzle to Chichiestanango, it drizzled all day but the town is really cute, small and cute, after I dropped my bags at the hotel I wandered around the cobblestone streets to see the major two churches, the first one was a sepulcher, a fire burnt on the steps and the inside was full of crucified Christs, Christs in coffins and spare crosses leaning up against the wall (errrrrrm?), the paintings are so blackened by the continuous smoke from a million candles and the almost continual swinging of smoking censors that the bloke out the front does, the smoke shimmers across the altars on the floor. Then there is a dark room, lit only by the candles on more altars which send small fingers of light toward crawling toward another coffin, I could barely make out the christ shape in the coffin, I felt the hairs down the back of my neck start to rise and backed out of the inky room,
the church behind me was still empty but the whole place just felt freaky!

The second church, the main cathedral had a Mayan ceremony taking place (with burning censors and sacrifices on the front steps). The church was well patronised with local Maya carrying out ceremonies on the altars.
These altars are set every few feet all the way up the centre aisle of both churches and are used to burn sacrifices of corn, flowers candles and sugar (the candles they don't bother lighting just throw handfuls of them into the burning fire, the sugar smoulders and melts attracting a million bees, amazing. Apparently one of the most popular ceremonies is performed by young women in the hopes of securing a husband who is good and not a drunkard. I considered having this ceremony performed for the mere cost of 7 dollars (US) and then decided to spend the money on cuba libra's instead!

The next day was market day, I woke up early and climbed the hill past the mask museum to visit the local idol, Pascual Abaj, alone on the top of a hill in a circular altar (surrounded by crosses) it's supposed to have a human face but again the years of soot and rain have mostly washed away the features, interesting nontheless. I wandered the market saw the museum and the next day traveled all day to get to Semuc Champey.

Semuc Champey is beautiful, natural limestone pools set in the middle of a national park, I climbed to the mirador and looked out over the park, I had the place to myself for an hour and a half before half a dozen Guatemalan guys turned up, guides I suspect, nothing disturbs the serenity quite like the sound of a snaggle toothed dude sharpening a massive machete behind ones back. I moved on. The thundering of the waters under the natural limestone bridge was cool, I swam and relaxed all day it was great, I rounded off the evening with a visit to the local bat cave, very cool stalagtites (& mites), if only I hadn't had to swim through freezing water in the cave I would have been much happier, but the clouds of bats exiting the cave as the sunset were well worth the wait.

And so tomorrow, on to Flores, but today I send this!!!

The last few months in a nut shell.

2010-05-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

And so, the latest, sort of. Life has quickly fallen into a pattern now, and the school, "the mill that grinds young people old." Has kicked off for the final partial.
We had Science fair and that was a long day of thumb twiddling and child herding. No-one fell in the pool and some kids won prizes so I guess my mission was fulfilled.
The weekend fading into the mists behind me now was a trip to Santa Rosa, the nearest big city to our little Gracias). I got on the bus with my fellow gringos and was listening to my ipod when an entire band got on the bus, a snaggletoothed (actually some were just plain toothless) posse of old guys in cowboy hats, four had guitars and one with a home made double bass, amazing instrument, looked like it was made out of a pregnant guitar case and strung with gaily colored plastic wires. They saw me nodding my head in time to my own music and asked if I wanted to hear a song. So I soon had five dudes serenading me and the entire front of the bus getting cricks in their necks staring at the spectacle… Four songs later they finally stopped and I could stop applauding and smiling faux smiles at these strangers, they asked if I wanted to join them at their fiesta that evening, I politely declined and was relieved to arrive in Santa Rosa and be free of their attention.
Santa Rosa has good restaurants, good food and good clubs so we returned home exhausted and mellow on Sunday afternoon.

Sorry, that previous paragraph was of course written weeks (months??) ago now. Summer daze has also come and gone, a day spent at the pool with the kids from fourth grade up. The entire day consisted of children throwing water balloons at each other, throwing each other in the pool and the staff discovering which kids can't swim (quite a number). The games we had "organised" were never played but Some fellow teachers and I did manage to eat my favourite fish and drink beer in relative quiet at the end of the day Yes you read that right, I have started drinking beer, after all these years).

Then finally Semana Santa arrived, the week when we all get to celebrate some mindless brutality otherwise known as the martyring of Christ.
For the first few days Laura (one of my fellow teachers from Gracias), her brother Paul and another teacher (Liam) and I went to a place called Lago Yojoa (the big lake in the middle of Honduras if you care to glance at an atlas), The place we were booked into was called the D&D brewery, Bob the expat American who owns the place brews his own beer, a little bitter for my tastes but not bad at all, he was super friendly. He showed us his collection of mayan artefacts which he had found in the local area, amazing little death masks and obsidian and Jade cores for making arrow heads, pieces of pottery a bunch of other bits and pieces that he explained to us and ending with shards of trinkets, very cool.
We took a row boat out on the lake one day, in which we discovered between the four of us none of us could row, but we did manage to paddle ourselves around to see some birds and patches of lake, it was a fun day.
We went to the local nature reserve and saw lots of birds and lizards. I saw the most massive damsel fly I have ever seen, it had beautiful pearl coloured gosamer wings and of course was long gone by the time I got my camera out (As is most of the wildlife). Of course it's my own fault as I would rather watch the wildlife and then after I am kind of done watching I reach for the camera, by which time the wildlife is generally kind of done with me as well.
A few days later we caught several busses (after attempting to wave down many more that would not stop). and headed to Comayagua.

We arrived at Comayagua and found our hotel, I immediately broke the key in the door lock of our room. Then Paul broke the towel rail in the bathroom and the curtain rod also. Hmmmmmmm, I thought the managment would no longer love us, but despite us waking up the poor desk girl at least three (or was it four) times to let us in as the night progressed and we wanted to see more carpets being built. They continued to be nice to us, so if you are ever in Comayagua stay at the Halston Hotel in the centre of town, the people are soooooo nice!!!!
We saw parades featuring small boys wearing gross wigs and pretending to be Jesus, there were robes and colourful K.K.K. style masks (a bit weird but what do I know). there were
biers being carried to and fro in ridiculous heat with various saints atop, swaying around the stations of the cross, nasty wigs flicking in the breeze created by the jogging lopping steps of their bearers. The largest was a massive boat with Jesus depicted as a fisherman. We stood a few hours in the hot sun and then beat a retreat back up into the cloud forest that is Gracias.

The humidity levels at the moment are through the roof, the afternoon thunderstorms are incredible, the roiling skies frequently scarred by thunder, it's worth seeing, but I understand what people mean when they talk about going troppo now!

And so on to my life lately! Again time has rumbled past, between the electricity the water and the internet going down either alternately or simultaneously I have still not got around to completing this long overdue missive (sorry).

Two weekends ago I went back to Copan with some of the guys I work with, it was fun to see the nature walk and hang out in a different town for the weekend.

Last weekend we made the assault on Celaque (the highest point in Honduras). We hiked with some friends from a nearby town, the girls had never hiked before (and it was obvious) they had packed metal nail clippers and nail files brought a hand held tent and picnic basket? Z and Liam ended up carrying this stuff most of the way up and all the way back down for the girls. The hike was o.k and we meet some fun people along the way though by the time we got to base camp it was drizzling slightly.
We then discovered our tent had no pegs but luckily the place was packed with climbers so we borrowed some. Unfortunately the wood was all soaked but luckily we had Chris from Arizona (a man who actually has "fire master" listed as a skill on his resume), and he could indeed make fire out of wet wood, amazing! Also luckily the drizzle had cleared and we found ourselves in a magical fairy land. The next day was gorgeous and the climb to the summit was an incredibly beautiful cloud forrest, massive trees, festooned with vines, green foliage dripping with glistening dew decorated with bejewelled spiders webs, and just as I was starting to feel truly like a wood sprite we broke through the top of the clouds to the top. We watched the clouds swirl in and out revealing the view from the highest peak and then wrapping it up in mist again and hiding it's beauty covetously from us.
Suffice to say it was really pretty.

This weekend I'm doing nothing but catch up stuff so I promise to post this tomorrow, (or tomorrows tomorrow).
N.J.

Year of the Tigre

2010-02-14T11:12:00.000-08:00

The other day one of my friends asked for my address, so they can see where I live on google earth, the following is my reality check (reply) Honduran style.
Ahh, Google maps, addresses, oh what happy heady days they were, days those were, our internet (electricity and water supply) are erratic at best. So, I tell him "No we don't have an address, I live in the yellow house in Colonia Borhause, up the road from Casa Asado (which is a restaurant on the corner of our street). Our street is a dirt road, there is usually either a cow with a crumpled horn and it's calf or a couple of horses tied up in the paddock opposite my bedroom window, there is an empty lot as neighbors on both sides of our house (our house though is a semi detached and our actual neighbors are religious nuts who like to have friends over to chant and speaks in tongues or just sing random praises to God at random hours of the early (and I mean 4am early) morning, they also have a teenage son who is learning saxophone, and did I mention their penchant for fireworks and chorus' of tuneless singers turning up on their (our) doorstep before dawn whenever someone has a birthday (which seems to us to be a regular occurrence!).
Try looking up Casa Asado in Gracias" I helpfully add, "And head up the dirt road past the house with a yard full of yellow buses and there is the yellow house, I will have a look next time I'm on line, but I'm not holding my breath for you success rate, I looked up google earth when I had an actual address in Thailand and Google earth has not mapped most of the areas of Phuket (or Bangkok for that matter) Or my Mum's place in New Zealand either, apparently if I have lived there no-one cares, I guess (contrary to opinions of my more conspiracy theorist inclined friends) satellites are just not that interested in me.

Right, so that said, back from Christmas vacation, Gracias was a brutal reality check, it was cold and grey, yes, cold, who would have thought, I was wearing my Bolivian wooly hat, gloves and jumper. But a week later the winter seems to have passed… Just in time for the celebration of St Sebastian's (20th January) feast day (you know the guy who they usually represent looking like a pin cushion). Anyway Saint Sebastian apparently can't just have a day to celebrate no, no, no, here in Gracias he needs a week, a week with a fair which gradually expanded further and further from it's epicenter (the church). it included a ferris wheel, a rocking pirate ship and two other dodgy third world rides, yes, of course I went on them, with the kids from school, who love to take their lives frivolously in their hands.
One day we were treated to a parade through the streets in order to walk the virgin to and from her church (virgin street walkers a unique idea?), I guess she doesn't get the chance for much air cloistered as she is the rest of the year round.
One evening when we were there the boat generator wasn't working so they had employed two guys just to stand on either side of the boat and throw the thing, with wild abandon, into the air as it swung precariously on it's pendulum like journey past them. The church was bedecked with a few miles of tulle, flowers and a beautiful rastafarian (red, gold and green) cinema style curtain behind the statue of the saint himself. Why this colour scheme I have no idea but it did make the warm evenings feel very caribbean. Last night when we were there, being the 20th it was the big night, they had a massive firework display, shower bursts of beautiful colours, the sky blossomed with fizzing sparkling light. Then when it was over a guy came out of the yard wearing a wooden bull frame encrusted with explosives of course they ignited him, catherine wheels spinning, snorting rockets, incendiary fragments flying in all directions he ran wildly after children, who of course ran every which way, in his wake the children swarmed back around to pick up still smoldering pieces of pyrotechnic product and fling them back at the careening bull, I'm not sure who was terrified more (well actually it was probably me). Not once but twice did this holocaust of sanity appear from the house behind the church to chase any spectator foolish enough to get in their way. The central American version of the "running of the bulls?".

Exams next week, I have become very adept at writing a weeks lesson plans in a couple of hours and the exams were done in 4 or 5 hours. Great, this teaching gig ain't so tough!

Inauguration day has come and gone, the new president Pepe Lobo, has been sworn in, at the end of the day it was a fairly low key affair, Zelaya has been enticed out from under the desk at the Brazilian embassy (I was beginning to think the Brazillian ambassador was going to have to pack him in a discreet suitcase and take him home at the end of his tenure). But no they finally managed to lure him out with promises of safe passage out of the country and possibly an extra cowboy hat thrown in for good measure.

Ahhh school, an adventure in contrasts, one week a serene experience, the next feels like an exercise in futility, its the perfect job for the aspiring offspring of the bi-polar, it has been tense with another round of exams and me, head stuffed full of cotton, it's great to put yourself through the emotional wringer sometimes, the edges of human experience remind me what it feels like to be alive. Still living like a twenty something backpacker, however that said I love it, everything is magnified and at the same time compacted, it's the edges of human experience that remind me what it's like to feel alive (and sometimes ironically dead).

Driving through town this week, the vehicle that struck me as the most disturbing, and lets face it, surreal, even by Honduran standards was the guy with the "real hood ornament". Yes, in deed this guy had a real (live) Jaguar strapped to the hodd of his car, slowly dying in the heat I am sure, weird world aye?

Yesterday, My friends and I climbed Puka (it's a mountain, one that is apparently still growing). It was lucky Carlos had managed to borrow his Dad's car, as the hike would have been twice as long and infinitely more grueling if we had, had to walk from the last drop of point on the bus. The car wound higher and higher up the slippery muddy track and the grey clouds blew in and out. It is always beautiful, being out of Gracias and especially so as we were in the cloud forest. On finally parking the car with some local chaps we walked through a coffee plantation to get to the base of the mountain proper, we chatted to friendly locals on the way and saw where the coffee beans are ground, the piles of husks laying around the machinery smelling both sweet and acrid as they lay rotting in the sun. The pineapple plants and wild orchids are beautiful and I only fell on my ass twice in the mud. Though my knock off combat boots went straight into the garbage as I peeled them off my feet in the aftermath of my return to Gracias. The view from the top was great, we glimpsed it as the clouds boiled in and out past the tip of the mountain.
After lunch on the top and a well deserved rest we skidded and slid our way over the pine needles and mud back to base, then the car shimmied and slithered it's way down the side of the mountain on the way seeing one of the saddest things I have seen since I have been here.

There was a man walking down the road with a small, (very small) coffin on his shoulder, he had an arm wrapped around it and a determined look on his face, one small boy with eyes like saucers had a beautifully carved and constructed wooden cross in his hands hurried to remain in front of him and two small boys, (also with eyes the size of saucers) followed in his wake each carrying a huge basket of flowers that appeared to be far to big for the size of the small boy. Very sad.
I hate to end on a sad note so instead I will wish you all a beautiful, happy healthy Year of the Tiger.
Besos y Abrasos. N.J.

La Moskitia, beach, villagers and Utilla's Jade Seahorse

2010-01-27T16:36:00.000-08:00

New Year

2010-01-11T15:04:00.000-08:00

And so…
2010

Well the school christmas play was chaos, it was stressful but the kids looked absolutely cool!
The icicles looked frosty and evil, the elves were adorable and absolutely rocked there dance number, the music, well lets not talk about it, lets just say we had had no practice with the PA that was used on the night and suddenly they gave us this microphone which stilted everyones creative flow. We did get some extra special effects in though which was great.

Finally it was over and I went home and crashed out as the next day (early) the school was taking a bus to San Pedro Sula so some of the teachers could catch flights home for the christmas vacation. I caught the bus in the drizzly grey dawn with them so as to get a jump on the morning traffic and to save some cash. The leaden grey skies reminded me of the thanksgiving break and I hoped that this holiday I would be treated to more sun than the last.

Liam, one of my fellow teachers and I decided to head for La Moskitia, the biggest rainforest in the Northern hemisphere and one of the most difficult and isolated spots to get to in the world, the first night we got as far as La Ceiba where we wandered around town until we found ourselves a hotel to stay in. Then (it being Saturday night) we headed out, we found a restaurant with a fantastic salad bar and followed it up by walking up and down the bar strip, every where looked quiet and dull except this one bar which had a posse of tough looking dudes in a social scrum at the door way, by tough looking I mean seriously these guys looked like they could belong to the bloods or the some other evil North American shoot you if you look at me wrong gang. So of course I wanted to go check it out, we walked past the place three or four times talking ourselves into it and once we walked in to the place it was a different world, we were in deed the only white people in the place and the dance floor was throbbing and grinding to a mix of meringue, salsa, reggae and reggaeton music. We bought beer to legitimize our presence and sat in the corner, I commented to Liam that in some countries one had to pay for this kind of entertainment (and then it is usually delivered through a peep hole in a darkened room) not quite but you get the idea.

