Posts tagged travelling
“It’s all about ADVENTURE!!”
Tasmania is about the size of Ireland, yet has a population of 500,000, which gives you an idea of the amount of space around you on this island.
The island is considered so out-of-the-way, that you can only get there via an internal flight from somewhere in Australia, which are quite thin on the ground anyway. This is what constitutes the tiny domestic airport you enter after getting off the plane. The distance between the plane and the car waiting for you outside (be it taxi, bus or otherwise) is about 50 metres, and there is only one tiny baggage reclaim belt, which gives you an idea as to how small and ‘out-of-the-way’ this place is.
Hobart, the capital sits in the shadow of Mount Wellington. A mountain that on most days you can jump on a tour called ‘All downhill from here’ which will drive you up to the top the mountain with bikes on the back, so that once at the top you can bike it all the way down. If you get the chance, do it. While at the top of the mountain, at this time of year, you will find icicles on your nose and you hands may go numb, it is still an incredible view from the top, looking North, East, South and West all over Tasmania. I can imagine that in the summer this tour is even better (especially as it started getting dark as we got to the bottom, which is where you go off road. Adventure tour indeed).
On Saturdays, by the marina, there is a massive market that is set up from 4:30 in the morning and carries on until 6:00 in the afternoon, all with the backdrop of Mt. Wellington. All the way along the street there are restaurants and cafes, one of which is Retro, a great place to go and chill for breakfast, watching the bustle of the market only get more intense.
Here in Hobart we met up with the STA US interns, Casey and Natalie, and have spent the past few days travelling Tasmania with them both and our tour guide, Greg, who is doing for the Tasmanian Tiger what Steve Irwin did for ‘crocs’.
Greg’s middle name is apparently ‘Adventure’. At any opportunity he will convince anyone that the road less taken is the right one to take, that it would be an ‘Adventure’ and just a bit of fun. More often than not, it is the road less taken for a reason. Yesterday we ended up in the middle of nowhere having to dig the bus out of a mixture of manure and mud. What an adventure.
Along the East Coast, there is small town called Bicheno. Now when I say ‘small town’, what I really mean is a couple of houses, a pub and a supermarket. The entire time we were there I think I saw 3 locals, but even they were some of the nicest people I have ever met (something that HAS to be said about Tasmania is that everyone here is amazingly friendly. all they want to do is make sure that everyone around them is happy and in tern, ooze happiness themselves. It makes the entire island and big bundle of happy helpful people. If you ever get lost, get lost in Tasmania!).In the morning, at some point during you stay, set your alarm a little (or a lot depending on who you are) earlier and head down the the beach to watch the sunrise. Tasmania is one of the ‘Greenest’ places in one of the ‘Greenest’ countries on the Earth, which means that there is no pollution in the air, making the sunrises spectacular, rivalling those on the beaches of Tulum in Mexico. At this time of year though, it is around -2ºC at the time of the sunrise, and make sure you get the right time (not an hour earlier like I thought. It is not fun the wait around in the freezing cold for the sun to finally come up), but it’s worth it at any time of year.
Off up another mountain today, this place is full of them.
Matt M
STA UK WTI 2010
Bungee Jumping
There are four things that you need to remember when you are doing a bungee jump:
1) Despite everything your body is telling you this IS going to be fun
2) It’s safe, I promise
3) Make as much noise as you can, all the way down, it will help, and
4) the moment you finish, you WILL be wanting to do it again.
I did my first bungee jump in a water park in Venice. I had always wanted to do it, and when the opportunity came along for a pretty low price I was all over it. At the time I was in a pretty dark place, and the moment I was taken off the rope all my problems seemed to have been blasted away by the amount of adrenaline pumping through my body. I was hooked.
For my following birthday, my sister got me a bungee jump voucher for anywhere in the UK. I spent no time waiting around, and booked into the earliest slot I could. I spent the next weeks shaking with excitement and once again threw myself off the platform and screamed all the way down. Knowing what to expect, I was so much more ready for what was to follow, and I was officially addicted to adrenaline.
