Skiing on the cheap

It's now this side of 4 months till I take six months off work on the trial retirement plan. Yeah, I'm a chicken not ready to take the ultimate plunge yet, but it's a good opportunity for me to see how I manage my finances over the short term.

The whole point of retiring early is to spend my work-free time doing things I enjoy doing, and some of these things are expensive hobbies, like skiing, and until a few years ago, scuba diving (combined with underwater video, ouch!!) I can't really see the point in stopping doing the things I enjoy just because I haven't got a fortnightly pay packet coming in, so the other option is to look at where savings can be made to pay for my not exactly cheap lifestyle.

If we look at skiing, there are some obvious costs, like ski lift tickets, transport, accommodation and food, plus airfare from home. Getting there from home and back costs the same whether you go for a week or for the season. Booking well ahead, finding cheap deals, being flexible with dates, and using frequent flyer points are all ways I've managed to keep this cost very manageable.  If transporting your own ski gear see if you can purchase extra baggage allowance before you turn up at the airport, weigh and re weigh your luggage and don't forget to read the small print!

Having your own ski gear is cheaper in the long run, and not being a sucker for the latest gear helps too. Second hand gear is frequently for sale on the local noticeboards and I've even known people to hit up the local Wastebusters for a cheap pair of skis. As for fashions on the field, like who cares? I've now had that onesy for 15 years and word is they're coming back into fashion! Who would have thought???

You can, of course, do your own ski maintenance, but as someone who doesn't race, my skis only need to go into the shop for a once over a couple of times in the season. Hardly worth the time and effort of doing it myself.

Since food and shelter cost you money wherever you are, the main pointer here is to not go for the luxury holiday high season ski accommodation option, but to put up with the minor inconveniences of sharing a dorm for a few weeks at the local Backpacker hostel. And most importantly, Backpacker hostels come with kitchens, so you are not forced to eat out at overpriced restaurants.

Picking the right place makes the world of difference. My first trip to Wanaka (well not my first, but first since I started going regularly) I stayed at Base in the town centre, just near the local supermarket. Although clean and modern and super close to everything, it was the favoured hangout of the Kiwi Experience bus tours, had few longer stay residents, and was all about party party party. Helped out by the bar and nightclub on the premises! Needless to say, I didn't return there on my second visit. Instead I opted for Wanaka Bakpaka, which is situated overlooking the lake just a couple of hundred metres away. Those 200m make a world of difference in discouraging the riffraff who find it too far to walk from the bus stop, not to mention that the hostel owners actively discourage the bus tours, and have a zero tolerance attitude to mindless drunken behaviour. Not that the latter doesn't occur mind you!!

In the 2 years so far that I've stayed there, the vast majority of residents over the winter have been there for the snow sports, either for the season, or for shorter periods ranging from a weekend to a few weeks. Because it has a fantastic common room, sans TV, everyone gets to know each other, and some great friendships get made. And some pretty mindless drunken behaviour just occasionally makes it to video! Who will ever forget Nick licking that wooden pillar he was "pole dancing" against?

So, putting up with sharing a room with a few others, contemplating the murder of the occasional chainsaw snorer, and slumming it in a shared bathroom, cuts the costs enormously, and means that the money you could spend on a 2 week upmarket ski holiday can go a lot further. Last year I did posh up for a week with Marko in a self contained apartment, and I can tell you that the luxury of sleeping in my own queen bed for a week was not worth the added cost. It didn't help that I preferred the company of my hostel friends, that Marko's excessive drinking annoyed me, and that I had to hitch down the mountain a number of times despite us having a car. By the end of that week I was very happy to get back to my dorm room and some normalcy.

An alternative to the Backpackers, and cheaper again, is shared accommodation. This can be a bit hit and miss as far as quality of digs are concerned, and as a much older person than most of the seasonal crew at a ski resort I think I might cramp their style. Plus I prefer the flexibility of being able to come and go from the Backpackers.

One of the things time gives you, is the ability to stretch the cost. So a season ticket becomes a no-brainer, and getting in at the early bird price reduces the daily cost even further. Last year I managed 30 days on the slopes of Treble Cone making my daily lift ticket cost just over $36 NZD a day. Admittedly, some of those days I didn't spend doing much skiing (remember that little altercation with the snowboarder?) but I think anyone could agree I got good value for money. Another great deal that many people take advantage of is the Jucy car hire, which last year gave people free lift tickets to TC for each day of hiring. For one person, for 2 weeks, you could get up the mountain and onto the slopes for around $50NZD a day. And many of these kind people had room in their cars for me!

Initially I took the bus, but soon worked out that hitching up the mountain was not only easy to do, but it saved me a lot of money and I met some wonderful and interesting people. I also made friends with a few locals who were happy to have ski companions mid week and would pick me up on their way up the mountain. Sometimes I contributed to petrol, but mostly people refused, and I even collected a local admirer who I managed to fob off (admittedly by falling off a cliff, I would not recommend that to anyone!) by claiming injury. Oh, and encouraging Aussie friends to come over for a week or so....

The week Marko was there we frequently gave people lifts too, so it's karma. Who did I meet? Well there was the Irish family living in Kuala Lumpur,  Lachie and Ryan from The Daily Dump Snow Report, a local filmmaker called Chris, an American lass who drove like a demon, and Nick's mate from his ski instructor course. Then there was "Sven" and Sonia from my ski lessons, thanks guys.

I still like the bus though, mainly because it's fixed times, you can leave your gear safely in the bus all day, and the irrepressible Thierry and his silly helicopter comment cracks me up every time. And it's door to door, sometimes that walk in the morning to the hitching spot isn't so enjoyable.....

One of THE best things about NZ ski resorts is you can bring your own food and eat it in the resort restaurant. They even provide a hot water dispenser for you to fill up your noodle box, or cup of soup. This saves a mountain of money, just requires a little forward planning back at the ranch each morning.

Of course any holiday isn't a holiday without some fun and hijinks. But the key to looking at the low cost ski holiday is to keep the spending down to what you might do back home. So rather than going out every night, you just do it once a week - or in my case about once a month! Mind you, when I had friends in town I went out for dinner a bit more, but I mostly cooked at home. And with the best hostel kitchen in Wanaka, who wouldn't??

My big ticket expense each year are ski lessons, and not the cheap group lesson variety either. Last year I did a five day all day course, which was worth every cent, and despite my little bingles, I'm a much better skier now. By skimming on all the other luxuries and not upgrading my ski gear every year or two I figure I can keep this expense in the mix.

Of course, what most people do when spending a ski season in one place, is they get a part time job to support their snow sport obsession. I've thought about applying for the ski field doctor job, but seriously, I just want to ski. So I'll count my pennies instead.

Snapping triffids OMG!!!

Last week I headed down to Perth to attend a meeting and workshop, taking Hazel with me on a road trip down the wonderful Indian Ocean Drive, past towering sand dunes and little shack communities with their deep blue ocean backdrop. No way I'll ever bother with Brand Highway again, boring!!

We stayed with my good friend Naomi and the kids in Scarborough, but on Saturday I caught up with Eleanor (you may remember her from Fiji - "best dive trip EVAH!!") for a wander around the Sculptures by the Sea at Cottlesloe Beach. Eleanor and a friend are doing a photography project where they challenge each other to take photos and post them to a blog every 2 weeks, each taking turns at picking a theme. I just don't have the self discipline to do something like that, sigh....

I did, however, have my camera with me. Eleanor and I looked quite the thing snapping away with our SLRs, but sometimes you've just got to ham it up!

The installations really took advantage of the setting.

Red shoes heading up the hill like ants

Blocks made from blankets

 Banksias - these are made of copper wire and stones

And then there were the triffids

A bad knitting day?

Be scared, be very scared!

Balancing act

Keyhole

Water?

Ship mates

Then on Sunday we drove home.....


for more photos click here

Four years young

Apparently most blogs don't last more than six months. Something to do with the pressure to keep posting or some such palaver. Or that the reason for writing a blog changes and it no longer is all that important. I guess my blog could have gone that way, given that I started it primarily to keep family and friends informed of my travel tales, but soon realised it was far more than that.

I'm coming up for my four year blog anniversary, so it might be a good time to look at where I've been and where I'm going. I don't mean just literally, I mean all the touchy feely stuff too.

