Virtual Traveller Blog

5D II arrives! Meanwhile, Casio announces most important camera of 2009

2009-01-08T16:44:00.003Z

Things are really starting to move in the camera world. My new 5D Mark II has arrived. A full report will follow but initial tests indicate that it's a similar step up in quality to my last upgrade (which was from a 20D to the 5D) and a bigger step up in terms of features.

In other news, Casio has announced the most important camera of the year, the snappily named EX-FC100 (which has an equally amazing sibling, the EX-FS10).

When I was a teenager and SLRs were the fastest cameras around, ten frames per second from the Canon EOS RT was about as fast as it got. These new babies from Casio do 30fps at 6 megapixels, HD video and a maximum framerate of 1000fps, all in tiny, pocketable digicams! Details at Phototography Blog. They also seem to feature what I have long thought should be the future of image stabilistation - the ability to take a lot of (presumably underexposed) stills very quickly and then "stitch" them together to create one sharp, properly exposed result. Oddly, however, they also appear to feature CCD-shake image stabilisation.

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

2008-12-17T19:56:00.002Z

As 2008 heads towards a its doom-laden close, it is tempting to interpret the final line of what will surely be the Christmas number one as a distillation of current national sentiment. Leonard Cohen's original version ended more upbeat:

"And even though it all went wrong

I'll stand right here before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah."

The year when "bonds of bonds" broke the world economy will be played out to a "cover version of a cover version", edited down to satisfy the national attention span which doesn't quite manage 4 minutes.

My own thought as 2008 draws to a close and I struggle to shake off the flu is that pretty much any old rubbish can look pretty in the right light, so it is best to look at the current "downturn" as a painful return to sustainable reality. And whenever you can save a thousand words, you should.

Rainbows, Lightning and crunchiness

2008-09-16T21:44:00.007+01:00

Much has happened since September 2006, sadly none of it on this site. Attempting to reawaken a project abandoned for two years has been a slow process, not least because I'd forgotten all the passwords!

Before the CO2 suffocates us, the planet is crunched dry of money and the internet collapses under the strain of spam and speculation as to the EOS 5D replacement, I had to take the window of opportunity to share some rather nice rainbows. One is on the new homepage, another below.

I've been spurred to resurrect the virtual traveller not because I've suddenly discovered some free time or due to any popular demand, but simply because I feel I've actually taken some quite decent photos recently. It brings me to thoughts of whether your camera really matters. There has been some debate about this but I doubt that for those who deal in pictures it is worth so many words. My own observation is simply that I currently own the best cameras I've ever had, and my success taking decent photos with them seems to have increased commensurately.

Home, and a mini-exhibition

2006-06-17T16:06:00.000+01:00

The Bridge House is a restaurant/cafe/bar/pub here right next to Tower Bridge. The atmosphere is laid back, the food is excellent (good value and large portions), the staff are friendly and the decor is pleasant. Particularly at the moment, where the main bar features a selection of 10 framed A3 prints by myself. If you're in the area pop in, have a pint, and get to see some of my photos looking much better than they do on a computer screen. They're all for sale for £120 framed.

Galapagos

2006-04-30T17:32:00.000+01:00

I've wanted to visit the Galapagos islands for years, after hearing other people's tales and seeing their wonderful photos. The group of islands off the west coast of the Equadorian mainland straddles the equator and is famous for its amazing wildlife (both above and below the water). We were fortunate enough to spend a week aboard the excellent Nemo. I say fortunate because at one point, after several weeks without communicaiton after sending them over US$4000, we thought the incompetent Green World Adventures (who trade as Galapagosislands.com) had run off with our money.

The Galapagos islands are better described by photos than words. Until I've had the chance to process over a thousand images from our week there, here are a few tasters:

Highlights of Peru

2006-04-30T16:35:00.000+01:00

By the time we got to Peru, the bulk of our trip was behind us. No longer could we linger and take things as they came - military precision was needed to cram in as many of the sights of Peru as possible into the 10 days we had there before jetting off to the Galapagos Islands.

Our first stop, having braved a 6 hour wait in Lima airport, was the beautiful little town of Cuzco. Dodging the brightly coloured old ladies with children on their backs and Llamas in tow trying to sell us dodgy cardigans, we found our way to a little hotel near the main square. The first thing that struck me about Cuzco was how unexpectedly pretty and European it looked. The second thing was extensive altitude sickness which resembled being drunk, hungover, hungry and stuffed all at the same time.

After a couple of days doing touristy stuff in Cuzco and trying to acclimatise to the altitude, we went downhill on a touristy train for about 4 hours to Machu Picchu.

The Inca fortress city of Machu Picchu is truly impressive. Its setting, high in the Andes, would be stunning even without the fifteenth century fortress. Our enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, Darwin, explained that the Incas had bronze-age technology when they built Machu Picchu. The city was never finished (not that any city ever is) as the Incas retreated into the hills to hide from the technologically superior Spanish invaders.

Visitors from the United States of America were amazed that the Incas had been able to build such an impressive city such a very long, long time ago. As I live near the Tower of London, which is nearly twice as old and still in full working order, the antiquity of the Inca structures was not so remarkable on its own. What was remarkable was watching the clouds disperse to reveal a spectacular view of the fortress from the Sun Gate at the end of the Inca trail.