The strangest thing that you will experience is the moment before you jump, as you step to the edge of the platform and look out into nothing. Everything in your head is telling you that this is wrong, that this should not be happening, and that this is NOT a good idea. Even that feeling makes me smile now.
Both of these jumps were at a mere 70 metres. Macau Sky Tower is the biggest bungee in the world, the main platform standing at an amazing 235 metres above the ground. As if I was not going to do this.
I do have to admit, that for the first time, I felt pretty ill on the way up to the top, which you take via a lift that accents at 6 metres per second. Mostly I was scared that I was going to bring the massive buffet I had just gorged on back up on the way back down. after standing at the top for a long while however, that feeling I am so used to washed over me like a blanket, and all I could do was smile.
There is no way that I can describe hurtling towards the ground held only by an elastic rope. That, you will have to experience for yourself, but suffice it to say, that that feeling and the incredible amount of adrenaline I got from it sent me through the next 24 hours. If there is anything I would tell you do in Macau, it would be the Sky Tower. If anything, for the views you get of the entire city as you fall to the floor.
Matt M
STA UK WTI 2010
Things can only get colder
With yet another England misery, came another amazing day in Hong Kong. Some how we had landed ourselves among the rich and famous of the Ex-Pats, and were chilling out next to a pool and being waited on hand and foot all day. The friends you make while travelling can land you in the strangest of places!
Quickly we had to come back to reality and leave the luxury of Hong Kong for Oz. We gave a fond farewell to our new friends (who offered to put us up for a few weeks next year for the ‘Sevens Tournaments’ which are apparently the best thing since sliced bread, and after experiencing the Hong Kong nightlife, I will be booking my flights back very soon), and set off for Melbourne. Stepping off the plane was a bracing experience. The last time I landed here, I was leaving winter and arriving in summer. Now, I was leaving 42ºC and landing in 9. I should not have been wearing shorts.
I will never under appreciate the joys of living in an English-speaking country again. The fact that we were able to go into a corner shop and ask for what we wanted without being confronted with a blank, dazed expression was heavenly.
It was all about catching up on lost time over the following days. We were back in hostels, back in dorms, and back to the real travelling life, and so there were no luxuries to distract from the job at hand. After hours of editing and uploading, we hit the streets of Melbourne, calling into STA Australia, who handed us free tickets to the 280 metre Eureka tower. Although higher, it was nothing compared to the thrill of the Macau Sky Tower!
If you ever find yourself in Melbourne, I urge you to go to Shanghai Dumplings, located on Tattersalls Lane, just off the main road. I was handed 15 dumplings of fried pork for a mere AU$5.60 (about £3.50), and they were fantastic, but beware that these will come out hotter than the sun. I am still recovering.
Off to Tasmania now, were I’m told it’s even colder than here…. god help me.
Matt M
Suits, shirts and sleeper trains
A week further down the line and we have managed to stretch across the whole length of Vietnam, I am now sitting in my room over looking Ha Long Bay, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
A week ago I ended up in the Nah Trang Mud Baths after sitting by the pool for a good few hours nursing the burn that everyone had managed to acquire. It would seem that a bunch of white westerners was actually more of an attraction to the locals than the baths themselves, a fact I realised when an elderly Vietnamese man with black teeth came over and stroked my skin and laughed… its a strange country. The mud baths themselves were an experience, it turns out that they weren’t the thick kind of mud I thought they were going to be, more like an off green runny paste that you sat in for 15 minutes. Was still a good way to spend the afternoon, and good laugh had by everyone who came along, and at around £4 a pretty cheep way to spend it to.
After to heading the cash point and withdrawing 1,000,000 Vietnamese Dong (it’s pretty strange seeing that number coming across an ATM machine) we went on to board out second sleeper train. This time around, we were told that the train would not be waiting around for very long, that we would have to run to get on, and that if we weren’t on time it would leave without us. Yet getting a sweet on and fighting to get on that train was not worth the hassle.
