Tag Archives: museum

Prague (Part 1)

June 11, 2023 richardpieper Leave a comment

Prague is the capital city of the Czech Republic (now Chechia and formerly Czechoslovakia). I made it here on an (almost) all-expenses paid work trip back in the day and loved every bit of it. It was stunningly beautiful and it was as cheap as chips. And from my perspective, Pilsner Urquell has been one of my favourite drops for a very long time. So I have been telling Jill for over a decade now that she would love it.

So after a quick 3 hr flight to get here from Crete, we were picked up and delivered to our hotel. It is amazing to see the way some people behave on a 3 hr flight. I guess from a European context, 3 hrs is a long flight whereas for us it is a puddle jump. The guy in front of us (about 50) was honestly worse than a kid with ADD. He fidgeted, farted and moved every few seconds for the entire flight. He sat in 4 different seats (not a full plane) throughout the flight and sat in 3 of them changing on average every 5 mins.

In addition to this, both he and the woman he was with had to urinate 3 times (each) in a short flight. The last bit was pretty common as I was passed by about 4 different people heading to the loo who also made at least 3 trips. At one point there was a line of 8 people queued up the aisle.

If you could ignore the carry-on and just stare out the window, it was lovely. The river meandered through a beautiful green countryside, and every now and then you would see some snow-capped mountains.

In doing my research for this post I found that the Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per capita in the world and has topped the per capita beer drinking table for 24 consecutive years.

Maybe this influenced why I loved this place.

Anyway, Prague has been a populated area for several thousands of years with decent records showing consistent habitation since around 500 BC. In the 5th and 6th centuries, Slavic tribes moved in and began building fortifications. By the 9th and 10th centuries, this fortification had extended to the building of Prague Castle. By the 1300’s Prague had developed into an imperial capital and significant planned expansions took place. By the 1700s many rich merchants and nobles moved in and built a host of palaces, churches and gardens. The big point is that Prague’s cultural attractions mostly survived the violence and destruction of 20th-century Europe (WWI and WWII).

According to the blurb, today Prague has over 2,000 officially recognised architectural and artistic monuments, ranging in period from the Romanesque through the Gothic to the Baroque, Rococo, Classical, and Neoclassical. And this I can truly believe, you cannot walk 5 meters without seeing amazing buildings, architecture and statues.

So the question has become, how to attack this in a way that seems semi-logical. This is pretty tough when there is so much to see in such close proximity. I tried my usual chronology but there was just so much that is amazing so I have had to split it into two parts and have had to group items as things get really confusing, really quickly.

As we were staying on the western side of the river, this was where we explored first. I must say upfront, we were gifted on the days that we had. The temperature was in the low 20s, and the skies were a beautiful blue, with the odd wispy cloud to give the photos a touch of character. The buildings of Prague are stunning. Everywhere you look there is character, whether old or new the place is a blast.

Old Town

Old Town is on the eastern bank of the River it started as a marketplace back in the 10th century. Old town Square (or Staromestske Namesti) is the main square where you will find major tourist attractions including the:

old town hall – originally built in 1364 and fixed multiple times due to varying conflicts etc over the years,
astronomical clock – first installed in 1410
Rococo Kinský Palace – former palace that is now part of the National Gallery Prague.
Gothic House at the Stone Bell
in the pavement of the square are memorial stones marking the execution of 27 Czech lords in 1621, and
the Prague meridian – a narrow brass strip in Prague’s Old Town Square that was used to tell time from 1652 to 1918.

Church of Our Lady before Týn is a 14th-century landmark with 80m towers, ornately carved exteriors & a baroque altarpiece.

The story goes that Walt Disney was inspired by this church when he was designing the very famous Disney Castle.

I can see it…

Convent of St Agnes of Bohemia is one of the oldest (1230’s) and most important Gothic buildings in Prague. It functioned as a religious building for around 550 years before falling to ruin. It was restored and now houses the National Gallery.

The Baroque Church of St Nicholas took 51 years (1704-1755) to build and is in Lesser town (the area below the palace but before you cross the Charles Bridge into Old Town).

It was built on the same site where there used to be a Gothic church.

Žofín Palace messed up my plans to go east and west of the river as it was built on an island in the middle of the river. Dating back to the 1830’s this new Renaissance building was built as a cultural centre / concert hall. In 1884, the entire island was purchased by the City of Prague, which decided to thoroughly re-build and extend the original building.

Marking the exit from Old Town is the Powder Tower. Built in 1475, the dark Gothic structure is one of the 13 original city gates and was used for gunpowder storage in the 17th century.

Charles Bridge connects the Old Town with the Prague Castle area of the city. It was started in 1357 and took a half-century to finish. It was the only means of crossing the river Vltava until 1841.

The bridge is lined with a series of 30 statues on both sides, many of which are over 300 years old.

Prague Castle (Vyšehrad ) Complex is the main show in town. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Prague Castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world, with an area of almost 70,000 m². It consists of the Old Royal Palace, St Virus Cathedral, St George’s Basilica, Golden Lane and the Great South Tower. The castle itself is about 570 metres long and around 130 metres wide, with a history that dates back to the 9th century.

St. Vitus Cathedral is the largest and the most important temple in Prague. It is a Gothic cathedral where construction began in 1344 and it is situated in the middle of the Prague Castle Complex. Apart from religious services, coronations of Czech kings and queens also took place here.

St George’s Basilica, Golden Lane and the Great South Tower (the old prison area) are all also located in the complex that is Prague Castle.

Hradčanské náměstí (Hradcany Square) is the square directly in front of Prague Castle that is the home to virtually everything that you can imagine in a historic sense. The list of what is around the square includes Salmovsky Palace ( National Gallery ), Schwarzenberg Palace (National Gallery, built in 1567), Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, St. Benedict’s Church, Tuscan Palace, Martinique Palace, Saxe-Lauenburg Palace, Losenovsky Palace (U Labutí house), Sternberg Palace (National Gallery), Archbishop’s Palace and Canon houses. Along with any number of statues and columns.

The Loreta is a baroque place of pilgrimage founded in 1626. It was designed as a replica of the Santa Casa (Sacred House; the home of the Virgin Mary) in the Holy Land. These replicas were once found across Catholic Europe (50 in the Czech lands alone), but the Prague Loreta is claimed to be extra special.

Legend says the original Santa Casa was carried by angels to the Italian town of Loreto as the Turks were advancing on Nazareth.

Along with all of the Palaces and historic buildings, Prague is the capital of Museums. Everywhere you look there is another museum. Some of the museums that we came across included the: Alchemy, Apple products, Army, Beer, Chocolate, Communism, Decorative Arts, Fantastic Illusions, Franz Kafka, Historical toilets and chamber ports, Illusion art, Jewish, KGB, Lego, Lobkowicz, Marionette, Military history, Miniatures, Modern art, Mucha, Music, National, Pop-up, Porcelain, Senses, Sex machines, Slivovitz Museum, Technical and many more…

We chose to go to the Old Masters exhibit in the Schwarzenberg Palace. At this point, I realised that I liked statues and sculptures, but could not get excited about paintings. From here we headed up the hill to the Museum of Miniatures. Here you use a microscope or magnifying glass to view micro-miniature sculptures and paintings. Some of these include the Eiffel Tower in a cherry stone, a golden bicycle on a needle, the lord’s prayer on a hair and a camel train within the eye of a needle. Needless to say, the zoom on my phone was not up to this so I grabbed these photos from their website.

And of course we hit the National Museum, but that comes in part 2.

Greece

Athens

May 14, 2023 richardpieper Leave a comment

Well… let’s start with getting here. The Australia to Europe leg of any journey is going to be a nightmare and ours was no different. We woke in the morning in Perth (having done a quick pop home for 4 days to tick a travel insurance box) and had the day to kill before our 11pm departure. Checking out of your hotel at 10 am and leaving a city at 11pm leaves a fair amount of time to kill.

We wandered around the CBD, ate yum cha, watched a (really terrible) movie and found that we still had a ton of time to kill before we were due at the airport. Eventually, 11pm came around and we had been up for 16 hours before we even thought about boarding our (almost) 12 hour flight to Doha in Qatar. After a two-hour wait in Qatar, we then boarded our next leg (nearly) 6 hrs to Athens.

