So, what was the boat like?

I've been meaning to write a blog about the container ship we got from Le Havre, France to Port Kelang in Malaysia since the moment we disembarked - September 25th 2008 ...

... turns out I still can't be arsed, so here's a video of it instead.

Enjoy (definitely crank the sound up).

Places featured in video are -

Hamburg, Germany

Bruges, Belgium

Valetta, Malta

Suez Canal, Egypt

Lots of sea but thankfully no pirates

Port Kelang, Malaysia

Where are we now?

We're in Mt Gambia, South Australia...

See ya later.

Deuce

Rafa warming up for this post

Getting into Wimbledon during the two-week grand-slam event is tricky at best – tickets are ‘exy’ and sellout super fast and allocation is dubious with a big chunk going to LTA members and corporates. Consequently whenever the media interview people from Brit Losers Mound (aka Henman’s Hill) they are invariably posh, public schoolgirls and shrill.

I’ve always liked my tennis me, and like a lot of people I have fond memories of watching some of the classic matches, like McEnroe vs Borg, Navaratilova vs Everett and Connors vs whomever he was playing. However, Wimbledon has never really been an option, partly for the reasons above but mostly because it rains all the time in England and chances are whatever day I choose will be washed out.

Where we at?

So, we find ourselves in Melbourne during the 2^nd week of the Australian Open, the first grand-slam event of the year. Ticket prices are not extortionate and we have plenty of time on our hands… what to do… what to do…

‘Course, weather still played a factor in our trip to Melbourne Park – hottest day on record in Melbourne for over 100 years – so hot in fact that they cancelled all play on the outer courts. Fortunately Melbourne Park has two covered courts, the Hisense and Rod Laver Arena so there was lots of play. We specifically bought evening session tickets but we managed to blag our way in early (sorry for the use of the word ‘blag’ – normally can’t stand it but that was basically what happened).

Kill him Nadal!!!

Frenchie outed

We watched a couple of doubles quarter-finals and then the men’s quarter-finals, most notably the Nadal vs Simon match which Nadal won comfortably in 3 sets.

The highlight of the day was when we stood and watched Nadal warm up in the blazing sun. He was fair bashing them tennis balls. We also walked past Martina Navaratilova, which was noice.

We finally left Rod Laver arena at around eleven-thirty. It was still in the 30’s so we walked along the river to the tram stop before jumping on the tram heading for Malvern and Brighton!?!

Hot dogs

It was a terrific day and I ate 3 hot dogs; they were delicious. I then had a major heart attack brought on by all the sodium. That wasn’t so noice.

Tennis viewing in Australia and specifically Melbourne Park seems to be much more egalitarian than in the UK. There was definitely a good mix of bogans, toffs and all of us that fit somewhere in-between enjoying the tennis both outside in the red-hot sun and inside the arenas. Luckily most of the Serbian and Croatian players have already been knocked out so we didn’t get caught up in a repeat of the ethnic tensions that spilled out in Garden Square last week.

New balls please.

Sydney to Perth - Across the Nullarbor

How far to the clean bogs?

Having spent weeks and weeks doing next to nothing in Malaysia we have taken the 'Roo by the horns and decided that it's time to go walkabout (in a 4x4 - I'm not messing around with any Jenny Agutter nonsense).

The original plan was to do a tour of the Eastern states of Australia - through NSW, down to Melbourne, across to Adelaide, up the middle to Uluru and Alice Springs, then across to Brisbane and back to Sydney - BUT that is totally boring because literally EVERYBODY does it.

The new plan was this - SYDNEY TO PERTH, a total of 2730 miles (4395km with a slight detour down to Albany).

...or get a job...

I've already done a mental car journey across America just last year; driving about 2500 miles from Las Vegas to Savannah.

Driving across Oz is very different, apart from anything else it's a ton more hardcore. America is littered with towns and cities when you drive on Route 40 (Historic Route 66), the only really hard bit is going through Texas which everyone says you should do at night ('cause it's so dull).