When I first started this blog I'd reached a pretty low point in my life, where I was burnt out from work and suffering from depression. I was fortunate to be able to take long service leave, as well as leave without pay, and take the time I needed to heal. I then also sought professional advice to try and protect myself from that level of burnout ever happening again.

One of the first thing I noticed about writing a blog is it's very personal. Unlike Americans who appear to have no qualms about hanging out their emotional laundry for all to see, us Aussies are made of truer grit and we just don't emote to strangers. Writing about how I felt on a blog, however, was easier than talking to someone I knew. Also I suspect it gave me time to gather my thoughts and come up with something coherent to say. It certainly was cathartic, and even now, I kind of like the fact that one can just say stuff one feels and let it loose on the webosphere. Is that a word?

I think the other reason I've continued to write is that I am literally alone where I live. Yes I have great local friends, but I also have all my family, and many friends, living more than 3000km away on the other side of the country. So it gives me a chance to keep them up to date, with pictures, on what I'm up to. I've never been a fan of Facebook as a primary communication device, especially for those close to me, or for anything personal either. My good friends aren't JUST Facebook friends, in fact many of them aren't even on it.

I love reading other people's travel blogs, but despair at how many seem to be written by professional travel bloggers. I suspect many of them start out just travelling, and then get convinced that making money writing "ten best" blog posts and pushing affiliate marketing is the way to go. Obviously there is money in it for a few of the high flyers, or they wouldn't do it, but I prefer to troll around for the bloggers who write about their travels, their personal take on a place, a situation, a culture etc. I am gradually culling my list of favourites, to those who actually travel, versus those who write about travel, or about hanging out with their travel blogging mates! Sure, horses for courses, each to his own, just I'm not a fan.

I realised I didn't want my blog to be just another travel blog, I wanted it to reflect me, and my life, which wasn't just about travel after all. I'm much more interesting than that! I have left a lot of my life out of this blog though, especially details about my work, which I find hard to communicate in a way that people could understand. Perhaps I need some distance before I can write about the First Australians who are my work colleagues, patients and friends.

So where have I been in the last four years? I've gone from depressed and burnt out, to travelling through SE Asia for 6 months, to returning to work part time, to taking on more responsibility for training the next generation of doctors and GPs. I've gone from active couch potato with too much flab, to someone who runs four times a week and listens to an iPod while she does it. I've grown my hair, lost a few kilos, and expect many family members wouldn't recognise me in a crowd. Having a picture of Hazel as my Facebook profile probably doesn't help either...

As for the future, I've decided to retire from doctoring before I turn 50, and to pursue a more creative path through photography and travel, and possibly even writing. I've also decided that my creative pursuits will not be for commercial gain, I intend to sort the income stream out before I give up the day job. I also don't intend to ever turn my blog into a place that advertises things, so if I post a link, you can be sure I'm not getting any money for it. Yeah I know,  as pure as driven snow....

My near future, however, feels somewhat overwhelming. I've got involved in a few committees, work related involving numerous trips to Perth and the eastern states, as well as trying to run a local Coastcare project and help organise our yearly Oxfam Walk Against Want. I am looking forward to July with relish, because then I'm taking 6 months off to recover. Aside from going skiing in NZ, I'm still not sure what I'll do with the time. At this point I don't care, not like I'm short of options or anything.

And finally there's Hazel, who features front and central in my life. She's now 2 months off her 14th birthday, well and truly on borrowed time, but remarkably healthy and happy for her advanced years. She's slow, she sleeps all day and rarely manages to be energetic beyond 15 min bursts of playfulness. Her teeth are wearing down fast, she has significant muscle wasting in her rear haunches, but she ain't complaining. Well that's not true, I get a right good talking to if I don't take her for her daily beach amble and paddle in the surf.

Soon my future won't include Hazel, which will be pretty weird, but something I am actually looking forward to. Not because of any feeling of missed opportunities, but because I feel that that period of my life is coming to an end and I'm looking forward to new experiences. It's the main reason I can't really make plans for my six months off, because I won't leave her again for an extended trip. I joke about euthanising her prior to jetting off to New Zealand, but to be truthful, I don't want my dog to suffer, and that may well be the right time for us to say goodbye. Not if she's still hale and hearty, but she is not the dog that she was last winter, and I really don't expect her to last more than the next few months. I'm not a vet, but I am seeing rapid decline and have to accept the inevitable.

So on that happy note let's move on. Let's drink a toast to four years of blogging, and to looking to the future. I didn't call this blog What's Next? for nothing!!

The time I almost died

It was the day after my 25th birthday. I was in Thailand, on a scuba diving trip out of Koh Samui. A raggle taggle group of Europeans on a converted wooden fishing boat made the 2 hour crossing to Koh Tao.

Koh Tao is a small island northwest of Koh Phangan, Samui's northern cousin where people went to smoke weed and drop out for a few weeks. Full-moon parties had yet to be invented. Koh Tao wasn't on the tourist radar, although it had a handful of small family run bungalow operations scattered around the island. The afternoon ferry from Samui would dock and the bungalow owners would vie for the trickle of customers, load them in their runabouts and motor off to hidden bays.

We were staying in town, which was really just a dusty track with the ferry jetty, a cafe, a restaurant overlooking the water and a few houses. We stayed in a large wooden shed, made up of multiple bunk beds surrounding a central area of tables and benches. An outhouse had a squat toilet and a large water container for showering. Huge rats roamed the rafters and the calls of a thousand geckos lining the walls were deafening.

The shed was our home for 2 nights, our days being spent diving the reefs around Koh Tao. The whole dive operation was run by an older Austrian man and his much younger English girlfriend. The shed was under the care of a rather handsome young Englishman, who was painting it in exchange for free accommodation and dive master qualifications.

Over the 3 days we enjoyed some wonderful diving on pristine reefs, with lots of fish. There was no other dive operation in business on the island, although some of the bungalow owners would take their guests snorkelling on the more shallow reefs. With our boat we were able to take advantage of some of the deeper terrain, and also to do some night dives - one aspect of scuba diving I really enjoy.

Said Englishman would sit on the roof of the boat between dives, and I too would climb up the side of the boat to talk with him and adoringly appraise his good looks. I'm pretty bad at picking up guys, but it's not from want of trying! This wish to spend time in his company was my undoing.....

Returning from the night dive on the second evening, the ocean was quite choppy and it was a dark night. After storing my gear I went to join my friend on the roof. Instead of clambering up the side of the boat as usual, I decided to use the ladder. I mean it was there, why not use it?

Unbeknownst to me the ladder was simply hanging on the side wall, it wasn't secured to anything, and as I climbed it in the rolling seas it simply dislodged itself from the roof and fell. The deck was only a couple of feet wide, so in a quick thinking feat of survival instinct I twisted around as I fell, somehow landing on the deck rather than in the water. I hit my head and was momentarily knocked out.

I didn't lose consciousness for long, probably only a few seconds, but it would have been enough had my fall been into the watery abyss. Having survived that I looked to see what injuries I had sustained. At first I thought I'd broken my leg, but the gash down my thigh and the huge swelling underlying turned out only to be bruising. My face, however was another story. Something solid had smashed up under my chin, causing a large laceration and a few broken teeth, but luckily again, my jaw was intact.

I was taken, limping and bleeding, to the local hospital on the island. It wasn't really a hospital, just a one room clinic, and since it was night and there was no generator running, I was stitched up by torchlight, using a needle and thread dipped in alcohol. There was no anaesthetic. I returned to my rat infested bunk feeling very sore and sorry for myself. But thankfully alive.

It brings a shiver to my spine even now, to think how close I was to not living past 25. But it didn't stop me travelling. The injury caused me to extend my stay in Thailand and return to Koh Tao for a week of recuperation. That week I spent back on the island hanging out with the cute Englishman and a Scottish lass, eating with the locals, strolling along the beaches, and smoking a lot of weed, was probably one of the most enjoyable weeks of my life.

It's a reason I will never go back to Koh Tao, now that it's a crazy dive mecca full of backpackers and noisy long tail boats, because it holds such a special place in my heart. And although it was one of the worst experiences of my life, it also ended up being one of the best. I don't want to ruin that.

Nowhere's very far anymore

I have a few travel blogs that I regularly read. Some because the subject matter interests me, others because they are very funny, others because sometimes you feel a connection with the writer and want to follow their journey.