Santiago and Easter Island (Rapa Nui)

2006-03-31T17:03:00.000+01:00

The coach journey from Mendoza in Argentina to Santiago in Chile took a while. First they stopped us at the border and checked everybody´s bags, which took hours. I assume this must have been an unlucky ¨spot check¨ rather than the norm, as it put us a couple of hours behind schedule. Then the coach broke down. We grabbed our bags and hitched a lift with another coach, making it to Santiago only to discover there was a presidential ceremony of some description and the main roads were blocked (so no Taxis). We eventually made it to our pleasant hotel via Santiago´s streamlined underground system and met up with my friend Markus for some attempted waterskiing and successful drinking. I liked Santiago, a ¨proper¨ European/American style city without the third-world look of places like Rio, and it was great to see Markus and just chill for a few days.

I´ve always wanted to go to Easter Island, but when we were planning this trip Sonia told me it was too expensive. Checking the prices again in Chile, and probably with the price of the Navimag ferry in mind, it seemed more reasonable so we took the plunge.

To be honest I wasn´t expecting Easter Island to me much more than a large field with extraordinary stone heads (Moai) dotted around it. We spent a week there, as the flights would be ridiculously costly otherwise, and I was worried it would be too long. It wasn´t. The island has many of the attractions of places like the Cook Islands as well as the unique selling point of the Moai. They have awesome traditional dancing, great beaches, beautiful volcanoes with crater lakes and spectacular volcanic coastline.

It rained a lot, but it was also sunny a lot, and it was lucky we were there for a relatively long time as the rain would have completely spoiled a 3 day trip. Although we visited on the footing that a trip to Easter Island is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the Moai still beckon and I hope to return someday.

Lake District and Mendoza

2006-03-31T17:00:00.000+01:00

Arriving in the pouring rain in Puerto Montt after a super-expenive but drizzly 3 day Navimag trip from the somewhat depressing Puerto Natales was a bit of a low morale moment. Puerto Montt is a thoroughly nasty town, the only place we´ve visited so far where we gave up looking for a restaurant and went to MacDonalds in desperation. The top tourist attraction is a "graffiti stonehenge". The beer is good, though, but I was disappointed to discover that the consistently inaccurate Lonely Planet "South America on a Shoestring" had made another mistake and the local brew was not really called "Kuntsmann" (It´s Kunstmann).

Arriving in Puerto Varas, everything changed (except the beer). It is a lovely little town next to a lake with views of the Osorno volcano.

We took a very scenic 3 boat, 4 bus tourist day-trip to Bariloche in Argentina, and drove around a bit in a hire car taking in the wonderful scenery.

After a couple of days in the sunshine of the Argentinian lake district, we took a coach to Mendoza. Mendoza is the main wine-producing region of Argentina and a day trip to a couple of wineries with magnificent Argentinian beef and chorizo for lunch was a highlight. The next day in the hot springs was another highlight, reaffirming our love for Argentina.

Chilling in Chile

2006-03-27T18:27:00.000+01:00

Puerto Natales is the support-town for trips to the Torres del Paine national park. As we were both suffering with flu at the time, Sonia and I decided to forego the traditional hiking and camping in favour of wilderness travel American Style. So we hired the biggest, fattest, most lumbering and fuel-inefficient SUV we could find (Jeep Grand Cherokee) and pummelled it over the dirt road to the Torres.

Our first day in the national park was a bit drizzly which, combined with our flu, meant we were not experiencing the place at its best. Our acommodation was a basic ´refugio´ where we shared a room with six unfortunates who had to listen to our coughing and spluttering. The refugio was next door to Hosteria Las Torres, near the base of the famous towers themselves - three granite pillars which rise steeply over the park. This area was quite seriously damaged a couple of years ago when some Czech numptie lit a fire and burned down half of the park. The locals seemed quite annoyed about this but I thought the charred remnants of trees looked spectacular surrounded by the fresh growth of daisies. The parts of the park which hadn´t burned looked pretty ordinary in comparison.

Once the sun came out, the park was spectacular and we enjoyed cruising around it in our environmentally-unfriendly American behemoth. Sadly our third night, which was supposed to be a luxury respite from the basic refugio at the astronomically expensive Hosteria Las Torres, turned into another night in Puerto Natales as the Hosteria was double-booked. At first they admitted their mistake but effectively told us it was our problem. Eventually, after someone woke up the extremely professional and courteous (English speaking) manager, we were showered with apologies and given a free breakfast and a room in Natales. Nevertheless this was one of the biggest disappointments of our trip. There are so few hotels in the Park (about 4), and they are so far apart (half a day´s travel over bumpy dirt tracks), that double-booking is a complete nightmare.

From Puerto Natales we took the unfeasibly overpriced Navimag ferry to Puerto Montt. The journey has the potential to be spectacular, and we were lucky to be upgraded from our US$350 standard cabin, which we were going to be sharing with 20 other backpackers, to a private cabin for just Sonia and I, which would normally have cost US$750. The ship we were supposed to be on (the Magallanes) had broken down, or sunk, so we had a different one (the Puerto Eden) instead. The Navimag is a small ferry for sheep, cows and lorries, with some cabins for tourists tacked on to pay for the journey. It is nothing like a cruise ship and not even anywhere near the luxury of a cross-channel ferry. You don´t get the opportunity to disembark anywhere on the 3 day trip through the fjords and the points of interest along the way are reached whenever they´re reached, rather than at a convenient time for tourists (such as during daylight hours!) Sadly the weather was awful so the promised spectacular scenery was largely a view of grey drizzle, and the destination, Puerto Montt, turned out to be considerably less pleasant than Puerto Natales.