We wandered home before it got too late and the next day we found our way to the travel agent who helps organize trips to La Moskitia, we arranged for a trip to visit the Petroglyphs and went to the store to get our supplies for the 5 day trip. I did the math for the cash we would need and we packed. In the morning we headed out early, first catching a bus to Trujillo and from their we found a guy called Fernando who perched us on the back of his four wheel drive pick-up truck, perched precariously across rough planks of wood we met a lovely Danish couple Camila and Andreas, the back of the truck was packed with Hondurans (mostly young men) all heading home for Christmas and determined to get as drunk as possible on the way. The bottles of biccardi and "Flor de Cana" (another rum) were merrily being passed around by 9:30 as we pulled out of town.
It continued to drizzle on and off the rest of the trip as we rolled off the end of the tarmac and onto the dirt road, we rocked and rolled along crossing bridges here and there, fording streams when there was no other way and taking detours when the access route had been washed out, after several hours we finally caught sight of the beach, and then we were racing along at not only terrifying speed but also at a scary 90 degree angle across the sand dunes, whenever we came to an estuary entrance or river mouth the four wheel drive would roar onto a bamboo raft which a couple of blokes would then pull across the water and we would roar off again on the following bank. We wove between the beach and a barely maintained dirt road which ran more or less parallel, we passed at least two shells of aircraft as apparently these rough rocky bits of road double as a runway for those tiny planes who buzz in and out for tourists tight on time but not budget. Finally we arrived at the end of the road where a boat awaited us to take us on our final leg of the journey up the side of the mosquito coast to a little town called Raista.
We arrived about in tie for sunset, we washed and crashed, it had been a long journey and tomorrow was our trip to Las Marias, accessible only by boat at the heart of the Rio Platano in the middle of La Moskitia (named incidentally after muskets and the trade of them in colonial times as opposed to mosquitos, which are in deed present in La Moskitia but not in the numbers or with any where near the level of tenaciousness of those in the Amazon).

The next day thankfully the drizzle had cleared over night to a beautiful morning, we were met in the morning by a couple of lads who seemed, to us, totally off their heads, which at 5 or 6 in the morning is kind of off putting, we had no idea how they had gotten themselves into this apparent state and we were not entirely sure we should trust them, we had though little choice and there were four of us, they chatted away in a collection of languages one of which was Spanish, (none of which were English), we eventually piled into their boat, a boat which was essentially a hollowed out log, we cruised up and down the banks for a while as the boys tried to find some petrol for the boat, they disappeared into the jungle with the gas cans as we watched a troop of little girls file down to the river to gut and clean massive fish for lunch, eventually the boys returned with the gas and our mismatched posse crossed the Estuary, the boat rocked like an autumn leaf, and headed up the plantain river, No sooner had we entered the river proper than the boat stabilized and a large Toucan flew out of the jungle and over our heads, it was amazing, beautiful, I have been waiting months to see this crazy looking birds in the wild, it was cool, I knew we had made the right decisions although it was still a long day, We passed a lot of cool little villages on the banks of the river, their only contact with the outside world is via these little boats, their houses stuck on stilts into the river, outside everyone a woman (or several women, sometimes women and children) stood waist deep in water doing the family washing. Children would stop their water baby games to watch us pass, these sights, the hum of the motor and the heat of the sun conspired to make the journey a warm companionable one despite our initial misgivings.

We arrived in Las Marias to be met by the local head guide and discuss our plans for our various trips, the next day again early we were met by another guide who led us on a walk through the little town that is Las Marias till we got to the river edge where an even smaller boat awaited us, this time our three guides had long poles and we punted up stream against the current, it is actually a lot more difficult than it sounds and these guys did a stunning job of negotiating rapids and getting the hollow log up the stream, we saw birds at every turn, we saw a river otter fishing for his dinner amongst the rocks, we walked through jungle, to see more birds mad look out towers and supple jack vines full of water, then back into the boat and up the final part of the river to where the petroglyphs are where we had lunch.

The journey back was easier and quicker as we were going with the flow of the river though negotiating the rapids for the boys was sometimes made trickier by this increase in speed. We made it back to Las Marias where the boys cut us fresh coconuts off the tree which we spiced with rum and sat on the balcony watching the sunset. We arrived back at Raista the next night, doing the journey in reverse, we had time to get to the beach and enjoy swimming and I took to drawing in the sand with driftwood. At dinner we were told by the woman who runs the jungle lodge that the next day (being Christmas) there would be no transport, our five day trip just became six days, so Christmas day we spent in the hammocks and on the beach, we found yet another shell of an airplane, the propellor blade burned three quarters of the way up in sand.

Finally we made it out of the jungle, the four wheel drive overheated blowing a gasket twice on the way back across the beach but we made it, we spent another day in La Ceiba and then headed for Utila, one of the bay islands in the morning, the journey was calm and our good fortune with the weather continued, I did a bunch of diving, New Year was welcomed in with much late night partying in the exotic Treetanic bar at the Jade seahorse, and the next few nights continued to see residual partying at both Coco Loco and Tranquila, I was offered a job on the island, although I'm not quite sure if it is waitressing or bar-maiding which as you may remember I have always sucked at, and so I find myself, surprisingly, back in Gracias (an attempt to dry out again perhaps) another New Year welcomed, and now I must think of a resolution, o.k. why break with tradition I never have bothered with resolutions, so till next time.

PS: I have bought a new camera and a new computer as both of these things have been dead for a long time, so hopefully I will get some photos and this blog posted in the near future. I'm not promising to post more often as that never seems to happen!

Thanksgiving etc.

2010-01-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

Ho, ho, how did it happen, another year nearly done???

Here in Gracias, where I have been working, teaching 5th and 6th grade English and Art for almost four months now the idea of what a big city is like, is slowly slipping from my memory, I am not sure this is entirely a good thing, it's a very insular small town, full of small town gossip and busy-bodiness, I'm a bit over it to be honest, I am starting to count the months till I can leave, next year it has to be a bigger town, hopefully close to the sea, although I am actually contemplating a return to Thailand, Although not wanting to give up on the entire continent just yet; life is so much easier in Asia (perhaps it's just rose coloured glasses, but this is true third world, gangsta territory here and that's just if you believe the stats not the rumors.

I do miss the sea, the theatre, libraries, in fact there is not even a cinema in the town I live in, there is one in the next city over (an hour and a half away) it plays one movie at 7pm each day and when I was there a few weeks ago, they were showing the hopelessly out of date "Night at the museum 2" So I suspect my cinema attending days have slunk into the past and (hopefully) the future.

my computer now will not turn on, it´s dead, I knew it was coming, but it still hurts to have it finally die. I had backed everything up except my latest photo´s so I am only some what annoyed with myself, but it won´t kill me at least, I am doing all of this on the p.c.´s at school and posting from internet cafes, such is the lot of a poor teacher in the third world who cannot afford a new computer at the moment. (and priority wise I want a new camera before a new computer). On the bright side I had that morning (before my computer died) just backed up all my music files so I am thankful for that, without music, I would be really unhappy, and I have a loooooot of music!!!

I live in a big sunny yellow house which is nice, there are cows, clves, Hens and chicks, goats and kids that roam outside our gate, keeping the grass down. I have flatmates, a Canadian chappie called Liam, Rae, she and her Husband Matt are from North Carolina and rounding out the household is a Texan girl who has, what I have come to assume is a typically Texan (ie big) personality. We all get on well enough for the most part.

Gracias is a small tin pot town, cobbled streets and free range farm animals, which is lovely and quaint for about a month, I would post pictures If they were not on my broken computer!!! The best thing about my house is the fields of red, green, blue, yellow and orange fireflies that surround my house in the evening. The school I work at is small, one of my classes only has 10 kids, (7 at the start of the year). It means you get to know your kids really well, but it also means they are terribly spoiled.

We just had thanksgiving vacation, which was nice, an excuse to get away and see some of the country. I went (with some of my house mates) to Utila, when we arrived in the Port Town it was absolutely persisting down luckily we had already contacted the dive shop we were planning on staying at and diving with, they had a boat over picking up supplies so we didn't have to catch the ferry. So feeling pretty lucky we climbed on board the boat and headed out to sea, we cleared the headlands beers in hand and then, the sea was incredible, walls of water, I put the beer can down, and hung on, I have been on rollercoaster rides that were less violent. The spray over the deck was constant, you could barely see anything amidst the driving rain, the boat trip was nuts, later that day we found out the ferry did not even go that day, (or the next two) the weather was vile but amazing. The diving was great, seahorses and fish galore, of course they don't care how much it rains, but we were all relieved when the sun finally came out and we managed to dry off a little.

I am currently directing (I use the term loosely) the Christmas play at school (which I also wrote and choreographed) of course it's for 10 - 15 year olds so not exactly a hard thing to do fun, but crazy and time consuming. It goes on this Friday and then we have another round of holidays I haven't yet decided if I am going to La Moskitia, (the most isolated of the areas of Honduras, the biggest rain forrest in the Northern hemisphere and only accessible by boat) or to Guatemala, the more I look at the guide books the more choices I have the harder it all becomes.

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Love, and hugs.
Nikki Jayne.

Gracias, week 4

2009-09-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Week four is turning into an interesting week.
I sit at home typing this (as opposed to hiding under a desk at the Brazilian embassy) As the exiled President has just returned and has hogged that space for himself, his return of course causing riots and tear gas on the streets. But again I am getting ahead of myself.
Last week was Independence day where we (including children as young as four) marched in the streets trying to look like a model school, of model children and fine shiny foreigners, we also had children's day, a day of absolute chaos where children ran about and the teaching staff pretended to organise these wild beasties and choral them into planned games. We also had teacher's day a day of school. Oh what does a full week feel like, I can barely remember, my planning book absolutely bristles with tabs of missed lessons awaiting catch up (ha, ha, ha).
I have had my friend Sam (from my U.T.S. varsity days) and his girlfriend Jess staying with me which has been excellent, due to having a long weekend (timing), we went to Copan, my first Mayan ruins.
The ruins were fabulous, sacrifice tables and ball courts and wonderfully preserved statues. The ruins are very close to a little town with cobbled streets and tourist restaurants which are probably cheap if you have money, the downside of this job is that it really doesn't pay enough to live on, so not so cheap for me. Anyway I had a great time and returned in one piece all in time for Mr Zelaya to return and the Hondurans to have a second shot at this military coup bussiness.
Anyway I'll try to post this before the internet gets blocked again.
Take care, Love N.J.

Gracias 1

2009-09-20T17:00:00.001-07:00

Well flying from Santiago to San Pedro Sula was of course an event in itself, The night before I hadn't slept properly as there were some incredibly drunk guys in my dorm room crashing and bumping into things and pissing on themselves and the guy in the bunk below!!! So I got up earlier than I would have liked, and of course I was trying to have a skype with you. The night I left Santiago there were student riots in the streets and the smell of capsicum spray caught in the back of my throat making my voice as hazy as my mind, I arrived at the airport early where they assured me my bags would be checked all the way through to San Pedro Sula. I happily boarded my plane and pretty much snoozed on and off all the way to Mexico where I discovered that even transit passengers have to queue (in a really long queue) and get a visa, tired and grumpy Mexico was rapidly becoming not my friend! Then the immigration chappie said I had to claim my bags and pass them through cusoms, so i looked about the carousel, no bags I waved my baggage claim ticket under the nose of the lady standing there, she assured me they had been checked through to San Pedro.
So I board my next plane, which incidently is smaller than some of the mosquitos I had seen in the Amazon only a week earlier, I am quite happy to watch the sun rise over Mexico city as I fly out, the flight is beautiful and I arrive in Honduras where the brief walk across the tarmac to the arrivals hall is pleasantly warm and tropical, my mind is humming slightly with the lack of proper sleep, immigration is a breeze and then I wait for my bags on the carousel, and wait... the plane was small, it doesn't take long to realise my bags aren't on the plane. I fill in a lost bag claim but have no address or phone number, apparently my bags were more taken with Mexico then I was and have decided to extend their stay there (or so I must conclude), I leave the immigration area to discover no reassuring person from the school with my name on a placard (as promised) now my life is unravelling fast.
I am in a strange city with no luggage, no local currency, no little dude to greet me, no map, no guide book, in short no fucking idea! (Oh I love these baptism of fire arrivals). There is of course no internet, I find an ATM, oooooooh money! I grovel a map from the rent a car people, I find some tourists and borrow their guide book, I catch a taxi to a hostel with internet my life is starting to come together again. An email is waiting for me apparently Hector (who was supposed to meet me at the airport has managed to be 4 hours late! He comes to the hostel to get me and I go back to the airport to meet another 2 girls we then sleep in town and head to Gracias in the morning, as soon as we arrive I choose my room, a nice sunny if somewhat small one and head back to the airport in an attempt to retrieve my luggage.
four hours later we get to the airport and in deed my bags are there and I merrily claim them as Hector thrusts the sign for the arriving folk in my hands and disappears off on some errand. Anyway the folk arrive but by the time we get back on the road to Gracias the weather has closed in there is of course no such thing as street lighting, the steam hissing up off the black top create such an ethereal mist that the headlights on the car are almost useless, and did I mention that Hector the driver is one eyed and drives like a nutbag even when it's daylight... it takes about 6 hours to get back to Gracias, I am thankful to have survived the journey at all, I am ecstatic to have reclaimed my baggage and I sleep in a real bed of my own. (yay).

The next day I met my colleagues and see the school. Gracias, first impressions, this place is seriously no where, it's beautiful but it really is the middle of nowhere.
Gracias for a town of it's size has an incredible number of foreigners, two bi-lingual schools, a large contingent of peace corp volunteers and two other volunteer organisations The school is a small collection of ramshackle buildings, Chandy the English co-ordinator has wide eyes a fresh smile and a bubbly people persona.
Bertha and Toni are from the Netherlands, Laura is from Colorado and she is ex peace corp. Liam is Canadian and ex volunteer for some organisation in Rawanda, Bobby is also American and ex-military. Matt and Rae are from Carolina, Julie is from Texas, Lindsay & Brian have brought two young children with them from Washington state and rounding out the crew is Sarisa from Chicago. It's lots of personalities and teething at the moment, if you've had puppies you know what I mean by teething. Well, I've met the kids and the are so cute, we camped all weekend, and today I saw a cow going through the trash, like a dog, this is a weird country!
Love N.J.

Choquequrau and Nazca

2009-08-15T11:44:00.002-07:00

On to Honduras

2009-08-15T11:44:00.001-07:00

Choquequirao (which has many alternate spellings) was a hard walk, seven to ten hours a day (two days in, two days out) of hiking up and down canyon walls to get from Cachora the road to this, "the last refuge of the Inkas". I have never hiked so much or so hard in my life, the scenary was beautiful and our pint sized guide Juan Carlos brought the scenary to life with his enchanting if somewhat prosaic tales of the Inkas. Juan Carlos is related to basically everybody we meet along the way (big families are the norm here, he is one of nine), his extended family own basically all the land through which we must trek on the trail to Choqui, his great, great grandfather may indeed have been one of the last Inkas, who knows, this is an abandoned city, never discovered or ransacked by the Spanish the last of the Inka's seem to have just vaporised from here and allowed the surrounding vegetation to reclaim their once great city, along with Hampi in India, Bokor in Cambodia and Naachtun in Guatemala no-one knows where to or why these people left. Choqui was a huge city covering 1232 square hectares it's name in Quechua means crown of gold. Slowly now it is being rediscovered. Only an estimated 40% of the ruins have so far been excavated. After hiking out we left Cuzco and finally made it to Nazca, saw the odd but interesting Nazca lines and finally caught the never ending bus back to Santiago in order to fly North to honduras.
Here in Santiago it's really cold and rainy, must be time to get a real job!