One blog I like is Chicky Bus, written by an American lass named Lisa, who teaches ESL and travels in her holiday breaks, mostly in Central America but also she's been to the Middle East and a few other destinations. She hasn't made it to Asia yet, but she plans to soon.

Lisa wrote a great article about returning from a trip, missing a particular food you'd enjoyed so much and trying to replicate the taste once back home. For her it was the papaya milkshakes she had in the Dominican Republic. Here's her article on the subject.

I really identified with this, given my total addiction to Asian cuisine. On my last couple of trips I've even returned home with a few recipe books. I don't have a favourite dish, there's just too many to choose from, starting with Nonya cuisine, Vietnamese Bo Pho, Beef Rendang, Chicken laarb and green papaya salad just to name a few.

I regularly make a wonderful Assam Fish, a nonya dish where the curry is made from scratch, and I once spent an entire day making Beef Pho, which was unbelievably delicious but far too much effort to make on a regular basis. Trust me, the taste is all in the stock, a whole day spent boiling the bones to make it! Green Papaya Salad is pretty easy, but I'm yet to make a good Rendang.

But seeing as I haven't been to Central America, and I've currently got a papaya that's just ripened up to a gorgeous orange hue, I popped into the IGA for a can of evaporated milk (note Carnation) and slavishly followed the secret recipe on Lisa's blog.

Starting with the main ingredients...

Blended with a little brown sugar and ice.........

and VOILA:

Thanks Lisa, it's awesome. Who needs to go to the D.R. after all??

A rose by any other name...

I am technologically challenged, no doubt about it. But I try, and somewhere in amongst the trying I sometimes succeed, although not always without parting with more money than I needed to.

When it comes to the internet, and any technology relating to the internet, I can reliably inform those people beyond our antipodean shores that us Aussies pay a premium for everything. We pay 50% more for iTunes songs, movies and videos, some of which aren't even available here for months after their northern hemisphere release dates. Similarly we are locked out of American online stores for purchasing software, like Photoshop or Lightroom. Little wonder that Australians (with a meagre 22 million population) are the second biggest pirates in the world. Apparently 5 million Australians are at it as I write this!

Unfortunately, I'm so dumb that I haven't worked out how to diddle the system, and my own pirating efforts have been limited to purchasing cheap DVDs in Bali. Yeah, I know it's wrong but if they made it fair for us Aussies to purchase at the same price as Americans for instance (especially as our dollar is so strong) then less of us would be tempted. I've completely given up buying books in Australia, even purchasing hard copies and getting them shipped using Amazon is cheaper than going down to the local bookstore. But since I got the Kindle, paper copies are now redundant. Amazon, unlike Apple and Adobe, doesn't restrict access, meaning I can purchase from both the American and UK online stores. Thankyou Amazon, who cares if you want world domination, it's OK by me.

Another area that I think I've been diddled is custom domain names. If you cast your eye up to the internet address line you may just notice that I have changed my name. No longer am I a blogspot address, I've graduated to a dot com. Pretty cool hey?

Now I didn't realise that I could get a dot com domain name for just a few dollars a year, and unfortunately went and purchased myself a domain name from an Australian internet domain name company at some ridiculously overinflated price. Stupid me. Of course I didn't purchase a dot com au address, that would be sheer financial lunacy, as it's twice as expensive. Owning a dot com au is such a liability, I mean I know us Aussies think we're pretty exclusive but Geeezus!!

I've learnt my lesson, and when it's time to renew I'll jump ship to somewhere cheaper. At present I'm staying on Blogger, because they're hosting me for free after all, and I have absolutely no intention to turn my blog into a money making venture (like I'd ever be successful at that anyway?). Though it's gratifying to see a lot more people visiting my blog than just my mum! Even people I don't even know!!! Hi, nice to meet you.

So nothing has changed on the blog, just the name, but even if you are still using the old address, blogger will redirect you here anyway. Just so you know. And can congratulate me and all that.

I do love a good plan

I'm so excited. Having made the decision to take the second six months of this year off, I'm already in planning mode. I've mentioned before that I really enjoy the research stage, finding out as much as I can about a place before hand, and then starting to come up with a plan.

My plans are not what other people call itineraries. No way would I commit to actually booking stuff ahead of time, aside from an airfare that is. My reasoning is, that if I have enough knowledge about a place I can estimate an approximate amount of time I might spend there before moving on, thus working out what might be feasible within the time span of my visit. I kind of end up with this massive amount of information about my destination, from which I can pick and chose.

I travel slow. Sometimes when I read on a travel forum or in someone's blog about a projected itinerary I begin to get a head spin. Seriously! Probably the most annoyingly tedious part of travel for me is the incessant packing and repacking, and so I usually plan to stay at least a couple of nights, often much longer, in most destinations. I also find that it isn't really practical to spend more than 3-4 hours doing sightseeing in a day, and that I like to factor in a heavy dose of aimless wandering, chatting to locals, exploring markets and experimenting with new foods. All of which can take me in any number of directions.

Because I plan for a snail's pace, I sometimes find I am running ahead of schedule. In which case it's nice to be able to pluck a destination out of the research hat and run with it. That's what happened to me in Java in 2010, when I headed off to Madura, a fairly sizeable island just off Surabaya, home to some of the friendliest people I've ever met. Not to mention great food and nice beaches. And no mass tourism whatsoever. Yeah, most of you have never heard of it right?

My two countries of choice for this upcoming trip have many similarities yet are also vastly different. I'm not talking about New Zealand. I'm just going there first for some alpine hedonism but perhaps I could rebrand it as pre-trip training and acclimatisation. Because I'm going high altitude trekking in China!!

Everybody goes to Nepal and India to trek the Himalayas, and one day I'll probably go there too. But China has Tibet, not only the Tibetan Autonomous Region where independent travel is no longer possible, but also the neighbouring provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan. Here there are spectacular glaciers, high altitude lakes and pastures, Tibetan monasteries, yak herders, and some of the most biodiverse environments on the planet. Not to mention a rich cultural heritage and the ability to travel relatively unhindered by the government authorities.

Researching a destination like this is so important. Being abreast of the politics means being aware of recent local uprisings and the extreme sensitivity of the Chinese government. Since the March 2008 uprising in Lhasa there have been sporadic protests throughout the Tibetan milieu, causing the government to restrict access to certain areas, even some outside the TAR, during anniversaries of these events. Last year much of north western Sichuan was closed to Westerners for more than a month after a protest at one of the monasteries. And each year in March the government suspends all western permits to visit the TAR whatsoever. I do wonder whether the response by the government is somewhat counterproductive, as few tourists speak the language so our access to knowledge about what was going on on a day to day basis would be extremely limited. Publicising it through restricting access not only legitimises the protest, but puts it on the radar for longer than it might have otherwise been.

Prior to March 2008, access to Tibet wasn't so restrictive, and so there's some excellent books around on trekking the region,  including areas outside the TAR. There's also a handful of informative websites advertising numerous trekking options within Sichuan and Yunnan, aside from the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. I'm eternally grateful to whoever left that trip brochure behind in a guesthouse in Berastagi, North Sumatra, because it was in that brochure that I first heard of TLG. It was that dream that got me to Yunnan in late 2008, a visit that made me fall in love with China, and make me want to return to explore further. Well, 2012 is shaping up to be the year!!

At present I'm hoping to spend 2-3 months in China, doing a number of expeditions into the hills. No extreme mountaineering, just trudging along, crossing a few passes above 4000m ASL, camping in alpine meadows, visiting remote monasteries, some glaciers, and generally gorging myself on spectacular mountain scenery. I've found at least five or six possible 2-3 week treks I could do, so I'm accumulating lots of options. I'm also planning to include some tourist sights, I mean a visit to Sichuan is hardly complete without seeing the pandas is it? There's also an all important assignation with the local food specialties, like hot pot. Years of watching Iron Chef means I'm looking forward to trying some hot Sichuan pepper dishes!! And then there's dumplings for breakfast, I'm salivating already....

I'm going to look for company for these treks - besides local guides - amongst friends, along the way, and also out here in the world wide web. I've had mostly fantastic travel companions in the past, and have learnt from the bad ones how to work out whether a prospective travel companion will be compatible. I'm a journey woman, not a destination junkie, and I now know how to tell the difference.

If you are at all interested in doing some China trekking with me, between September and November this year, then drop me a line. All comments are moderated, which means I can delete your contact details prior to comments being published.