Where upon arrival it then took another 2 hours to clear immigration and get a taxi to our hotel (another hour). While the Greeks may have been the fathers of the sciences and civilisation, they certainly are not anywhere on the scale of modern organisation or efficiency.

Needless to say by the time we got here we were exhausted and we crashed for an afternoon nap. Out for a magnificent dinner and down for an early night so that the adventure could start in earnest tomorrow.

And what a stunning day tomorrow turned out to be. We were blessed with a 23 degree day, a light breeze and crystal clear blue skies. You really could not have hoped for a better day. Our journey began with a (relatively) short Walk to the Metro Station. As luck would have it, our closest Metro stop was in front of the National Library of Greece, the University of Athens and the Academy of Athens. Three stunningly well designed and beautiful buildings in their own right.

After taking some happy snaps of the buildings we entered the Metro for our 2 stop trip to the Akropoli (Acropolis) Station. When the Metro was being built the team kept running across remnants of the old city. This was most evident at the site of the new Acropolis Museum where archaeologists uncovered layers of Athens from the Byzantine era to the Bronze Age. Most of the findings were left in situ (under plexiglass) so people could see them as they were found. Today you can see ancient sights and unearthed treasures, all while heading for your train.

Having gotten off the Metro we then had the shortest of walks (through the suburb of Plaka) to the entrance of the Acropolis. Now this took a bit of working out because terms are used interchangeably and inconsistently, but, the Acropolis is the hill that rises above Athens. On top of that hill are a bunch of pretty famous ancient buildings including the Parthenon etc.

The Acropolis was originally a fortress but has been attacked and destroyed more times than you can imagine. The most notable recorded one was in 480 BC, when the Persians attacked, burned, leveled and looted the Old Parthenon and almost every other structure at the Acropolis. A decade later, (after the Victory of Marathon in 490 BC), Pericles ordered the reconstruction of the Acropolis and the building of a temple for Athena (the Parthenon).

The big ticket items (Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike Bastion, the Erechtheion, Peisistratus Portico, Odeon of Herodes Atticus) are pretty obvious and easy to spot, but the Greeks are terrible at signposting and naming what else is there. So I have had to research what the tourism people claim to be on and around the hill and have described them (as best I can) in my own terms, based on what we saw.

Monument to Agrippa (a monument base)
Temple of Athena Nike Bastion (2 and 3 are basically the main entrance once you have scaled the Acropolis)
Peisistratus Portico (a few columns standing upright – you probably wont notice through the hoards of people and Instagrammers)
Sacred Way (a path)
Base of the statue of Athena Hygeia (a marble plinth)
Precinct of Artemis Vravronia (a flat area to the right once up the hill, usually full of tour bus and cruise ship groups)
Chalcotheke (some rocks where something used to be)
Statue of Athena Promachos (the spot where a huge bronze statue once was)
The Parthenon (the big ticket item – bit hard to miss, has permanently been covered in scaffolding since restoration work commenced in 1983)
Earlier foundations of the Parthenon (pretty accurate description)
Site of the ancient stereobate (underground structure of Greek temple)
Roman Temple (some more rocks where something used to be)
Heroon of Pandion (some more rocks where something used to be)
The great altar of Athena (the location where an altar was before it was moved to Berlin in the 1800’s)
Precinct of Zeus Polieus (some rocks)
Flight of steps (any guesses here?)
Foundation of the Themistoclean wall (more rocks)
The Erechtheion (the second most preserved major building on the hill)
The old temple of Athena Polias (some more rocks where something used to be)
Portico, probably the Arrhephorion (rocks they hope used to be something)
Foundations of a square building (rocks they think used to be something)
Stairway to the caves of Apollo and Pan (stairs towards some holes in the cliff that are inaccessible to visitors)
Foundations of a building of the 5th century BC (fair description)
Roman cistern (a drain at the bottom of the hill)
Caves of Apollo and Pan (some holes in the cliff that are inaccessible to visitors)
The old circular way (Peripatos) round the Acropolis (the path)
Cave and Chapel of Panagia Spiliotissa (church in a cave)
The Asclepeion (three pillars)
Platform with a sacrificial pit (no idea)
The stoa of the Asclepeion (no idea)
Temple of Aphrodite (really not sure)
Prehistoric habitations (nope)
Foundation of the choregic monument of Nikias (statue base maybe?)
The Odeon of Herodes Atticus (huge and awesome amphitheatre)
The Stoa of Eumenes (very cool wall of arches)
Remains of a choregic monument (statue base)
The theatre of Dionysus (bit like 34 – but way older and more rubbly)
Proscenium of the theatre of Dionysus (bit like 34 & 37 – tough to separate)
Old Temple of Dionysus (got nuthen – could only find versions elsewhere – thinking rocks)
New Temple of Dionysus (got nuthen – as above -thinking rocks)
The Odeon of Pericles (absolutely rocks)

The first main attraction that you come across on your climb up the hill is the Theatre of Dionysos (god of wine, revels, and theater) and Odeion of Herodes Atticus. This is a 4th century BC and 17000 seat amphitheater that you pass on the way up to the Parthenon and is super impressive in anyone’s terms. However, while looking at this we heard the tour guides explaining the history of the relic while an American tourist tried to convince the Greek guide that (in your best American twang) the one they had in Denver Colorado was bigger and better.

Needless to say I had to look it up to write this and the American one was built in 1941 and is about 40% smaller – so obviously better.

The next main thing that you will come across is the Propylaea: A monumental entryway to the Acropolis that included a central building and two wings, one of which was (once) covered with elaborately painted panels. Today, this is a massive choke point as people try to get in and out of the plateau that is the Acropolis while tour guides stop for lengthy spiels and Instagrammers hunt for the perfect shot.

When you pop out the other side you re met with the main attraction, the Parthenon. In its day it is meant to have featured ornate sculptures and housed a spectacular statue of the goddess Athena. The statue (The Statue of Athena Promachos) was a colossal (almost 30 feet tall) bronze statue of Athena – who is the patron goddess of the city.

The building of the Parthenon represented the Golden Age of Athens (460 B.C. to 430 B.C.) when it was at its cultural peak. Pericles (politician and general) initiated a massive building project that lasted 50 years but he didn’t live long enough to see his Acropolis vision come true, but temple builders and architects continued working until they completed the project. The southern and northern walls were rebuilt and some of the most iconic structures were constructed.

The Erechtheion or Temple of Athena Polias is the second most prominent building on the Acropolis. It is an Ionic temple made of marble which honoured Athena and several other gods and heroes. It’s best known for its porch supported by six Caryatid (a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support) statues.

Having come down from the Acropolis, we headed (northwest) along the road past a row of really funky shops and hotels (on the left) with the Acropolis hill to our right. Much to our surprise, the park around Acropolis Hill was full of tortoises (more than 20 that we saw). This is something that we definitely did not expect.

We headed down in this direction because from the top you could see this incredibly impressive looking rectangular building. This turned out to be the Stoa of Attalos, a 2nd century BC shopping centre that has been renovated and re-purposed to now hold the museum of the Ancient Agora.

Opposite the Stoa was a bunch of rocks that had fallen down (pretty similar to the Roman Forum in Italy). At the end of these piles of rocks was the ancient Agora of Athens, which in simple terms is a pretty impressive bunch of pillars.

A google search of all of the stuff in the park between the Stoa and the Agora gives you another very long list of what people believe was there. Having walked it thoroughly, my description of piles of rocks still stands. Although, to be fair, there was a little church and a few statues floating around in there too.

At the bottom of the Acropolis hill is a heap of other stuff also well worth a look. On our first day we were focussed upon getting up the hill and found out later that we had missed a heap of stuff at the bottom, so we came back a couple of days later. The first bit that we hit was the Stoa of Eumenes as we had unwittingly walked above it in climbing to the Acropolis and missed it entirely. This little foray also showed us the Roman cistern (drain) that was on the big list too.

From here we headed out to see the Arch of Hadrian and around the corner a bit to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, both very cool. Also around here was the ancient (refurbished for the 2004 Olympics) Panathenian Stadium, which is the only stadium in the world built entirely from marble.

From here across to the National Gardens and the Zappeion (tried to work out what this very flash building was built/used for but got even more confused). It is pretty though.