Entering Argentina

2006-03-27T16:41:00.000+01:00

First, an apology for the lack of new material. I am writing this from an internet cafe in Aguas Calientes in Peru. When the Incas built Machu Picchu a mere 500 years ago they were still in the Bronze age, and things haven´t come along much since then in Aguas Calientes. Despite the name of the town meaning "hot water", our US$80 hotel´s bronze-age plumbing was unable to deliver any. The computers are still in the electronic equivalent of the bronze-age too; the Windows 95 age. Interfacing a 2005 high resolution digital camera with faded beige computers ten years older is a recipe for frustration, and I´ve had plenty of that in internet cafes throughout South America. For anybody reading this and contemplating extended travel with a big digital camera in South America, my advice would be to bring a laptop!

Backtracking a bit from Puerto Natales, my narrative left us in beautiful Iguassu. We only really dipped into Argentina a few times, spending more time in Brazil and Chile, but we were glad each time we did. Crossing from the Brazilian side of the Iguassu falls at Foz do Iguacu to the Argentinian side (Puerto Iguazu) was like Dorothy´s journey from black-and-white Kansas to technicolour Oz. Miserable grey grids of streets gave way to rustic cobbled roads lined with trees which seemed luminous green growing from Australia-red earth. Suddenly, as if by magic, the air was clearer, the women more beautiful, the food and wine delicious and credit cards started working again. Even the cars, which are the most boring in the world in Brazil, became interesting in the "shabby chique" style of rural France and Italy. What was surprising was how instantly this happened on crossing the border. Surely it´s the same road, so some of these cars should have made it to the "dark" side in Brazil? I can only assume it is illegal to cross into Brazil in an Alfa Romeo, classic American or 40 year old Peugeot 504, or in fact anything which isn´t a nondescript two-year-old Fiat or VW saloon.

From Puerto Iguazu we flew to Buenos Aires, where the technicolour continued. The deep primary colours of El Caminito de la Boca glowed under a clear blue sky. The beers were cold and cheap, the steaks were succulent and lots of dark latin beauties were dressed as prostitutes, pretending they could dance Tango in front of tourists who definitely couldn´t. Faded colonial elegance mixed it with glitzy modern shopping malls. I got the impression of a city with much beauty and history, but at the same time thriving and modern.

We flew from Buenos Aires to El Califate, a tourist town for visits to the nearby Moreno Glacier. As was normal for Argentina, the food and wine was wonderful, plentiful and cheap and the people were friendly. Unusually for our Argentina experience, the weather was rubbish and the Moreno Glacier was less impressive in the drizzle than it would otherwise have been. From El Califate we took a bus to Puerto Natales. On crossing the border, Argentina´s magical colours of Oz quickly faded to the near-monochrome Kansas of Puerto Natales.

Postcards from Puerto Natales

2006-02-28T22:13:00.000Z

Brazil in a Nutshell

2006-02-19T20:54:00.000Z

In Buenos Aires (which is a shabbier but slightly less pretentious version of Paris with 50p beers) we met a Brazilian mother and daughter travelling together. Esther, the mother, wondered why she lives in Brazil when she doesn't like Carnival or beaches. This struck a chord with me.

I don´t much like beaches and it was the wrong time of year for Carnival. Having seen Rio, Ihla Grande, Salvador de Bahia, Fernando de Noronha and a bit of Amazon near Manaus, I was wondering why Brazil was on our Itinerary.

I have seen Rio described in some disreputable guidance materials as the most beautiful city in the world. I agree that it has (arguably) the world´s most beautiful location for a city, the only problem being the actual buildings they´ve plonked down on it. I didn´t see one which wouldn´t be scheduled for urgent demolition if it was blighting the face of New York, Hong Kong or even London. Or Slough. From a very long way away, in the dark, they turn into specks of light on Rio´s naturally impressive panorama.

There are only two things you need to know about Ilha Grande. One is that it is an island, and the other is that it is quite big. I didn´t take any pictures.

Salvador is probably one of the best cities in the world for getting mugged or otherwise assaulted in a criminally violent way. It has some quite colourful, although decaying, colonial architecture in the Pelourinho area. When the boys in the streets who have not yet grown to full mugging size take time off from picking pockets, they flap and screech like electrocuted chickens. The Pelourinho also features a musical waterfall, awful Italian restaurants and an almost total absence of places to buy crisps. If you go there, loud music will assault your eardrums constantly, only some of which even pretends to have a tune. I´d feel safer, and probably have more fun, dressed in a Newcastle United shirt at the Sunderland side of the Stadium of Light with "Sunderland are crap" tatooed on my forehead.

Fernando de Noronha is a ¨paradise island¨ in the same vein as Rarotonga, but Rarotonga is better and much cheaper. It is supposed to have good diving but (in our experience) doesn´t. It has what are apparently Brazil´s best beaches, which were fine but made me wish I was on a really pretty beach like Whitehaven on Whitsunday Island, Australia, or somewhere more interesting such as Bamburgh or Tynemouth.

In the Amazon, the most notable wildlife I encountered were mosquitos and a large, ugly, poisonous spider which crawled inside my mosquito net. The weather was grey and damp. I took a few pictures (largely to make sure the camera hadn´t seized up from lack of use in Ihla Grande, Salvador and Noronha) but they were all crap. I guess it could be spectacular in the right light, but the mozzies would probably have sucked all your blood and given you malaria by the time you´d waited for it.