As for country number two? Well I mentioned it in a previous post: Myanmar. More on that next.

Planning the next adventure

Happy Australia Day. Or should I say: Happy "made in China" Day. Ever since Sept 11, this obsession with flying the Aussie flag has gone crazy, and no day exemplifies it more than Jan 26, the day the First Fleet sailed in to Botany Bay and began appropriating this land as a penal colony. It seems appropriate to note that two things Australia Day is known for are excessive flag waving and more arrests for aggressive drunken behaviour than any other day of the year. Hmmm..

I have been agonising over the retirement issue, and have at last decided not to pull the plug completely but to exit my working life slowly over the next few years. I think this smacks of total cowardice on my part to not just take the plunge. But there's still too much uncertainty in my life, particularly the financial situation and Hazel's health, to make finishing up in July just a bit too daunting.

I have noticed a certain fatigue starting to re-enter my life, and after falling into such a spectacular mess back in 2008 I know what I'm facing if I don't listen and do something about it. I am who I am, and the fact is that my work life sees me continuously taking on more and more responsibility and I am forced to say no to people. I no longer feel guilty about saying no, but I do feel angry that people keep asking, particularly when I have bared my soul, told people that my mental health is precarious and that I use protective strategies to keep sane. I work part time for a reason, accept it!!

I talked to the boss, and he is open to me taking extended leave without pay as long as I give him enough notice to get a locum. This leaves the door open for me to come and go from my job, a pretty envious position that few people get the opportunity to do. Being an Australian trained doctor who has worked exclusively in Aboriginal Health for the last 14 years actually makes me a very rare commodity, so I've earned it.

I have work commitments till July, due to my responsibility to supervise a new training doctor in the practice, but beyond then, the rest of the doctors can take responsibility for any other trainees. I also have some volunteer positions I'll need to extricate myself from, which may be a little trickier, but the fact that I'm not planning on leaving indefinitely makes it easier to negotiate. Now I just have to decide how long and where I'm going! How exciting!!!!

I'm definitely going back to NZ in July for a ski trip. I've already bought the tickets, well a one way ticket to Queenstown at any rate. I'll stay at least a month, then make my way back across the ditch to visit mum in Canberra and hit the embassy circuit for a visa or two. At this stage it's a toss up as to where I'll go, between China and Myanmar. Or maybe both?

I've been contemplating a trip to Myanmar for a long time, but have been caught up in that political conundrum of whether to visit or not. I have a colleague at work from Myanmar, who has given me some advice on places to visit, and can possibly give me some in country contacts. Unfortunately the military government (no matter that they've just had that recent rigged election) is paranoid, and there are spies everywhere, so my friend has to be careful not to risk endangering family members and friends living in Myanmar. I've thought about where I'd go, what I'd do, and have decided that with my low comfort needs when travelling I'm unlikely to be heavily supporting government enterprises anyway.

Researching Myanmar it appears to be possible to direct most of your money to private enterprises, but there do seem to be a few areas where sticking with principles would be counterproductive. With appalling roads and a limit of 28 days in the country I think a couple of domestic flights seems a better option than spending a week on buses. Entrance fees to famous sites may well go to the government, but they aren't a lot, unlike the huge fees that everyone pays to the corrupt crony ridden Corporation that runs Angkor in Cambodia, or into tourist sites in China, and the Chinese government is hardly blameless when it comes to human rights abuse. I actually find the contempt with which the Lonely Planet authors speak about paying the $10 to see Bagan (for as long as you like) a bit excessive given the number of tourists to Myanmar is minuscule compared to the millions visiting Angkor and propping up that government. As much as I hate how people may be treated in some countries, I'm not convinced that Myanmar stands above all the others as the worst, and therefore I shouldn't visit it. Seems to be more a case of political correctness gone awry.

It is possible to fly between Mandalay and Kunming in China, so I'm thinking about combining both countries. September to December are great times to travel in the region, so I'm currently researching my options, flights, itineraries etc. This should take me a few months I reckon.

Links, ideas, advice - all welcome.

Rediscovering music

A few months ago I bought a Macbook Air. Remember? Well we are still head over heels in love, still discovering each other, and I'm continuously amazed at the new and exciting things I can do with my new beau.

Last weekend, whilst sweltering in a typical summer heatwave, I decided to rip all my music CDs into MP3 files, using Apple's iTunes. Then I can get rid of the CDs, and the stereo, in my attempt to declutter prior to heading off on a prolonged trip. Thing is, I really haven't been listening to music much over the last 10 years or so, I tend to tune into Radio National on the car radio, and rarely go out to see live music anymore. My CD collection has a rather weird datedness to it, it sort of stops in the mid nineties. There's an eclectic mix of jazz, classical, world music and classic 80s rock anthems, not to mention the ABBA boxed collection! How can anyone survive a long road trip without belting out a few Abba tunes I mean seriously???

Since getting the new boy, I've been lurking over in iTunes. And I discovered podcasts, and lots of free music downloads. OK I bought a few things too, but only with the cunningly purchased iTunes gift vouchers I got at a discount price using Target vouchers I'd redeemed from credit card rewards. Lost? Don't worry. Suffice to say I am now the proud owner of some NEW!!! music as well as my dated collection of 80s and 90s classics. And an iPod Nano to listen to it on. All for free, clever ain't I??

Now some of you may not know that a Macbook Air doesn't have a disc drive. One of the main reasons it's so slim and light. So how the hell could I rip my CD collection? Believe it or not, easy peasy. See my new beau is a darn clever communicator and he talks to all my old boyfriends, even the old flasher. Mainly because the old flasher has a perfectly functioning optical disc drive that we'd like to use please.

So, I simply load the CDs into OF*, rip them and share them using WiFi between the 2 computers, my modem and the internet. Awesome hey?? Next step DVDs.....

Now that I have many gigabytes of music at my disposal it really obligates me somewhat to actually listen to it. I already had a cheap, rather pathetic, MP3 player that had an unusable menu and kept chewing up batteries. You know the old saying about pay peanuts you get monkeys? Enough said! So the iPod Nano (free purchase remember!) is my newest wee toy.

So there I am with mountains of music, over 1000 (yes I got a tad carried away!) podcasts and a tiny 8Gb piece of perfection to clip to my clothes. Where do I start? Do I listen to the music album by album, do I create playlists? That will take forever. But hang on, there's a solution.

One word: GENIUS!

I love it. You just pick a song and iTunes analyses your music library and puts together some really interesting playlists. You end up with lots of songs down the back catalog of your albums, as well as the classics, that you haven't heard for ages and often didn't notice much in the past anyway. Sometimes when I listen to an album the whole way through I find myself tuning out after a while. This way I seem to be continuously rediscovering old songs. I'm having a great time. And enjoying listening to music again. Eureka!!

I'm also enjoying some great podcasts. Some are new music releases, others are comedy, others are my favourite Radio National shows. The absolutely best so far is a wonderful series with Wendy Harmer and Angela Catterns called "Is it just me?". These two women (I'm not calling them girls or ladies, listen and you'll know why!) talk about day to day issues, bringing up kids, their opinions about varied topics, all with the wonderful self deprecating humour that us Aussies are good at. It is the ultimate show for cackling out loud and rolling around the floor in hysterics. I challenge anyone not to find them hilariously funny. Unfortunately the shows are no longer being produced, but the podcasts of 30 odd episodes are available here.

Enjoy! I am...

                                            *OF = Old Flasher, my ex, see this past post

The whys and hows of travelling wisely

I read a blog the other day about a girl who has been travelling for 18 months and hit the wall. She's burnout and heading home, but I think she'll be stronger and wiser for it. One thing she found hard was the continual need to travel on a very low budget, and the supposed competition amongst other travellers to do it on as little as possible. Well that just sounds plain exhausting to me, and probably about the worst reason to travel I can think of.

Her honesty inspired me to write a little philosophical post about travelling wisely. It's not about prescribing a particular path, but about people deciding their own path, planning accordingly, and most importantly, keeping things in perspective.


 Budget for your comfort level 
Everybody has different comfort levels. If the thought of camping, or staying in a place without aircon gives you the heebie jeebies, then it's a good idea to plan your holiday around a budget that allows you those creature comforts. It's not a crime to want comfort, but it's also a good idea to be flexible, to occasionally have a go outside your personal comfort zone and see how you cope. After all, travel is about new experiences, isn't it? It really isn't cool to expect a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget, so if you can't afford the creature comforts, either save up more money before you go, or travel for a shorter period.

