Not an obvious tourist anymore

28.9.2010 | Day 59 | 26 474 km | Melbourne, Australia

It’s almost 2am at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport and it seems more and more a bad idea to start our second road trip in just 8 hours from Auckland, New Zealand. Flight departs at 6am and the quality of sleep at  this airport we’ve “had” is terrible. But that’s future, so let’s rewind three days back, all the way to Adelaide.

Adelaide ex-F1 circuit, a must-see for a motorsport fan

The change from +30 degrees Southeast Asia to +15 degrees Australia was surprisingly a very pleasant one. Just by walking out of the airplane made you feel and breath the amazingly fresh and cool air, just the way we had it in Finland! Finally no excessive sweating around the clock and walking around Adelaide was easy. But, it also meant a trip to a clothing store to get a hoodie, a t-shirt with a jacket wasn’t enough to keep you warm. We only had one day in Adelaide, but we didn’t really need more; The city is relatively small and compact and you can walk through it several times during a day. Of course, there would always be things to do and discover for more than a day, but this trip isn’t about getting into the details anyway. Still, Adelaide was a fun city and a very nice change, since there was nothing “must” to see, so we could just wander around freely without having to think about how we can see it all. As a big motorsport fan, walking through the ex-F1 street circuit, now hosting a V8 Supercars event, was a fun experience for me.

After a long and nice night at a small hostel, we finally got to the main thing; A road trip to Melbourne through The Great Ocean Road. Getting into the car for the first time was a funny and a scary event, as it was the first time driving the car from the right side. Using the mirrors properly seemed impossible and trying to figure out where your left front corner was extremely hard. But, with good concentration it started to go smoothly with only once taking the wrong lane, although there were A LOT funny moments with the reversed turn signal and windshield wiper controls in the wheel…

First day of driving was only getting to the coastal road, but offered some great scenery south to Adelaide. It became clear that driving in Australia is real fun and pretty easy, as there were virtually no traffic on the small roads we drove. We ended our day after 13 hours of driving to Warrnambool, saving some money and sleeping in the car in the middle of nowhere parked to a grass area beside a public toilet. It would have been a good night’s sleep, if it wouldn’t have been so damn cold! On the next day, we finally reached The Great Ocean Road and it’s not advertised for nothing; It’s simply an amazing drive. It gave us the same thrills that Highway 1 gave us three years earlier in California, driving the coastline up to San Francisco. But at this road there was a lot more to see and we stopped almost always when there was a scenic view park available. I can only advise that if you’re going to visit Australia, do yourself a favor and rent a car and go to see this coastal road, you won’t be disappointed!

Watching the views at the shores of Great Australian Bight

The Great Ocean Road, not the worst road I have driven...

Free city tram, a great way to
take a tour around Melbourne

After the road trip, we ended up to Melbourne, returned our car and searched for a decent and a cheap place to stay. We had two days to explore this city and kinda like Adelaide, Melbourne doesn’t really have those “must” things to see. We ended up touring two days separately, going for the places we both wanted to go without any compromises. Here it struck me what had changed; We were being treated as normal human beings and not someone who needs a massage, a tuk-tuk ride, copywatches or t-shirts every 50 meters. We no longer stood out from the crowds and there were no eager salesmen trying to get our money all times, and that felt good! Strangely enough, going back to Singapore, this was the third city in a row where I walked through a Formula 1 track. Again, walking the streets of Albert Park Circuit was a great experience and a strange one too, seeing the track in it’s normal everyday use.

Melbourne skyline from the Shrine of Rememberance

But, now it’s time to leave Australia behind and finally head to New Zealand, easily in the top 3 places I wanted to go on this trip. Next six days we’ll be doing another road trip, from Auckland to all the way to south, ending our trip in Invercargill. We’ll see what happens along the way…

Life on the fast lane

22.9.2010 | Day 53 | 19 784 km | Singapore, Singapore

After spending almost a month in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - where things happen like being stuck on the first gear - we really changed gears, all the way to sixth! In just 8 days we have already seen three different countries and have toured the cities every day until the sunset and then some. So, as I didn’t have to write with the all sightseeing, this blog entry is a long one.

The world's biggest reclining
Buddha statue in the world...

We boarded an overnight train from Thanaleng, Laos to Bangkok, Thailand, which felt like winning a lottery after all the buses and minivans we used the month before. But sadly, we were a little behind the schedule coming to Bangkok and only had a day to spend there before a flight to Singapore. Thailand wasn’t really in our interests compared to three countries before it, but obviously it would have been fun to see the city at least one more day. We saw the biggest Buddhist temple in Asia (or at least I think it was) and did some other quick sightseeing, before it started raining heavily and the rest of the day was just resting and preparing ourselves to the next two countries.