Then we went to the Iguassu falls. This is one of the most amazing places I´ve ever been, and singlehandedly made up for a month trawling around stressful and mediocre sights in the rest of Brazil. On arriving, Sonia and I were both startled by the beauty of our first glimpse. The falls were huge, the mist from their crashing flow painting a perfect rainbow from which a black bird of prey flew toward us. I took hundreds of photos, only to realise there was an even more impressive view around the next corner. And the next. It is impossible to take satisfactory photos of the falls, as whatever you leave out of the frame is generally just as magnificent as what you include. The falls mark the border between Brazil and Argentina, and the Argentinian side was bigger and in some ways even more impressive than the Brazilian one. Wildlife was teeming - we encountered giant lizards, toucans, a snake, small racoon-like creatures, some little unidentified rodents and even my boss from London. The huge numbers of tourists was the only downside, but the falls were so spectacular we hardly noticed them.

Brazilian Cuisine

2006-02-04T22:45:00.000Z

Brazilian Cuisine is not what I expected. Not that I did a lot of research before arriving here in the world's fifth-largest country (I prefer to preserve the suspense and also couldn't be arsed). But even if I had done my homework I wouldn't have been prepared.

Generally, countries which don't have a particularly strong indigenous cuisine are taken care of by the Chinese, the Italians and (perhaps to a lesser extent) the Indians. The better the local fare, the fewer imports and vice versa. Being somewhat renowned for its bland national dishes, England benefits from the best the rest of the world has to offer, anglicised to taste. On the other hand, Greece has wonderful food, so Peking Duck and Chicken Tikkas are thinner on the ground, but a Pizza Quatro Staggioni is never too far away.

Thailand, and particularly Chiang Mai, struck us as the exception which proves this rule. There, not only are the local dishes varied, fresh, delicious, plentiful and cheap, but you can get pizza, pasta, chinese, Mexican and anything else your tastebuds crave, often all from the same restaurant, and invariably perfectly cooked. They are culinary geniuses in Chiang Mai, where it is seemingly impossible to get a less-than-excellent meal.

Brazil, on the other hand, does not appear to have much in the way of local cuisine. Sticking big chunks of meat on a barbeque is a Brazilian tradition, but not a particularly unique one (although the meat is generally excellent). Other than that, the only specially Brazillian food I can think of is Manioc sauce, which Sonia and I refer to as maniac sauce by reference to the level of mental disfunction required to order it more than once.

Having established that their home-grown recipes are rubbish, you would expect the normal tides of immigration to sort things out for Brazil. Not so. Whilst Italian restaurants are plentiful, the Brazilians insist on attempting to cook Italian dishes themselves, rather than leaving it to actual Italians like the rest of the world does. They are so bad at it that Pizza Hut is considered a gourmet restaurant here, and Jamie Oliver is probably already working on an exposé documentary in the interests of world health.

Despite having lived in England all my life, the worst meal I've ever had in a restaurant was a Brazilian pasta at the Lord Manaus Hotel in Manaus. It consisted of just dry spaghetti sprinkled with the charred remains of what was advertised as garlic. The pungent aroma of burnt garlic made me cough involuntarily and almost gag. Meanwhile Sonia was eating the worst meal she's ever had in her life, which was just spaghetti with putrid-smelling prawns mashed into a rancid tomato sauce. As she was upwind of my foul-smelling dish, Sonia foolishly assumed that it couldn't possibly be worse than hers and suggested a swap. Hoping for some relief from my bottle of Brazilian beer, I was disappointed to discover that it was frozen solid.

Bizarrely, apart from steaks which are always cooked very well, the only decent food we've had in Brazil has been Sushi. I would never have even guessed that Sushi would be available here, but it seems very popular. The explanation seems to be that any meal with two or less ingredients is generally fine, but any more than that is risky. A barbequed steak only has one ingredient, so it's fine. Similarly Sashimi. Sushi only has fish and rice, so is no problem. But once you get something as complicated as a pizza, which requires at least a base, cheese and tomato, things go downhill. I had one pizza which had a base and cheese but no tomato, and even saw a man eating a 'pizza' from a metal plate which had cheese and tomato but lacked a base!

The other confusing thing about Brazilian food is that the portions feed between one and six people, with traditionally no clues given as to which it will be. We took to ordering one item between us, and ordering another once it arrived if we got a one-man portion. The only problem with this is that it takes so long for the Brazilians to cook their food that when time is limited, for example on a tortuous 12 hour flight with the truly appalling (and bankrupt) Varig airline, you have to make do with a series of spam sandwiches.

More Wilderness Shots

2006-02-04T22:19:00.000Z

I have spared no expense, consumed innumerable burgers and other meat-like substances (often coated with luke-warm near-solid gravy) and braved the world's worst computers (in Brazil where we are now travelling) in order to bring you more photos of the American Southwest before we disappear into the Amazon. Check back soon for the ultimate guide to Brazilian cuisine!

Red Canyon, near Bryce Canyon National Park.

Lower Antelope Slot Canyon.

Zion National Park, near Emerald Pools.

The Eye, Monument Valley.