Before my last big trip in 2008/09 I gave myself a list of things I wasn't going to do anymore now that I was older, and had the cash. I wasn't going to do long overnight bus trips and I was going to stay in places with hot water and ensuites. I quickly discovered that some of the locations I ended up in didn't have the latter, and sometimes the rooms with the best character and views didn't either. Having my own bathroom actually stopped mattering very quickly, and I soon got used to sluicing myself with cold water from a bucket in a room down the end of the corridor. As for the buses, well in China they have sleepers, and I'm short enough. I still flew when the alternative was a 24 hour bus trip, and as far as I'm concerned, it makes me no less a bonafide traveller than the next person.

 Know why you travel
There has to be a reason beyond building a list of countries seen. When you get jaded with travel it usually means you've lost sight of why you left in the first place, or that the reason has changed and you need a new one. I travel to experience other cultures, to enjoy spectacular scenery, and to push myself physically. For this purpose I try and learn the language, eat the local food, go to the local markets, couch surf, and frequently end up spending almost all my time hanging out with locals, not with other backpackers. My trip to Java in 2010 was exactly that sort of experience. I also combined it with a bit of walking (not as much as I had planned), and an expensive sunrise tour of Borobodur. I got the sunrise photos I wanted, isn't that why I travel, to follow my dreams?

 Take time out
Experiencing new things gets exhausting, especially when it's day after day. I don't exactly plan them, but from time to time I find myself encamped in a backpacker ghetto for a few days. Here I don't need to worry about wearing modest clothing, or drinking far too much alcohol, and I can use the internet to catch up on the rest of the world. It's also when I take the time to upload my photos, write a few blog entries, do the internet banking, do all the "housekeeping" so to speak. These little oases of familiarity the world over allow me to chill out, recharge my batteries and head on to my next adventure. When I'm ready.

 Travel at a pace that suits you
Some people love setting up in a place for a while, others spend a different day in a new town, and the nights travelling between destinations. And the rest of us are somewhere in-between. At different times you'll find the pace right, at other times it isn't. If it isn't, change it, it's your trip. If that means saying goodbye to a travel companion, so be it. A grumpy travelling partner is no fun whatsoever. If it means forfeiting a flight, it's your call, but it means you're planning too far ahead and you need to stop and have a rethink. Only leave when you're ready, even if it means a few visa runs. That sort of discontent over doing things too quick can be quite hard to shift once it sets in, so stop! And go back to point number 2.

 Contribute to the local economy

Spending money is really important for the economy and if you spend wisely, then the locals reap the benefit. This is particularly important if planning to visit countries where the politics are suspect and the government highly corrupt, like Myanmar. Finding out whether the transport and accommodation is government owned or not and spending wisely will make a huge difference to the people. Booking ahead via the internet usually means a lot of middlemen, and possibly not locals, will be getting a cut. If it isn't necessary to book, then don't, because you'll almost always find as good accommodation as those on the internet, usually at cheaper prices. As my comfort needs are quite low, I also don't need to rely on chain hotels etc, and can stay in family home stays where the money stays local. Spreading the rest of your budget around also makes sense. I remember explaining to a driver in Bali one day why I wasn't going to book him tomorrow: because I wanted someone else to get a cut of my tourist dollar. It's also a damn good reason for trying different street stalls and restaurants, and for avoiding places run by expats. Finding a local guide is never difficult, almost always dirt cheap, though quality can be hit and miss, but then the fee usually reflects that anyway.

Sometimes you meet people who get a kick out of spending as little money as possible, and are rarely much fun to be around as they can't seem to afford to accompany you to see the sights, have a beer or a meal etc etc. I can't quite see the sense in this myself, and I certainly wouldn't want to emulate them. Some even steal, cheat and take advantage of newbie travellers. An English guy I met in Hanoi had got a young Australian girl enamoured with exciting stories of his travels, and of his life as a travel writer (unsure whether this was true). Over the course of 3 days she "lent" him money and paid for all his meals and drinks. At one stage he invited a group of us to eat at a "great restaurant", we all got ready and headed out, and then when it was time to pay the bill, well he'd somehow forgotten to bring any money hadn't he? Once this girl left, he then honed in on the next one.

On the other hand there are people like Roman, a Czech lad I met in 2008 as my first Hospitality Club (this preceded couch surfing) guest. Roman had been travelling the world by hitching, camping and staying with locals through Hospitality Club and similar organisations, as well as through people he met when hitching. He went out of his way to cook meals, help me in the garden, and show me some of his awesome photography. Roman slept under trees in the outback one night, the next bought and cooked an exquisite chicken roast dinner for his host. He didn't contribute much to the economy, but he didn't take much either. I doubt there is a person out there who met Roman and wasn't spiritually enriched by the experience. After 6 years travelling, Roman had his last few dollars stolen from him on a truck ride through Iran, and arrived home penniless. He's now writing a book. Check him out.

 Maintain perspective
Everyone gets scammed from time to time. Almost always you can learn from the experience, be smarter and wiser for the next time. But if it was just that you paid more than you should have, remember you were happy to pay it in the first place, and it's only in retrospect you feel cheated. You could have walked away and not paid. You probably hadn't done your research, didn't know what the price should have been etc. In this internet day and age of so much information, almost every well known scam anywhere in the world has been written about on numerous travel forums and even published in guidebooks. Your hotel/hostel/guesthouse concierge is also a good source of info about local prices and will happily keep you informed. Just ask.

Similar to the scam is the double tiered pricing where you pay more than the locals. There are ways of getting around this, but if you haven't found out how, just try and look at it as still dirt cheap anyway. Why ruin a trip arguing and worrying about a dollar or two? If you find yourself thinking this way, remember how much a cup of coffee costs in your hometown....

Another area where us westerners need to maintain perspective is around cultural differences, hygiene standards, rubbish etc. Come prepared for public toilets with your own wipes, desanitiser, whatever you need, ask the guy spitting on the bus to spit somewhere else rather than on your bag, understand that it's someone's livelihood to sort the rubbish and reuse it, to collect the money at the public toilet, or whatever. That there may not be a social welfare system, or a tax system that provides public infrastructure. We have nice roads and working amenities in our countries because we pay taxes and our governments are slightly less corrupt. It isn't the fault of the bus driver that the bus is falling apart, he's just earning money to feed his family, and he'd prefer not to be driving a death trap either.

 It is not a competition
Anyone who plays the one up-manship card in my book is a rather insecure person who needs attention to feel worthy. Or is looking for a fuck. We are all out there trying to achieve our individual personal goals. Unless yours is child sex tourism, who am I to criticise how and why you travel. The person who has been to 100 countries is no better a person than the person who's just arrived for their first week ever of overseas travel. Particularly if said traveller brags about it. 100 is just a number. So what? And do I care how little or how much you spent? No, I just want to know that you had a good time, and what you can recommend of a particular destination.

  Listen to yourself
One thing about travel is you spend a lot of time with yourself. You get the opportunity to become attuned to not only your body, but your moods, and I can highly recommend taking notice. Travel isn't a job, where you've got to force yourself to get up to go to work every day whether you feel like it or not, so let the right brain rule and indulge your intuition, your feelings for space, time and place. And when the mind and body say you've had enough, you've had enough. Accept it. If that means going home, so be it. I mean friends and family are hardly going to do anything but welcome you back with open arms. And it doesn't have to be forever right?

I've done 2 big overseas trips, one for 20 months and the other for six months, and a number of shorter trips. The first was in my mid twenties, and a year in I started to notice the jaded long term traveller, who'd been on the road for years, had no real attachments, had lost contact with family and friends back home, and had had experiences that  people back home wouldn't understand anyway. They didn't really fit in with the bright young things like myself who had short term plans to travel for a year or so then return to an education or build a career, and they rarely had work skills that they could translate into something well paid should they return home. All their friends would be settled into careers and families, and here they were still chasing young backpackers' tails and doing drugs. They seemed lost to me, and I decided I never wanted to be like them. So when I was ready to return home to continue my career, I did.