Australia on the other hand has massive gaps between major towns with a major chunk of the journey taking place across the Nullarbor Plain which runs for about 1000 miles - with only a few places to get petrol and nothing else. Also, it is not a good idea to drive at night due to all the critters that can really fuck your vehicle up if you bash them; and judging by the Kangaroo corpses that litter the edges of the Eyre Highway this happens a lot.

...and not forgetting all the snakes and spiders that can kill ya

So, with lots of water, some food (even this is restricted by the quarantine areas you hit at the borders of Victoria/ South Australia and South Australia/ Western Australia) we set off.

Day 1 - We drove 450 miles to Hay. Had a roast dinner - delicious.

Day 2 - Drove from Hay 612 miles to Kimba. Basic town, claimed to be halfway across Australia - erm, not really but almost. Had another roast dinner - yum.

Day 3 (New Years Eve)- Already sick of driving, left Kimba after taking a few snaps of their giant 'flaming Galah and headed across the Nullarbor.

The Nullarbor is fantastically desolate, miles and miles of scrub with only the occasional passing 4x4, strutting Emu and unrelenting sun punctating the interminable journey - it's so hardcore that everyone you pass waves at you or gives you the thumbs up to make sure you're okay.

We saw an Eagle sitting on the mangled remains of yet another unfortunate 'roo, and I swear this bird was the size of an average 8 year old kid - honest; but far less annoying (for a start it appeared to be self-sufficient).

Drove a mental 806 miles - including a 90 mile stint on Australia's straightest road - at this point it was getting near dusk which meant that it was both dangerous to drive and getting near cut off time for most roadhouse kitchens; thankfully we made it to the last stop in the Nullarbor - Balladonia, where we celebrated New Year's Eve with ANOTHER roast dinner and a 9.30pm lights out and straight to sleep.

"Don't you be out on them there plains after sundown..."

Day 4 - Almost the final push, we set out from Balladonia and drove to Albany on the South-West coast. Rough Guide claimed it was a cool arty place, but frankly it was pretty dullsville. Had a roast. Distance covered - a mere 536 miles.

Day 5 - A short hop (325 miles) from Albany up the coast to very very hot Perth. Had pasta for my dinner.

So, a massive journey and one very few people attempt - least of all the Aussies. It's a fantastic drive and with the right attitude, a comfy car with cruise control (essential), plenty of water and food, an eye on fuel economy and an iPod stuffed with great tunes and radio plays, you can keep the in-car arguments casued by the monotony and cabin fever down to a couple a day at the most.

NEXT:

Dakar is for girls!

Seriously, and all in a month.

Ozzie xmas report

The view from our hotel (almost)

Arrived in Sydney 6am on a crisp but chilly Christmas morning. Actually that’s bullshit; it was already fantastically sunny and very warm. This continued all day in what has been my most un-Christmassy Christmas ever. In fact the only concession to Christmas was the watching of the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special – which was brilliant.

The best of Sydney has been BACON and PORK SAUSAGE. I can’t tell you how sick I was getting of ‘beef bacon’ and ‘chicken sausage’ – as Tina would say, “Don’t be fucking ridiculous; ‘beef bacon?’ No such thing”. We managed to get an ultra-early check-in at the hotel and went straight to breakfast and had literally a plate of bacon – I haven’t eaten bacon for four months… it was tough, really tough.

I was a veggie once, now I dig on swine.

Noice, different, unusual...

It’s just become boxing day here, not long now until some kind soul uploads the Christmas Who to the torrents and I can enjoy my now tradition fix of festive daleks, cybermen and Kylie Minogue.

Herge Smith - OUT!

A can-do attitude for a close shave (urgh...)

The end came today for the last bathroom product bought for this trip before I left home – a 75ml can of Gillette Fusion shaving gel (for very sensitive skin).

The lid wasn't as hardcore as the can, sadly...

I’ll be honest, I thought this would be the first thing in my wash bag to be chucked; it was such a tiny container for a start, its full sized brothers typically seem to only last a month or two so I had little hope for this boy going the full way.