After this, we headed up to the top of Lycabettus Hill which is the highest point in the centre of Athens. There is a funicular that will take you to the top (for 10 euros each), but to get to the funicular you have to hike the majority of the (incredibly steep) hill. If you are going to build an aid to get you up a super steep hill…why put it at the bottom…nah…lets start 2/3 of the way up.

The National Archaeological Museum in Athens was next on the list and houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. That is the official spiel. The Richard version is that this is the largest IKEA store on the planet, you just keep following the yellow arrows on the floor… but despite your best efforts, you can never get out of the damn pottery section.

To be fair, there are some amazing displays here, and every pot, statue, painting and carving do tell a story. But for a heathen like me, a pot/urn/vase from Athens differs very little from one from Crete or Santorini.

Having hit the main big ticket items we only had some of the lesser ones to see and a wander of the streets. The first of these was Hadrian’s Library, closely followed by the Roman Agora.

From here the rest of our time was spent merely wandering the streets and getting a feel for the place. Eating the local foods, drinking the local beers and coffees and just generally getting into the Greek lifestyle.

The Athens of today

Chain smoking is the norm. A very different concept for Australians where smoking has basically been outlawed for about the last 20+ years. It is still alive and well in Greece. Jill and I sat in a range of restaurants, bars, and coffee shops discussing how long it had been since you could publicly smoke in Australia. All the while choking on dense cigarette fumes. We even watched our chefs smoking over the top of the open grill that they were working on.

The world is my urinal. The number of acts of public urination that we have witnessed in central Athens has been staggering. It seems like the rule is that if you need to go, just whip your cock out and let er rip. Parks and gutters are a favourite, but we have even seen a cab driver stop on the main road, in the heart of the city, and piss on his own passenger door and get back in and drive off.

Riot Police. We were not really sure what this is about. We had seen no issues or violence or even protests of any kind. But at several places throughout our neighbourhood, there were heavily armoured busses with riot police in full protective garb and weapons. They come in the morning and are there all day and well into the evenings. After a few days of this, we asked at our local giros shop, who told us that people were upset at a new metro line going through, so the police were there to protect the Metro until it was completed.

Graffiti. This is an absolute travesty, of all the places that we have ever visited (up to 58 countries and who knows how many cities) Athens is the most defaced place we have ever been. Graffiti is everywhere, spray paint has been tagged all over virtually every surface and very little (if anything) has been done to clean it off. Stunning ancient buildings made of marble have been defaced at every turn.

And of course, everywhere you go, there are the Instagrammers. Taking a prime position and refusing to move. Although I am starting to notice a lot of people pushing back against them. The rudeness of it all, people are now just wandering on in and standing in the Instagrammers’ shots ruining them, in order to get their own pictures.

Vietnam

Hanoi

April 18, 2023 richardpieper Leave a comment

Upon arrival in Hanoi, we headed straight to the centre of Hanoi’s old quarter to our accommodation. Last time we stayed in the French quarter and had to walk to get to the restaurants and attractions. This time we put ourselves in the centre of it all. And the centre was exactly where we were. We were surrounded by the hustle and bustle that was Hanoi and it was fantastic.

We wandered the streets and checked out all that was to see in old town and found the expected and unexpected hidden gems. Surprisingly we were able to find bamboo ladder street. This was not the actual name but was a place that we happened upon last time around, and had great bia hoi and food for very little money. I can report that very little has changed, the food is good and the beer is still really cheap.

After a few days of wandering Hanoi, we were joined by one of my oldest and dearest friends, Nadim. Now, Nadim (Dim) and I first met back in primary school and have been through plenty together, including years of rugby. In fact, my first solo international adventure was with Dim, back in 1996 where we visited West Coast USA (staying with his cousin), then on to Europe when he took off to Lebanon and I went on a Contiki tour before meeting up again in London.

Upon his arrival we caught up and were kindly offered accommodation at his sister’s (Aline) place who was on a work placement with her family (Tom and Ian). An offer that was gratefully accepted and resulted in us all in the one place and able to plan our days and activities more easily.

The first day out saw us hitting the usual tourist haunts, starting with the palace/temple (Phu Tay Ho/Kim Nguu) on Westlake around the corner from our new home. The palace was built around the 17th century and was dedicated to Princess Lieu Hanh. According to legend she is the second daughter of the Jade Emperor and is one of the four immortals. She is known as the “Mother of Heaven – Mother of all peoples”.

Next was off to Hỏa Lò Prison which is more commonly known as the Hanoi Hilton. It was originally used by the French colonists in the late 1800’s to house those Vietnamese that were agitating for independence and later as a place for American POWs.

Next would be off to the Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long but along the way you need to walk past Train Street and the Lenin Statue.

In the centre of Hanoi stands a 5.2 metre statue of Vladimir Lenin, a gift from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, this is the only statue of the Soviet dictator in Southeast Asia.

Hanoi Train Street is a tiny narrow street surrounded by high narrow houses packed closely together where the backyards are the railway and a train passes a few times each day. The tourist bit is only about 100 m long and covers an area where the street is at its narrowest. The train passes literally a metre away from the houses.

Train Street is guarded by corrupt rail guards that will only let tourists in if they agree to buy coffee or beer at one of the restaurants inside (where they get kickbacks). We refused as I have real issues with corrupt officials and being party to their actions. But a couple of times a day the train comes through within a very short distance (centimeters) of the houses and shops that are on the street. Needless to say, this creates much scurrying and putting of things away, and then life goes back to normal…until next time.

The Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long is a complex of historic buildings that were originally built in 1010 and was expanded by subsequent dynasties. Our arrival coincided with the graduation of a large number of students. There were hundreds of children of varying ages dressed in ceremonial outfits and all looking to get photographs at the citadel. We quickly became local celebrities (particularly me this time) shaking hands with, congratulating and posing for photos with a heap of graduating students.

The next day, Dim’s sister Aline had organised a motorbike lesson on the streets of Hanoi. Now lets get serious here. Hanoi traffic is atrocious, in fact, it is for most of Vietnam, so much so that jokes and t-shirts are made bemoaning the quality of the driving.

The USA travel advisory writes this – Traffic in Vietnam is chaotic. Traffic accidents occur frequently. The most common victims are motorbike riders and pedestrians. At least 30 people die each day from transportation-related injuries and many more are injured, often with traumatic head injuries. Traffic accident injuries are the leading cause of death, severe injury, and emergency evacuation of foreigners in Vietnam. Traffic accidents, including those involving a pedestrian and a motorized vehicle, are the single greatest health and safety risk you will face in Vietnam.

So bearing this in mind…we got on some motorcycles and headed off into the chaos. Well most of us did, Jill decided to play it safe and go as a pillion. We started slow in the suburbs and built up to some light traffic as we headed to the Tran Quoc Pagoda is the oldest pagoda in the city constructed in the sixth century the temple was relocated in 1615 to Hồ Tây (West Lake) where it is now situated.

A slight drama here as one of the group had a minor mishap (not me) resulting in a bruised ego, some shaken nerves and a tiny scratch to a BMW. From here we continued to some heavier traffic and on to a local lunch. Closely followed by a trip to old town amid the real chaos to get a taste of our first egg coffee (more about those later). After that peak hour was hitting, schools were breaking up and we were getting on our bikes and heading back to our starting point.

Lets just say that riding motorbikes in the central part of major Vietnamese cities is challenging. There is a lot going on at all times and it is not for the faint hearted.

Checkbox ticked…did that.

The next day was back on the tourist trail with a trip to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex. This is a central tourism area that holds the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh along with a museum dedicated to him. Included in the complex is the Presidential Palace which was originally built between 1900 and 1906 to house the French governor-general. Ho Chi Minh allegedly refused to live in the palace for symbolic reasons and built a traditional Vietnamese stilt house and carp pond on the grounds. In 1975 his house and the grounds were made into the Presidential Palace Historical Site.

A short walk away is the Vietnamese Museum of Military History. This was an interesting way to spend an afternoon with much to see including some big boys toys to photograph.

On the grounds of the museum also stood the 200 year old Hanoi Flag tower which was built in 1812 as an observation post to the Hanoi Citadel. Unlike many other structures in Hanoi, it was not destroyed during the French invasion (1896-1897) and was continuously used as a military post.