Grand Canyon and its more interesting neighbours

2006-01-27T15:26:00.000Z

Travelling to far-flung destinations to see famous tourist attractions you´ve known about since primary school is OK, but for me the most thrilling aspect of travelling is happening upon amazing places which, through my ignorance, I´d never heard of. Before arriving in Australia the first time, I had of course seen numerous images of the opera house and harbour bridge. But the destination which blew me away was one I only found out about whilst in Australia - the Pinnacles Desert.

Attempting to maintain a decent level of ignorance before arriving drives Sonia insane, but keeps me excited. Our original road-trip plan was to drive from LA to Vegas, then to the Grand Canyon, perhaps see some other stuff near the Canyon, then head up to San Francisco and then back down to LA. San Francisco will have to wait until next time, because as soon as we arrived at the Grand Canyon it became obvious that the surrounding area in Utah and Arizona was stunning. We wouldn´t even be able to scratch its dusty red surface in our pitiful two weeks. We had entered the spectacular world photographed by Michael Fatali, who has the second-best job in the world (after Jeremy Clarkson). Unlike Clarkson, he doesn´t use his privileged position to drop skips on Maseratis, but instead spends time in the chilled-out villiage of Springdale and produces the most wonderful images of one of the most spectacular parts of the world I´ve ever visited. His compositions look great even on the internet, but to fully appreciate the awesome quality he achieves you need to see one of his big exhibition-size prints in the flesh. There was one in the hotel we stayed in near Zion national park, and it was shockingly good.

The Grand Canyon may be the most famous of the national parks in the area, but as usual it was by no means the most impressive. I think we visited in a good order - Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Bryce Canyon (and nearby Red Canyon), then Zion national park. Certainly if we´d done it the other way round the Grand Canyon would have been a disappointment, but as it came first (so benefitted from comparison with Disneyland and Vegas) I loved it.

If you were insisting on saving the best till last, of the places we visited I´d say save Monument Valley, which has a spiritual magnificence to which photos do no justice. You can take your own car inside, on red dirt roads. The Mustang loved them. Surprisingly, despite being a four seater convertible, there was no sign of scuttle-shake whatoever, and not so much as a shudder from the stiff chassis on these rough pot-holed dirt tracks. If only it was so good on tarmac!

With the possible exception of the Grand Canyon, these are all places of extraordinary calm. The vast openness, perfect clarity of air and light, comfortable temperature and almost total silence does for me what a nice beach does for a lot of people, but with the advantage of not having to pick sand out of my crevice afterwards. The best bit is that by the time we realised where they were, we didn´t have time to visit the Canyonlands or Arches national parks, which from a photographic perspective look like the highlight of the region. So we get to go back!

Mustang Road Trip

2006-01-22T23:52:00.000Z

I love a road trip, and since a particularly ludicrous one in Australia a few years back I´ve been dying to get back behind the wheel for some motoring mayhem. The freedom of the open road with nothing booked ahead appeals more than any other form of travel. No airports, no bus-stations, no robbing taxi drivers, just a nice cruisy motor, the open road, and the unknown.

We left Rarotonga and spent a wet New Year´s eve in Disneyland. With that nonsense out of the way, it was time to get down to the real purpose of the American phase. Sadly we only had two weeks and, unlike Australia, didn´t break down, drive through any floods, share any barbeques with road-train drivers whilst waiting for rivers to subside, rescue broken-down backpackers, strap the transmission together with insulating tape or get any death threats from irate roadhouse owners five hundred miles from civilisation. We did tackle torrential rain, fog, darkness, dirt roads, ice, snow and endless straight tarmac, took our rented black convertible Mustang to meet some real Mustangs in the Navajo Indian reserve at Monument Valley and cruised the strips in LA and Vegas.

First challenge for the trip was to find a Mustang, which I had fancied trying out ever since the new model appeared in UK car mags about a year ago. The way car rental is organised made this difficult, and strikes me as bizarre. You don´t book a Cinema ticket for ¨Harry Potter or similar¨ or order ¨White bread or similar¨ from Tescos online only to end up with a banana. Why, then, do car rental websites only allow you to book a ¨Ford Mustang convertible or similar,¨ leaving the motoring enthusiast open to the horror of paying top dollar for their desired drive only to end up with a VW Beetle (a genuine alternative offered to me at LAX, honest!) I quickly recognised that booking in advance was fruitless. We would have to see what they had at the airport.

Arriving at LAX, it turned out the usual counters for Budget, Avis, Hertz etc found at most non-third-world airports (and some third-world ones too) were absent, and instead there was a barely audible free telephone with a number of poster advertisements for rental companies. Budget, Avis, Hertz etc either didn´t answer, cut me off, or had no idea whatsoever whether I would get a brand new Mustang, old model Mustang, VW Beetle or a banana. By the time Sonia and I and our baggage had been shuttle-bussed to a rental company, it would be too late to try elsewhere - we would just have to take whatever they had.

Hence I ended up hiring a car from the only agency which knew what cars they had, and definitely had a black, latest model Mustang convertible. They were called Rex Rent- a-Car. I presume the Rex/Wrecks pun was not intended, but was simply advance warning of their level of intelligence. Fortunately we didn´t have any accidents, breakdowns or thefts and delivered the car back in better condition than we found it (having put it through a carwash for photographic purposes!) so we didn´t have to test out whether the insurance we were paying $25 a day for actually existed.