Cuzco

2009-08-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

Cuzco at last, the bus ride was beautiful but looong, coming over the Andes there was so much snow we had to wait often and drive extremely slowly when we could, the bus was 8 hours late!!!
But I am getting ahead of myself.
From Iquitos our Amazon boat trip took 6 instead of five days, it was fantastic, the sunrises and sunsets were sensational, the misty mornings were full of atmosphere and inevitably cleared to clear hot days. the dolphins accompanying the boat were playful and the birds flying around in great squawking colourful flocks were amazing. we slung our hammocks and made friends with our near neighbours who really spoke no English so I got to practice my pitiful Spanish which as a result is much improved, most of our time was spent chatting to a couple of 16 year old boys who had more patience as they liked the opportunity to try to learn some English, apparently they learn English in school for five years, I suspect the schools here are not very good!!! The little towns we pulled in at (and the ones we didn't are really picturesque, folk in dug out canoes paddle past with boats full of bannanas or fish in amongst the reeds, women wash there clothes in the brown waters, how that makes anything clean is beyond me! Suffice to say after 6 days I was hugely relieved to sleep in a flat bed and have a shower in something that was not murky Amazon river water.
Pucallpa the town the boat left me in is really not much to write about, it had a beautiful cathedral, modern in design with fabulous stained glass panels all around the arched doorway, it was lovely when illuminated at night but my camera is not that good and Bec had her memory card stolen on the boat by a boy she befriended (I didn't like him right from the start and by the time we discovered that I knew why).
So we didn't hang around we caught a bus back to Lima where we stayed (due to lack of opportunity to leave right away)in Miraflores this time, very touristy but with ocean views and a chance for me to go to the cinema. I saw the new Mike Leigh film "Happy go lucky" which Michael had said the main character was not unlike me (I can see his point) One of the leads I was surprised to discover was a friend of mine from Thailand's brother (small world). I also saw the latest Harry Potter film, which I enjoyed but I suspect it's at the stage now where only addicts (poor sad addicts like me)like it.
So back to the bus ride, the coast of Peru is quite beautiful, if only God would choose to exhale and blow away the constant grey that hangs in the sky over that part of the world for 6 - 8 months of the year, mind you when that happens the bare rolling sand dunes would no doubt be unbearably hot as there really is no shelter.
The road through the Andes follows a rolling river, the hillsides are littered with small cascading waterfalls and llamas in the snow are something you really ought to see!

Finally in Cuzco, the city is really pretty, full of cobbled streets, wrought iron black standing street lamps and old stone buildings, Inka ruins being dug up in back alleys and on street corners.

Cuzco is cool, it has lots of character, but it is still full of dodgy characters, like the restaurant hawker Bec took to calling "rank-o" he was about the sleaziest person I think (well actually it was both with the restaurant a distant second), he accosted us with such stunning lines as "just lie back, you'll enjoy it" and "your a sexy lady" ooooooooo, so gross!!! I can't believe this approach actually works on anybody!
Anyway, moving right along, as the less time spent dwelling on "rank-o" guy the better. Machu Picchu is in deed "all that" we caught various forms of transport up to Aqua Calientes which is a very cute little town, but terribly touristy, (hard to believe, but even more so than the rest of Peru) the next morning woke at the crackers of dawn to get up to the complex, by this stage we were so over the whole experience of Peru, Machu Picchu was really going to have to be pretty fantastic. Peru is bizarre, they have had tourists or so long but there seems to be not a professional among the bunch, their attitude is a discomforting combination of blaise lack of interest and plain incompetence. But... Machu Picchu is all that" from the moment you get into the complex it is stunning scenery and history brought to life, it's an incredible experience! Truly an occassion to save the kiwi favourite "awesome" for. You really have to experience it for yourself to know just what it's all about. We met some lovely people and I indeed had a play with my poi, possibly Machu Picchu's inaugaral poi! the llama's were cute, we returned again by death defying roads to Cuzco and await the four day hike from hell to Choquequirao which we start on Monday.

As a side diversion today we went to the cementary in Cuzco which is amazing a whole community for the dead, the murals on the outside are beautiful, the coffins are piled on top of each other in streets of high-rises, it's really unusual, full of loved ones polishing graves, changing flowers or just praying for their ancestors it has the atmosphere of a mini village, a strange combination seemingly of catholicism and a kind of oriental ancestor worship.

Copacabana Bolivia, Cuzco,& Machu Pichu Peru.

2009-08-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

Shepherd on an island off Puno, Peru

2009-07-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Monkey.

2009-07-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

The Amazon

2009-07-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

Trujillo is a town with lots of pretty buildings painted in bright colours, it is an attractive city but the grey skies that have been following me up the coast persist and make it a not so nice place to be. I came to town to see the Huaca pyramids and the pre-Inca ruins at Chan chan.
The Huaca pyramids are in the middle of a complex which like Tiahuanaco in Bolivia is barely at the start of it's excavation and reconstruction process. The larger of the two temples, the temple of the sun is filled with adobe bricks as every time a flood, earthquake or other natural disaster happened the people would simply fill in the old temple and build a new one on top. The second pyramid, the pyramid of the moon appears to be five temples built atop one another, it is in the middle of it's excavation process and as they remove more or the adobe bricks from within, it reveals more and more of the original painted surfaces beneath.
The fanged faces one can only conclude were painted as protecting spirits, they have uncovered the sacred rock where the high priestess made her human sacrifices, the cup of blood was then taken to the area where the God needed to be appeased and poured on the ground there by the high priest.
After that I went to another bunch of ruins called Chan chan which was a community, ruins here are dusty, dirty and run down before they have had a chance to be dug up, Peru is somewhat of an anticlimax on the whole wow factor.

Then I headed to a town called Chiclayo where the ruins of various tombs have been found, most famously those of the lords of Sipan. The tombs were found mostly in tact with vast amounts of gold and silver ornamentation, the gold and turquoise earrings are pretty impressive, there is also a lot of very creepy ornaments and some odd nose rings which are kind of mouth protectors of some sort. They say in another 400 years they may have unearthed all the tombs in this area, amazing but true, why the hills around here are not heaving with grave robbers I have no idea, maybe in another 100 years the place will be worth visiting.
.
Then it was another overnight bus from hell to get to Chachapoyas, The first day we trekked to Karija to see the sarcophagus, kind of cool but small, we also saw a rather groovy cave, "Caverna De Quiocta", stalagtites and mites many looked like melting faces or foetal position skeletons with the limestone columns dripping like candle wax oveer them, one exceptionally creepy one looked like a melting marshmellow baby. considering the place used to be used by the Chachapoyas as a cemetary adds to it's creep factor.
The next day I finally made it to Kuelap the reason I had come all the way to Chachapoyas, it is really cool, it is a large fortress built by the "cloud people" on top of a hill, if someone died during construction they just added their bones (bodies)to the construction process, the bones can be seen inside of the walls, it was seen as a kind of sacrifice to the gods. They had fridge's for food storage and a sacred circular temple (their houses were also circular) inside was a bottle shape originally used by the Chachapoyans as a sun dial so they knew the seasons, the harvest time, the fiesta time, the solstice, the equinox etc. Then by the Incas (after they conqured the site) to drop sacrifices to the sun god inside and finally by the Spanish (when they conquered) as a prison. The scenary on the way up to the heighs of Kurlap through terraced agricultural lands and smattered with tiny villages is stunning, the clouds wraith like wrapping there fingers around the hillsides all add to the atmosphere, the first really awesome ruins I've seen since I've been here.

Tarapoto was a nothing town that we really only saw the bus station on arrival and the collectivo station on departure the next day, we stayed at a very classy hotel opposite the bus station, when the clerk showed us our room he kindly surfed off the porn channel when showing us how the t.v. worked! Oh yeah all class here.
and on to Yurimaguas where again we stayed long enough to eat lunch, (cerviche again, too lemony for my tastes again) and the got ourselves on board a boat to Iquitos.
Three days up the Amazon on the boat was nice, I slept in a hammock on deck and with all the other passengers, it was fun. The food was average (bring your own dish and cutlery) I saw dolphins up and down the river and flocks of birds, all very beautiful but large panoramas of this sort are impossible to photograph with any sort of justice to the beauty of the actual scenary. It's at last hot, though very humid with lots of rainstorms, it makes for beautiful Amazon rainbows. (I just love using the word Amazon as a sort of prefix). There are a zillion little huts along the edge of the river made from sticks with thatched roofs, very cute. The boat pulled in regularly at little towns, whereupon they were flooded with people selling fruit and frozen jellies in plastic bags.
Iquitos is full of very well heeled tourists, who fly in and out to do expensive Amazon tours. There are buildings and bandstands designed by Eiffel and very strange looking crumbling tiled buildings.

Our first attempt to get to Belen (an area of Iquitos the largest city in the world accessible only by air or river) was a complete disaster, we tumbled from our guest house all pink and freshly scrubbed, jumped on the bus that said Belen and ended up at the warfs at the opposite end of town, (the driver took us back to Belen for free). We wandered around the market looking for the local wharfs, and a policeman came and stopped us with the chilling words "come to the station, we want to talk to you", and muttering further something about how the boss would "Explain things to us." hmmmmm, having heard about how dodgy the police in south America are we declined to enter the station and scampered quickly in the opposite direction. We then caught a taxi to the "wharfs" The guy dropped us at this dodgy looking rubbish filled alley way, the three girls of the party looked at each other and I heard Dr Seuss in my head "You wont go down any not so good street." Yes I thought to myself, that's a not so good street if ever I saw one. So we walked back to town.
The next morning we had Bec and I had upped our bloke ratio and lowered our chick ratio and we tried again. This was a much more successful attempt, as we wandered around the market a helpful chap volunteered to be our guide, we hoped in a boat and cruised around the floating markets and houses on stilts of Belen, it's quite dry here at the moment and the dirt and grub factor is high, I would say if you have seen the floating markets and houses on stilts in Laos, forget it here.
Our guide took us on to the butterfly sanctuary, I wanted to see some of the guys responsible for the tornados and rainstorms in the rest of the world. Again unimpressive, if you have seen butterfly sanctuaries in Australia or Asia don't come to this one for the butterflies! Do come for the other attractions though, the owner has taken to adopting wildlife confiscated by border police at the airport here and illegal animal traders etc. As soon as we got to the sanctuary more or less a white painted Capuchin monkey decided he liked me and jumped on my shoulder, the feeling was not really mutual and he eventually left me alone! Then there were bright red faced monkeys running up and down and chattering their teeth at us, a Jaguar (called Pedro something) who is gorgeous, a Tapir called Lewis, a manatae a couple of very loud silky howler monkeys, several macaws and the highlight two sloths one of who is a three month old baby (rescued from smugglers at the airport) She is gorgeous and I got to hold her, unfortunately I didn't get a photo as the room was dark but sloth have seriously moved up my favourite animal chart, so cute, such long padded feet with loooong claws at the bottom. Anyway.

Tomorrow I start a five day boat trip up the Amazon, expect radio silence!

Peru!!!

2009-07-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a letter I started a little while ago and finished today.
Well as you may have picked up by now all roads in Bolivia lead to La Paz!

After two nights at the tranquill lake titicaca I had to go back to La Paz as the biggest fiesta in their calendar year was on, and this year it coincides with Bolivia's bicentennary so as you can imagine it was huge!!!

The fiesta started at about 6:30 in the morning and went till after midnight, their were drunk people in the streets all day, the parade was endless, ladies in traditional Bolivian gear swirling their petticoats and shaking their tambourines, men in weird tiered wedding cake outfits with masks of the "Gran Poder" a chap who apparently smoked a pipe, young girls in decidedly unBolivian mini skirts and high boots marching and men in Jesters outfits with bells leaping down the streets every fourth or so group was a slick bunch of men in suits playing "the" song that the whole parade kept time to.

There were diablos (devil masks) accompanied by beautiful blue winged angels, their were Campesinos in traditional gear with fake babies or flowers in their cloth shoulder bags. There were real jesters in scary masks, men in cattle outfits and black slaves. There were girls in Inka indian mini dresses, men in leopard skins and feathery head dresses everywhere, seriously there must be a lot of very cold birds (of the avian kind) in Bolivia right now! My camera has never quite recovered from Uyuni so the photos I took just don't show the magnetude or the outfits but I hope they caught something of the spectacle.

Anyway needless to say it was massive and I spent most of the day up in "cementario" where the parade started watching the behind the scenes happenings and dancing into the crazy wee hours of the morning and avoiding kissing strange drunk Latin american men (eeeeeeew).

While on the subject I should tell you about Bolivian "fashion" for ladies it consists of a bowler hat, too small for your head and set at a jaunty angle, a blouse with a (preferably glittery) shawl over your shoulders, a long heavily pleated skirt also shimmery with a zillion lacey petticoats underneath and low flat slip on shoes also shimmery if possible. it's, erm.... interesting. For men fashion is trilby hat and suit, much nicer in fact quite stylish if only the men were better looking it would all be good.

Also did you know Bolivia has a Navy!!!? Useful for a landlocked country I'm sure, what optimists!!!

Isle del sol was great. it's unbelievably pretty, the walk along the centre of the island is so worth doing. I saw the rocks from which the Inca creation myths spawned. Isle del so is the Father of the male line and Isle del luna the female line. It's absolutely freezing at night and burning hot during the day but really pretty. The Inca ruins in the north have a very nice temple with a sacred well still working, infact Inca plumbing is still very much intact in most ruins and fairly impressive.

They also, certainly knew where to put their temples in order to maximise impact.

Back in Copacanana I saw cars being blessed, one day by a fellow wearing frian monk robes!!! Another day by several fellows in more traditional Bolivian campesino colours, the cars are washed and wreathed in flowers, the guys who do the blessings are carrying smouldering incense, opening bottles of champagne and beer, water and other fluids are sprinkled via flower head over the engines and cars in general, much fun is had by all.

Headed to Puno, so excited to get to Peru, Puno though is a grey town and I do not recommend it as an entry point to Peru, it's some what anticlimatic. The floating islands of Uros are pretty and worth seeing, the island of Taquile has a lot of arches and people selling tourist tat.

Arequipa is the next town I stopped at, it's still quite grey and a whole lot bigger than I expected, it has some beautiful buildings, the cathedral is very impressive, it has the usual baroque altars and a massive organ but it is not over done (by South American standards).

Today I went to the Monastry of Santa Catalina, it's massive, a city within a city, it's painted blue and terracota, it's full of beautiful flower filled courtyards and at night it is lit up by candles, open fires and lamplight. The old rooms of the nuns are all on display, their courtyards, kitchens, cloisters, bathrooms, and a sizable art gallery and the rooms of the beatified Sister Ana, it's really worth the ridiculous entrance fee. It is peaceful and serene, wandering around this pretty haven you can imagine how it would have felt to live in this isolated world and how appealing that could be, away from the chaos of the ordinary world, protected by the vows and veils of faith.

The art is mostly 17th and 18th century, almost all of it is bad but the odd piece that is good is arresting due to it's lack of compettion. there is a beautiful rendition of the virgin and child, there is a startling crucifiction piece where the eyes of Christ actually address the onlooker as he alone looks directly out of the frame at you as he stumbles with his cross, hair pulled and jabbed at by the wooden staves of the Roman guard, it's almost pornographic in the nature of it's directness. There are two panels depicting God creating the world in seven days, without irony it displays a nippless Eve and a genital hidden Adam before they realise their nakedness. hmmmm, well I guess the point perhaps is lost in translation. All in all if you come to Arequipa check it out.

Cabanaconde the little town from where I started my Colca canyon trek is really cute and in the throws of a massive fiesta (another one). Streets full of cowboys and dancing people accompanied by the standard dodgy marching bands, at night the sky was lit up by fountains of sparks which showered over and out of the extremely dodgy bamboo towers that had been constructed to hold them, dodgy home made rockets and catherine wheels, two guys simply drove up in their car with the boot packed with explosives and built these things. Colca canyon was a beautiful two day hike, the last day of which is a solid uphill slog for two or three hours, the bus trip back was stunning past numerous look outs and with majestic condors gliding effortlessly on the wind currents.