West Lake (Hồ Tây) is the biggest freshwater lake in Hanoi. It is northwest of the city centre and has a shore length of 17 km and is a popular place for recreation with many surrounding gardens, hotels and villas.

Ngoc Sun Temple This sits on a small island in the Hoan Kiem Lake just near old town. It was built in the 19th century in commemoration of Tran Hung Dao, the greatest military commander of the Tran Dynasty.

For the first time in a very long time I made my way to church as we visited the Hanoi cathedral (St Josephs) which is a late 19th century, neo gothic style church. It is the oldest church in Hanoi and still holds services.

One of our greatest finds in Hanoi was a tiny little curry joint that had rotis that were about a meter long and around 40 cm wide. We first saw it on day two and after seeing the incredible roti I had to go there. One Roti and a curry could not be finished by Jill and I together. Once Nadim arrived, we took him after our journey to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the War Museum. And just before finally leaving we had one last foray. Needless to say we had about 5 different curries over the period and they were all good.

Vietnam air quality is terrible.

We have not seen a blue sky since arriving in Vietnam due to the smog and smoke. A little bit of research will tell you that there are there are over 65 million registered motorcycles in Vietnam, equaling around two-thirds of the population. Official statistics also report that there are around 60 000 deaths each year that are air pollution-related. So I kept digging and found the AQI (air quality index). This is a numerical measure of the quality of the air in cities around the world, with the various scales represented in the image below.

To give some context to this number, at the time of writing I checked each of Australia’s Capital cities and every one of them returned a reading of 10 or lower (although there was not one monitoring station in all of Tasmania). As I was in Singapore at the time, I checked there and the number was 30. While we were in Hanoi this number never fell below 115 (reported daily) and at its peak hit 185.

According to official Vietnamese sources the major cause behind air pollution in Hanoi is emissions from transport, industrial production activities at factories, urban construction and the burning of straw after harvests.

What we saw was masses of local burning…EVERYWHERE.

The street sweeping ladies would wander along and sweep up all of the leaves and put them into piles and then into plastic bags throughout the day. As they were finished an area and ready to move on they set light to the plastic bag sending the smoke and toxins into the air. At any point in time there may be 5-10 of these burning on a small street at any one time. And this happens citywide.

Vietnamese Coffee

I added this so that I didn’t finish on an air pollution downer. Vietnamese Coffee is famous for a number of reasons. The first is that it is typically a rich and strong brew. Vietnamese robusta coffee tends to have chocolatey and nutty flavor notes, which are a result of robusta having 60% less sugars and fats than arabica coffee. It is tasty and due to a shortage of “real milk” it usually comes with condensed milk, making it super sweet and strong. A real early morning heart starter.

Egg coffee is a Vietnamese nationally acclaimed specialty made of egg yolks, sugar, condensed milk, and robusta coffee. Back in the 1950’s, the inventor of egg coffee (Mr. Giang), developed the recipe by replacing milk with egg yolks when milk was scarce.

Coconut Coffee – This is served cold and has the equivalent of a sweet coconut slushie on top of the coffee. Coconut cream, condensed milk and ice are blended and the cooled coffee is poured over the top.

Manpering – I found out that Dim was as much of a fan as manpering as I am, haircuts, shave massages, he did the lot. However he did express some concern at my urgings to get a haircut and straight razor shave from a street-side barber, the $3 price tag won out in the end. I did the same a few days later after Dim had gone home, while Jill got a pedicure a few doors down.

This photo was taken on ladder street. It didn’t really have a story but we loved it and had to find a way of including it in our running blog. The stresses of life in Vietnam.

While I started this post with the sentence – We were surrounded by the hustle and bustle that was Hanoi and it was fantastic. I did not feel the same way by the time we left 3 weeks later. The constant beeping of horns was doing my head in. Some drivers and riders sat on their horn and while at the beginning this was cute, by the end I was threatening to jam that f$£*ing horn down their f$£*ing throats.

We loved our time in Vietnam, but we were also ready to leave by the end of the month.

Thailand

Chiang Rai

January 15, 2023 richardpieper Leave a comment

Chiang Rai was a name that we had heard but never really paid attention to. It kinda followed Chiang Mai as places to see but never really struck us as a place to go. When you are doing your planning and do a quick what’s there search you will find the White Temple, The Blue Temple and the Black House Museum.

From there if you click through to images the White temple will blow you away. From that point alone we figured that we had to go.

The two cities are only a 3 hr drive apart and as such a general search of things to do will roll the Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai attractions together. In fact, there are return day trips from both cities to see each other’s attractions – albeit a pretty long day.

Getting to Chiang Rai

This bit was pretty easy as from Chiang Mai there are loads of options. We opted for the bus. We paid top dollar for the first class bus 300 baht ($15 each) but the bus was delayed and then merged with another route so we got downgraded to a lesser bus and was refunded 100 baht each as we boarded the bus. Either way, the bus we got was perfectly reasonable so sit down, stare out the window and 3 hours later you are being delivered to the heart of town.

You could have paid more and taken a private car but the time would have virtually been the same and the air-conditioned bus was comfortable enough for such a short trip. That said I don’t think I would want to go much further in a bus.

Chiang Rai Central

Our first 5 minutes in Chiang Rai put us back in the Thailand we remembered – right in the midst of the girly bars. This is something we did not see once in Chiang Mai ( I did google it later – they were there we just didn’t see them). But within 300 meters of our hotel there they were, scantily clad and asking all of the usual questions. As it turned out this had more to do with where we were living as really this scene in Chiang Rai is fairly small. Oh yes, and the weed is still everywhere.

The center of Chiang Rai is actually pretty small and it is easy to get around just about anywhere on foot (notwithstanding the state of the footpaths). There are some Wats, some lesser-known and smaller attractions within easy walking distance and some a few kilometers from town that may warrant a tuk-tuk. Things like the clocktower, hilltribe museum, Mae Fah Luang Art and Cultural Park (see temple artifacts, botanical gardens, and traditional teakwood houses) the Oub Kham Museum (artifacts of the Thai royal family).

The clocktower is at the centre of a roundabout near the heart of town. It was built in 2005 by a local artist to honour Queen Sirikit. This thing is seriously ornate and the street is lined with ornate railings. If you come at night there is a light show that starts on the hour (7pm, 8pm and 9pm) and goes for 5 mins.

The Night Bazaar

The night market is a lively place just behind the bus terminal. It has a variety of options for eating and drinking with the usual tourist trinket fare available for purchase. There are lots of shops around that sell everything from clothing, hats, toys, shoes, glasses, etc. There are even a few breakout areas where you can sit and listen to music and have a drink.

The White Temple – Wat Rong Khun

Well, this is the main reason for everybody coming to Chiang Rai and I must say, it does not disappoint. It is phenomenal. The masses of people are a challenge but that aside, this place deserves its place as the top tourist attraction.

By way of background this place was getting pretty run down so in the late 1990s a local artist from Chiang Rai (Chalermchai Kositpipat) bought it and decided to completely rebuild the temple and fund the project with his own money. Most of the symbolism blurb below has been drawn from the tourist spiel that is available everywhere.

The main building at the white temple is reached by crossing a bridge over a small lake. In front of the bridge are hundreds of outreaching hands that symbolize unrestrained desire. The bridge proclaims that the way to happiness is by foregoing temptation, greed, and desire.

Next to the lake stand two very elegant Kinnaree, half-human, half-bird creatures from Buddhist mythology.

After crossing the bridge, the visitor arrives at the “gate of heaven”, guarded by two creatures representing Death and Rahu, who decide the fate of the dead.

Having been judged, you cross the bridge representing “the cycle of rebirth”. This is meant to signify the crossing over from the cycle of death and rebirth into a state free of suffering. It symbolises the way to happiness by overcoming worldly things as temptations, greed and desire.

From here you enter the temple (no photos allowed) and are then free to tour the expansive grounds. Where you will find all sorts of interesting features many of which will be highly unexpected. The area adjacent to the temple is intended to house, the centre of learning and meditation and help people benefit from the teachings of Buddhism.

Around the temple grounds are several concrete “trees” with thousands of medallions hanging down from them (Bohdi Leaves). For 30 Baht you can add yours with your name written on it. With all of the visitors that have done this, it has now spilled out from the trees and there is a long walkway the ceiling of which is made up of these medallions.