First stop on our itinerary was Las Vegas. Vegas is not big and it´s not clever, but it´s certainly different. As the whole point of travelling is to see different things, Vegas is a must-see destination.

In Vegas the hotels are cheap, but you can´t so much as breathe without haemorraging cash. Much like Disneyland, it´s a little fortress-bubble of fantasy nonsense surrounded by wasteland. We stayed at the Luxor hotel, which has the most amazingly space-wasting design of any building I´ve ever seen. The main part of the hotel takes the shape of a large pyramid, all of which constitutes empty atrium space apart from a tiny bit taken up by actual rooms around the outer walls. We were ¨upgraded¨ to a more spacious ¨tower¨ room, which was largely indistinguishable from any ordinary Holiday Inn/Best Western standard offering. But the rooms are not the point of Vegas hotels. The point appears to be to create a bizarre fantasy land, bringing together world-famous sites such as the Pyramids, New York skyline and the Eiffel Tower, as well as fictional castles and palaces, but keeping any hint of reality out. So far, so Disneyland, except you can´t drink in bars with animatronic leopards at Disneyland. In fact, that is the only real difference I can think of - in Vegas they have added booze, gambling and topless dancing in amongst the taste-free plastic castles, concrete waterfalls, mechanical trees and wooden shows. It´s Disneyland for grown-ups - a magical getaway from all things real.

We ate excellent but expensive steaks and watched a badly executed replica of the London show Mamma Mia. In this production, one actor tried to carry off an upper-class English accent seemingly without any experience of the English or their accents other than studying the character Boycee from Only Fools and Horses. Other actors and actresses mauled their out-of-tune ways through ABBA classics but failed to be as lifelike as the rubber elephants at the bar in the MGM Grand.

With the Mustang standing by and open road ahead, we couldn´t leave quickly enough.

A Christmas Paradise

2006-01-22T23:09:00.000Z

We spent Sonia´s birthday in New Zealand. Then we flew to Rarotonga and it was the day before Sonia´s birthday. The next day, it was her birthday again. This sort of bizarre temporal paradox explains why they put the date-line around the back end of the world where it doesn´t really matter.

I have been lucky enough to visit a few island paradises. Boracay in the Philippines stands out amongst the genre for its warm crystal-clear water, white powdery sand, and wonderful outrigger sailing boats silhouetted against perfect sunsets.

Personally I´m not a massive island paradise fan, so I´d bend the rules and put Fraser Island in Queensland at the top of my list. It´s not a proper champagne-sipping paradise as it involves camping and soap is banned, but is stunning and unique with its freshwater lakes, beached shipwreck and self-drive Landcruiser treks.

Rarotonga had its unique features too, including sensual traditional dance and amazingly friendly, laid back locals. For example, we missed the last hourly bus on our trip to the supermarket, but the off-duty bus-driver just happened to be passing, heard us talking about the bus, and gave us a lift home in his car. Our beach-front apartment was a bargain (view from our balcony pictured below) and Christmas day was crowned with a spectacular sunset.

On the other hand, the food was largely mediocre, the fine sand was mostly washed away by a series of storms last year and the island has the worst supermarket I´ve ever seen. Nevertheless, we chilled nicely for most of the week we were there.

Sadly we spent some of our time on the continuing quest to persuade Varig airlines to sell us one of their valuable and closely-guarded airline tickets. After several days of email silence (we couldn´t phone them as they only gave out 1-800 numbers which don´t work outside the USA), they emailed at midnight on Christas Eve. They demanded that we sent them a fax within 24 hours (ie zero working days) of copies of passports and a credit card, otherwise our flights would be cancelled. Fortunately we received this email in Rarotonga´s premier communications centre, the only place on the island with proper email access, international telephones and a fax machine. Unfortunately, they didn´t have a photocopier. After two hours driving our Nissan Micra convertible around every establishment on the island which looked open, it became clear that there wasn´t a single photocopier on the whole frikkin island. We began to consider ¨brass-rubbing¨ techniques. Evenutally we did find a photocopier, but by then the only fax machine at the communications centre had broken down. I leave the Varig saga there, as it only gets more tedious, but Sonia would be happy to relay the full story to anyone with five or six hours to spare.

Auckland Adventures

2006-01-22T22:50:00.000Z

We stopped off in Auckland for just long enough to remind ourselves that the weather and prices in London are wonderful. Perhaps that is Auckland´s only role as a world travel destination (I had been labouring under the illusion that London fulfilled that feel-good role for the rest of the world).

The prices of a loaf of bread, piece of cheese or bottle of New Zealand wine in an Auckland supermarket were enough to convince me that London is not the rip-off it is made out to be. It was the middle of their summer, but for the whole three days we were there it was cloudy, cold, raining and miserable. As the only two local man-made structures of note are both in Australia, we weren´t expecing much excitement on the building front, but we were astonished by a 30 foot high semi-mechanical papier-mache Santa Claus clamped to the side of a high street department store. It was motionless apart from its left eye (which winked) and left index finger which curled menacingly. The overall impression was of a child terrifier from a made-for-TV Stephen King horror.

We spent most of our time in Auckland trying to find someone who worked for Varig airlines who was awake, had a working braincell and a working computer system. We failed.

Sonia did succeed in being crowned ¨miss backpacker 2005¨ in the dodgy hostel bar after we were lured there with promises of free New Zealand beer (which is actually very good). Two Brazilian girls dropped out because they couldn´t drink an alcopop in under 24 hours, so Sonia stepped in to wow the crowds with her chocolate-eating abilities.