The journey continued with a flight to Singapore and from there, a bus to Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur. This time, the 5 hour bus journey was a bit different. It was a first class 16-seater luxury bus, which was really something! Every passenger had a massaging recliner with a personal TV and a gaming console. So there we were, taking back massages, playing games, watching movies and even meals were served during this trip. The feeling when arriving to Kuala Lumpur was… “Already in KL?”. I can’t really think any better way to travel than that! And the best of all was, it’s completely affordable.

In a luxurious Transtar Travel first-class bus, feeling pretty comfortable

In Kuala Lumpur, we continued our luxury part of the journey by checking in to a 5-star hotel on the last day of our stay there (two previous nights were in a hostel). It’s hasn’t really been a common thing during this trip to have a spacious room with a balcony, a bathtub and amazingly comfortable beds. But for one night we had that luxury and in the morning we headed to the swimming pool and relaxed in a Jacuzzi, while watching Petronas Twin Towers on the horizon.

I am so short compared to the
Petronas Twin Towers

But rewinding just a little, Kuala Lumpur was a very nice city to explore. After seeing hundreds of Buddhist temples in the countries before, it was a joy to change religion and go see some mosques in KL. These were different than normal mosques though, as they were really big and designed differently. We also visited the famous Petronas Twin Towers, once the tallest building on earth. The visit to the skybridge was free, but included a stop to a movie theatre to see how amazingly excellent oil and oil related products are. Man, that was some brainwashing lesson… Although, still it’s better to have Malaysian company drilling in their waters than example Shell or BP.

It was time however to leave Kuala Lumpur behind and return back to Singapore, again in the Transtar Travel luxury bus. Another joyful journey watching Megan Fo… I mean Transformers II from the TV and playing some Super Mario :) It was a total coincidence that our time in Singapore was during the same week when the Formula 1 circus came to town, so you could really feel the glamour arriving to the city. But that was just the top of the iceberg. Singapore has to offer pretty much everything you can imagine. Luxurious cars driving everywhere (but I call them junk, because I didn’t see a single Ford Mustang), skyscrapers at the Marina Bay, of course Chinatown and what was our absolute favorite during our stay, Underwaterworld and Singapore Zoo.

Especially the zoo was amazing, during the first day we did a night safari on a tram, which takes you through the park and sometimes you were only a few steps away from the animals. There even was an area where you walked in through doors and were surrounded by fruit bats flying around freely, more than couple of times missing your head by inches. The next day we returned to the zoo and walked about 4 hours through the park watching tigers, leopards giraffes and all kinds of animals. Last time I visited a zoo was a long time ago in Finland, and animals there were pretty much just put on a concrete prison, but Singapore Zoo had done things with class. Even though the animals live in captivity, there were no crappy concrete prisons, but everything was done to resemble their real habitat. If you ever travel to Singapore, be sure not to miss the zoo!

A tunnel in the Underwaterworld, where sharks, rays and all kinds of fish swim left, right and above you

White tigers relax after being fed at the Singapore Zoo

Eventually, all good things come to an end and this is where Asia and us part our ways. It was a helluva journey through Southeast Asia and something we never will forget (until Alzheimer). Now, it’s time to change the way of travel and start road trippin’ through Australia and New Zealand. From now on, we decide our schedules but I also need to learn how to drive a car from the passenger’s seat.

Dealer gave us nothin'

14.9.2010 | Day 45 | 16 939 km | Vientiane, Laos

Poker is sometimes a frustrating game to play. You have fixed your poker face on - Thousand times better than Lady Gaga - and you think you’re cruising to the top prizes, until the dealer starts giving you crap and everything goes down the drain. Well, this is just what happened to us in Laos.

Hole cards: Queen of Hearts and Ace of Spades. Wow, a great start! We landed to Luang Prabang airport on a sunny afternoon, passed through the most friendliest customs process by far and got a cheap taxi to take us to the city. As it turned out, Lao people were celebrating the end of the rain season with boat racing and just basically getting drunk. We had a lot of luck coming to Laos on this specific day and it was a blast to watch these people enjoying themselves in a big way. Later on in the evening we did our own touring, but both climbed to the highest point of the city, which opened amazing views to the city.

A boat race, Lao style

The Flop: Two of Clubs, Six of Spades and Five of Diamonds. This is where it all crashed down massively. Totally useless set of cards. We woke up on the second day, having to run to the toilet with our stomachs completely upside down. A food poisoning for both of us, great! We dodged the bullet on our journey for about 40 days, but our luck was all used out. In the morning I couldn’t even stand on my feet for more than three seconds until I felt like passing out, so it was time to start eating antibiotics I picked up from a doctor before our trip. We lost two days completely as we just had to lay down and watch the ceiling fan go round and round, we had to cancel all activities we arranged in Luang Prabang and almost had a nervous breakdown just not doing anything.