All around the grounds of the white temple you will find an eclectic mix of paintings, sculptures and murals that depict modern representations of good and evil.

The best game that can be played is to try and find and identify the sculptures representing good and evil. We found many but I am certain that there were many more that we never even saw.

Even hidden in a waterfall you will find a heap of these figures and sculptures. Figures like Batman, Spiderman, Elvis, ninja turtles, the predator, venom – villains and superheroes from movies and comics.

But you really need to look or you could miss them

One of the most heavily photographed buildings there is this golden pavilion. Swarms of people are constantly posing in front of its beauty. Believe it or not…it is just the public toilet.

The Blue Temple – Wat Rong Sear Tean

Like the White Temple, this temple is totally different from almost every other that you will see throughout Thailand. It is about 4km from the heart of town, so a short tuk tuk ride – but in our case a fairly decent walk. Unsurprisingly the Blue Temple is blue a colour symbolically associated with purity, wisdom, and the lack of materialism that Buddhists aspire to. The name translates to mean the temple of the dancing tiger.

It is truly stunning this place. We have been in and out of Thai temples and they are all very lovely, intricately carved incredibly ornate and all very much similar. But even though you know it will be different this place takes it to another level. An absolute must see.

The Black House Museum – Baan Dam

The museum covers an area of about 40 acres and has over 40 different structures scattered around the site. The artist who designed and created the Baan Dam Museum (Thawan Duchanee) wants to turn this into a national arts and cultural learning centre. A bit like the white temple the place is covered in art and installations.

It gave me more of a sense of an old-school furniture shop more than a museum. Except that the furniture had been made from dead animals (notably water buffalo horns and skulls) and taxidermied animals such as crocs, snakes and even a wolf were used as table runners.

Everything is painted black and deep brown with big, intimidating-looking doors. The walls, floors, and even ceilings of the buildings are covered with paintings, sculptures, installations. But mostly there was just a lot of furniture made from animal skins, bones, and horns.

The big buddha – Wat Huay Pla Kang

While everyone calls it the big buddha it is not a buddha but actually a 23-storey high white Guan Yin or the Goddess of Mercy. In addition, there is a 9-tier pagoda (temple) guarded by golden and green nagas and of course… there is a ridiculously long staircase to get to it. And Hello Kitty busses to ferry the tourists who don’t want to walk.

Chiang Rai Flower Festival

Ok, so this was sheer dumb luck. It just so happened that our journey coincided with the Chiang Rai flower festival. We were headed to the 75th anniversary flag and lamp park (built for the king’s 75th birthday) when we found that the park was in the midst of the flower festival. Orchids, tulips and many more perfectly sculptured flower displays were sprawled out all over the park. Add to that some strategically placed dry ice in water to make an eerie mist and it was lovely. As I am not really a flower guy, I will just shut up and show you what we stumbled upon.

Much more interestingly for someone like me is that they had turned the nearby walking street (an occasional market) into a huge nightly market (with seating) with a massive selection of food that was so cheap that it almost rivalled Cambodian prices (bearing in mind that everything in Thailand is about 2.5x more expensive).

Chiang Mai was much better than I expected. Most people come and do an overnight here but as you can see from above there is much more to see and do here than that. We were here for 7 days which gave us plenty of time to see what we wanted without busting a gut.

Things around that we didn’t do

Wat Tham Pla- the Fish Cave Temple or Monkey Temple

I will state upfront we did not go here and the couple of photos are not ours. This is a Buddhist temple at the foot of the Doi Nang Non mountain range. This is the same mountain range where the soccer team had to be rescued from a cave a few years back. The entrance is guarded by a massive staircase 7-headed Nagas (mythical serpents) and the temple is basically the same as all others – but in a cave.

The main reason we did not go here is that it was 50km from town and the temple was infested with monkeys (northern pig-tailed macaques to be precise). Even the official websites tell you that the temple is overrun with monkeys and reviewers tell us that they are quite menacing and are known to jump on unsuspecting tourists and snatch their things – so visit at your own risk!

Visit the remote Karen Hilltribe Village

Karen hill tribe villages are scattered all across northern Thailand and can be found in just about every province. Many traditional villages can still be found in remote areas of Thailand. They tend to dress in traditional clothing and live in primitive bamboo stilt houses.

As we had seen and got photographed with them in Myanmar, we chose not to do the 50 km trek to see them again.

Visit the golden triangle

This is the tri-border area of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar once renowned for the opium and heroin trade. Having been to all three countries already we passed on seeing the sign.

Cambodia

Siem Reap

December 2, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

Siem Reap is a popular tourist destination and was voted internationally as the 4 th best city of travel in 2014. The Place is a cluster of small villages along the river all built in the vicinity of the evenly spaced Buddhist pagodas (Wat). In the area there are more than 1,000 Temples of Angkor which were built from the 9th to 13th centuries during a time when the Kingdom of Cambodia was one of the most powerful civilisations on the planet.

While Siem Reap is a nice little town, it really only exists as it is the town that supports the temples. They are exceptionally impressive…they are old, they are huge and there are TONS of them. I hadn’t realized in my reading just how many of these things there are. You really need a week to see everything, and even then it’d be a stretch. We had 3 days, so were going to make a go of it.

We caught up with Brett and Cathy who had traveled from Canberra to join us here. Our first day was spent hitting the museum. miniatures display and dipping our toes into some of the many Siem reap restaurants and bars. This place gets between 2 and 3 million visitors a year and sadly the town reflects that…the prices are (generally) between 2 and 25 times more expensive than in the rest of Cambodia and the locals have all turned into pushy touts. Whether touting for tuk tuks, drinks, food, trinkets, paintings, clothing, batik or just attention.

Our first foray saw us getting ripped off by the Cambodian BBQ restaurant. They had the 50c draught sign out the front and we entered for an ale and some nibblies. Having had some spring rolls and an ale or two we called for the bill…it was $38. I checked the bill to find that they had charged us 4 times the quoted price on the beers. I started to argue the point and they claimed they had supplied us with the superior Tiger beer rather than the local drop. After a while it was clear we were not going to win so we paid the bill and used our technology to warn other travellers of the SCAM that these guys were running.

Most importantly the Siem Reap area has been used extensively as the film site for a lot of adventure type movies and television shows…things like Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones Temple of Doom were filmed here. And having been here it is obvious why…this is an ancient city literally being swallowed by the jungle. It was a huge civilisation that was, for unknown reasons, lost to the world. The modern re-discovery dates back to around 1901 when the French funded an expedition to Bayon thus re-finding the lost temples of Angkor. They took responsibility for clearing and restoring the whole site.

The main attraction is Angkor Wat, the 500-acre site that is one of the world’s biggest religious monuments and the most elaborate of the Angkor’s temples. We had a 4am wake up…to hop our tuk tuk…to go to buy our 3 day pass…before heading to Angkor Wat (along with about 2000 other people) for sunrise. Alas it was an overcast morning and our sunrise shots were less than inspiring…but the experience was worth it.

From here we left the main attraction to avoid the hoards that were peak hour at Angkor Wat. Instead we headed to Angkor Thom which houses a myriad of temples such as Bayon, Baphuon, Phimeanakas, Tep Pranam, the royal palace area, the terrace of the leper king and the terrace of the elephants along with a bunch of other ancient bits.

From Angkor Thom we hit Preah Khan before running away to hide from the heat of the day and returning late afternoon for the south gate, Paksei Chamkrong (the video of Jill climbing) and a schlepp up the hill to Phnom Bakheng for a sunset viewing (with the same 2000 people who were there for sunrise) with the same result as the overcast was still doing its thing making our mountain climb redundant. The video below should not give you epilepsy however it will give you a fair indication of why I have been whining about stairs. The stairs in Asia are a non-standard height and width and are a major effort even if there are only about 70 stairs as was the case here. So in my earlier posts where I complained of doing 1500 stairs…then just imagine this video 20 times over…and double it again for Jill’s ridiculous assault on Taishan.

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That evening we headed into town for the night markets…our tuk tuk driver dropped us off underneath the fluorescent night market sign right next to another sign that read “foot massage $2”. I had sore feet after climbing up and down stairs all day….and for an extra $1, I could double the time. So I locked all 4 of us in for 30 minute foot massages. While they got settled I walked 2 stores down and organised for ice cold draught beer to be delivered to us for 50c a glass. When my beer was empty…I sat the empty glass atop my head which the astute man (rightly) took to mean that I needed more beer. Me which was delivered to me. For a ridiculous $4…I had a 30 minute foot and calf massage while drinking two ice cold beers…and so did the wife and mates.