My second trip I could have continued longer but my house/dogsitter was moving on and I needed to come home. I could have found another sitter, but returning to a depressed dog broke my heart, and I'll never travel longterm again till she passes on. Then I will indeed head off for longer. But I'll listen to the inner demons, and react accordingly.

 Giving back is easy
It's all too easy to feel a lot of guilt for having so much when you see the poverty that exists in the world. I don't think it's particularly wise for individuals to give to a school or an orphanage in a poor country because it just encourages a type of institutionalised begging, as I saw in Cambodia. Spending your money locally is a better way to help that economy help itself. I regularly donate to Oxfam, an organisation renowned for providing sustainable community development programs throughout the world.

An important way to give back is by respecting local custom and speaking to people with courtesy and respect. This gives the message that overseas tourists are nice people, who value other cultures besides their own and aren't as crass and rude as they appear to be on Jersey Shores! Unfortunately I often see rudeness rather than courtesy, and it only reflects poorly on all of us.

Because of exposure to Western popular culture there is a danger that people will aspire to ours and devalue their own. I don't want the places I visit to lose their unique cultures, I want them to know that I value them. That's why I eat their food, follow their customs, take interest in their handcrafts and textiles and try not to impose my personal standards on others. In that way I give them pride in what they have. It's not a lot, but it's something.

So there you have it, just my thoughts on travelling wisely. Feel free to leave your thoughts too.

Don't knock it till you've done it

Before I headed down the beach, I was recalling my travel to China back in 1989. I left you in Guilin, on the River Li, about to take a ferry trip to Yangshuo.

As an obsessive travel forum/ travel blog lurker, it seems to me that the ferry trip from Guilin to Yangshuo is these days denigrated as a bit of a tourist trap, and that only the lower reaches are worth the expense of jumping on a boat to glide along a river surrounded by karst peaks. I've also read similar things about numerous other boat trips along rivers throughout Asia, and basically, there's no consensus really. There's those that put down any trip that includes the more middle class package tourist, unless it's possible to see the real estate by a more "real' method. This was the logic around the well heeled tourists taking the tour boats, and the backpackers taking the felucca down the Nile in Egypt. Then there's those like me, that realise that the real estate is what we've come to see, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If a person is more concerned about the comfort, or lack thereof, of their chosen mode of transport, then I suspect they won't have the inclination to enjoy the spectacular scenery they are floating through. So live and let live.

Anyway, back in 1989 I can assure you the River Li cruise was already a tourist trap. But I kind of get a kick out of this anyway (I clearly recall us all doing brown eyes from our felucca at passing cruise boats all those years ago!), as I enjoy watching other people and how they deal with a different environment and culture. And the whole touring palaver was new to me back then, everything fascinated me. In fact it still does.

The cruise was spectacular: karst peaks, mist, clouds, moody river, verdant green paddy fields, and occasional fishermen. There were at least 10 ferry boats, and there was lots of hooting of horns and possibly some racing shenanigans going on between boat captains. We were the only westerners on our boat, the rest being from Taiwan and Japan and after considerable jostling, the boats set off. The first part was thick with peaks surrounding us on all sides, the middle section was undulating pastures, then the peaks returned as we approached Yangshuo. Arriving in this small town we were shocked to see so many tourists alighting, the numerous signs in English and to realise we were in some sort of different place to anywhere we'd been before. Yes, this was our first backpacker ghetto.


Over the next day and a half mum and I were left to our own devices. We were installed in one of the better hotels in town, although the room was damp, the toilet didn't flush and there was no hot water. Or electricity a good deal of the time either. We checked in and headed out, passing The Hard Rock Cafe, Charlie Chaplin's Bar and the Sheraton Hotel. We had a wonderful giggle at the Chinglish and had a first encounter with the ethnic minority people of Southern China. Little did I know that 20 years later I would spend over 3 months exploring these interesting cultures of SE Asia, absolutely fascinated with their textiles and needlework.

Next we did some money changing. In 1989 foreigners could only exchange their western currency for Foreign Exchange Certificates, or FECs. The people's money, Renminbi (RMB), could not be exchanged into foreign currency, and could not be used in the government owned Friendship Stores to buy overseas consumer goods, like TVs. Funny to think that back then everything wasn't made in China! The locals were very keen to get hold of FECs, and tourists were keen to get hold of Renminbi to pay for day to day expenses, especially as the exchange rate was about 1.8 RMB to 1 FEC. The only way to get RMB was to use the black market, often small private stallholders selling tourist souvenirs. Whilst mum rode shotgun, I did the deal, and we emerged with a fistful of real chinese money. Boy we were proud of ourselves!!

The difference between these two forms of currency meant both sides had the opportunity to get a good deal. As both FECs and RMB were in "Yuan", the official currency, shopkeepers would bargain in Yuan but expect FEC. Imagine their disappointment when the tourist gives them RMB instead. Score one to the tourist!! And if the tourist travelled using RMB the cost of living was so cheap. It wasn't totally all on the tourist's side though, because transportation and entry prices to tourist sites were much more expensive, and often only accepted in FECs. When the Chinese government finally discarded the two tiered monetary system they also outlawed different pricing tiers as well.  But that combination of fear, danger and joy experienced when playing the black market for the first time is an experience I will always cherish.

Next morning we decided to head out of town on bicycles to explore the countryside. Mum's newly acquired asthma had resolved by now, but it appeared that the saying "just like riding a bike" isn't totally to be believed. I am sure my mother has ridden a bike in her youth, but do you think she could manage to stay upright on a bog standard Chinese bike? No way Jose, she needed trainer wheels, not an available extra option at the bike hire place outside the Yangshuo Hotel. What to do?

We'd been in China for at least a week by now, and had not failed to notice that riding a bike is rarely a solo affair. Mum, dad, three kids, two chickens and a pig could be easily accommodated on one rusty Chinese treadly by the average peasant, so why were we getting all hot under the collar that the old lady couldn't ride her own bike? Admittedly the steel carrier rack would not have been all that comfortable, but mum cheerfully perched herself sidesaddle behind me and we peddled off into the countryside. Let me tell you, when a westerner cycles past with a more senior western lady perched behind her, Chinese style, on one bicycle, most peasants fall off their bicycles themselves. A few westerners did too! We laughed a lot that day, both with and at the locals, saw some beautiful scenery, and only once ended up in a ditch when mum tried to move her weight to get a little more comfy.

That evening we visited one of the backpacker bars for an Irish Coffee, discovered banana pancakes for the very first time, and had my first exposure to the loud fat arrogant American tourist.

The next day we drove back to Guilin and prepared to fly on to Xi'an, home of the terracotta warriors.

My first windsurfing video

http://vimeo.com/34318948

click on this link to see how I spend my summers. you don't get many better days than this down at Coros.

Enjoy.....

Coronation Xmas

The culmination of my year is the annual camping trip to Coronation Beach. Coronation is my local windsurfing spot, and is only a mere 15km north up the beach from where I live, but it feels like a million miles away.

The world comes to us over summer, as Geraldton, and Coronation Beach in particular, is a fixture in the lives of many international wind and kite surfers, who travel here every year for our consistent wind and waves. Visitors who don't know, when they venture down the hill to see up to a hundred sailors out on the water often ask if there's a competition on. No, we explain, just a lot of people having fun. And us locals like to enjoy our time up here at the beach as well.

I brought the camper up 2 weeks ago, and initially I commuted to work daily, returning for an evening sail, but for ten days over Xmas and New Year I get to camp up here full-time and go sailing all day. It's a great time to just chill out with mates, spend lazy hours swimming, sailing and drinking copious cups of tea. Communal Xmas dinner, washed down with cold beer and a few glasses of red, after a day of wind and waves is what it's all about.

The solar setup is working fantastically, in fact there is little need to rotate the panels to the sun as there are so many hours of sunlight here that my battery stays topped up easily. Lights, fridge, shower and computer, with no concerns whatsoever. I've had all the men, and some of the women, come over to check out my handiwork, and leave suitably impressed, some even requesting advice.

The most fun we've had so far this holiday is filming with our Gopro video cameras. Kate has two cameras and I have one, so we have been having a whale of a time chasing each other around on the water trying to get the money shot. I've managed some nice aerials and wave riding footage and with Nicky on the kite filming with the third camera we are hoping to put together a fun little film. Stay tuned!