Here in Peru as in Bolivia the guys have installed car horns that wolf whistle instead of honking, and every time a pretty girl (or in fact any girl) passes them in the streets the car horns all whistle, it's weird and slightly off putting.

Great things about Peru include that there are street side stalls that sell one of my favourite deserts, yes indeed you can buy creamed rice with a kind of sticky plum sauce everywhere, it's heaven in a styrofoam dish!

The favourite snack here is corn nuts and puffed corn which can be purchased on every street corner, you can also buy snacks which often taste like slightly sweetened puffed air. The dish of choice available cheaply and everywhere is a massive plate of "chinese" fried rice known here as Chifa, boring but filling!

The roads to Cuzco are closed at the moment, there is much protesting in the streets and road blocks, the same is true of the roads into the Amazon so we bought a ticket to Nazca and ended up in Lima, the bus conductor lady neglected to tell us where to get off. Ahhh the joys of a foreign language. Lima was a big grey city but the hostal we stayed in was amazing a whirling wooden staircase, huge imitation famous paintings, mirrors and statues (Michelangelos David being a particular favourite), they also had four pet turtles that wandered about at will and a furry part persian cat. Still I was glad to get out of there after a few days, and headed to Huaraz.

Huaraz is set in an absolutely stunning location surrounded by magnificent mountains, the town itself is small and sweet, the first place in Peru I can say without reservation that I like, the hills around here are called the Cordillera Blanca and they are a chain of amazing snow capped peaks. Today is the day Michael Jackson died, it was evocative of the death of Princess Diana Spencer for me as in again I walked into a hotel room in a foreign country and flicked on the t.v. to see it all unfolding on the BBC and CNN et al, it enhances the foreign-ness of death to confront it in such circumstances.

Since I have been here I have discovered some disturbing animals one we have dubbed the lleep (as that's the noise you make when you see one) or sometimes called a shama it's a cross between a sheep (or alpaca) and a llama, basically it looks like a sheep with a long neck!

Just got back from a four day trek in the Cordillera blanca, truly beautiful but cold as, snow capped mountains, stunning aqua lakes and creaking glaciers, loads of beautiful weird frozen flowers and plants that seem as stunned by the daily frost as I am. Every night we ate and ran for our sleeping bags as the winds rushing down the glaciers froze the mucus on the end of my nose. I am awfully glad to be back in a warm hostel it's crazy but beautiful out there. The trip back was plagued by strikes and punctured tires as we had to pass through protests and were trapped in a town called Caraz for 8 hours or so, it was o.k as the town had great Cerviche, which I am learning to love and I even tried beer flavoured ice cream for desert. Weird.

Today I head for Trujillo (again look north on your map).

Love N.J.

La Paz (again)

2009-05-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Egads, is it the end of April already!!!
Well Valdivia and Pucon were a long time ago now.
Now I am in Bolivia, but how did I get here, I hear you ask.
Settle down grab a cerveza and I will tell you...
O.k. yes Pucon was busy in fiesta mode when I left, fabulous fun dancing in the streets, y´know how it is. I arrived in Valdivia which is a port city, and very German, it´s full of fabulous buildings, cool graffiti and really good chocolate cake. I stayed at this hostel down by the waterfront owned by a crazy French dyke, her Chillean partner and a couple of daschounds. A really lovely American couple were volunteering there and made American breakfast for us all every day, I got to try infamous ¨gravy and biscuits¨ for those of you unfamiliar with American food it´s a kind of dumpling, not bad at all. I spent a few days rumbling round the old ruins of a Spanish fort or two, we went on a Monday when indeed the fort was closed, but never fear we found a way to scale the walls and break into the fort. (we being Thurbid who is German and Yankee an Israeli who travels solo). Breaking into crumbling monuments is really easy. The wall we scaled was a tad close to the sea that´s all.

Then from Valdivia, I went down to Puerto Varas which had beautiful cobbled streets and again was very European, I went to the national park and hiked about which was beautiful, but a little drizzley. The mountains there are beautiful. I continued south to the Island of Chiloe which is a little, kind of grubby by Chilean standards, and saw the stilt houses and old wooden churches the seals accompany the ferries over to the islands splashing about in the wake and playing in front of the boat.
I then spent a few days in Puerto Mont, which is a working port without tourist attractions (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
I was thinking about Patagonia but I decided too cold and expensive for this stage of my trip so I headed back to Santiago, where I spent my birthday and a few days later saw Kraftwerk warm up for Radiohead, Great gig. Just don´t ask about the trip to the venue!!!

Then I headed north to San Pedro de Attacama, where I cycled around the valley of the moon ( a gruelling 64 km day). crawled through caves and canyons, climbed sand dunes, looked at rocks and even wandered about in a salt mine! I then headed north as far as Chile goes to Arica and saw my first geoglyphs and petroglyphs, very cool in deed, if you´ve see such things before probably not that special but for me, who has not seen them before it absolutely (and literally) rocked! (¨Quality¨ as my English companion said).
Then went to a little town called Putre and into Lauca national park, just give me a moment to open my superlative bag and I´ll get right back to you… Wow… If you really want to hike in nature with flamingos and vicunas, surrounded by amazing little rivers and majestic mountains, seriously you need to check this place out!!!

The border crossing into Bolivia from this direction is absolutely magnificent, though on the draw back side I arrived in La Paz after dark and after all the horror stories I had heard about La Paz and Bolivia generally I almost had a panic attack on the spot. But luckily I had met an English woman on the bus and together (with the help of a security guard we managed to secure ourselves a (safe) taxi to our respective hotels.

In the morning I discovered Bolivia is totally unlike Chile, it is really what I was expecting when I decided to come to South America, it´s very exotic and different. The percentage of ethnic people versus the obvious Spanish decendants is closer to 70/30 here (In Chile it's probably 80/20 the opposite direction). I was in La Paz at the same time as the Argentinian Soccer team, who had their ass whipped by Bolivia (much to everyone´s amazement and immense enjoyment 6/1. It was great fun, I went with a bunch of mad people, in fact most of the hostel I was staying at went. Stadium was packed and we all got sunburnt (except me) for a change, I had sunscreen, hat long sleeves but I did perspire a lot!!! It was really hot!
After several days in La Paz I headed down south to Potosi where the mines are and the altitude makes you completely breathless, fantastic views and the little cobbled alleyways and architecture is fab!
Then headed south to Uyuni and did the obligatory ¨salt flats¨tour which is three days of incredible lakes (more flamingos and vicuna) great volcanoes, rock formations, dehydrated lake beds and old coral beds, cacti, did I mention cacti, I keep expecting to see Snoopy's cousin with the moustache, (haven´t yet but if I do you´ll be the first to know!)
Then I arrived in Sucre or ¨the white city¨so named because of all the whitewashed buildings, it is an attractive city, very European architecturally (all the guys in colourful ponchos pissing in the street EVERYWHERE is decidedly uneuropean, not to mention smelly).
My Spanish lessons go well, I can conjugate many a verb now, but my listening and speaking really need a huge amount of work!

Oh and now even Sucre is a distant dream, yes I promise to post this today!!! From Sucre I headed to Smaipata and into Amboro National park, I hiked with an Australian girl and a lovely Dutch girl, The cloud forest was beautiful but it did rain a little (being a cloud forest this was about what I expected), the vegetation is much like New Zealand predominantly massive ferns, moss and lichens in fact I am constantly reminded how much like the green green grass of home South America is, the plants are very similar often you see plants which are obviously related to plants from home and it's the first place in the world where I have (happily) been able to find my favourite vegetable (what in New Zealand we call Yam a small pink variety of potatoe). Perhaps for this reason it makes me feel slightly home sick (or perhaps it's just the altitude).

Altitude is a funny thing you think your acclimatised then suddenly your gasping like a fish for a few breaths then it passes and you feel fine again, some people get headaches but for me it's a feeling not unlike being mildly high, slightly unsettling and disorienting but not painful.

Anyway from Amboro National park and Smaiapata I headed back to La Paz and a couple of friends from Chile were in town so it was great to catch up with Victor and Karina again, I headed to Tiwanaku.
Tiwanaku was amazing, the archeaologists currently working on the site suspect it may have been as important to the Incas as Macchu Picchu but at this stage they really are just digging bits of rock out of the ground and jigsawing the temples and structures back together. I arrived in town and went to find a hotel but the first was too expensive and the second locked up and abandoned. There are many, many new hotels in the throws of being built, it's a town that has great expectations!!! I was wandering around contemplating my next hotel when a little old chap on a bicycle hot off his bike and started chatting and walking beside me. He invited me back to his place and so i went. His son as it turns out is building a hostel on the side of their house and they showed me to a massive room for the princely sum of 15 Bolivianos a night (the equivalent of 3 dollars). There house backs onto the grounds of tiwanaku and my balcony looked out over the fence onto the grounds, perfect! They gave me some coca tea and I headed out to the museums, stuffed full of statues and cool suessian ceramics, (unfortunately they always seem to have a no photography law in these places but my camera has never recovered from the trip to Uyuni so it doesn't really matter, I will have to upgrade soon) I love the Inca representations of people and animals they are often just so bizarre. I ate Quinwha soup in a rundown, Ma and Pa store then and headed over to the first lot of ruins.

Puma Punku, I wander about the ruins and am thinking (perhaps meanly) it's just like a poor man's Egypt). the ruins here are barely excavated, most still lie (their shattered visage like Ozymandis amongst the sand) half buried, those they have excavated quite often now lie on their backs their ancient engravings exposed now to the sun wind and rain, it's crazy. Tourists can just wander about the rocks and willy nilly amongst over and around these ancient stones it's quite incredible, especially as most tourists are too ignorant to realise that these actions are damaging what remains, (we are programmed to believe if it needs protecting someone will have put a fence round it and erected a sign stating this... baa, baa). Anyway off my soap box now. I headed back to watch the sunset from my balcony.

The next morning I went early down to the market in town, Tiwanaku is a grubby little town and it had a grubby little market, although talked up by the local people it is nothing once one has seen the markets of La Paz and the giant sprawling mess of market similar to Bangkok's Chattuchak in Cochabamba. I returned to the main temple gates at Tiwanaku and waited for them to open, as I was the only foreigner in town I had the place to myself for the first two hours which was absolutely majic, again, huge sections of the compound have yet to be excavated and have a mixture of ancient Inca rocks sticking out of the mud and crumbling modern mud houses melting into the ground from which the latest inhabitants have been evicted when the sacred area was marked off. The semi-subteranean temple was my favourite it is dug into the ground and heads emerge from the brick work every foot or so in three or four rows. The Kantatallita or tomb area which is a new excavation area looks like it will be amazing once they have dug a bit more of it our of the ground and re-erected it's arched doorways and the like. The main temple area had evidence of recent rituals and the workmen appeared to just build their lunch fires wherever they like amongst the ruins??? Christopher (the son of the family who own the hostel I'm staying in) has during his excavations to build the kitchen and dining area of the guest accomodation come across great numbers of relics, mortars and pestels, broken crockery, even a piece of Inca drain, so he has his own little museum in the back yard too. In the evening he explained the significance of the various aspects of the temple and showed me photos of the last sun celebration, his Uncle is the high priest. "So" I said to him (having seen the impressive and old catholic church in town) "your not Catholic then?" "Of course we are Catholic" he hurried to correct me "but Pachamama is much older then Christ" Yes I thought, but decided it unwise to pursue this particular logic.
The next morning I saw the sun rise (in the vague direction of the puerto del sol from my balcony, and headed back to La Paz.

Then it was off to Rurrenabaque over the amazing Yungas and via the pretty little town of Corroico. First I did a pampas tour which was hot, and the mosquitos were biting, we spent many happy hours in a boat watching the millions of different types of Amazon birds, storks, cormorants, egrets, herons, spoonbills, kingfishers, macaws, vultures and small parrots and waders and I really don't know what all else so many it's amazing, we saw three different kinds of monkeys including squirrel and howler, three different kinds of snake, fished for Pirranha's and swam with pink river dolphins. I saw my first Toucan on the way back to Rurre and was really very happy with my whole trip. Then we went four days deeper into the amazon jungle where the mosquitos are joined by other manic biting insects and various members of my party got so many bites pieces of their anatomy swelled in quite hideous ways, we saw Cappybarris and trees and trees full of parrots and macaws, so many beautiful and huge butterflies every colour of the rainbow, their were also a lot of spiders and frogs we saw puma footprints in the sand but not the elusive creatures themselves.
We arrived exhausted back in La Paz yesterday and in a few days I will head for Lake Titicaca and the Isle del sol, apparently despite the name it's cold! Spot you later.
N.J.

Everyone loves a gut promotion.

2009-02-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

2009-02-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

Pucon

2009-02-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

Well your in for a treat this time, I have in deed attached a photo of Sudoku South American style, or what I call "Sudoporn" now why you disguise a perfectly respectable logic game inside a soft porn cover is beyond me, one wouldn't like fellow passengers on the bus to know your engaged in a semi-intellectual pursuit, no so much better that they think your a pervy type who is just upping your hormone level or something. Call it a culture chasm, and yes the girl I bought it off did look at me twice.
Other things I love about Sth America include that their is a section in the yellow pages entitled "Vigilantes" now I know it's just security guards but somehow being called a vigilante has got to increase your cool quotient.

There are stray dogs here, not so mangy and skinny as the Thai kind, more an unconnected tribe of hobos. So poopy does not get scoopied and the streets can be a little vile in the cities where there are no grass berms, but luckily Chile does have a lot of parks so things are not as bad as they could be. There is even a park in Valparaiso that has a bunch of dog statues around a very odd central statue which shows some midget men (possibly Mapuche men) nursing from a giant odd looking female dog.

The food here is rather repeatative, luckily I like avocadoes (a lot). But the "completoes" are more or less compulsory fare, they are basically a hotdog in a white bread roll with tomatoe, avocado and a wacking great dolop of mayo on top, I did take a rather bad photo of a promotion for one of these and a beer, it was (rather amusingly I thought) called a "gut promotion" (I know it's a german themed pub, but still funny).

When the light turns red you don't only have the junkies trying to wash your car windows for pesos, you also have acrobats and jugglers step out into the road and do their thing, which is much more fun in my book, I'm not sure of they make money out of it, but still, enterprising I think!

There is so much street art / grafitti here (it really is hard to tell which is which, I certainly prefer some of the "grafitti" to some of the "art") It makes me wonder about the personal reasons behind each work I've kind of concluded that some people do beautiful respectful work, while some people do thought provoking (sometimes) mass produced or political stencil art and others just do rude crude "tags" or the equivalent of territorial pissing. I guess it's kind of a window onto their personality, some people are rude and crude and others think about the context of their stuff before they start, maybe it reinforces the idea that every thing you do is an expression of your self, not only what you do but how and where you do it as well, obviously this form of public art if not exactly legal here is encouraged on some level (and many of the large works on public walk ways must be legal) and I'm sure more than one business and home owner have actually sought out someone to paint their house wall.

I have also had someone attempt to steal something out of my bag, I was amazed how quiet and efficient they were, I didn't even notice the attempt till well after the event, but I never carry anything valuable in the front pocket of my backpack for this very reason, luckily they didn't see any value in my glasses or contact lens fluid so they had wasted their time on that particular occassion.

I have left Santiago and gone South through Chillan and Villarica and am now hanging out in Pucon, it's beautiful here next to mount Villarica a still active volcano which I climbed (a 4 hour uphill trudge) my guide assured me he can do it in 2, argggh. Luckily we slid down the glacier at least half the way down, and got a numb bum despite wearing protective slidding clothes and a slidding "nappy" it was great fun if decidedly unglamorous.

Tomorrow I head for Valdivia while all remains relatively quiet on the work front, I've been offered a couple of language school gigs in Buenos Aires but I'm not sure they are what I want, we shall see.