But no, this little fella, brave little bugger that he was kept going. He kept on trucking when we were in France, when we boarded the CMA CGM Rigolletto, it gave me a shave before Malta and the Suez Canal, let me freshen up as pirates circled the boat through the gulf of Aden, kept giving in Kuala Lumpur, Perhentian Besar, Kota Bharu, Taman Negara, Cameron Highlands, Bukit Fraser, Malaka, Kuala Lumpur again, Kuching, The Santubong Peninsular, Bako National Park, back to Kuching, down to Batang Ai, back again to Kuching, at the very posh (and crappy) Empire hotel in Brunei, as well as the much cheaper and skankier hotel near the not-that-great-but-what-did-I-expect Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, over to Sabah in Kota Kinabalu, down to the place we’ve just come from where we stayed for 5 days which I can’t remember the name of right now, back to Kota Kinabalu where it has just coughed up it’s last offering of minty green hydra gel (with aloe).

Frankly, I’m amazed. If I shave around once every three days this means I’ve had at least 30 -35 shaves from this can since we left at the end of August. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t skimp with the gel, I frequently have some left after finished I’ve liberally coated my (sensitive) face – and I’ve gently (due to my sensitivity) chastised myself for wasting it, noting that this may be the last full offering it gives.

When it came to the end, which was about an hour ago it gave me just enough gel to get the job done, gave a little breathy sigh and that was it; it was empty.

I was starting to think that it might make it all the way to Australia (where we arrive on Xmas day). Not that it matters now, it’s over and it’s time to move on.

I’ve already tried looking for a replacement, ideally the same size as it saved space but alas this has been fruitless, so I suppose it’ll be a full size can; we’ll see how long this one lasts…

I wanna live like common people...

Just about to blast out 'My Way'

“The traveller sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see” GK Chesterton

I actually read this on the wall of a guesthouse we’ve been staying at in Kuching, which is the capital city of Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo).

It should actually read;

“Travellers are tourists who are up themselves”,

or more succinctly;

“Travellers are cunts”.

I was already a cunt before I left the UK, however I’m a different kind of cunt. Traveller cunts are the most loathsome, self-important, humourless bastards you are ever likely to encounter. The worst kind of course is the ‘hippy’ traveller, an example of which we crossed paths with only yesterday. In fact there were two of them, husband and wife (or ‘life partners’ probably) who had all the appropriate ethnicky tat, ‘cultural clothing’ nothing shaped or designed to fit properly, wispy goat beard for him, long blonde drippy girl hair only suitable for a girl under 12 or a super-model looking fucking ridiculous on a po-faced early thirties hippy. They also had a kid with them, poor little bastard, she looked at them with the same level of disgust as I did. And Jesus, the conversations these wankers were having…

(Read this aloud in a faux-deep/ serious voice, with no intonation at all)

“So I think we should really look long and hard at where we go next, I believe a number of destinations have some commonalities with where we have already experienced…”

“Yes, yes, I see what you are saying, m’kay”

I added the ‘m’kay’, but they both had a bit of the Mr Mackey (South Park, not The Shield) about them.

And later as they struggled to get their kid ready, whilst simultaneously blocking the stairs with no regard at all for all the people trying to get past.

“Have you packed Amelia’s hat?”

“No, I haven’t packed Amelia’s hat. Did you ask me to pack Amelia’s hat?”

“I think I did ask you pack Amelia’s hat.”

“Should I go and get Amelia’s hat?”

Apparently the kid was called Amelia and there was a hat floating about that belonged to her.

A few minutes later the mother was trying to get Amelia to put the hat on, and this is where the standard passive-aggressive side of the hippie traveller emerged;

“Amelia, please put on your hat…”

Amelia looks at the drip like she’d rather die than spend another moment being the child of these fuckers.

“Amelia, come on now, put your hat on, you’ll need it to protect yourself from the harmful rays from the sun.”

The kid is all of about 3 years old – just put the fucking hat on kid or I’ll knock you one.

“Amelia, if you don’t put the hat on there will be no lunch for you… “

The kid looks to me for help – I can offer none.

“Amelia, I’m getting a little bit frustrated now, if you don’t put this hat on you’ll get no water either, or dinner…”

Charming, that’s not parental control, that’s threatening child abuse.

Eventually Amelia put the hat on, not because she was told to, but probably because like me she couldn’t bear to hear her parents drone on and on any more.