The next day we did Angkor Wat properly. On day one we checked out the non existent sunrise and then ran away from the hoards…on day two we went to the smaller temples early and timed our run to Angkor Wat to coincide with the tour busses going to lunch. This meant that we were not fighting the masses and we had a (relatively) unobstructed view of the place and a climb to the top with no queues. While the temperature was hotter, the experience was much better.

The next day we headed out to the floating village…that we never made it to, as it was a massive tourist scam. It cost us $17 for a tuk tuk for the day and after a fantastic drive throughout the countryside and villages we got to a ticket booth that was charging $25 a head for the boat to the floating village. We rejected this and kept going to the Rolous group of temples instead. These are lesser temples to the main Angkor group but still a nice sight and a pleasant drive in the country.

As it turned out (according to the reviews of other travellers on trip advisor) our floating village tour would have seen us paying $50 to travel about 20 minutes to some bamboo/wooden shacks above the waterline. When you stop you have 20 mins being harangued in tourist shops or being pressured to buy bags of rice for the poor villagers (at $50 per bag). This journey is nothing but a scam…it costs $40 a head for a 3 day pass of all the great temples…so $25 for an hour tour plus a $17 tuk tuk fee…no thank you.

So Jill, in her infinite wisdom, decided to spend the money we would have given to the scammers…on a spa day. We headed to town and she got down to negotiating for the required services…having never had a spa day I rolled with both the prices and the choice of services. What came was an hour long body scrub, followed by a one hour massage, followed by a one hour facial. This, she tells me, would cost between $250-700…each…in Australia and was $60 for both of us here. The scrub was good as was the massage…you can keep the facial…not a fan.

The next day we headed out to the land mine museum. This was a personal venture started by an individual named Aki Ra. The story goes…Aki Ra’s parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge and he was conscripted to be a child soldier who’s role at some point became responsible for the laying of land mines on the Thai/Cambodian border. After the war he found work with the UN finding and disarming the land mines and when that work finished he continued to find and disarm mines…to do this he used a knife, a hoe, a Leatherman and a stick…he funded his activities by selling the scrap metal from the mines. He started storing deactivated mines at his house and giving talks and information sessions about mines…this was the precursor to the museum today.

While doing his mine clearing he found many injured or orphaned children due to the land mines…which he subsequently took in or adopted. After a period he had brought home over two dozen boys and girls. This then morphed into an orphanage/school. Today the entry fee is a grand $5…$3 of this goes to feeding clothing and educating the children and the remaining $2 goes to fund ongoing land mine recovery and dismantling.

This place is both tragic and uplifting at the same time. It is a story of a man repaying his karma…while he still can. It is an informative, confronting, uplifting and eye opening experience and if you are coming here you should factor in extra time as this bit was really worth it. On the way home we stopped at the butterfly garden for a rest and sat watching the butterflies flit about.

Overall Siem Reap was a good trip and I would recommend it to anyone to go to…I would not rate it in the top 4 places to go…but it is nice. If you head here it really needs a minimum of 5 days in Siem Reap alone. But be warned…it is very touristy. The prices for everything are high (relatively), the touts are really pushy, and the scammers abound. It is exhausting walking the huge temples in the heat…but it is more tiring fighting off the constant onslaught of people trying to get you to part with your money.

Cambodia

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

November 24, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

I came to Phnom Penh on a work trip about 8 years ago and hated it. It was hot, smelly, dirty, neglected and mosquito infested…the two main tourist attractions were the Pol Pot killing fields and the Genocidal museum… add to this the fact that the Mosquitos carried dengue fever and it just capped off an ordinary trip. I am happy to say that things have changed significantly for the better. The streets are clean, the place has been developed and there are much more interesting things to see and do here.

Phnom Penh is on the banks of the Tonlé Sap and Mekong Rivers and is the capital of Cambodia. It is interesting to note that while they have their own currency (the real) it is basically not used and all things are priced and sold in $US…to the point that ATM’s dispense $US. The only time the local currency comes into play is as change for an item that requires coins (one $US being worth 4000 real). The other thing of note is that the streets are numbered, however not numerically. The streets running N-S are (notionally) odd numbered and the ones E-W are (sort of) even…but once again…not numerically. This makes navigation a touch difficult at times.

Quick history lesson – Back in the 1920s it was known as the “Pearl of Asia” and was one of the loveliest French-built cities in the region. During the Vietnam War the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong used Cambodia as a base and Phnom Penh became a refuge for almost 3 million people trying to flee the fighting. In 1974 the Khmer Rouge cut off supplies to the city and on April 17, 1975 the city fell and the Khmer Rouge took control of the country. Their first order of business was to revert to an agrarian society, classifying city dwellers as “new people” and country folk as “old people”.

In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a program that led to isolating the country from all foreign influences, closing schools, hospitals, and factories, abolishing banking, finance, and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all privately held property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms. By 1976 it was estimated that 80% of the population suffered from malaria. One of the Khmer Rouge mottos about the new people was “To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss.” Money was abolished, books were burned, teachers, merchants, and almost the entire intellectual elite of the country were murdered to make the agricultural communism (as Pol Pot envisioned it) a reality.

Over the next three years, the Khmer Rouge killed many intellectuals, city-dwellers, minority people, and many of their own party members and soldiers who were suspected of being traitors. Nobody knows how many people were killed by the regime but various studies have estimated the death toll at between 740,000 and 3,000,000.

So anyway…as part of our tourist run we hit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which was a former high school that was turned into the Security Prison 21 (S-21) where most of the torturing took place. Out of around 17,000 people imprisoned at S21, there were only twelve known survivors. The first bit was pretty lame with an entire building full of rooms with a single metal bed in them. From here the world got very real with photos of the prisoners, the cells, images of the torture machines and a room full of human skulls and bones.

The rest of the day was comparatively uplifting after the genocide museum. We went to the Palace, the silver pagoda, the Russian markets, Independence and Liberation Memorials, the museum and Wat Botum.

The next day we got up early and grabbed a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek which are about 17 km south of the city and were about as uplifting as the genocide museum. This is just one of over 300 such fields scattered throughout Cambodia. I came here on my first trip and it was a sobering experience with human bones and clothing protruding from pits in the ground. If possible it has become even more confronting.

The roads on the way to the killing fields have been fixed and paved (largely) and the insides have benefitted from the tourist dollars. Your six dollar entrance fee includes an audio guide and people wander the grounds silently listening to the commentary as they reach certain key points and pits along the way. This commentary includes victims and soldiers stories and recollections of what went on there and how it happened. Key stops along the way included the killing point, the torture shed, pits of perceived traitors remains, pits full of women and children’s bodies and the tree used to smash the children’s skulls before they were thrown into the pit.

This was by any standards a confronting place to visit… the addition of stories, facts and commentary on the audio guide has just added to the experience. Generally everyone was silent throughout the couple of hours it takes to get around and listen to the commentary. The images, stories and sights that you see in this place are incredibly sobering and don’t really lend themselves to chatting, laughing or joking. You could hear the occasional sobbing as people listened along, one woman started wailing at the child pit and the tree otherwise everyone was silently absorbing what was going on…except for the French and Russian tourists…they were the only voices that we heard in over 2 hrs… And we heard them consistently.

From here our tuk tuk driver dropped us at the Wat Phnom temple (which was right next to where I stayed last time) then we headed off to the central markets for a quick shop to replace some festy items. Dinner at a local joint that cost under $US5 for both of us (including a beer each). And our Phnom Penh visit was at an end.

While by no means was this an uplifting experience…it was enlightening…the city, the people and the infrastructure have improved considerably and both Jill and I agreed that we preferred this to Vietnam (with the exception of Halong bay). This is quite a turnaround from my last trip where I named Phnom Penh as the worst place I had been. I would come back here without hesitation now

Laos

Luang Prabang, Laos

November 21, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

We hopped a flight from the capital to Luang Prabang, the former capital and a UNESCO listed town at the junction of the Nam Khan and the Mekong rivers. Our first impressions were quite similar to those we had in Vientiane…it was a tourist centre filled with foreigners and with very little to see or recommend it. Add to this the fact that prices were jacked up high for the tourists and I was expecting to not enjoy the experience…I am happy to say that my initial impressions while technically accurate…were wrong.