Down Under Again

2006-01-22T22:18:00.000Z

From Kuala Lumpur we flew to Sydney, which is starting to feel like a home away from home for me. The sun shone, the people smiled, and the only two man-made structures of any interest in the whole of Australasia still shone like beacons in the harbour. Flies still buzzed around our heads and there still weren´t any decent restaurants. Yes, this was definitely Sydney.

I revisited two mediocre old friends for the third time - the Central YHA backbackers hostel and the Blue Mountains. Whilst there is no excuse for revisiting the dreadful and overpriced Central YHA, last time I felt the Blue Mountains deserved a second chance after my first visit had been plagued by catestrophic torrential rain. The second time back, they failed to blow me away. Third time unlucky, as they were still rubbish. Fortunately I hadn´t been to Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon or Zion national park at the time, or I would have been less impressed. Nevertheless, the Blue Mountains area is huge and I´ve seen something new each time, including a couple of pretty waterfalls on this visit.

We relaxed for ten minutes on Manly beach, which was long enough for me to get horribly sunburned (although Sonia was fine). We drank wines in the Hunter Valley (although Sonia was more interested in the chocolate) and I spent ages trying to find a PC that worked in an internet cafe. It turned out that the only places in central Sydney with computers made this millenium are in chinatown, where the rooms are filled with local gamers of asian descent rather than the usual motley crew of foreign backpackers. All the menus were in chinese, but if you could guess the right character for ¨publish blog¨ instead of ¨delete all¨, it all worked quite decently.

Kuala Lumpur

2005-12-20T11:26:00.000Z

"Hotel Die-Nasty?" asked the taxi driver.
"The Dynasty, yes."
Certainly the most bizarre and frustrating hotel we've ever stayed in (despite being four stars) did not prevent us enjoying our time in Kuala Lumpur, or should I say our time in the Petronas Towers? A lot of people equate Kuala Lumpur with the towers, so we decided to take that approach one step further and not leave them for three whole days, other than to return to the Dynasty for protracted arguments with reception, housekeeping and room service and, if there was time after all that, a couple of hours sleep.
The Petronas Towers are a city in themselves, containing all that is necessary to support modern life. Tip for KL - the sky-bridge offers good views of the city, but is only open to ticket-holders. Tickets are not sold, but given away free on a "first-come, first served" basis. Unless you queue up at 8.30 AM your only chance of getting on the sky-bridge is if your girlfriend's tearful outbust appeals to the hearts of the attendants (it worked for us!) After a mad dash to buy smart shoes specially for the purpose, we listened to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra playing Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto. We then surfed the Internet, ate Sushi and shopped for a laptop all within the magical citadel of the Towers.

In Singapore we had even less time than we did in KL, but were still able to look at porcupines in the dark. It happens that Sonia and I visited London Zoo shortly before we set off on this trip. Comparing Singapore's night safari with London Zoo is like comparing, well, night and day. Whilst London's decaying pre-Victorian effort was utterly crap to the point of being both depressing and disturbing, the night safari was wonderful, even after having been on a proper safari in the summer.

A short flight from Singapore brought us to Sydney, and up to date. New Zealand tomorrow!

Cambodia and the Temples of Angkor

2005-12-20T10:56:00.000Z

Although we were only in Cambodia for five minutes, there was plenty of time to realise how special the Temples of Angkor are. Angkor Wat is the most famous, but to my eyes far from the most spectacular. My favourite was Ta Prohm, of Tomb Raider fame, where vast fig and silk-cotton trees tower above the ruined temple, incongruously taking root in the temple stonework itself.

From the rural simplicity of the local communities to the tranquil beauty of lake Tonle Sap, Siam Reap's surroundings were never less than captivating, even though we STILL didn't manage to see a proper sunset!

King Mekong?

2005-12-20T09:05:00.000Z

I'm a bit confused. We've been to so many countries and seen so many movies in the last couple of weeks I can't remember which of the giant cockroaches, naked natives, cobra wine and temples with skull heads were from Narnia, King Kong or the Mekong Delta. I'm four entire countries and at least as many films behind with the blog, so forgive me if the details are a little conflated.

I liked Saigon. I sat in a bar for the whole day drinking beers and coffee, eating the occasional meal when I felt like it, reading photocopied history and watching the locals on the street outside try to sell photocopied novels. The entire day cost two quid, and that includes the hotel and the six hundred fake DVD's I bought.

Vietnam won the football again (I think they were playing Madame Tussauds B team this time) so we were treated to the Saigon version of the fabulous mad motorbike flag-waving riot. It's a pity their team has a red national flag, but seeing the entire city flooded with a procession of chanting Vietnamese draped in red, you can understand why the Americans tragically mistook them for Communists.

As life was easy, comfortable, colourful and cheap in Saigon, we decided to leave immediately so that we could sleep on a tiled piece of concrete in the middle of a mosquito-infested swamp. This was what is known as a "home-stay." We actually paid extra for this, on the understanding that it would add authenticity to our mekong delta trip. It was quite interesting. We discovered that the inhabitants of the Mekong delta live a simple agrarian lifestyle without proper beds or any hot water, and that they mostly support Manchester United. Seriously, "Manchester United" were the only two words of English our host spoke, and whilst the house only had partial walls, concrete beds and a pig in the back garden, there was a 30 inch TV featuring all the Premiership matches in Dolby surround sound!

