Category: Travel Log

don’t make friends with people who are in charge of the free tequila at a mexican theme bar. and if you do, don’t go there on your birthday. less of a hang over, more like brain damage.

now there was a reason for me to actually buy the new toy… a wedding.
with the exception of my aunties and my parents, i’m now the last in my entire small family to be married. but i don’t think i can get married now as my damn cousins have just done it so well. joss and kelly with their rolling devon hills and garden marquee and now rawden and elke in landschaftspark duisburg-nord – an enormous 1920’s steel refinery near dusseldorf in germany. congrats rawdy, an awesome wedding in an amazing place. thank you for asking me to be the photographer, i hope i didn’t disappoint.

their wedding website invited guests to explore “We recommend you bring a pair of comfortable shoes in case you would like to explore Landschaftspark.”
while it’s a fantastic idea, someone should have told uncle tim not to wonder off on his own, he got lost and missed the speeches and a few hours of the wedding, bless.

well at least he got to see more of the park than the rest of us in the bar. what did happen after midnight? did i loose my camera? who was the girl in the pink dress?

you can see all the photos from the day here elkeandrawden.co.uk
conclusion: i like germany, germans and german things. (especially beer)

8th April 2006 – mental. mountains.

so without the need to cycle across london to get to work for the last two years my cycling has been limited to the few weeks back at my parents house at christmas – while enjoyable it’s cold and pissing wet. however i have recently discovered that the mountain biking scene in china is alive and kicking. this is probably to do with the fact that all the bikes and components are half price here. oh god more stuff to spend money on.

so the old trail From Anhui to Zhejiang is a mountain pass used as a trade route for centuries between these 2 provinces. to get there 7 of us left shanghai friday night, 4 hours later we reached jixi for a night in a hotel, up at 6.30 for glutinous rice and boiled eggs, another 3 hours in the bus and we arrived at huihangudao (i’ve forgotten what that means already) and then we started the climb, in the rain, up the side of a mountain. no more roads.

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it took around 6 hours to reach the end of the path including a huge lunch, near the top of the mountain, hidden among the trees was a very basic youth hostel type thing. no hot water, but it did have a massive TV. which i can’t quite work out how it got there. the rooms seemed nice, though unfortunately our guide didn’t book one so we ended up sleeping on the floor or the meat store. i lucked out and got the most comfortable blanket and plastic sheet.

up early for some more glutinous rice, boiled eggs and pickled cabbage. mmm. like every other meal, they all spoke chinese and i listened pointlessly. another hour of pushing and carrying our bikes and we reached the top. the sun came out and it was all worth while. yup wow. you can only walk here. and it takes 2 days. now i’m far away from home i thought.

it was at this point i remembered i no longer have travel insurance, but then considering the facts, how much is it going to cost to have two farmers carry me home on a bamboo stretcher. and with that thought came hours of hills. down hill. steps, rocks, tracks, roads, drops and stunning scenery, brilliant, all it’s missing is a chair lift at the bottom.

to view all the pictures that ayuan (our guide) took, take look at the ‘prodigy mountain biking‘ site

escape to a little island, stay in a luxury hotel, all just 4 hours from shanghai. beautiful.

sorry if you’ve been looking at my website in the hope that i may have given you some interesting photos or stories about the wonderfully interesting country that is vietnam… but the truth is i’ve just been getting drunk letting tucker take the photos with his phone.

click for full page…

nha trang, one of the largest US military bases during the american war, war is hell, but nha trang is has a lovely beach and nice shady palm trees where you sit and eat and drink all day with luxury 5* service.
“watch out for the pick pocket prostitutes… too late “.