On day two we toured the local sights and saw everything that there was to see in town in about 3-4 hrs. This tour included Haw Kham, the former royal palace and now national museum, Vat Xieng Toung, the oldest monastery in town which was a stunning wooden temple with inlaid mosaics everywhere you look, a few of the minor temples and finally a trip up Phou Si/Chomsy Hill the main hill in the city. Thankfully we climbed this hill from the palace side which meant we only had to climb about 250-300 stairs. We went down on the other side which was about 900 very steep stairs.

Once at the top you had a nice view of the town and surrounds. We wandered along the river banks to get back to the other side of the hill passing expensive shops, hotels, restaurants and what appeared to be some very impressive cooking classes set up for the tourists. That evening we visited the Main Street which turns into night markets each evening. They sell the usual tourist trinkets, handicrafts and snake and scorpion infused booze.

Still fairly unimpressed, we booked a day trip into the surrounding areas and all of a sudden Luang Prabang was incredible. We were picked up at the hotel and driven to a local traditional village (highly focused on the tourist dollar) where you can watch them distilling the local hooch and weaving the clothes and materials that are sold in the night markets. You get to see and buy bottles of local whiskey with snakes, scorpions, bears feet, geckos, lizards and just about any other critter you can imagine inside the bottles. I thought about buying these for the nieces and nephews etc but there is no way Australian customs or quarantine would let them in the country. From here you set off to the Nam Ou Elephant Farm which is a Sanctuary for Asian elephants. And the day got fun as went for a one hour elephant ride through the jungle.

There were 5 elephants and 4 of them were perfectly behaved while our one on the other hand had personality. It started with going bush to retrieve food by pulling leaves and branches off trees mid way along the trail, intensified when it stopped at a stream for a drink and sprayed Jill with the trunk/water thing you see in all the nature shows. The poor little mahout was pulling on the flimsy string but our flump had his own thoughts. At one point he stopped and held trunks with the girl elephant behind then they entered into a trumpeting session with their trunks in each other’s ears. We were having visions of two horny elephants going for it…all of this with us seated on their back.

A bit later on our flump spied the banana trees and decided a snack was in order. So off the track, up the hill and into the banana trees he went…out little mahout was doing his best but had no chance. The flump started with a couple of banana leaves but they would not rip off the tree…so he took the whole tree…ripped it out of the ground…and carted it along behind us, munching away, while he walked along…all of this with us seated on his back. From here we popped out to the Pak Ou and Tham Ting caves and back to the elephant joint for lunch.

It was not included in the package we paid for…but the elephants were due a bath in the river and we happened to be there at the time…so they offered us to wash the elephants. We all got changed into out swimmers (a waterfall and swim were planned for later in the day) and climbed aboard the flumps. At this point I need to confess that bareback riding of an elephant is not for me. On my first attempt I had my legs in front of his ears, so when he flipped his ears forward (as they do to cool themselves) my legs flew forward and I started sliding off his neck. The second attempt he decided to put his head down to grab some sugar cane and a-sliding I went again…I gave up and walked along beside him instead.

Jill on the other hand was in her bikini, mounted on her flump, and off. Down the hill, into the brown murky waters of the Mekong and splashing around in the water with her flump… she was grinning the entire time. I and the others in the group who were not mounted upon a flump had an awesome time watching, photographing, and laughing as the elephants dropped water mines that floated downstream towards the others who were frantically trying to splash the huge piles of elephant dung away from themselves. A good time was had by all.

From here we headed to the Kuang Si Waterfall park and the Tat Kuang Si Bear Rescue Centre, which is contained within the waterfall park. The park is a series of waterfalls and rock pools, the water is cool (cold), clean, and full of tourists dipping in the ponds. Most of the tourists were great but the usual suspects, as identified in the earlier post! Decided that their enjoyment would occur at the expense of the others who were there. After an hour here our time was up.

If we had our time over and knew a little more about this place…the waterfall park really deserved a full day…and the elephants did too. There are longer tours you can do and, if it suits you, you can do a one, three or five day mahout course where you get to learn to be a mahout and hang with the flumps for your chosen period. This includes the washing, feeding, riding and general care and maintenance of the elephants. My bareback elephant riding skills deficit considered… this would be awesome.

While Luang Prabang has very little to see, is full of tourists, is about twice the price of Vientiane and my initial thoughts were accurate…we ended up loving the place. It is set amid the mountains (hills really), is pretty, the people don’t hassle you and it is generally a nice place to be. You will be overcharged for everything you see, do, eat or try to buy…but by home standards it is still cheap. And the elephant experience is not to be missed.

Laos

Vientiane, Laos

November 18, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

I had very little knowledge about Laos prior to this trip…the little that I did know left me uninspired but hey…it was right next door and we would be crazy not to go. We hopped off the plane and cabbed it to a really nice hotel where we settled in for he next few days. Now Laos was a former French colony and (at least in Vientiane) it has benefitted from this in the usual manner. Waterfront esplanades, cafés, coffee shops, baguettes, cheese and some pretty damn fine architecture.

Possibly one of the first things we should mention is that Laos has more western tourists than almost anywhere else we have been so far. Everywhere you look. Vientiane has a small town feel about it rather than that of most of the other Asian capitals. We relaxed through the heat of the day and headed out to the Mekong riverfront esplanade and markets for a lovely stroll followed by the hunt for a local restaurant for dinner. A few beer Lao’s, a bowl of soup and some spring rolls, all for next to nothing, our introduction to Laos had begun.

So the next day we plotted our course on the map and set off on the journey to hit the usual tourist haunts. The heat was high…about 38 degrees… but unlike the last few places, the humidity was low. So despite high temperatures it was quite pleasant walking around doing the tourist schlepp. We hit the usual haunts, temples, monasteries, museums, markets, stupas and yet some more temples. Possibly the most impressive was the Laos version of the Champs Elysees on the street leading up to the Palace. Having blitzed the town we found we had done 90% of the tourist thing in about 4 hrs…there really isn’t too much here.

The things they call museums are really just old things…the actual museum was saved for the next day. We found the local delicacy on day one and went back the next two days for more. It was a baguette filled with pate, cheese, vegetables, mystery meat and mystery sauce and cost a total of 10,000 kip (about $1.30). The next day we hit the actual museum which enlightened us to the war history of Laos…something that I at least was unaware of. These guys have been systematically smacked by almost everybody. Starting with the Chinese, then the Thai’s, the French, the Brits, the Japanese and then the French once again.

While there was not massive amounts to see or do, there was a relaxing atmosphere about the place. The traffic was calm, there was no honking, the esplanade alongside the Mekong river was nice, the food was pretty good and was cheap. We hit the esplanade for a sunset walk along the banks of the Mekong river and just generally relaxed taking in the sights, sounds and smells of a new country.

Vientiane did spark the conversation of who was the rudest nationality when it came to tourists. It came down to a split decision between three different nationalities and this varied entirely depending upon the circumstances. What we did determine was the factors that made a rude tourist…this was essentially those that are ignorant and arrogant, ignoring those around them at all costs. I am sure that using this criteria the First Nation that pops to mind for most of you will be he USA…but they do not rate in out top three as there are many worse examples of ignorant and arrogant tourists, ignoring those around them.

Our pick of the worst three tourist nationalities that we have come across are… The French, the Russians and the Israelis. The French seem to have a sense of colonialism to them where they seem to think that this is still a colony and the locals are here entirely for their subjugation, and that other tourists are irrelevant to their particular needs and wants. The Russians have had their tourist doors closed for too long so a Russian tourist is (generally) either oblivious or totally disregarding of other people trying to experience the same things.

The Israeli tourists you tend to meet are all around 25 years old and have just finished their national service. They are young, brash, fit and cashed up. They will drink, dance, party and listen to their doof doof at any volume they see fit, at any time and to hell with anyone around them.

Our three favourites would have to be the Dutch, the Germans and Canadians. These three are generally quiet, reserved, respectful and genuinely interested to learn about and experience other countries and cultures.