After showering in cold water in the yard next to the pig, we were escorted by boat to the Cai Rang floating market. We then visited a man with snakes and a magically clean toilet. Or was that in Harry Potter? Later that afternoon we discovered how they make rice noodles out of dogs.

Big Ass Tourists

2005-12-09T13:10:00.000Z

Travel broadens the mind. The painful part about having my mind broadened is the realisation of how narrow it was in the first place. Sometimes I start to believe I know some things, but then I travel and vast galaxies of my ignorance open up before me.

I didn't know very much at all about the Vietnam War. I knew it happened round-about the nineteen sixties and involved America dropping a lot of bombs on Vietnam, but that was about it. After being inspired by the passionate account of a tour guide (who was himself a war veteran) on a visit to the Cu Chi tunnels, I found myself a copy of Robert Mcnamara's book, "In Retrospect," and am enjoying broadening. I am angry with my education, however, which made History a boring chore in which we learned much tedious detail about British prime-ministers in the 1870's, but nothing whatsoever about the Communist revolution and the Vietnam War.

According to our veteran tour guide, the Vietnamese now refer to Brits and Americans as "big ass tourists", for obvious reasons. My ass proved small enough to fit through a short section of Cu Chi tunnel, but two minutes of it was quite enough for me. It was a fascinating and moving place, made all the more real by the personal stories from our guide, and I will leave much the wiser.

Vietnamese Jingle Bells

2005-12-09T12:57:00.000Z

Real joy was brought to my heart when we left the altogether average Hoi An and flew to Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City in the same way that the official name for the Union Jack is the Union Flag). We found a proper department store (the Zen Plaza), and a sushi bar within. I was quite cheered by the prospect of sushi in pleasant surroundings, but what warmed the very core of my soul was hearing all the Christmas songs in Vietnamese. I'd forgotten all about Christmas! Not that I'm actually looking forward to Christmas, of course, but I suddenly realised it was only 20 or so days to go, and this was the first Christmas music I'd heard in 2005! The genius timing of our trip not only avoided England's crappiest weather, but we'd got off totally scot-free on the "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" front too!

Same same (but different)

2005-12-09T11:37:00.000Z

My copy of the South-East Asia Lonely Planet is sorely lacking photos. Actually it's sorely lacking pages, too, since Sonia cut out and discarded most of them to make bag-room for airport kipple-purchases such as a tiled handbag. Before they went, I did see a small black and white image of Halong Bay and decided we had to go there. Vietnamese fish farmers with triangle-hats paddling rustic boats silhouetted against steep limestone outcrops at sunset beckoned.

Another day, another tour. Despite my resolution never to join the ranks of the organised coach-trip after the Bangkok day-trip experience, Sonia persuaded me that a "3 day, 2 night" tour was the best way to see what Vietnam proffers as "one of the great natural wonders of Asia."

It was average. It was actually 2 days, 2 nights, as the "third day" merely involved driving back to Hanoi. The light was rubbish so photographic opportunities were limited. The first evening featured one of the weakest sunsets I've ever seen, and the second night's sunset would have made for some average photos if we hadn't been behind schedule, stuck on an island with a mad kayak guide, being attacked by rabid monkeys, whilst my camera languished on the main boat.

Kayaking sucks pretty badly. Unlike rowing, which is quite rewarding at the same time as being tiring, Kayaking is simply tiring and irritating. You don't get the opportunity to get out of breath - repetitive strain injury sets in first as you flap the little paddles around to hardly any effect. We paddled about 14 kilometres, accompanied by the tone-deaf singing of our vietnamese guide, to a place called Monkey Island, where (surprise surprise) there are some monkeys. One eyed us viciously after it had finished pulling the legs off a gecko and putting it back on the ground to see if it could still walk. I was convinced it was evil, and probably had rabies. It decided to attack Sonia.

We did have some excellent food, met some interesting people, and saw quite a nice cave, but overall Halong Bay was a bit of a disappointment for me compared to similar scenery in Krabbi (Thailand) and Coron Bay (Philippines).

As our fellow tour-groupers in Halong Bay were all civilised Europeans and Americans, we needed to subject ourselves to some up-close and personal South-East Asian culture. So we booked ourselves a 14 hour overnight train journey aboard the Reunification Express from Hanoi to Danang. After a slightly confusing bit of shuffling (the hotel had booked Sonia and I beds in different cabins) we ended up in a 4-berth cabin with a Vietnamese family. Sonia feared the worst for our night's sleep when she saw the five-month old baby. Actually he was the most well-behaved baby I've ever seen. Perhaps he was deaf, as he didn't even start crying when piercing Vietnamese opera started blaring from speakers all over the train at 6am. Very good child. Pity the father snored like an Elephant with bird flu, though.

As is usual in the region, when we arrived at our destination some little men rushed up and stole our bags. We've learned that instead of calling the police, the easiest thing to do is just follow these guys and pay them lots of money to take you to your hotel in their taxi. So we quickly exited Danang and arrived in Hoi An, where the light was still rubbish. Apparently there is a beach but we didn't much fancy it in the rain, so the only entertainment was getting another crap suit made and going back for 6 fittings. Tailored suits in Asia are like bargain wine in France - a false economy. It seems appealing until you've thrown away your 15th bottle of crap plonk and wished you'd just paid an extra two quid for some decent stuff at Tescos.