Saigon officially called ho chi minh, but that’s much like renaming edinburgh ‘tony blair’, though he didn’t kill thousands of scots recently. So, saigon; stayed at uncle toms posh pad. no injuries for ben in this city, here we watch the 4 hour version of apocalypse now, among others, took a trip to the war museum, which had more gruesome photos than the internet. and just to round the weekend off we went crawling around in the cucci tunnels…

…after that lot you hate america just a little more, even though it was the french who messed things up in the first place. the great thing is the vietnamese don’t seem to care if you’re american or even if you’re french (amazing). they’ve been fighting for the last few thousand years to keep this big stretch of coast line and they haven’t lost it yet. how many countries can boast that !

when you’re not being ripped off or sitting on a bus with 40 australians vietnam is brilliant, the people are wonderfull and so is the food. at least i know where to move after shanghai !

hoi an is cool, 100’s of tailors who will make practically anything you like, 4 days later i have a linen suit, 2 pairs of trousers, some shorts and shirts and a plate. all for under £50. mint. if you’re there i recommend the tailors huong xuan at 8 le loi street!

due to some strict drinking laws in hoi an, after hours drinking continues in someone garage about 4km out of town, but the necessary slightly scary motor bike taxis only add to the fun.

i went for a swim, tucker got sunburn. then we hired some £2 a day motor bikes and took our selves off in search of vietnam’s most important centre of the ancient kingdom of Champa. after a few wrong turns and some encouragement from co pilot cotton we guided our honda dreams 2 hours across the country side. with only 1 mile to go tucker was taken out by the vietcong. “mayday, man down”. in reality a friendly local started a conversation with him while they were riding – the road turned to dust – and ben replaced sun burn with dirt.

oh and you must eat cao lao here. it’s a noodle salad.

the fourth night we were in hue, we visited the beach and while getting a puncture repaired we met a man with a million dollars.

i had a great nights sleep while tucker was throwing up the for the third night running. the next morning with 50% of the team feeling refreshed we took a 5 hour trip to hoi an to meet kate and sam.

i don’t think hanoi can be all that big, but then it’s hard to tell because we spent most of our time completely lost in the tiny streets of the old quarter. navigating these streets is made slightly easier because each street sells pretty much one thing. “isn’t our hotel near selotape street”, ” this is the third time we’ve walked down fucking hatstand street”…

… it turned night and we found our selves the wrong end of teddy bear street.

i’ll explain two of the main reasons i love living in shanghai, imagine it’s 7pm, you’ve been working all day (or rather your flat mate enya has been working all day) and you’re hungry. just flick though a restaurant listing, or think of one you already know, text your mates and walk out the door. for us it’s a 22 floor ride in an elevator and a 50m walk to the road where at that time in the evening i can usually hail a taxi before i’ve reached the curb. a taxi will cost around 60p providing you can say “wo men qu julu lu mao ming nan lu lukou” correctly. sit around a table with a bunch of mates eating and drinking good food and beer till you’re stuffed. pay maybe £5, then go rent a video, blockbusters in shanghai is a little more basic and requires looking though a suitcase or wooden box of fresh out the cinema movies on the side of the street – they’re 50p for keeps! you could however jump in taxi across town to another bar, or maybe taxi to a mates house to watch your new dvd. it doesn’t matter because unlike any where else i’ve ever lived, when you want to go home at 2 am, you just walk out the door, stick your hand out and a taxi is there. they’re always there, they’re brilliant, shanghai taxis you make my world go round.

well i suppose this could have happened to me in any city but i feel the need to share my first stage experience. i’ve always been scared at shows with audience participation, scared that i may have to get up on stage naked or something. and last night i went one of shanghai expensive and fancy bars to see a caberet singer who’s name was meow meow, she is completely insane, sings nonsense in 7 languages and was possibly the most entertaining 2 hours i’ve ever had sitting down. except for the part where i wasn’t sitting down and was stood on the albeit small stage. i was some sort of prop in the performance and still have a bruise to prove it. brilliant. 5 stars.

to say it’s been hot in shanghai this summer would be an understatement, but having lived in broome last year the 40 degree city heat was a spring morning in comparison. if you’re going to visit china now is the time of year to do so, just like my parents… though when i told them to come over, i didn’t know it was holiday week this week and 1.3 million people would be getting a train home to see thier famiy. oh well i think mum and dad have some stories to tell, probably along the lines of, “it was so busy, all the trains we packed, don’t ever go to china at the start of october” .

big lights, the chinese love em, so much so that the other night, standing out the back of a mates house, a place where normally you have to walk blindley in the pitch black, i was shocked i could see. looking around for the street lamps we realised that what can only be described as proper dusk was created by the cities light reflected off the low cloud . my god you could have read a newspaper (an english newspaper).