Evil bastard with the evil gushing out of him in a blinding white light of evil

The younger traveller, these gap-year studenty Facebook obsessed traveller bastards are also horribly distasteful, clothed to ‘fit in’ which typically means they have opted like the hippie to dress somewhat ethnicky, despite the fact that EVERYONE who lives here either wears jeans or if they are super religious those fucking ridiculous and vile misogynistic bhurka things. They also come with the standard ethnicky braided friendship bracelet. These are vile things that never get washed and eventually fall off the studenty traveller about the same time they get a fucking job and spend the rest of their miserable lives conforming to ever expected goals (job, kids, death) whilst constantly relating tales of the few weeks they roughed it in Asia.

“Travellers are just tourists without jobs”

Malaysia is packed full of Germans and Austrians who have surprised me greatly by typically being much louder and far more obnoxious than the British we have encountered, who have been merely annoying. I almost threw down with a bald short-arse German fella in the guesthouse who literally pushed me out of the way to get to an internet time-log book and then waved his money in front of my girlfriend who was already speaking with the receptionist. It didn’t come to blows, instead I gave him a hard stare – I know, I’m tough as nails me.

I’m a little concerned that travelling has made me far less tolerant than when I left.

Shhmoking…

I’ve never been a huge anti-smoker, mostly I think because I’ve never been a smoker, so I’ve never quit and become one of those reformed gits that moan about other smokers all the time without any sense of irony.

However, the number of smokers in Malaysia is ridiculous – almost everyone smokes, I’ve even seen toddlers with fags in their mouths (the sex industry here is also a concern). Seriously though, it’s been really bugging me, especially when the bloke who cut my hair in Kuala Lumpur told me that it is generally considered ‘cool’, which of course it is, but we know that it’s the kind of cool that is really bad for you, like reading comic books or being a middle aged video-gamer.

Apparently cigarette companies often hold events in the cities promoting cigarettes trying to get people hooked – I’m not totally surprised, I remember reading or hearing that the ciggie companies had moved on to the 2nd and 3rd world after us Westerners slowly got wise to them. You can smoke everywhere here, and people do – every meal is accompanied by couples chaining it – there are non-smoking areas but these are frequently the less comfortable areas. I feel like snatching the ciggies out of these people’s hands and shouting at them for being so thick;

“They’re going to kill you!”

I’d shout, to which they’d reply,

“Fuck it, with the way we drive our mopeds and our shitty little Korean go-carts we’re not going to see old age anyway.”

Which is a fair point, I guess.

Just moments before, this Proboscis called me an 'Ugly bastard'. Er... kettle - black me thinks.

“Travellers vs tourists? - I’d have to back tourists, they generally look healthier and can probably pack more of a punch”

Anyway, enough with all that, what good stuff have I been doing?

Rainforests, Dolphins and the shits.

Over the last few weeks we had been staying at a really decent little rainforest resort in a tree house. This was actually one of the better places we’ve stayed – the tree house which sat about 10 metres up and about 5 metres from the shore was cool, clean and comfortable. We did a couple of jungle treks (fucking exhausting) and we took a trip out to Bako National Park where Irrawaddy dolphins swam in a massive group next to our boat – not sure how the Irrawaddy differ from standard dolphins but they were cool with the pod comprising three types of colour schemes, grey, white and pink. The pink ones were a little odd if I’m honest – like how a 40 year-old Goth would look without his clothes on, all translucent white and veiny.

There was an incident at Bako which involved a mad dash by speedboat back to the National Park HQ and a quick and nervous walk to the toilets (filthy) where I went from blind panic to utter joyful relief as I struggled to get my shorts down and my arse on a toilet in time. Thankfully on this occasion, I made it.

Cat City

Anyway, we’ve deaded the guesthouse which was basic in the extreme and moved to the Kuching Hilton in an Executive room overlooking the city, which is far more expensive but also far nicer. We originally planned to go back and stay a night at the Bako National Park to see the big nosed monkeys (Proboscis) – we did see the funny looking fellas but didn’t stay because unfortunately the accommodation there was the most fucking disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life, and I lived in Liverpool for a year - and if I had to stay a single night there I was going to get the next flight home – which is basically what I said as I freaked out and demanded we go back to a nice hotel (the Hilton) – see, I’m not a fucking traveller cunt at all, just a cunt.