Turn card: Nine of Clubs. A hand full of nothing to use in this game and Laos was going for the win. We left Luang Prabang in a minivan, a 5 hour, 220 km trip going south to Vang Vieng. But, it was far away for being a simple five hour trip. Our van driver stopped two times for a 45 minute break and once for a 10 minute break to buy groceries from a street market - while 10 passengers waited for him in the van. Lao time, it’s a completely different concept. Things happen, but not in the time frame you’d think or want. So, more than 7 hours later we arrived to Vang Vieng, but as the darkness was closing in quickly, there was not much to do except wait for next morning.

We were glad to get out of Vang Vieng the next morning though. It’s a small town in the middle of the jungle, shaped to be what it is because of ignorant tourism. Every second restaurant had Brits eating pizzas while watching an endless loop of Friends from TV sets. I mean seriously! You travel all the way to Laos, to eat Italian food and to watch US sitcoms? The exact things you’d be doing at home. I once saw a tourist village just the same in Kos, Greece but I never thought seeing one in Laos. For me, that is the most frustrating thing you can see while you’d want to see real cultures and cities.

River card: Ten of Hearts. Bus trip from Vang Vieng to our final stop in Laos, Vientiane was actually pretty much on time and we found a nice guesthouse to stay for two nights before our train to Bangkok. But, as the cards were already dealt and we were looking the dealer with fury, it just rained for the whole time in Vientiane. Not much to do except to play pool and as our surprise, do some bowling! Oh Laos, you promised a lot but things just didn’t go as planned, no sir. But one day I’ll return and demand a rematch since you can tell that without any hurry and no food poisonings, you have amazing things to offer.

Some day, Laos, some day…

The dangers of Cambodia

8.9.2010 | Day 39 | 15 810 km | Siem Reap, Cambodia

Yep, the dangers. That’s what I thought, until the first day walking down the streets of Phnom Penh. Take out the word danger and change it to fascinating, you’ll get a much more accurate description of Cambodia. Even in Phnom Penh, the capital and the biggest city, you can walk freely even at nights without fearing that somebody would put a gun on your face. So for all interested of discovering another interesting Southeast Asian country, welcome to Cambodia!

Our first “sightseeing” tour in Phnom Penh was to see the brutal history this country had to go through in the 70’s. A tuk-tuk driver took us to Choeung Ek, also known as the Killing Fields. We had seen parts of this area from the Finnish TV-show Madventures, but being there yourself is a totally different experience, a heart-stopping one. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killed over 20% of the population of Cambodia while trying to send the nation back to the stone age. Choeung Ek was one of the sites they brought people blindfolded in trucks to be killed and buried to mass graves. Men, women and children - nobody was spared. All this happened just a couple of years before we were born, making it even more difficult to understand how the hell is something like this possible. After Killing Fields, we also visited the Genocide Museum downtown, a school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a torture prison. One prison rule tells us the cruel story: “While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all”. Only about 30 years later, this country still has deep wounds to heal.

A memorial stupa at Choeung Ek, containing over 5 000 skulls found from the mass graves 

But, the country has progressed huge leaps and while some other country might still be in a total chaos, Cambodia is definitely on the right track. Still a long, long way to go and lots of corruption and poverty to be dealed with, Once again I’m happy that I could visit this country and help the locals just a little by eating in their small restaurants and using the services of the tuk-tuk drivers.

The steepest ladders ever

After three days in Phnom Penh, it was time to hop into another bus for a six-hour drive to Siem Reap. The small city doesn’t have much to offer itself, but just few kilometers north, Angkor Wat blows your mind. Once again, we damned our schedule as we only had one full day to explore the massive temples Khmer Empire started to built in 12th century. And it’s not only possible to look at them, you can actually wander around pretty much everywhere - Even climb up the steepest and the most dangerous ladders to reach the highest temple rooms. I don’t know if it’s really wise to keep it that way, as some of the structures are in pretty bad shape and about to collapse, but at least for the visitors of today it’s amazing, as you can roam the temples just like the people built them did. Being one of the man-made wonders of the world, Angkor Wat and it’s surroundings is another place you just can’t explain, you need to visit it. So write it down to your “to do” -list and on your next vacation, visit Cambodia :)

Nature has taken over after the temples of Angkor Wat were abandoned

Strange things happened in Cambodia:

