Here in Sydney, what happened? Well, Karl - a bit of a ditherer - dithered in the direction of Malaysia/Singapore and I got word that Bob and his fishpot were not leaving for quite a while so I thought bugger this for a game of soldiers and took a flight to Darwin. Good job really. One day in Darwin and I came down with some mysterious tropical fever thing I musta got in Timor. The doc wasn't the most tactful bloke in the world and I spent the next day scared half shitless that I had malaria and was going to [View Full Entry]

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After being scarred for life by the experience of simply attempting to book a ferry to West Timor, I eventually succeeded in making the crossing to Kupang. The story of how I eventually got the boat is even more ridiculous than my previous tale, but I'll spare the details. Since Flores, I have ceased being a 'tourist' and my time is spent either being a lazy sod (?) or trying to transport myself across that infinitesimally small gap to Australia. I won't be going immediately in any case as the flames of cyclone Ingrid are licking higher up the backside of [View Full Entry]

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Do a Google search on 'Flores' and you will see that this far out Indonesian island gained worldwide attention last year as the place where they found a little 'hobbit' person's remains. Only about 12000 years old, it is supposedly a previously unknown human relative. Ardent evolutionists and creationists have been jumping up and down in their armchairs about it ever since. The scenery in Flores is utterly brilliant. It is up there with Laos. Maybe it is better - it would be a great place to explore by motorbike for a couple of weeks. The other surprising thing is that [View Full Entry]

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Two thousand and something metres above sea level. Makes the air thin and things cold. This is the summit at Mount Bromo in Java just before sunrise. An active volcano that goes 'poo' every 15 minutes, releasing a sulfurous whodunnit. I had read in the guide book that the scenery at sunrise was pretty damn good and I must admit it was spectacular. On the downside is that everyone else has read the same thing as me translated into twenty languages. A crowd generates an atmosphere in a pub, at a footy match or even at the cinema. At the top [View Full Entry]

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After blowing my budget to pieces in Thailand with the dive trip, I decided to hot - foot it through Malaysia (thought it was a bit crap last time and couldn't be arsed to give it a second go) and make my way to Jakarta in record time. It was a fairly pain-free journey to the port of Melaka, Malaysia - if you consider 36 hours on a sleeper train and 3 buses pain-free (does this make me a 'guru-traveller'? I hope not - I haven't been to India and I don't have those stupid huge hole things in my ears [View Full Entry]

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The Thai alphabet has 48 consonants, 24 vowels and 6 'tones'. They really should do a version of Countdown. Love it or loathe it, Khao San Road in Bangkok is and always will be the backpacker capital of East Asia and you will often run into people you met in other parts of Asia. This time for me, Bangkok was a waiting stop before a dive trip in the south. I whiled away the time spending a ton of cash buying crap I am sure I will not use and then popped 10kg of the stuff in the mail. I have [View Full Entry]

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In Luang Prabang they had started up a cookery course so I put my name down to learn how to cook some stuff that tastes eerily similar to Thai food. The restaurant owner ran the course and was very enthusiastic, always prefering the sound of his own jaw flapping to silence. So as well as making chilli-bark beef hotpot (don't ask), I can now write his resume from memory and tell you which famous chefs have patronised his gaff (including that mockney tosser, Jamie Oliver). In addition, he also lectured us on five centuries of Lao history, explaining why the food [View Full Entry]

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After a great experience in China (I WILL be back - soon), it was time to cross into Laos (don't pronounce the 's' - you sound like a twat). Laos is in the stone age compared to China, but it has an amazing laid-backness about it. It is like a migraine that suddenly lifts - you forget you had it. Nobody beeps their horn, you can breathe air that doesn't smell of cigarettes and there is a lot less gob rolling/spitting. Spent the first few days on a trek in the hills. Having seen what has happened with overtourism in Thailand, [View Full Entry]

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For the first time since my Middle -Eastern adventures, I felt the heat of the sun. It is as if I have tunnelled through a block of snow thousands of miles thick and am on the other side. The scarf, gloves and thermals are in the bin, the parka is in the post (along with a helluva lot of sooper cheap dvds of questionable authenticity). Heat. Mmmm. So there was a plan to go back north to some great stuff near the border with Tibet - I even extended my visa for that reason. But sod that. Laos bound. I am [View Full Entry]

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Everything is hunky-dory in China! The government is the best ever and getting better! Well, it is if you believe what you see on China's English language news channel, CCTV (ironic name - let's rename Fox News to "CIA"). Scary thing is, it ain't that different to ours, just less subtle. ...And the worst toilet in the world 2004 award goes to the internet cafe I used in Xian. China has the worst toilets I have ever seen/smelt, which is saying something after the Middle East. This place deserves the award for the kind of paralysing reek of shit that makes [View Full Entry]

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