The Bradley kids arrived last night, and will stay a few days, though I had to ring home this morning to order more food, snorkelling gear, boogie boards, and Carter's toothbrush and thongs. And games, and jumpers - it can get cold here at night when the wind's blowing a gale till after midnight. They've timed their stay quite well, as it's looking like hot troughed out weather for the next couple of days. This is perfect for just lazy beach days, which I'm not averse to after 6 days straight of sailing. A little recharge of my batteries is in order.

And I've a little video editing to do….

A necessary evil?

Backpacker ghetto.

A location, often in a large city, but it also can be a small town or village which has taken on this role. It is usually only a small area, bounded by a few blocks only, but with a very high percentage of cheap hotels/ backpacker hostels and small restaurants, cafes and bars. And lots of tourist agencies selling bus and train tickets, local tours and more.

Within said location the population is almost exclusively foreign, except for those working in the businesses which flourish on the trade. The customers can be easily identified by their frequently revealing clothing, or lack thereof, their dreadlocks and fisherman's trousers, their tattoos and hair braids. The cafes and bars seem to be overly inspired by rastafarian themes, with reggae music blaring out into the street from midmorning till the wee hours. There are five or six tattoo parlours, knockoff CD and DVDs for sale on every corner, and there's usually a yoga studio or two. The breakfast menu always includes banana pancakes and a selection of smoothies, and the day menu offers pizzas and hamburgers for those times when the local cuisine becomes all too much. There's usually a few local dishes on the menu, but they've been modified greatly to suit the tastes of a much less sophisticated clientele. And there is always beer, unless it's run out. Of course there are other, unmentioned, substances for sale, it is merely a matter of asking and a young man will be sent off on a motorbike to source you a supply.

It's heaven on earth. A place where you can be surrounded by your own kind, eat food you understand, spend your time in an altered mind state, and not have a care in the world. All around you are cute young things who are only too happy to let it all hang out, have a wonderful time, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Bliss!

These places exist all over the world but my experience is primarily Australasian: Khao San Rd (Bangkok), Kuta Beach (Bali), Koh Phangan/Samui/Tao (Thailand), Chiang Mai (Thailand), Gili islands (Lombok Indonesia), Vang Vieng (Laos), Cairns Esplanade (Australia), Goa (India), Airlie Beach (Australia) and Yangshuo (China) just to name a few. Some come and go, like Tuk Tuk on Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia) which is a mere ghost of it's past glory in the 90's, and Dahab (Egypt) which has succumbed to high rise and the middle class tourism of divers and windsurfers. But others go from strength to strength, becoming bigger and bolder and more foreign with the years. Thailand, the most visited SE Asian country in the world probably has the monopoly on the backpacker ghetto, although I suspect Mexico and Central America have their fair share as well. And then there's Vang Vieng….

I am not a fan of backpacker ghettoes, but I can see their usefulness. Foreigners arriving in a new locale like to know where they can go to find reasonably priced accommodation, food they can eat without burning their insides, and people who speak their language who can help them with travel plans. And most importantly, where they can meet like minded fellow travellers to have fun with! These ghettos bear no resemblance to the people or culture of the country or city in which they are located. In fact their resemblance to each other is almost uncanny. A piece of familiarity the world over.

A backpacker ghetto's usefulness is in its familiarity. It isn't home, but it's a place where you don't have to feel pressured by the local social norms to cover up from head to toe in blistering heat, where you can relax and not attempt to speak a foreign language all day, where you know the bar will have beer and your favourite banana and mango smoothie, and you'll have an endless supply of new friends to party with. You never feel lonely in a backpacker ghetto, you're amongst your own kind.

The spread of these places across the planet means it is almost possible to travel from one ghetto to another without stepping outside into the actual culture of the country you may be travelling in. Thailand in particular has almost made this seamless, with private minibus services between tourist hot spots that make taking government buses quite redundant. So much easier than schlepping out to a bus station and trying to understand all that squiggly script. East Coast Australia from Sydney to Cape Tribulation - a breeze!

I am not immune to the advantages of the ghetto, but for me it's a chance to relax, recharge batteries (literally and metaphorically), and contemplate my next adventure. I'm also not a fan of the western food on offer, as it isn't food I'd eat at home anyway, so I'll usually venture out a few blocks back into the real world, find a street stall frequented by lots of locals and tuck into whatever the popular cuisine is. I really do miss noodle soup for breakfast...

The problem with the ghetto, is that some people feel so at home in it, they manage to travel the whole world without often leaving it. No real fault of the ghetto after all. It's really just a place that employs a lot of locals to look after poor bastards who are far too scared to get out there and really see the real world. Without the coterie of their own crowd. Without a common language. Or the benign palate of banana pancakes and gado gado.

You know the best bit about the ghetto? It's become a tourist attraction. Seriously. Khao San Road for instance is a very popular place for young Thais to go and have a laugh at the dreadlocked westerners trying to be hippies and buddhists for a gap year. Yep, we've become such an entrenched part of that city that the locals want to see what it's all about. Perhaps it's cross cultural exchange, but I don't think so, not from what I've heard. It's pure voyeurism.

Fancy that, go travel the world and become a tourist attraction. A cliched one at that. No thanks.

Were we a front?

March 1989. A fledgling democracy movement is spreading its wings. In less than 3 months time tens of thousands of young students and pro democracy demonstrators will be brutally gunned down by the Chinese Army in Tienanmen Square, the rest will be rounded up and imprisoned, the ringleaders tortured and summarily executed. But today that shameful episode in Chinese history fails to rate a mention.

Our Chinese tour company was China Youth Travel Service, government sanctioned, with most of our guides being recent university graduates with good English language skills. But there were only 3 participants: Mum and myself, and Alex, the sleazy geologist from Perth. In China we had a national guide, "Michael", and in each location we had a driver and local guide. And Alex only joined us for 10 days, so for the final 8 days mum and I had our own private tour. Not bad hey?

We wondered about that. Why did the trip go ahead with such a small group? It was an expensive trip, especially in comparison with the cost to travel independently, and perhaps everyone was making enough of a cut anyway? But mum's theory, made later, after the June massacre, was that we were a front, a way for our guide to legitimately travel without drawing the attention of the Communist Party spies. It certainly explains the all night meetings with "other students" wherever we went. And the number of times we had to wake Michael up in order not to miss our plane. I often wonder what happened to Michael, whether he died alongside all those others on that fateful day in June, or ended his days in front of a firing squad or maybe managed to gain asylum overseas....

The train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou was uneventful. It was packed with Chinese taking consumer goods - electrical equipment mostly - to the mainland, and then they bought up all the duty free grog and cigarettes on offer as well. We spent the trip watching the scenery change from washing hanging off the balconies of every tenement block in densely populated Kowloon to modern apartment blocks in the New Territories, also heavily festooned with laundry. Once across the barbed wire and sentries at the border the land changed to intensive cultivation, interspersed with shoddy half built houses which increased in number and shoddiness as we approached Guangzhou. First stop lunch, our first experience of authentic Cantonese cuisine, and our first experience of the sheer horror of the Chinese communal toilet.

For the benefit of those who are yet to experience this wonder of Chinese ingenuity, Chinese public toilets have door-less partitions approx 2 feet high with a long gutter running the length of the establishment. You go into your partitioned area, straddle the gutter and squat down to do your business. You try not to look at everyone else, because yes, you can see who else is busy crapping, and whatever you do, you don't look down. That's where the overwhelming stench comes from, where all your and everyone else's excretions for the last two hundred years is fermenting away, a few feet below you. Plus the ones that didn't quite make it! If you are extremely lucky someone regularly hoses it out, but more often than not, luck is not on your side. As a general piece of advice, it's best to go to the toilet BEFORE a meal, if you get my drift...

Those squat jobs still exist all over China, particularly in rural areas, where they'll hang over an irrigation channel so your waste contributes to the next crop, but in the big cities they've installed a lot of nice normal loos, even Eco loos, and almost all hotels have western toilets. Here's my favourite: it was pristine, and when you stood up it bagged your crap, blasted a bit of cold air around and made ready for the next user. Not sure all that plastic was environmentally protective though....

Toilets aside, the joy of China is indisputably its food. Our days revolved around it. Sumptuous breakfast followed by some sightseeing, followed by a huge lunch of countless different dishes, a bit more sightseeing, then time to stuff ourselves yet again. It was difficult to work out where we'd fit in time to actually see some sights, as our guides were always making haste to get us to the next restaurant. We would taste a little of every dish, they were all so delicious, but we were bulging at the seams! We did once have a tense moment over one of the dishes, after spying dog meat in the market.