We’ve seen all sorts of wildlife over the last few days which I listed via the photos above.

Next we are going to Batang Ai Longhouse Resort, it’s on the border with Indonesia. After that we’re going to Brunei (pronounced ‘Brown Eye’ with a Scottish accent).

I’m rather hoping we can avoid any terrorist incident during our final month in Asia - there do seem to be a lot of these sweeping this area at the moment.

"I'm gonna rip your fucking face off"

“Travellers experience the places they visit, and then go back home to hygienic bathrooms and kitchens and low infant mortality rates.”

Camerooooooon Highlands, Laddie.

This one goes out to Garfer, who I know is up there in some highlands himself...


Sniff that tea, it smell good, ja?

Today we will start by talking about The Cameron Highlands which is in the middle and up a bit of Malaysia (ignore Borneo for a minute). It's a lot cooler than the rest of Malaysia which is mostly hot and humid (baby).

The most interesting thing about this place is that they make tea here and it's very much like where I was brought up - Great Malvern, Worcestershire, in the sense that they are both hilly, green, boring and wet.

No one makes tea in Malvern, well, obviously loads of people make tea, but not many people grow it - you know what I mean. They mostly make old people and frustrated kids in Malvern and the occasional Morgan motor car, which is like a normal car only a lot shitter, massively over-priced and that's all there is to them.

They also have water in Malvern, which is now owned by Coke.

We visted the 'Boh' tea plantation, as in; "I've dropped my tea, b'oh!". The plantation was nice. Had a tour of the factory which took literally about 2 minutes.

"Here we shred the tea leaf, here we put them in tiny bags..."



Malvern, in Malaysia... with tea plants and a bit of sun.

We stayed in the Cameron Highlands much longer than we really needed to, we stayed 3 nights when about 45 minutes would have been plenty of time.

Tana Rata which is the main town *cough* in the Cameron Highlands has a new Starbucks with great free internet and compfy sofas, y'know just like all Starbucks have - except this one was empty most of the time, presumeably because a cup of tea and a muffin costs about as much as an average months pay in Malaysia. Which is a shame for them but great for us as we didn't have to fight students and fucking mothers meetings to get a sofa and a plug socket.

Our hotel was a depressing mock-ye olde England with horse brasses and tudory exterior - like all the really shitty pubs in the UK. It was also very damp - my rucksack now weighs about four times as much as it did when I arrived.

Before this we were at Taman Negara which is a massive national park. It was shockingly hot and humid (quite moist), packed with critters and very hazardous to my health. In the space of an hour I got savaged by mozzies (again), cut my face almost taking out my eye on a branch on a trail and almost sucked to death by leeches that had found their way into my shoes (like a fuckwit I didn't wear socks) giving my multiple nasty sucks. I lost almost a pint of blood to all the fucking insects in Taman Negara, and that's almost an arm full.

The 'kinda' highlight was a river boat trip to Lata Burkha, a waterfall about an hour from the main resort compound. The river trip was great, almost got murdered by a harmless bright green snake (looked well plastic) however the waterfall was shite, I've seen better waterfalls when filling a bath.


Jungles are bastards... also, I appear to be pulling a chimp face.

Interestingly or not, Taman Negara was chocka with German coach trip tourists, which my girlfriends assures me makes me racist for noticing.

Jumping back to the Highlands - we finally left there this morning, thank gawd.

I am now in a much fancy Ye Olde style hotel in a place called Bukit Fraser (Fraser's Hill) which is another Englishy get away located way up in another set of highlands, but much closer to Kuala Lumpur.

Our room is massive; we decided to go for the best suite here which is not damp, has it's own heater, jucuzzi (I know!) little lounge area and four poster bed. Best of all the bathroom is decent, with said jucuzzi, his and her sinks, big shower and best of all, comfortable clean trustworthy toilet.

The food here is dead bland; no asian food on the menu at all. Tonight I will be dining on roast beef, yorkshire puds and roast potatos, which I have to admit I have been craving...

Fuck off I'm English, I can't help it.