Till next time, keep safe, besos,

Santiago's dead dog

2009-02-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

Chile's flag

2009-02-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

Santiago street

2009-02-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

Lamb barbque Santiago Cathedral

2009-02-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

February 2009

2009-02-07T19:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am the slackest blogger on the planet!
Believe it or not I have been very busy, no really.
For those of you who live under a rock (or aren't on facebook), I no longer live in Thailand.
So I left Thailand, there were parties and tears and I travelled overland to Malaysia, did some posting and stuff in K.l.went down to Bali and went diving on the Liberty wreck in Tulumben the highlight of which was definitely seeing my first real live baby seahorse, it was tiny and sooo cute.
Bali was interesting as the American elections had just been held (yay Obama riding his unicorn of change over the rainbow of hope and into American hearts), the guy who ran one of the guest houses I stayed in (and in defence of his character I will say I saw him reading a newspaper, which he assured me he did every day) told me that they were all surprised that Americans had "voted for the Muslim ". I was indeed momentarily speechless but then thought hey this could be the best thing for world peace ever if all the countries that are breeding ground for terrorists believe this.
Also the Mumbai bombings had just happened and the Bali bombers from 2005 (I think) had just been executed the week before so there were travel warnings about that part of the world, The place was empty (it was Blackpool in winter all over again). People were very interested in how safe I felt being in Bali and discussions about "What terrorists want" were rampant. I of course am of the opinion that if I cease living my life my way then the terrorists have indeed won, I'm not saying one should be fool hardy in regards to their own safety but at the same time allowing others to dictate your life style has never been a thing that sits well with me.

Anyways, I then Christmassed with all my old friends in Australia, I was spoiled rotten and generally speaking drank far too much, and ate too much. January was spent in much the same manner in New Zealand with the family and friends of my childhood, great fun and thanks to everyone who humoredme, feed and sheltered me, besos darlings.

And so I have embarked on a new continent and hope to have a job here shortly, I flew into Santiago at the start of the month arriving fortuitously during a magnificent sunset over the spectacular Andes, even seeing some geoglyphs in the ground here and there as well, it was all a bit too fabulous as an arrival really. I am now in the process of discovering Chile, For some reason I find the lack of Spanish more disorientating then I did the lack of Thai, I am starting to string the odd stumbling sentence together but it takes me so long to understand what has been said to me and formulate a response that most people have given up by then. My first day I went to Plaza de Brazil and found my first rabid dog (luckily he was dead) unluckily in the children's playground, which made for some odd juxtaposition photography. I then headed down to Plaza de Armas where I discovered Chilean police wearing not only guns but bullet proof vests (oh yeah I'm feeling secure now). The glimpses of the Andes through the shop fronts keeps reminding me of what Upper Hutt (nestelled in the Akatarua mountains) might look like on steroids.
There are a million churches in Santiago, they fall into threebroad categories, Posh, under renovation, and slowly rotting, the first one I went into "Saint Francis" church had the goriest Christ on the cross I've ever seen, seriously any kid going into that church is doomed to nightmares for the rest of their days. Next I went into the main Cathedral, it has many splendid iconographic paintings, the cielings had not been spared a generous splashing of the oils though my favourite had to be one of the holy lamb barbque, I have a picture I promise to post it next time I have my camera hooked up. There was also some great stained glass as well.
Day 2 found me at the "Mueseo Chileano de Arte" which did indeed (as promised by the satanic verses) have many stunning statues and items from Inca and other Central and South American native peoples, it was exceptionally cool and i would love to have been able to take some photos, to remind myself how cool a lot of the stuff was as they simply don't do postcards (or allow photography) go figure!
Today I caught the bus, past a surprisingly barren but for cactus and eucalyptus trees sceenery to Valparaiso and am now staying at my friend Karenn's house, she is a lovely girl whom I have met through a friend of my Mothers and we walked over Valparaiso and saw some very cool architecture, again very reminiscent of Wellington. It{s late, I will try to post again soon (I know, I know, such empty words are bound to come back to haunt me).

Phuket 01/10/2008

2008-10-07T05:07:00.001-07:00

"Last night two men tried to steal our restaurant!"
We actually received an email with this subject line last week.
http://www.baanrimpa.com/hungfats/restaurant/gallery.html
This is the restaurant these hapless criminals were attempting to abscond with. Yes, yes the would be burglars were actually trying to rob said establishment, but the story is no-where near as funny when you hear it that way. Luckily the men were apprehended by the security guards and it turned out one of them was employed by the company who had been employed the previous month to set up the sound system in the restaurant... Such is the way of things in Thailand.

Thailand is still full of funny moments, I think I'm going to have a blueberry day but it turns out I'm having a prune day! You think your buying blueberry drinking yoghurt at the 7-11 and get outside to discover you have actually bought the prune flavor, hell they use the same colour packaging and both have all the writing in Thai, sigh, and move on while slurping your pruney beverage.

I often wish I carry my camera with me, as there are always those moments when you wish you had it, but still I never get around to carrying it i'm just not a bag carrier or it's always just that one extra thing that never makes it in anyway. We were at lunch the other day and parked outside of the restaurant was a mitsubishi so old the thing was held together by rust and an enormous coke sticker covering the entire bonnet (I'm guessing as an attempt to keep the engine dry in areas where the rust has eaten through the bonnet. The owner once so proud had gone to the effort of cutting out the letters to spell the name of his beloved car brand and stick them across the front of his car, Carefully he formed these foreign shapes out of the sticky material but apparently never once bothering to go to the rear of the car where Mitsubishi is emblazoned across the bumper, the front of his car proudly declares itself a "MUSTIFUSHI" .

For those of you who aren't sad tragic facebook addicts let me bring you up to speed on Pippi's adventures overseas.

Being an expatriot means living a life of unexpected jobs, and parties on luxury yachts, last weekend, we went to the "infinity yacht party" A youngish German guy who brings his yacht to Phuket every year had an onboard party, there were psychedelic neon sheets hung as decorations, there was a blonde dreadlocked guy spinning the discs, there was dancing and little dingys ferrying party goers to the dock and back. And then their is my current job, one does not get employed according to their qualifications or even suitability for a job, one gets employed because their is a limited number of English speakers and a transient community dropping through, so it's always the best person to do the job at the time it's available who gets the job. having said that working for the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation has been great, it's been a really rewarding experience to work for a charity, and it's been interesting to have a taste of an office job, being so sedentary really makes me understand for the first time in my life why it is people go to the gym. It's also been interesting to have debates about the idea of essential self and whether gender is a social construct with your boss over the mornings emails. We have been heavily involved in finding two teachers for our schools, I am amazed at the standard of most people's c.v's, riddled with spelling errors (guys your applying for a job as an English teacher!) it becomes immediately apparent why these people are looking for work.

So I am currently doing my dive master which absorbs a tremendous amount of time, there is physics and physiology to learn and I also have to reach a whole new level of fitness to pass the practical tests, this goes some way to making up for my sedentary job, but again consumes huge amounts of time, walking up and down those stairs I appreciate what my Mum did before she climbed in the Himalayas a little more..

My friend Jaime has taken up learning to sail so I now spend lots of time at the yaught club (though I'm still not confident on the spelling). It's nice just to hang out and see a different beach, the beach at Pan wah is beautiful and sheltered, great for swimming, with a great big pearl farm slap dab in the middle, the whole area around the beach is owned by one old Thai guy, who in typical Thai fashion still collects all the plastic bottles and cans that accumulate at the club so he can collect the 3 or 4 baht he will get back for each one. Uncle scrooge's soul lives on.

Thai politics, a revolving door of charlatans and pilferers has got rid of the last Prime minister (who prior to his role as PM was a t.v. celebrity chef). by claiming that his appearance on a t.v. cooking show recently was a conflict of interest (or something). the new Prime minister in the true fashion we have come to expect is not a Thaksin crony but ... (wait for it now)... Thaksin's brother in law, on goes the farce, the protesting has at least stopped (for now) the airport is open and business as usual goes on

My friend Evie was here recently with her now husband Benno, they were staying in the Phuket laguna complex, I had never been there before, what a rabbit warren of ticky tacky hotels and houses, it's legoland for tourists. I spent half an hour riding aimlessly around on my bike looking for the particular hotel they were staying in. It is lovely though to ride the boat around the laguna too and from the various hotels and the beach front. I was telling Eve about the tuk tuk mafia, she wanted to know how they could be evil when they have such a cute name, a rose by any other name?

On my bike driving to work in the morning over the (at the best of times) perilous hill into Phuket, traffic had come to a sudden stop, i snacked my way through the backed up traffic to discover a huge parade at the head, oh yes, It is again time for the vegetarian festival, religious frenzy resulting in self mutilation of various kinds, the flinging of fireworks with gay abandon, the possesion of ordinary Phuket citizens by the Chinese ancestor gods, I'll try to remember my camera next time.

I currently live in beautiful Kamala, it's three minutes from the beach, I go down nightly to watch the sunset and play poi, the ride over the hills here from Patong is easily along some of the most beautiful winding roads. it's a fantastic way to start and finish your day.

The weekend before last we did a clean up scuba day, Dive shops all over the world had a day when they took out there boats and everybody gave their time for free and we went diving and pulled rubbish off the reef's. Here in Phuket we went to a local dive site, the whole thing was covered in a massive fishing net, it was really difficult, We were fighting the current at 5-7 meters trying to stay in place and delicately remove the net, I fear coral gets broken this way, As time ran out and meters of this net still lay all around us I gave up trying to remove it and just took to slashing the thing open so the fish at least could get in and out. There is still a lot more that needs to be done to cleanup our oceans! We need more than one day a year.

South America becons.

Phuket 09/07/08

2008-07-09T05:58:00.000-07:00

So here we are back in Phuket.
Haven't made it to Japan, Just couldn't find the job I wanted there, it's too easy to stay. Too many good friends and I have picked up a temporary job at the "Phuket has been good to us foundation". It's only till the end of October so I keep telling myself that I will in deed leave after that...
I have decided to do my Dive master, both my best friends here are dive instructors, it seems crazy not to do it, this will be my best ever opportunity to do so.
Currently waiting for Kate to get back from her latest job delivering a boat to Hong Kong and we will start house hunting.
Next week I'm up to Bkk to see Mum which will be great as it's been a few years, I would probably get to see her more often if I had a more sedentary lifestyle, but I just never know where I'm going to end up one year to the next.
Jaime's brother Matt was here for a few weeks so it was fun to have a tourist to show round, and spend some time at the beach with, must remember to take more photos, as I don't think I took one the whole time, did take some of on Matt's camera though so I guess they may turn up on face book some day soon!
Start my new job when I get back from Bkk so really don't have a lot else to report at this stage.
More soon, Love N.J.

Proboscus monkey.

2008-06-05T05:17:00.001-07:00

Apparently this species is considered inappropriate for zoo's (I wonder why).

Tiny little red banded shrimps.

2008-06-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

Zac, Carmelia and I on Sipidan

2008-06-05T05:11:00.000-07:00

Who's afraid of a reef shark?

2008-06-05T04:51:00.000-07:00

Kingfisher at night.

2008-06-05T04:49:00.000-07:00

Borneo 3 June

2008-06-05T04:47:00.000-07:00

So, I just got back from Borneo, had a fantastic time, went diving off Sipidan Island, also spent two days diving Mabul and another at Sibhuan. The diving was fantastic, from mandarin fish at Sibhuan to tiny shrimps and garden eels at Mabul the oceans are so full of life it's like diving in an aquarium.
My favourite part of the dive is often near the end when you are just hanging out in the shallows hovering above the coral with the sunlight filtering down waiting for your decompression time to pass and watching the schools of pretty fish enclose you in their midst then lazily drift off again.
Sipidan was amazing from looking down to see a massive school of black tipped reef sharks circling below to floating past shelves of coral glittering in the suns refracted rays, a snoozing turtle tucked into each shelf, Jaques Cousteau was right to rave about the megafauna in this part of the ocean.
The town of Semporna itself is nothing much to write about but it has a shop that arguably sells the best Murtabaks in Malaysia... mmmm.

I went on a three day jungle trek which was also fabulous, saw so much wildlife, 4 different kinds of hornbill, kingfishers, warblers, eagles, and a buzzard. At night we saw bats and owls as well.
We saw long and pygmy tailed maqacs, proboscis monkeys with their unfeasably large noses and permanent erections, from behind they look like they are wearing fur coats comboed with white bikinis (Stella Mcartney take note, fur is in for some!). they leap from tree to tree with an apparent disregard for gravity, we were also lucky enough to catch some gibbons high in a tree and an orange fur ball we speculated to be an orangatan.
We stayed up one night to watch the civet cats prowl around the camp site, the got into the can of condensed milk after the camp boys had gone to bed. Monitor lizards and wild boars also came to visit, and of course the macaqs stole banannas off the children, half a loaf of bread and anything else they could get hold of, in fact we slept in wire cages so the animals couldn't get in. I was in the monitor lizard cage.
We saw a flying fox in flight, two kinds of scorpion, two different millipedes, a freaky long legged centipede, a big furry grey tarantula, a hammerhead worm and at least three leeches (euurgh), two crocodiles, 5 different species of tiny frogs, and a patridge in a pear tree, (o.k I'm lying about the patridge).
Unfortunately without a decent camera, and more importantly a good telephoto lens I soon abandoned any attempt to photograph the wildlife and just enjoyed seeing it rather than missing sometimes fleeting glimpses of things while hurrying to capture a moment one ironically hadn't allowed oneself the opportunity to enjoy. I see too much of this in my travel companions. One girl after expressing that she thought the day had been o.k. but not great, while looking retrospectively at her footage at days end commented to me that perhaps after seeing the pictures the day had been more special than she realised at the time, I refrained from comment.
Before heading to Borneo there was a big Hindu festival here in Melaka, which much like the vegetarian festival in Phuket, involved blokes getting heavily pierced and women dancing with pots of milk on their head (O.k so they didn't have the pots of milk at the Phuket festival) supposedly in a trance of excstatic holy meditation. All very interesting.
Off to Phuket next week and preparation for the Japan faze, I am looking forward to this, though chances of a job in Osaka are looking unlikely, it looks like it will be Tokyo, which will be amazing and crazy I'm sure.

Malay house

2008-05-13T01:46:00.000-07:00

Hindu girls.

2008-05-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hindu temple

2008-05-01T03:03:00.000-07:00

Hanuman

2008-05-01T01:29:00.000-07:00

Ghost beer

2008-05-01T01:27:00.000-07:00

Banana shop

2008-05-01T01:25:00.000-07:00

Melaka 30 April

2008-04-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend while wandering around little India and photographing the morning worshippers we came across a little temple down a side street (and across a paddock) which was looking a little neglected (like the day after tomorrow), one of the fish on it's entrance arch was falling off, looking like a salmon that had given up on the swimming upstream it had resigned itself to staring forlornly at the ground. As I took a photo of said fish on it's desultory swim south, the podgy and snaggle toothed old preacher beckoned us in to his temple. As we came closer it became clear that they were in the midst of rededicating the temple to Hanuman and as such were hoisting a statue of said God onto a pedestal out the front of the temple.
I was immediately reminded of my recent visit to a comedy club gig in Phuket where the comedian had wryly noted as a youngster he had chosen christianity (the only religon offered to him) But as a grown man when he had heard of Hinduism and it's blue monkeys he couldn't understand why everyone was not Hindu. (I mean come on, BLUE MONKEYS!!!). Anyway, it was great to have the opportunity to watch a temple dedication ceremony as I had not seen one before. The locals down here are so friendly it's almost scary.
The weekend market here is also class, from the guys selling cuts of meat off a wood slab on his motorbike to the dude selling chickens from a sack, not to mention the guy who refuses to take his motorbike helmet off all the time he's working, (he really wanted to play american football but this is as close as he can get or what?).
News coverage in Malaysia is not all it could be, papers too critical of the government are closed down on a whim, while other papers quite often happily report that black is indeed white, and the public seems to buy it. Not of course at the level of the Chinese media but I suspect a little aspirationally inspired by them. In regards to the olympics papers here are towing the line that sport and politics shouldn't mix, I seem to remember that argument being used way back when about Rugby and South Africa, idealism vs realism not that refusing to play a game of any sport with anyone ever changed a governments policies on anything as far as I can figure.
There was a Chinese ancestor day last week as well where people bought cardboard versions of everything anyone could want from designer handbags to cans of beer, from entire houses and cars (complete with chauffer) to computers, t.vs and footspas. Or if you don't know what to get, for the spirit who has everything, just some "hell money" it"s always good (it has pictures of the king of hell on it just so you know). Then they burned all these cardboard artefacts in the temple furnaces or just in the ones outside their own houses, amazing.
Traditional Malay architecture is single story wooden houses evocative of nothing else as much as the standard kiwi beach side batch, and most of the furniture in these houses matches what you'd expect to find at Otaki as well. I rather like it, though I suspect that's because it's so comfortingly familiar.
Melaka is an interesting little town literally divided up into it's different ethnicities, but they all superficially get on quite harmoniously, which I think is in no small part due to the governments ceaseless addressing of the issues, there are of course simmering tensions here which need to constantly be held in check, due in no small part to the fact that unless you are (ethnically)Malay you are not entitled to receive any government benefits or subsidies (including free education for your children, healthcare, cheap cars, etc. If you are Indian or Chinese (or any other race) forget it, even if your born here, even if one of your parents is ethnically Malay forget it, you need to prove yourself 100% Malay, no wonder inter racial marriage is unusual, how the Chinese and Indians who have been here generations cope with this I have no idea.
And on that note I'll depart.
Besos Nikki Jayne.