Even with all those meal stops, we managed to spend 3 days cycling in Guangdong Province, along quiet roads with little traffic, where we were a very new sight for the locals. We visited Seven Star Crags, where we took a boat trip through an underground river, played the black market and got to buy and let off an obscene amount of rockets and firecrackers. Then we went back for more! Kids in a candy shop, only a little more explosive...

Following our leisurely bike interlude, mum staying firmly rooted in the van, still wheezing away in the dank humid weather, we flew to Guilin, home to the mist shrouded karst scenery immortalised on numerous tacky Chinese paintings the world over. I believe Guilin has changed a lot, so here's a panorama I scanned and edited from some original photographs taken from one of the hills above the river.

Next we take a ferry to my first backpacker ghetto: Yangshuo.

Let's start with something easy!

I'm 24 years old. I've never been overseas before. My only travel experiences as a child and young adult have been road trips in Australia. I'd stayed with friends and family, I'd done a lot of camping, I'd frequented quite a few backpackers' hostels between Sydney and Cairns and I'd even done a few weekends in budget holiday cabins. I'm feeling pretty nervous.

Alongside me is my mum, veteran of two odd years travel back in the fifties, when she'd taken the boat to England, worked a few jobs in London in order to travel through Britain and the Continent, then spent a further year working in Canada. Mum's not fazed at all.

I was leaving Australia to travel the world, with no return date. I had a one way ticket to Hong Kong, then onto Bangkok. There I planned to find a cheap ticket to Kathmandu, where I would join an overland tour to London. But first on the agenda was China.

Yes China! Mum had wanted to visit China back in her journeying days, but back in the fifties China was closed to the outside world. Then in 1979 she opened her doors to the West, and a steady stream of international investors and tourists began to arrive. Travel was difficult. The trains were rundown, the road system was almost non existent, the planes were Russian and the Chinese Communist government continued to restrict where tourists could and couldn't go, where they could stay, and what currency they could use. By the time we arrived in 1989 there were less restrictions, but it was still a very difficult thing to navigate the bureaucracy and get where you wanted to go.

For all the above reasons we decided to book a tour, using a tour agency based in Sydney, which arranged guides, accommodation and transfers. For 18 days we were to join a fully supported tour to visit Guangzhou, cycle through the Guangdong Province countryside, fly to Guilin and travel down the river Li to Yangshuo, visit Xian then on to Beijing. After 4 days in Beijing seeing all the sights, we were to add on a further 10 days of self guided travel. Aside from our accommodation and transfers, we'd find our own way around for a further 4 days in Beijing, 2 days in Shanghai, and a couple of days each in Suzhou and Hangzhou. Then we'd fly back to Hong Kong and mum and I would head our separate ways.

China back then was really hard work. Very few people spoke English and Caucasian tourists were a huge tourist attraction. Chinese people have little concept of personal space so they touch you anywhere, and take your possessions to inspect and pass around to their friends whilst laughing and talking in a language you don't understand. We felt like prize zoo exhibits in a very cramped enclosure, and when we left China after a month we were so glad to leave. It was only when I returned to China in 2008, to a very different place indeed, that I realised I had in fact been deeply traumatised by that initial visit, and was kicking myself that it had taken me so long to return. China today, although not as easy as places like Thailand, is a fairly easy place to travel in, now that most of those past restrictions have been lifted. And although the cityscapes and people's clothing have westernised, China continues to be a place of amazing beauty, fascinating history and friendly people. Though a lot less "in your face" than back then.

The morning we leave Sydney my mother develops her first ever asthma attack. She boards a plane feeling wheezy, short winded and very unwell. And when we arrive in Hong Kong she throws her cigarettes away forever. My first job is to get us to a hotel, because we've been delayed in Melbourne 5 hours, and we arrive in Honkers at 2am. No friendly tour agent to meet us at that time, so we jump in a share taxi and make our way to HK Island via the tunnel and a drop off in Kowloon. I'm on red alert. My mum's wheezing like a steam train and that flag fall was 30HKD when I'd heard it was only 6.50. So when we get to our destination I refuse to give our man more than 50 dollars (plus tunnel toll) and successfully avoid my first overseas scam. But at the time I thought even that was a ripoff.

Later that morning I find mum a local health clinic and doctor, get her loaded up with antibiotics and puffers, leave her back at the hotel and head out to purchase a new pair of spectacles. I'd heard that optical services were cheap in Hong Kong, so I took my prescription in and a few hours later picked up my new purchase. And I did all this within 24 hours of arriving in my first overseas country. But it was only Hong Kong after all.

Back at the hotel mum's getting cold feet and thinking about going home. Well she is having a rather hard time breathing! But her daughter's a doctor and assures her that she'll get better with medication and time, and this trip has been so lovingly planned. We agree she probably won't be doing any cycling, something I later discover was never on the cards anyway. She acquiesces to the bullying of her able bodied travel companion and joins me in meeting our one other tour participant, a geologist from Perth called Alex. He's a nice friendly guy, and over the next 10 days becomes increasingly desperate to win my affections. Mum and I unfortunately gang up on him, poor chap, as he really wasn't my type, and far too old at 42. "Yuck!" I'm only just out of nappies remember!

From Hong Kong, we take the train to Guangzhou, where we are met by our Chinese tour guide.
That's the next story.

Tales of past travel

I'm in a quandary at the moment. I'm not really sure whether I'll have enough money to pull the plug totally next year, so have been thinking about probably staying in the workforce a little longer. No doubt the uncertainty in the financial situation worldwide makes me somewhat jumpy about the viability of living on investment income for the next fifty years, but hopefully within the next six months we'll all know whether we are totally up shit creek without a paddle, or not. I'm thinking the smelly option myself...

Realistically though, when I travel overseas in developing countries (I do like a good euphemism) I have an uncanny ability to live off the smell of an oily rag (don't mind a cliche or two either!). I'm continuously surprised when I read other people's travel blogs to realise that my comfort requirements whilst travelling are extremely low. People post pictures of "the worst ever room" they stayed in, and I look at it and am reminded of that wonderful Python sketch involving the Yorkshiremen: "Luxury!!" And I also appear to be in the less than 0.1% of the western population that can not only eat it, but adore Durian! Ok I'm weird, get over it..

But I wasn't always so easy going in the travel department, and I'm also totally able to lush it up when the situation arises, though I'm not sure I could ever totally stomach first class air travel unless someone else was footing the bill. I prefer to travel on the cheap because it gets you much closer to the people and culture in which you are visiting. But there's the crux, I don't do it 'cause I have to, but 'cause I want to, and I don't mind the discomfort. Then again, I love camping and sleeping out in the great outdoors. If you have never slept out under the stars in the Aussie outback in a swag, then put it on your bucket list.

Since all this technology hasn't actually been around all that long, I've got a lot of back stories of travel that I wrote in journals, and took pictures of using a film camera, with only 36 pictures per roll. Yes that's right, back last century!!!

I thought I might start to revisit them, pull out the old diaries and write about my travels from back then. On this blog. Sort of a blast from the past while I'm waiting for the future. Plus I've got to do something to keep myself amused whilst I'm camped up the beach if the wind doesn't blow. You bet I've got a 12 volt charger for the computer!! And there's mobile coverage on top of the sand dune, so internet's possible as well!!

In 1989 I left Australia and went travelling for almost 2 years. The first place I went to was China, then through Thailand and Nepal and overland to Europe, including the Middle East. I went to Petra before Indiana Jones! I remember this because when I saw him hooning up the siq on that horse at the end of the movie I was so jealous. We'd tried so hard to get the locals to let us loose galloping their horses through that narrow passage and they'd flatly refused. The rich American actor got to do it, not fair!!

When I got to the UK I bought a bicycle, and aside from the time I spent doing a little work around the NHS hospitals of England and Scotland, I spent the remainder of my travels on that bike, touring Ireland, Scotland, England and finally the European continent. The latter was in the summer of 1990, not long after the Berlin Wall came down, and I got to visit the east before the crowds and the cynicism set in. It was a truly remarkable time.

So I'm going to delve through my personal archives, scan some old pictures, and start blogging again about past travel tales. I hope you enjoy them.