The window was smashed, the mattress emitted an amazing amount of flies when you sat on it, and cockroaches had set up shop in most corners of the room. I felt unhealthy just sitting in there.
As if 8 hours wasn’t enough in that hell hole, the train broke down somewhere along the way for a further hour. I think in all I slept about an hour and half. Once again, there was a rush to get off the train before it started moving again. One upside to the whole thing was turning around to see one of the most incredible sunrises coming over the train. Every cloud.
Hói An is a small town that sits on a river that has been made famous for the amount of tailors that have set up shop here. For around £55 you can get a full suit with shirt and tie, all completely made to fit you how you want. How could I have said no?
It takes just over 24 hours to get the suits finished, but it’s totally worth it. I came out of the shop with the nicest suit I have ever owned, and for a quarter of the price I would have paid back home. Most of the girls I was with went about getting a fitted dresses as well, but this will take a little longer, mainly because they will look much more extravagant! I was offered the chance to get shoes made for me as well, but I thought I would draw the line somewhere!
On the first night in Hói An it was one of our groups birthday, and after a few hours of fittings, we all went to a bar restaurant called Before and After, which you can find nearer the river at the centre of ‘Old Town’ where a few of us carried on the night after the meal.
We were approached by an American who seemed to love that my name was Matt (I never found out why) who then shoved a leaflet into my hand explaining about a Beach Party and a free bus would take us to. Not one to pass up such an offer, I jumped on with Katie. Here you can get a bucket of some disgusting mixture of Red Bull, Orange Juice and Vodka in a massive bucket for 65,000 Dong (around £2.20), and after a couple of these you will be sufficiently inebriated.
A great way to cure a hang over in Hói An is to get on a coach at 8am and head to the My Son temples. Here they are using some of the US army jeeps left over from the war to cart you up the mountain to the ruins. One of the monuments in the complex was once considered the centre of the universe and there is a small statue of a penis that you can touch to give you a better libido. I hugged it.
We moved on the next day for a quick stop over in Hue (pronounced H-way), here there isn’t much in the way of tourism apart for a number of bars where you can find a handful of over travellers. But the one reason that you should go there is the opportunity to experience the crazy streets of Vietnam first hand. For 250,000 Dong (about £9) you can be taken on a tour on the back of a motorcycle around the rice fields and local villages around Hue, the views you get to see are incredible, and the adrenaline rush of riding at 30 miles per hour on the wrong side of the ride is, while ill-advised, a brilliant feeling!
The next day we set about on our epic 19 hour journey to Ha Long Bay. The journey went something like this: Sleeper train late by 1 hour, sitting in the pouring rain, sleeper train is better than the last one but teaming with roaches, watch movies, air con breaks, sweat through sleep, get off train, bus has flat tyre, ‘10 minute’ wait turns into an hour and half, drive to mechanics, wait another ‘10 minutes’ (45 minutes), back on bus, 3 hour journey to Ha Long Bay. I will never get annoyed at the London transport system again.
Ha Long Bay is easily the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. We got on a boat almost immediately and set off around the 1,968 islands around the bay on our own ‘Junk boat’. If you ever managed to do this, there are three things you should do: Visit the caves, go to the floating fishing villages and watch the sunset out at sea. All of these things are breathtaking. One thing you should avoid is the beach. There is apparently only one beach that you can go to during the trip (how true this is I don’t know and don’t want to know now that we are leaving!) it will cost you 10,000 Dong, it isn’t much, but it still isn’t worth it. It’s crowded, filthy and totally destroys the peaceful feeling you might have managed to acquire during the journey. There is a path behind the beach up to the top of the hill which will give you the most amazing view aver the islands, and that is what you should pay for, but avoid this beach at all costs!
We are about to set off for the wonderful capital city of Hanoi, and our last few nights in Vietnam, so I will write again once in Hong Kong!
Tell then.
Matt