Melaka April 15th

2008-04-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

No longer will I mutter apologies for the length of time between posts, it is what it is, a sporadically posted to blog, I have too much life to live, and to be honest too little internet access to post daily. I keep promising myself and resolving (like New year is a regular occurrence) that I will post weekly, but somehow, it just never happens, so on with the show.

Leaving Phuket was sad, we had a fabulous Vernal equinox dinner at Catriona's before she went back to Ireland (and then she is off to Korea for the next school year). Amy has already started her new job in Phuket, and always when, you leave a job where you have been asked to stay I reflect on how easy it would be to stay. How comfortable to be with friends already made... and then I pack. I have already turned down three jobs for next year so I guess it's nice to be loved and I can always go back.

I flew up to Bangkok, which is always a good opportunity to catch up with my friends there, and I was just in time to attend Ian's leaving party and Stephen's wedding.

Thai weddings, everybody came, the owner, headmaster and headmistress from Chockchai, my friend Poi, apparently the bride has to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to begin getting ready for the wedding, it starts officially at about 5:30 6ish when the monks arrive and they bless and chant with the happy couple, then everybody recieves a bowl of rice that you have to go and dish up into the monks bowls, then the monks eat breakfast. There is another round of monk blessings and chanting and then the monks leave.

The grooms party then have to walk up the road toward the house amid much singing and shouting (and drinking whisky), they carry sugar cane palms (to ensure sweetness in the marriage) and lots of gifts (dowry presents). When they reach the gate of the property they have to sing and shout with the men of the brides family (and give them whisky) to be let in, (by this stage many of the men on both sides are already completely rat assed and it's barely 9;30am). Finally they get to the door of the house where the women of the house are holding a long belt made of silver and gold across the entrance space and the bartering for your bride begins in earnest, these negotiations are carried out with the women of the house, (what half a sheckle and a fattened calf for my favourite daughter, you must be mad).

Finally on getting inside the serious counting out of the money and gifts begins, (this takes ages), there is a ceremony where bits of string are rested on the heads of the bride and groom and their arms are tied together, (this bit was all in Thai so I really had no idea what was going on). Then everyone comes and pours scoops of water over the happy couples hands and gives them a wedding gift, and eating and partying commences. The bride and groom have to have their photo taken at every table, I will hopefully have some photo's of this soon to post, but as I was using Stephen's camera I have to wait for him to send me copies. At 6pm(ish) the happy couple are escorted to the bedroom (by his Dad and her Mum respectively) and given a little chat, while the party continues for two more days or till the whisky runs out. One is not normally required to stay all the time, Thai weddings are very drop in, drop out again kind of affairs for all but the major players.

Anyway, that was the wedding.

On the bus across town on my way home at about 6pm in the heart of Bangkok I saw the craziest thing, I don't know if I told you about the penchant of Thai (Also seen in Laos and Vietnam) people to go to these outdoor aerobic classes which are held in parks across the country. Fine, parks, aerobics at sunset after work, I get it, but these people were doing their aerobics (complete with woman and music on dodgy stage) on a tiny footpath beside a major 4 lane motorway during rush hour, honey I'm not seeing your health benefits here!

So flew into Kuala Lumpur and caught a bus straight down to Melaka, amazing the temperature difference, Thailand is humid and disgusting as it's rainy season looms, Malaysia is cool and moist as it's rains have just finished. Malay people are genuinely friendly if you say no you don't want a ride in their trickshaw they wish you a happy day, the Thai transport mafia have tainted everyone who works a tuk tuk (and half the taxi drivers as well, in fact all of the taxi drivers on Phuket) with their own mean spirit and tourists are beginning to notice.

Spending my time here brushing up on my adobe creative suite skills and relaxing, more later.
N.J.

Chinese temple.

2008-01-05T23:08:00.000-08:00

Fashion victim?

2008-01-05T23:05:00.000-08:00

Happy New year

2008-01-05T22:58:00.001-08:00

Lantern shop

2008-01-05T22:52:00.001-08:00

Ubiquitous tricshaw

2008-01-05T22:48:00.000-08:00

N.J.'s Burka.

2008-01-05T22:42:00.001-08:00

Petronus tower

2008-01-05T22:37:00.001-08:00

^th January 2008

2008-01-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

The festive season has come and gone.
The christmas party for the kids at school was good, it was fairly chaotic but that's what I expected, thank god it was only half a day, then they were gone and once mid term exams were entered on the computer I headed home to pack.
The flight was fine though arriving in K.L. at 1:30 or something in the morning was a pain. K.L. was hot, hot and humid. Kuala Lumpur is much cleaner than Bangkok and seems less squalid, it's hard to put your finger on why exactly, the fumes still rise sweatily from the sewer, the exhaust still clogs the space between cars, and the beggars still frequent the sidewalks, but it just appears cleaner, less trash on the road side perhaps, though more public spitting and nose blowing (yes without a hanky onto the street) is indulged in.

Malaysia has more ethnic diversity than Thailand, the obvious races (Malay, Chinese and Indian with a smattering of Arabs) seem to co-exist quite harmoniously though reading the paper it is clear that this calm is relatively superficial, it makes for a more interesting visual landscape though most of these communities indulge in voluntary segregations and the maps of the city declare "China town" here, "little India" there etc.

K.L. is full of temples, mosques and of course shopping malls, there is lots to do and see there, I went to the beautiful Orchid and Hibiscus gardens where a large lizard and I scared the hell out of each other, I wandered through town and saw some fantastic old colonial buildings. I went to visit the national mosque which was great, I had to wear a purple(?) burka to go inside the grounds where the guide very kindly gave me a copy of the Quran to read. I haven't found the time to start reading it yet, but I'm sure it will prove an interesting read.

Christmas was a fairly quiet affair, I went to the Petronus towers and looked at the shops, it was just another day in K.L. for retailers. I had a nice view from my balcony and enjoyed contreau and orange there while watching the sunset.

Headed down to Melaka after that, an old port town which fell into redundancy after the British decided that Singapore and Penang were to be the big port cities for the East India company. With their history of being founded by an (Indian) Hindu prince who married a Chinese princess and was then for a while a major port to the arabic traders along the spice route, it was subsequently conquered and run by in succession the Portuguese, the Dutch, the English, the Japanese(during WWII) and then finally granted Independence some years later.

Melaka has a great old canal which worms it's way through the city, it has cool little pockets of old architecture and temple it has a night market on weekends which is a complete battle to get in and out of (not to mention through). Melaka is full of trickshaws, the gaudier the better they are (guild mandated, it would appear) obliged to pump out loud music as the rider cycles you round the city. To my immense annoyance I managed to wipe most of the pictures off my camera while in the Portuguese settlement one day, so most of my pictures are borrowed off a friends camera.

Back in K.L. for New Year, the kids were cutting edge fashionable, they take it incredibly seriously, unfortunately I didn't get any cool pictures of them, but the gear is a blend of gothic, neopunk, and 1980's kitch worn with ATTITUDE. It was fun to watch them wandering about the shopping malls with the swagger of teenagers everywhere. Out on the street the crowds were armed with cans (and that's a capital S) of snow and sticky coloured string there were wars going on as everyone sprayed everyone else while shouting "happy new year" as loud as they could. Then there were fire works all over the city and contreau on the balcony, it was fun.

The colours and craziness of festive season in Malaysia ended as I flew back to Phuket on the 1st and had to rock up to work the next day (so not ready for that).

Back here in Thailand the Kings sister has died (not unexpectedly) and the country is officially in 15 days short mourning during which we are required to wear black, extending from there will be a longer (till a total of) 100 days of remberance, the t.v. stations are all in permanent loops of footage about her may she rest in peace.

This week I am supposed to be mentoring the new girl who has just started at work to take on the terrors of P2 green so that should be interesting. Better go, in case my christmas cards never arrived I hope you had a fabulous festive season and a happy, healthy and prosperous year of the rat.

N.J.

oops, didn't load properly, (phuket provincial well you know).

2007-12-16T04:16:00.006-08:00

oops, didn't load properly, (phuket provincial well you know).

2007-12-16T04:16:00.005-08:00

oops, didn't load properly, (phuket provincial well you know).

2007-12-16T04:16:00.004-08:00

oops, didn't load properly, (phuket provincial well you know).

2007-12-16T04:16:00.003-08:00

oops, didn't load properly, (phuket provincial well you know).

2007-12-16T04:16:00.002-08:00

Phuket provincial sports day as well.

2007-12-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

Phuket Provincial sports day.

2007-12-16T04:08:00.000-08:00

Phuket Provincial sports day.

2007-12-16T04:00:00.000-08:00

December 15th

2007-12-16T03:54:00.001-08:00

Election time again, All the hatches are battened and the next two consecutive weekends have been mandated dry, as the Thai people go out to vote, in a post Thaksin Thailand the names and faces may change but the political animal complete with imbeded corruption and nepotism will survive to fight another day. We bait our breath...

Last weekend to celebrate "constitution day" (read a day off school for a constitution written by the current military leaders who wrote it last year, but despite which the public holiday remains the same) my friend Tracey and I went out to Rawai beach and caught a boat to Coral Island, it was beautiful, you could walk into the ocean off shore where there is a reasonably sized coral reef and the water of course is clear enough for fabulous snorkelling, we lazed on the beach and read our books. Now with the arrival of tourist season proper there are so many falang around it's weird. The atmosphere of the town and the local people is changed everyone seems in that much more of a hurry and the focus has become more mercenary.

School is in the mad run up to exams and this final review week has been largely sacrificed to an event known as "provincial sports day" on any given day, half of my class were missing attending either Thai dance or band practice for this weekends opening ceremony (I kid you not) They are going to have the entire school (and every other school in the province) march the streets (read an hour in the mid day sun) then stand about in said heat for a further two and a half hours as the dancers etc do their thing.

Then of course there are the actual exams, I don't know if I have raved about this before but unlike America which is very proud of it's meritocracy (even though I have read arguments [Alain deBotton]that believe it is more of a luckocracy. Here in Thailand they embrace a mediocracy where it doesn't matter how badly a kid does in school they will never fail, they continue to sit the exam until they pass, even if that means giving the kid the answers. The government has in it's wisdom decided 50% is not enough, from now on every child in the country needs to achieve results of at least 60 preferably 70% one most conclude that if they keep going this way it wont be long before the kids themselves realise that even if they do nothing they will still achieve results closer to 100% than 0 as fat boy slim's T'shirt wearing fat guy said "why try harder".

One of my parents, after my persistent badgering has finally decided to get his kid checked for dyslexia, he is taking said child to an "eye doctor" for a check???? I have, as gently as I can, attempted to explain it's not a vision problem. I believe the boy is only mildly dyslexic and a bright kid who could do better if he could read more easily. My Thai teaching assistant has written a letter in Thai to go to the doctor, so hopefully the doctor will explain to the parent where he needs to go for the right kind of tests. We shall see...

Anyway Tracey's leaving party is tonight, her and her replacement Gizzy should be here soon, catch y'all on the flip side.

PS: those of you who had doubts about the opening ceremony will be thrilled to know there was a torch, there was a cauldron lit by it, there were fireworks it was extremely OTT.

25 November

2007-11-25T03:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry this blog is being eclipsed by the rise of facebook, I will do my best to pay more attention.

School is good, the new term has begun and the children are much better behaved this term, it's amazing how much of a struggle that first term is to imprint them with the idea of what is acceptable class room behaviour and what is not, but by the second term they know what to expect. Some of them are very sweet.
Many of the children in my class have complicated little lives. One of the little boys in my class came to me the other day and explained that he had lost his bag. He had, he told me, left it at the place of the woman he was living with because his Dad had told him he couldn't stay at home when his Mum's boyfriend comes over. Mum is a bar girl so basically the grand parents bring him up most of the time. We are doing past tense verbs at the moment and he declared that he knew the past tense of drink it is "drunk" he assured me. hmmmm.

Last night was Loy Krathong, or in literal translation the "float your boat" festival all the kids came to school dressed up and made little banana leaf boats to push away last years bad luck. we went to visit a beach we hadn't been to before it was beautiful, a long ride on the bike but nice to get to the beaches that are a little further away now the tourist season has begun.

If you want to read the Captain's log of my recent dive trip with Mandy please follow the link.

http://www.yachtwillow.com/captainslog/

O.k catch y'all soon.

Tasteful glassware.

2007-10-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

Cocktail girls.

2007-10-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

Vegetarian festival.

2007-10-21T20:12:00.001-07:00

Look out Phi Phi

2007-10-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

Bungalow on a boat

2007-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

Fire crackers for the gods.

2007-10-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Lotus piercing

2007-10-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Phuket 22 October

2007-10-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

Another holiday period roles to a close, it's been fabulous.
Mandy came to visit from Australia, we took a live aboard diving and sailing trip to Koh Ha, Hin Muang and Hin Daeng. We saw lots of beautiful corals and colourful fish, cute little yellow box fish, they are such a bright shade of yellow, A Khul sting ray nearly scared me to death (a crikey moment) when he suddenly rose out of the sand right in front of me. The night dive was amazing! Not usually a fan of these things it was really cool from the hairy white tarantula like crabs to the shimmering phosphorescence (like swimming amongst the stars on a black moonless night) it rocked! We did some unusual cavern and long swim through dives, the dive leader lost his false teeth and the recovery dive was in near perfect 35 meter visibility, unfortunately we did not recover said choppers I think there is a parrot fish out there pretending to be a shark and scaring all his mates.
I discovered I am a crap sailor, I need bigger boats that rock less to be comfortable. We met some great people and a wonderful time was had by all.

Mandy and I stayed on Koh Phi Phi with a fantastic view out over the bay, we discovered the joys of cocktail hour and the tasteful glasses they tend to come in on the island.

We finally made it back to Phuket in time to enjoy(?) the last few days of the vegetarian festival, man it's intense. In the morning it starts with the devotees all going to the temple and getting pierced, they then shove things through the facial piercings, lotus flowers, pineapples, the barrel of an AK47, but most commonly knives, great big long knives. There is then a parade through the streets. The guys with the knives are joined by men carrying biers upon which are statues of the nine gods, when these pass by onlookers throw firecrackers to ward off evil spirits and cleanse themselves. Also in the parade are posses of young men carrying axes, at each intersection they circle and whack themselves on the back with said axes, while walking they alternately hit themselves in the forehead with the ax or cut their tongues on the blade, it's just too gruesome to watch. And this goes on every morning from 7am till 11am for a week. Every evening there are also activities, fire walking, climbing sword ladders etc. The last evening people go crazy with firecrackers, the sound is deafening (we had ear plugs) the smoke is almost impenetrable and it goes on till about 3am, boy are we all cleansed and free of evil spirits for at least a year, amazing! I will endeavour to post some photos.
Back to school next week N.J.

My god is it September already?

2007-10-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

Just back from Bangkok. As usual far too many nights out far too late! Clubbing till 6 in the morning eating porridge at the street stalls before bed, the guys in Bkk. do it every night, I don't know how but there you go!