Sri Lanka, Uncategorized

Colombo – Sri Lanka

August 28, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

While travelling through China we met a lovely Sri Lankan couple who spoke highly of the place and our visiting. We had kept in touch through Facebook and when we decided to come they could not have been more helpful.even to the point of getting cricket tickets for us for the second day in town. Alas our journey to Sri Lanka started with disappointment before we even arrived. The original plan was to attend a ODI cricket match in Colombo between Sri Lanka and Pakistan but weather set in and they moved the date forward and changed the venue meaning that we missed out.

We arrived in Colombo after a 22 hour transit from Beijing via Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Air Asia X provided a good cheap flight option that was very enjoyable but sadly was ruined by Jill’s bag being all but destroyed, when she went to complain she was told it was minor damage that they would not even take a report for…and that she should claim it on travel insurance. After a rant about customer service she left unsatisfied and ignored.

We got in to Sri Lanka and were immediately struck by how unlike India this place is. It is clean, tidy and people have pride in their surroundings and the environment in general. We were picked up, driven to the hotel, got our local phone, had a meal and some local beers and met up with Ruwan (our Sri Lankan mate from China) all within 90 minutes of being in country. A bunch of tuk tuk rides later and a foray into local street food (shrimp including the shells and heads etc mashed into a paste, made into a rissole, deep fried, smothered in chilli, topped with onion) we had seen Colombo by night and plans were made for the next day.

The day started with meeting up with Ruhan outside Town Hall near the Buddha statue and a walk through Viharamahadevi park which is opposite. This was a really pleasant walk in the shade. Sri Lanka is hot but not excessively so…Colombo is blessed by awesome sea breezes almost all day so the heat is immediately bearable. We hit the National museum which was ok content wise by museum standards but the building and the grounds were spectacular. There were massive Banyan trees throughout the grounds that must have been many centuries old and even for a botanical heathen like myself they were the highlight.

Having headed out we did the tourist schlepp chauffeured by our mate and hit Independence Square, Beira Lake, slave island, the lighthouse, Sambodhi Chaitiya dagoba, a market for some shopping and a massive lunch, Gangaramaya Buddhist Temple, old Dutch hospital, Hindu temple, grand mosque, Parliament House. We stopped for cold drinks and fresh juices throughout the day and generally had a really pleasant time. No harassment, no filth, no drama.

At sunset we headed to Galle face green which is a magnificent stretch of green lawn directly fronting onto the beach, with sea breezes and throngs of people day or night. The place has the Sri Lankan flagpole and at sunset the military ceremony of the flag lowering, combined with the sun going down over the Indian Ocean is not to be missed. As the breeze blows permanently off the ocean the area is full of parents flying kites of all varieties with their kids.

On the food front we have been absolutely spoilt. The main dish is Kottu or “Koththu Roti” which is a Sri Lankan version of left overs in a fried rice. While notionally leftovers it is made fresh almost everywhere with your choices of fillings but vegetables, egg, shredded roti, onions and rice are the staples and you pick and add the bits you want added. This is generally done on a flat BBQ plate and the clatter of flying metal scrapers as they chop and mix the concoction is both mesmerising and deafening.

My favourite both before I came and since being here is the egg hoppers. Wiki tells me that “hoppers are made from a fermented batter of rice flour, coconut milk and a dash of palm toddy”. The unique part is that hoppers are cooked in small “wok” like rounded pans so the dough cooks thick and soft on the bottom, and thin and crunchy around the edges. Add to this the string hoppers and the plain hoppers with some of the ever present pickles, chutneys and sambal and you have for yourself a great feed.

We headed out to Livinia Beach for a flash feed with Ruwan and his wife. It was a Chinese restaurant (of all things) right on the sand. The setting was spectacular with the lapping of the waves but the food was trash. This may be an ongoing issue for us as we cannot go to Chinese restaurants anymore as they will not be authentic. We already have our doubts about how authentic the Australian version of Indian is…we are now adding Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand to the mix…we may be screwed on future take out options. Now the food at this restaurant was tasty enough but nothing like what we expected when we ordered.

China

Hohhot – Inner Mongolia

July 6, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

Hohhot

The original plan for Hohhot was to look around while we got our visas to go to Mongolia proper…then head in to Ulaanbaatar. Upon arrival this proved to be incredibly cost prohibitive with the visa and transport options adding up to a ridiculous amount. We would have had to get a train to the border (8hrs), hire a private jeep to cross the border then 10-11 hours on local train or busses on the other side to get to the capital.

Wiki travel tells us that “Mongolian buses are notorious for being late and on some routes for not even arriving on the scheduled day”. Otherwise the flight would have been $700 each plus the visa costs. We both have the trans-Siberian railway on our bucket lists (Beijing to Moscow) which goes through and stops in Mongolia several times so we decided to skip it. We tried to arrange the trans-Siberian train on this trip but not having Russian visas we would have had to use a broker and the bill got over $10,000 very quickly.

Having decided that Mongolia was out we had time to kill and plans to make. The hostel we stayed at had organised private tours of the desert, grasslands, Great Wall etc…but they were all very expensive. The Great Wall in this section is really just a mud heap, the desert involved camels which was an immediate no vote from me, and the grassland was just too dear.

So we stayed in town and checked out the local sights. Firstly, this part of China is very different to the rest and is a little more like our Indian experiences. The street is often used as a toilet here and the sights and smells in certain areas of town reflect this. The development that is in the heart of town has not spread to the inner ring so the drainage, toilets, footpaths and the normal Chinese efficiency did not exist. There was a lot of construction underway to remedy this but alas we were not there yet.

The local busses were their usual cheap and efficient selves with a ride costing 1 yuan each and busses coming regularly enough that only peak times had the sardine squash. Our first ride took us to the museum which was in a complex of four of the largest buildings I had ever seen. The museum was built to resemble the Mongolian steppes so in a way was quite similar to Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra with the building and mountain merging into one.

It was spectacularly huge with one of the greatest dinosaur exhibits…bear in mind that this part of China is dinosaur alley with lots of fossils etc located in the Gobi desert nearby. We normally don’t take photos in museums, as they tend to be dioramas, but here we found ourselves snapping away. Add to this the local culture exhibits and possibly most impressive of all was the China space program exhibit (with actual space suits and capsules) as well as the mock ups and back stories behind the evolution of the space program and its participants.

After this we were off to the usual, temple and mosque run and of course our adventures in food land. My first find was the breakfast bao zi shop, then the supermarket where Jill found a semi reasonable muesli, and then GOLD…an imported food shop…with NZ tasty cheese, smoked oysters, pate, prosciutto…there is a god. The next night we hit the restaurant strip after a long day’s hiking in the heat and settled in for some cool ales.

While drinking our refreshing beverages we watched the next table be delivered an entire leg of lamb on a spit…I went over and asked what it was and to point to it on the menu…being Chinese they immediately offered me some and the deal was done…we had to order this. The menu said it was 48 yuan ($8.23) so we ordered this, some mushrooms and some tofu and a mystery menu item that I randomly pointed at.

Our lamb came and it was spectacular…alas we later found out it was 48 yuan per half kilo…so our leg was almost 4 times more expensive than we thought…but it was good. The mushrooms and tofu were fine but the mystery item I pointed at turned out being a toasted jam sandwich…don’t ask. This was now our most expensive meal in China at 304 yuan ($52.12) but we had a huge leg of lamb, 6 beers (600ml each) and some small nibbly bits.

Back to the hostel the next day for beers with the others and to watch the World Cup game between Germany and France washed down with many more ales and some pizza from the joint across the road…which actually wasn’t too bad. We met up with the guys we had met on our first day who had disappeared on the overpriced grassland tour and having chatted with them upon their return…we made the right choice as they claim that the tours were not worth the expense.

It is quite interesting to see how our idea of value has changed during our time away…we always knew that Australia was expensive however the last 10 months has crystallised just how obscene the prices in Australia have gotten. Of course you can have fine dining here and pay through the nose for it…but within a 5 minute walk you can have a huge meal for two, with beverages, for under $20 and more often than not under $15. A single beer can be bought at the local store for between 50 cents and a dollar…everywhere…this will be hiked through the roof to about $2-4 in a restaurant and most main meals will cost about $2-8 depending on the venue.

Long story short is that we will suffer a huge culture shock when we finally decide to return…

midliferadventure