I went on a canal journey by long tail which was great, of course I am such a crap tourist that I had left my camera at home down in Phuket, so don't hold your breath for pics of that trip. We wove our way past peoples back yards and watched people having their evening bath in the Chao Phraya (which has to be one of the filthiest looking rivers I have ever seen). Some of the houses in the Thonburi area though are very well cared for and obviously belong to wealthy families.

I went to Lumpini twice for dinner and noticed the quality of the entertainment has improved, the place is still under threat of closure but the market sellers don't believe it will ever happen.

I went to a club called saxophone which had very cool personalised swizel sticks in it's cocktails, it played cool jazz and hot funk, the beautiful lead singer had cutting edge technology lipstick, it had a light on the tube which lit your lips as you painted and a mirrored case which you looked in as you applied, if James Bond was a woman this is the kind of makeup she would demand (with a poison dart gun at the other end of the tube of course.

We went to a new club where the attentive staff all have torches (CSI style) to illuminate the way to your dimly lit table when you arrive, and to shine on the bill when you leave. They work in tag teams their is the guy in the suit who watched our table and signalled a shirt but no jacket waiter over every time some one required a drink poured (at our table) or a cigarette lit. That much attention is just too much for me!

There are some fun new adds on the sky train for skinny milk and a scary one for chocolate tube shaped cookies called "collon" ewwww.

The markets were visited, margaritas were drunk and I was completely exhausted and glad to be home last night!

16 September

2007-09-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

It's still pretty damp over here, Of course it was melting tarmac temperature last friday for sports day (many kids had to be removed from the field or just plain passed out). apparently it's the same every year, the headmaster assured us it would not rain when we asked, in fact when we asked what the back up plan would be should it rain he just said there was not a plan B, it would not rain, they had prayed to Buddah, and what do you know it was a scorcher! It was a great day for me.

I did nothing but eat drink and very occassionally applaud in a sedate school marmish way (which incidentaly I'm not terribly convincing at most of the time, I too often sucumb to the urge to laugh at myself!).

Cultural insight of the month: Thai people (and Thai society in general) consider insisting and direct imperatives rude, even when you are consulting a doctor, dentist or other professional, in the west we expect these kinds of people to tell us what is in our best interests to do, but here they tend to say unhelpful things like "You could have a skin graft, it's up to you" leaving you wondering if it's necessary an aesthetic option or simply another procedure which you could have done if you wanted. Luckily it wasn't me in need of the skin graft one of the guys at work who seems to spend more of his time in the presence of the medical fraternity than that of his class, accident prone takes on new meaning.

Anyway better go get soggy again.
Take care dudes.

1st September Phuket

2007-09-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

The weeks melt away, glacial time suffering the effects of global warming. Thailand has had a plebiscite basically a choice between agreeing to the new constitution as written by the current military junta or postponing elections into the murky future.
Meanwhile the government has it's hands full closing down you tube sites and quelling protests on the streets of Bangkok, so s.n.a.f.u. as they say.

Saw the king on the t.v. the other day and he doesn't look very well, the rainy season has been in full swing and the school is gearing up for sport day (oh yeah) I feel a farce coming on. apparently every year it rains all week and then is fine on sport day. Some how I remain unconvinced!

Watching the news today it is awash with stories of the ten year anniversary of the death of Dianna "the princess of Wales", it reminded me that it is ten years since I was living on Koh Phangan, it was from a hotel room in bangkok that I watched the news unfolding in the Paris tunnel. Funny to be almost in the same place ten years on, Thailand has become my country of residence by default.

Not feeling very loquacious today, three weeks till the end of term and some holidays, (yay). Might wander into Patong this evening to pick up some software and stuff. Stay tuned for a fluffier post coming soon.

Love N.J.

Phuket 15 August

2007-08-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

While we were on Phi Phi Island I noticed that the sand was white on top but just underneath black, volcanic sand I assumed, then I discovered it is actualy the silt left over after the tsunami. There are still pieces of brokrn tile everywhere and bungalows being rebuilt. Some areas are still abandoned and many of the post cards you buy still show the area pre tsunami with twice as many palm trees as currently reside in the shallow wedgew of land that lies between the two main beaches of Phi Phi Don.

It seems every weekend at the moment is a long one (yay) bring on the four day week, Last weekend was the Queens birthday, the weekend before Buddhist lent, this weekend they have a referendum (perhaps it will stop the rioting in Bangkok). It means no alcohol sales from midnight the day before, apparently Thai people can't be trusted to not kill each other in an alcohol fuelled frenzies if they have different political opinions (or if the prevailling party is not the one they desire). Weird but true some people take their politics that seriously, unfortunately a large proportion of voters are hopelessly under informed, ill informed or simply misinformed as the government tightens controls on media outlets, and restricts access to sites like you tube and other public forums. Perhaps a democracy will be voted on in October as promised but if this new constitution is not passed perhaps not. In the mean time we will have to buy our alcohol on non-election days and have pool parties on the long weekends while the citizens of this land are taking care of business.

Later N.J.

2007-08-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

2 August

2007-08-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

The long weekend started in the rain (but it is rainy season!) we caught the boat out to Koh Phi Phi the vessel featured a tour guide with princess leia hair buns, and they looked extremely odd on him, but he didn't seem to notice and I failed in my attempts to photograph him so your just going to have to take my word for it till the next time I go to Phi Phi.

Any way the weather cleared as we approached Phi Phi Don, we quickly found ourselves a beach bungalow (with swimming pool) and headed out to explore the surrounds. The town was bigger than I expected and totally orientated to tourism, in fact it seems hard to imagine there is employment of any other sort on the Island.

The weekend was fabulous, I got in that sea kayaking, took on a wild monkey (he wanted my cinnamon swirl and I wasn't prepared to give it up) I was armed with a kayak paddle, he was merely armed, (I guess that's why they call it an arms race).

There was lots of swimming, the food and cocktails on the beach at sunset were fabulous, the midnight banana and chocolate pancakes were great.

We went to the viking cave where there are rock paintings of viking ships (reported to be only 100 years old mind you, I wonder if people in a centuries time will go to visit my graffitii if I did it with ochre on a cave wall.

We went to visit Maya bay, made famous as the set for the hollywood movie "the beach" it is swarming with tourists (and this is low season!).

Even had time for my first rock climb since Australia, all good, but got back to school knackered. Just in time for a class field trip to the zoo, tried to feed some students to the crocodile but they simply weren't interested (too well fed) curses maybe next time.

Well it's the middle of the night (again) time to catch some zzz's promise to post some photos on the weekend.
Love N.J.

Muslim fishing village

2007-07-31T05:43:00.000-07:00

Weekend

2007-07-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

Fantastic weekend, Stayed at a Muslim fishing village, (damn it what happened to cocktail hour) but the sound of the call to worship in the morning was actually beautiful, melodic and achingly melancholic, much nicer than the tuneless pre-pubescent boys who wail out the call from some mosques I have had the displeasure to sleep in budget accomodation next to.

The tour the next day to James Bond Island and pottering by boat around the limestone Karst cliffs, in and out of mangrove swamps, lunch on the beach and swimming in the Andaman ocean was terrific.

Actually passed on the sea kayak in the end as they won't let you paddle your own canoe (and you all know how I hate anybody else to paddle my canoe)But it was a fabulous weekend if I had more time I would give more details, but flat out with mid-term exams at the moment and a long weekend to plan for, more soon.
Love Nikki Jayne.

19th July 2007

2007-07-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long cats and kittens, I am in deed still alive just partying too hard, you know how it goes.

Let me start at the beginning, well as I'm sure you all know by now, I have been struggling with the powers that be to restore my passport etc, etc to a level of legitimacy appropriate to my continuing lifestyle here in Thailand.

Phuket immigration really didn't want to know, I turned up there, shiny new virgin passport in hand. I told my tale of woe and the official (who was camp as a row of tents) look very perturbed said "This is very hard for me" and I sat for several hours as he pissed about trying to avoid doing his job. eventually he rang Bangkok then told me he couldn't help me and I would have to go to Bangkok.

So I went to Bangkok, I arrived at the airport and bumped into one of the guys who lives in the same building as I he chatted in my ear at the airport, he chatted on the plane, he chatted on the bus into town, my ears were pleased to get away from him, and then Bangkok happened, I went and stayed at Kevin and Ian's place, we went out we danced we drank we laughed, it was too much fun till too late in the morning it was daylight before bedtime it was rasberry mojitos it was electrolyte drinks before bed, it was Harry Potter and fuzzy days segue into fuzzier nights.

One night Kevin's friend Paul asked me to go and invite an amazonian style Blonde who was sitting alone to our table over, I did, she had a firm handshake a voice pitched several fathoms below feminine and he was a good sport about talking to her all night although she was not exactly what he had in mind when he had first spied her (he did get her phone number though so maybe he did know all along). The evening unfolding around me was one of the funniest events I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of.

So still muzzy I made it to immigration where I rode the emotional roller coaster at first it seemed a simple matter, then they discovered the original paper work for my visa is "missing" they decided they couldn't help me, but I say if you can't help me no-body can so several hours later Suvarnabhum come through for me, a subsequent visa issued at the new airport was traced and the paper work faxed over, they re-issued my visa and it didn't cost me a satang (yay).

I hear you ask. Why don't they just put all these records on one data base that any immigration/border crossing official in the country can access? Ahh you foreigner you, this is Thailand, the "It doesn't matter" attitude can be a real pain in the ass when you are trying to get anything done you just have to learn to live that way or go slowly mad.

When I arrived at the airport (to fly back to Phuket) they took one look at my passport with it's shiny new visa and immediately started chatting, talking and laughing, I was their long lost friend, they issued me with a new multiple entry visa on the spot, there was smiling and wai-ing. What it is to be popular, what it is to have no clue as to why I'm popular, oh I love the cultural chasm, it's like living in a dream, your never quite sure which tangent your life will veer up next, whether the street is made of water downed concrete or whether the wheel will fall of your bike it's a mystery.
It's a mystery, but it's a more honest reflection of the true instability of our lives, we deny this by building social institutions in an attempt to control the unpredictable nature of well nature, we lacquer the gaps with our own habitual "lifestyles" and then we're shocked when the fabric of this world is damaged. Here you can't build let alone maintain the comfort of these illusions, your living your life raw. Oh it's all getting a bit deep, better go.
Catch y'all on the other side of the weekend.
N.J.

1st July 2007

2007-07-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

We went to Kata beach this weekend, I think I like it best of all the beaches, it has a nice shady area under some pine trees at the back of the beach and now in off season it's pretty quiet, the waves were quite surfy and I enjoyed a swim there, after we stopped off at "the green man" a brit style pub and watched a rugby game with Rick.

Rick is one of the guys I work with at school, American and younger than his 26 years he is having a break from med school to get some Muay Thai and beach time in.

Tony flair has been replaced by the stolid Gordon Brown and several car bombs have not exploded on London's streets, the media here is interesting, I came home from work and flicked on the t.v. "fox" was on talking with much anxiety and hand wringing about the "terror alert" in London so I figured I would head immediately to the BBC to get a less hysterical version of this exciting breaking news, the BBC had on a documentary news piece about American presidential hopeful Barac Obama and the state of America's education system??!? What does this say about the polarisation and focus of media sources, the value of localised news is now weighed according to the fears and interest level of it's audience, interesting.

My Mum of course was due to arrive in London that day I think, what is it with Mum and her timing of her arrivals in London to coincide with Bomb attacks?

Anyways, I'd better wander away. Take care, N.J.

Who said Pippi Longstocking???

2007-06-27T05:05:00.000-07:00

Bannerfish

2007-06-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

2007-06-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

Catfish (leopard shark)

2007-06-27T04:53:00.000-07:00

Obligatory Turtle

2007-06-27T04:50:00.000-07:00

Weird little splot

2007-06-27T04:47:00.000-07:00

Seal face

2007-06-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

Beauty is in the eye

2007-06-27T04:42:00.000-07:00

One of these guys is my dive buddy, the other is praising God he's not.

2007-06-27T04:39:00.000-07:00

Mermaid? Siren? Shark?

2007-06-27T04:35:00.000-07:00

2007-06-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

2007-06-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

2007-06-19T05:12:00.000-07:00

Phuket 17 June

2007-06-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

This week included Wai Kru day, which is basically give flowers to your teacher day, I got some really beautiful ones and some are still making my apartment smell beautiful.

The kids in my class have been full of beans as ususal, the thai teacher in my room has absolutely no control over them and they break into a mini riot almost whenever it is not my class, I don't know how she can teach in those conditions, I forsee some meetings with the headmaster and the Parents in some of these childrens near futures.

The weather has been a bit sad and drissly this week, and we have moved up a gear into some serious humidity, the rain though is extremely polarised, it breaks out in one part of town but a 10 minute motor bike ride away the weather has been perfect all day, almost spooky in it's oddness. We went to the butterfly garden today, it was a great way to spend the afternoon, watching butterflies unsteadily drift from one flower to a banana to feed and back again, the leaf wings are amazing they really do look like dry leaves. They also have a rather large collection of hairy tarantulas, creepy.

Anyway here's some pictures to keep you amused.
N.J.

Phuket 9th June

2007-06-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Anyone who fancies working here by the way has a very good chance of getting a job as a couple of people have left recently (when they found out how much work is actually involved in teaching), I think like every where else at the moment there are not enough teachers to go round.

Hoping I might get picked up by the cops again this weekend, deliberately planning on leaving my licence at home hoping a second violation might get me forty days in Paris Hilton's mansion as well, the media here (Fox, if you can call that media) is in an absolute feeding frenzy over the whole thing, watching Fox is one of the most bizarre experiences I know they can segue between a story about starving children and famine in Africa to one about (insert name of this months favourite teen queen)'s life spiralling out of control in a heart beat, it makes my head hurt (not to mention other bits), it's just too weird. Everything is either an "alert" or a fox news extra, the only thing possibly more alert than fox news is a platoon of meerkats (and I don't mean those lazy fuckers at the sydney zoo, who haven't seen a predator in so long they just snooze all day, put em in the tiger cage for a day just to get them back in shape) but I digress. Annnnyhow

ent to visit some more beaches today, the roads are beautiful with all those orange/ red flowers in bloom on the trees at the moment, being off season I get the long stretches of golden sand and picture postcard azure waters to myself, went to Surin and Kamala. Kamala is odd it looks like the tsunami went through there 6 months ago instead of two years ago, it has a kind of "currently under construction" abandoned air to it, it is the place where the monument is, I rather like the statue, it was only put up last year and is rusting already! I recognised one of the resorts from the amateur video footage of the arriving wave which seemed to be in constant loop on western media that boxing day.

Tomorrow I am going for a sunset walk up Rang hill, I love those places they are usually such beautiful tranquil places to let a couple of hours of your life melt away.

Anyway sugars more later.

Besos N.J.

Passport photo

2007-06-07T03:56:00.000-07:00

Now not only the customs officials can laugh, but you can all share the joke.
N.J.

Phuket 30 May

2007-06-07T03:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to Patong beach the road is not as good as some of the others and the drifts of sand that collect at the heat frayed lips of road where the tarmac disolves into rubble add to the sense of peril, I really hate those Thai guys who with no shirt or helmet blat on past (on the inside) at tremendous speeds, I guess they are hoping to die before they get old (I'm guessing I missed that boat already).

It was nice to have a swim about but the water is too full of jet skis and speed boats pulling along those paragliders. The paragliding experience costs 700 bhat for a 5 minute circuit of the bay, the tourist is wearing a life jacket and strapped into a safety harness but as the parachute lifts off the ground some Thai guy swings himself with agile ease into the strings of the chute and pulls the strings to direct it around the prescribed circuit to the left and then away from the trees on landing, it reminds me of nothing more than having a monkey on your back, I can't imagine it being an enjoyable experience, I eschewed.

We stayed into the evening and went to Soi Sea dragon and some of the other brightly lit streets that run back from Patong, we were too early in the evening really, the bars were full of girls playing connect four with each other or the odd farang, there is an air of expectation, some of the girls indulge in wriggling and writhing on the poles and platforms set up outside or on the roofs of the discotheques, many of them have no sense of rhythm (Whoever said white people can't dance has obviously never been to Thailand) and their seductive dances are exaggerated to the extent where they become a parody of sexuality, a farcical dance of sad desperation, just as weird in many ways (too me) are the tourists who bring their children into the street, they must realise what these kids are going to see by being here, I guess the Europeans have always been a lot more open about such things than the conservative mores the English (and subsequently those of her colonies) were brought up with.

Got busted by the cops on the way back for not having a drivers licence on me, they are in cahoots with the taxi mafia, Phuket is really organised to fleece the tourist every which way, it annoys me sometimes, maybe enough to make me glad when my contract ends in March, anyway time to go do some shopping.

Later guys, love N.J.

19 May 2007

2007-05-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

I survived the first week of school, unlike last year I still have a voice (though it now has a slight husky quality in a very unsexy way), the kids here have no sense of discipline, they don't know about standing in straight lines and some of them find it impossible to stay in their seats, there has been shouting (me not them), there has been line writing and break missing, parents written to and the naughty chair has been used, nearly had one boy in tears, oh I'm so mean, I'm hoping for the dragon reputation (goes with the red hair). So we will see how we go next week.

I'm still really liking the new school, the sense of community is much stronger but because it is so much bigger than Chockchai each department has quite rigid policies and child centered learning has in part been sacrificed for curriculum centered learning in order to keep all the classes at any particular level on the same page (literally, especially math which is run by a
Sth African who suffers from megalomania).

My Teaching assistant (you are all dying to know) is really sweet, she again has no control over the kids but what she does in her lessons on the whole discipline front is up to her (though of course it has a negative flow on effect in my classes and the Thai language teachers are even worse).

A week later and this is shaping up to be a really boring post, sorry guys, I had an observation this week and the class was a disaster, but it's worked out really well because I got lots of tips and suggestions on ways to improve in the feedback session, I have started using some of them and it's an improvement.

The kids here are considerably better versed in English than those in Bangkok, two of my kids don't speak Thai much at all and several others don't have it as a first language, many of the children are fluent (for their age) in three languages with a smattering of a fourth, sometimes trying to teach them stuff I feel a little fraudulent.

Enough of the work stuff. In Phuket it is easier to be a vegetarian than it was in Bangkok, (except at school where they have a sometimes policy on the vegetarian food front, oddly they have a section for vegetarian food though often some chicken or some such has found it's way into the soup). There is a big Chinese community down here though and they of course are much more serious about their vegetarian food especially around the temples where their is a selection of vegetarian restaurants.

Phuket though is a dangerous town to live in, one of the guys at school had a burglar in his house last night and another guy is limping around the place after a motorbike accident. It seems every week there is a new incident of some kind or another to one of the staff, I saw a girl come off her bike in front of me at the lights the other day, she was ok, it's the second accident I have seen since I've been here.

on the other hand the beaches are beautiful, and just being under 30 minutes away from one is fantastic, we went to Rawai this weekend, one of the quiet beaches (by Phuket standards) and it reminds you how great it is not to be in Bangkok, or more specifically not to be in Rangsit. We ate beautiful food on a table in the sand, it was couriered over the road for us from the nearest restaurant, I wandered around the rocky outcrops and swam in the turquoise ocean and found little secluded bays every where you park your bike along the road, it's all delightfully relaxing.

Saw both Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the caribean 3 this weekend, neither impressed me very much, choreographed fight scenes, mawkish romance and bombastic sound tracks are as predictable as sunshine in sth east asia.

So lets see if the tanks roll in agin on Wednesdy, the King is nervous, the mood of the people is hard t gage, we're all holding our breath here (not so much in Phuket but certainly in Bangkok. I have no passport at the moment so lets cross ou fingers.

Later, N.J.

Phuket 03 May

2007-05-02T20:04:00.002-07:00

So, the first few days in the new job, it's going really well, love the fact that I have lots of company and everyone gets on, no politics as yet, it's a very different structure and set-up from Chockchai, we'll have to see if I like it so much once the kids actually arrive. Lesson plans here are really minimal, which could be a bad thing for me as I like my classes to have a structure, I like to be able to refer to a guide, so I will probably write my own anyway. Everyone here scuba dives so I should have no drama finding buddies but of course the season is almost over so we shall see. Oh and did I mention that we clock in and out at work using our fingerprints, it's all very James Bond (or Kim possible).

I hired a bike for the month (Don't read this next bit Uncle Chris) I am still extremely nervous on it (your Gran drives more recklessly than me) and haven't tried night time yet (mostly because the street lighting is minimal if it exists at all), while in Patong the other day mind you I discovered what I suspect is one of the main causes of the high death toll here. Driving (like at home) the Thai's believe should be done on the left hand side of the road, except every now and again of course, when they don't and suddenly you come across a road where you have to drive on the right!!!?! They also only follow the traffic lights if there is traffic, if the road appears clear they just ignore the red light, sometimes it's chaos out there I spent my first couple of days not even making it out of second gear! I have relaxed some what now but the motorcycle helmets are not even glorified bicycle helmets, they won't be protecting much and thats if the wearer actually has the thing done up!

I went into Patong on my last day before I started work and discovered the back streets away from the intense tourist area are actually quite nice, beautiful old fashioned architecture crowded in by the usual Thai soi life, noodles on the street and the familiar ordours of asia. Every second house runs some kind of semi retail business out of their front room, the sight of little sparrows feeding straight out of the huge open sacks of rice, which are all on display for the shoppers convenience.

Anyway I have lesson plans to write, later guys.

Love N.J.

Phuket 28 April

2007-04-29T02:31:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since last I wrote I barely know where to begin, I will start with the Similan Islands.

The dive trip was fabulous, all of the people on the boat were really easy to get on with and the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. My dive buddy Steve arrived from Sth Africa an hour or so before we left so he merrily slipped into a coma as the bus departed from Phuket town, we were delayed waiting for a French pilot to arrive but then we made it uneventfully to the boat.

The room was a double and not the bunk room we booked (you should have seen my face, oh shit almost captures it) but it was actually more like a triple and I'm sure half of you remember we all used to share beds like a litter of puppies in the old varsity days (the reason I have always understood the Michael Jackson defence). They also didn't seem to have been informed that I don't eat mammals (reptiles, insects) and try to avoid birds, I suspect it's because we booked through an operator and not through the actual tour company I will endeavour not to make that mistake again. (though bizarrely I think it was actually cheaper the way we did it) perhaps they have agents to sell of the tickets they can't, anyway I digress.

The first night just after the boat had moored I retired and it started raining, then came thunder and lightening, I wondered if I should check the life jackets were really under the bed as promised, I watched through the small round porthole but the perspex really didn't give a view of the majesty of the storm. I struggled out onto the deck and it was fantastic, as the storm got closer the captain decided to get up and move some where more protected, it was wild, a few fellow divers had wandered onto the deck and we stood enjoying the show and waiting for the call to abandon our ship, it's amazing how small a little boat feels when your standing on deck in the midst of a black, no moon night whose pelting rain is only encouraged by stabbing forks of lightening. I understand how people believed an angry God, blinded by rage was thunderously striking out to smite down anyone foolish enough to piss him off.

So let the diving begin, I have to say, it was the best diving I have seen since the great barrier, the soft coral beds like fields of candyfloss in pink, blue, greens and yellows, loads of anenomes, nudibranch worms, I got blase about Trigger fish there were so many, turtles, clown fish peaked out from every anenome, fish so friendly I reached out and petted one, he just continued to float in front of my eyes so I petted him again, his skin felt soft and elastic not hard and scaly as I was expecting. We dove in the night, we dove in the morning we dove a wreck, there were scorpion fish, stone fish, and lion fish schools of blue fish, squirrel fish, and occassionally you would just find yourself in the midst of a school fish in completely surrounding me as I swam lazily in the same direction. We floated over forests of staghorn coral with so many little strippy fish hiding amongst their protective antlers. We swam through coral archways. We saw leopard sharks, moray eels, a nurse shark and rays.

On one dive (when my buddy was busy feeding the fish with the contents of his stomach) I was given a new buddy and everyone in my dive team except me had a camera, it's a weird spin on Socrates the unexamined life, we seem to now ask ourselves the question is the unphotographed life worth living? It was so much fun having a dive buddy I actually know, it improved my underwater somersault skills no end, so next time you need a buddy you know who to call!

I could go on but all you non divers have dropped off to sleep by now and the rest of you have seen it too, I know. suffice to say I will be doing it all again soon, though of course the Similan parks is now closed for rainy season.

So anyway I have taken the job here in Phuket, I am actually really excited about it, I have meet a few of the people I will be working with and they all seem really easy going. There will be five teachers at my level so I wont be as isolated or pressured as I was last year.

I then went to Bkk and had to get hold of as much of my stuff as I could and brought it down here to Phuket. I spent the first night with Kev and Ian, we drank vodka while Kevin punctuated the conversations with a choice selection of parrping noises, the next night was whisky and collecting my stuff from the armpit of the universe (otherwise known as Rangsit). a night at the movies, "Pan's labrynth" which I really enjoyed, (Steve and Clinton acted like big girls, which is why one loves to go to the cinema with them, I like to watch people who really buy into the movie). Then a final night playing pub trivia.

Back in Phuket, I went to work for "orientation" I took all my documents and stuff thinking I would need them to sign my contract for work, but this was not required and the whole thing was a bit of a waste of time if you ask me. After I was driving (a motorcycle again) with my bag in the front basket to look for a house and a guy drives by on his motorbike and steals my bag out of the basket (I couldn't believe it, I though he was joking) but no he kept driving and that was that! of course my bag had everything as described above in it, passport, travellers cheques, mobile phone, wallet, work shoes, hair clip, and loads of papers for work.

I quickly lost sight of the guy but not before I memorised his licence plate and thought about as much about him as I can remember. I stopped as soon as I saw some people (at a "massage" shop of course) the girls were very kind and gave me their phone and called the police who came straight away and I gave my description. Then I had no money (the girls offered me some very kindly, who says all Thai prostitutes are after is money).

I still had a motorbike full of petrol, so I went to the Police station in Phuket town, useless, I went to the bank I have an account with, (Kasikorn bank folks) useless, wouldn't give me access to my account without my passport, I just sat stunned at this woman's desk having visions of starving to death in Phuket, I can't do anything without money. Tried to call the toll free travellers cheque number but no public phone in Thailand will service free calls, by this stage I am getting really hungry so desperate by now, I went back to school.

School came to my rescue, I used their phone and the travellers cheque people came through for me (yay), then my supervisor (Linda) at school mentioned that she "knows" one of the top detective's at the Chalong police station, so it's down there to make a second report (they poured scorn upon the pathetic effort made by the central Phuket police so if shit happens in Phuket guys go to Chalong police station, they speak English and act like they care a little).
The detective inspector feels pretty confident that I will be getting some stuff back, they were surprised I knew so much about the thief, the registration particularly threw them, so fingers and toes crossed I will be seeing my stuff again soon.

Just so we don't end on a negative note I got the money back from Visa that was stolen off my credit card earlier this month so I'm hoping that sets a precedent for Nikki to get her stuff back.

After all that excitement I finally decided on a place to live, I have given in to my inner rock star and will live in a hotel room for a couple of months, it has t.v, it has a swimming pool, (note to self: must remember to throw t.v. in swimming pool before I leave), it is fully furnished including linen, it comes with a great communal atmosphere (ooh goody instant friends), it's close to school, but I think I have sent everyone an email with the address and phone no. if you weren't on the list and feel you should be drop me a line.

It's funny when you move some where you think you should be immune to the tourist rip-offs you forget that to thieves you still look like just another tourist! I have after all now had my wallet stolen in every country I have lived in (with the exception of New Zealand, and in the case of England and Australia from my house while I was in it!!!) I shall be less complacent in future.

Besos Nikki Jayne.

Phuket 13 April

2007-04-14T06:25:00.001-07:00

Well much water under the bridge since Cambodia, crossed uneventfully back into Thailand though that last hour and a half to the Poi pet border is as bad as everyone tells you. Rumour has it that some airline or other has paid off the government in order to keep the road in this condition, suffice to say my bum had a great massage and a bottle of palm sugar smashed in the bus, luckily only a smidge got on my backpack, the two Danish girls were not so lucky.

Made it to Bangkok only to turn around and head straight down here for this job interview, I have been offered the job, pretty much the same deal as last year and pretty much the same pay in the end, the school is much better resourced but the holidays are not quite as generous as they could be, a lot more staff, 25 teachers 4 or 5 teaching exactly the same level as me, so the support structure would be much better, the year would not finish till the end of march, I'm still dithering on this decision.

As usual I went on line to see if I had any mail and sure enough someone had stolen my credit card (eep) and my credit card was showing a lot less money than it should (double eep), so I rang all the emergency support lines and now I have to fill in statutory declarations, fraud reports etc in order to try and get it back. I guess after all the time I have spent travelling sooner or later this was bound to happen and I am very happy that it was merely my credit card not my computer or my usb with all my photos of the last year, or my ipod or my kidneys (like you hear can happen in the back streets of some dodgy Indian cities). One must after all maintain a sense of perspective (after of course wishing that karmic revenge will swiftly be visited upon the villain).

Today is the first day of Songkran or what used to be Thai new year, everybody goes crazy, kids drive round in the back of pick ups squirting people with high powered water guns and the people on the street fire back with hoses and anything else that comes to hand, add copious amounts of alcohol into the mix and well it's very "sanook" (fun) but also highly dangerous, two more days to go. But at least they have stopped measuring the death toll with a "target" figure next to it as they did last year which was just too surreal.

The swiss man who got seven years in prison (reduced from 50) for spray painting black paint on the Kings picture haws been pardoned and sent home.

Coincidentally two more days till my dive trip to the similans, the weather has been really rainy the last few days and the skys quite leaden, the national park closes at the end of the month, I hope we have not left it too late in the season!

Anyway suffice to say Phuket is quite a pretty town, it has pockets of old Sino-Potuguese architecture, I am actually staying in a rather attractive historic building, but there is a crazy Ugandan down the hall who keeps following me about like a puppy which is a bit freaky, his Mother died recently and I think he's looking for some one to transfer all that emotional baggage to, thankfully I have this dive trip to escape to tomorrow. The local transport though is expensive and so everybody pretty much drives round on those little scooter motorbikes, I am reluctant to buy one as the death toll for foreigners on those things here is horrendous (possibly because they let any fool [like me?] drive one), but at least I actually own a licence that says I have passed a test and am competent to ride one, I suspect most of these guys don't.

Anyway, everywhere was shut today so tomorrow I will endeavour to find somewhere to post this, take care dudes.
Love N.J.

"So it goes" section:
R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut Jr, drank like a fish, smoked like a train, and still clocked 84, "Lonesome no more" I take it

Can Tho 30th March

2007-04-03T20:08:00.001-07:00

The boat trip back from Phu Quok to the main land featured most of the same enterpainment we had en(dur/joy)ed on the way over, a Vietnamese Kylie Minogue, I am not familiar enough with Kylie's work to know which song was being covered but familiar enough to recognise the tune. The old "Black is black" number from the 70's complete with gold lame bikini clad boot scooters was pretty scary! All the sets, outfits and video editing style was circa 1984, it made me feel as though in a dream watching a parallel universe's version of ready to roll or solid gold (the dancers were the vietnamese lost twins of the solid gold dancers).

We are now in Can Tho, the biggest city in the Mekong delta, it has a beautiful foreshore, promenade and the kids here (like those all over this part of the country) love to fly their kites. We hired a boat this morning and went to a couple of floating markets where the kalediscope of colours and commerce was so intense it is hard to focus on any one thing or get a clear shot at a photo, it was pandemonium, it was great, we went on up and down canals to fruit farms and dry markets. I had a fabulous time but the markets between Sieam Reap and Battambang are more interesting and vastly larger I think.

Tomorrow we are back to Chau Doc for a few more days then I must head back to Thailand and check out some potential schools for the new school year.

Nikki Jayne.