• You never really look the ingredients of a shampoo bottle, but from now on we will. We bought “For man” shampoo to use also as a shower gel as we don’t want to carry several bottles. But seriously, this shampoo had citric acid in it! I could only think one particular Jerry Lee Lewis song while trying to take a shower. Jeez…
• We visited The Russian Market in Phnom Penh, a block of small booths and sellers with not-so-genuine clothing and other items. It’s covered with a really badly built roof and just as we got in, it started to rain heavily. And by heavily, I mean multiple a heavy rain you know a couple of times and that’s what happened. Of course, some of the piping gave up and turned the market into Venice. So, shoes off, start walking your feet in the water and continue shopping…
• And by the way, when it’s raining it’s a good idea to go playing some snooker. But, snooker clubs doesn’t work exactly just like in Finland. No, you’ll get a $4/hour table with a girl in hi-heels counting the points and picking the balls up… Snooker balls! After you get used to the idea that you can‘t just play alone in peace, it’s pretty fun.
• There is something going on with selling the names of passengers to arrival station tuk-tuk drivers. But they don't really do it particularly well... So, as we travelled to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh, there was a tuk-tuk man with a sign "HANNW TOUUM" waiting for us. Needless to say, we skipped that!

Good night, Vietnam

2.9.2010 | Day 33 | 15 247 km | Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

It has been more than two weeks since we landed to Vietnam. Without a date-to-date plan, we have spent much more time here than we thought - there is just that much to discover. But, as our maximum days of staying without a Visa is ending, we’re about to head to Cambodia tomorrow.

In a sleeper bus, comfort level near zero

After we left Sapa a week ago, the journey all the way down south to Saigon has been joyful, but also somewhat exhausting. We chose to take an open tour bus through the country, which was a mistake. First segment from Sapa to Hoi An via Hanoi took us two days to do and was really horrible. As we got into our sleeper bus in Hanoi, it took two full and painful hours to even get out of the city limits. At one point, the driver tried to back into a gas station for 20 minutes, hitting a couple of trees in the process. After we finally got out of the city, I almost fell out of my “bed” more than a few times as the bus bounced up and down, left and right on the roads. The second segment from Hoi An to Saigon was more comfortable, but also lasted for more than 25 hours - and was just under 1 000 km. If we would have booked a train, we would have been in Saigon possibly at least a day earlier.

But enough of that type of transportation. Hoi An is a small city located in the middle of the country, and is known of the great beach and it has a specialty; Tailor made clothing. We both made suits in a tailor shop and sent them by mail to Finland. It felt actually really nice to buy a nice suit from Vietnam, instead of buying it through a chain store in Finland as the suit would still have been made in an Asian country. Now, we had the opportunity to gave the money to those who really did the work!

A victorious tank in front of the Reunification Palace

After a couple days of mostly relaxing and swimming in the ocean, we continued on to Saigon. We only had one full day in this hectic city, but still managed to visit the Reunification Palace and War Museum. Sorry to all my friends in US, but I’m damn glad Vietnam fought for their freedom and won the war; The horrors they had to face with massive bombings and millions of civilian casualties, combined with defects, disabilities and deaths caused by Agent Orange just because they believe in different type of government is… Well, something that I just can‘t understand.

Even Finland was represented in the War Museum with a
photograph of a rally against the war in 1970

We didn’t have enough time to go through the all stories behind stunning and very graphic photographs and other items as the museum closed down, which was a real shame. But still, even a day spent in Saigon told us the tough story of this nation.

Vietnam is an amazing country and I can surely recommend it to anyone interested of discovering different cultures. The landscape changes throughout the country and has all you can wish for, the people are really friendly and as the country is still developing, it’s an affordable country to spend your vacation. Western world could (and should) take some lessons from the Vietnamese how to be happy without a massive arsenal of technology and other unnecessary items covering our cities and homes. Their obesity rating has to be somewhere around 0-1% and the people here seem to be very healthy. They work long hours and long weeks, but still they won’t burn out like people in Finland; In the middle of the day at work, they just take a long break and gather around the streets to cook and eat noodles and other healthy foods while chatting with relatives and friends. That’s something what’s missing from the Western cultures, and I envy these people for it.

Travel tips for Vietnam:

• Vietnam is a safe country to travel, if you keep the common sense with you. Even the big cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are safe to walk around and to enjoy.
• Restaurant food in Vietnam is absolutely great. There are no McDonald’s anywhere in the country, which is only a good thing. Restaurants are affordable and the most of them have a menu with enough dishes to make it even hard to choose from all of them.
• Watch out for fixed taxi meters. Especially in Hanoi, there are a lot of taxis where the meter runs up like crazy - 1 km can roll up in a distance of 100 meters. Always ask for the driver to put the meter on when he starts driving and if you suddenly see the meter run up, shout stop and get out. Don’t argue, just pay what the meter says but if you continue the trip, you’ll might end up paying a lot!
• Be really cautious when buying a tour lasting several days. Unless you know from someone for sure, it can be very disappointing if the “traveling agency” has promised more than they can provide. Stay away anything that is called “Sinh Café”. My personal tip, just book transportation and not a whole package. You’re better of looking a hotel when you arrive by just walking down the streets (or make a reservation through an Internet site, Hostelbookers.com or Hotels.com or sites like that).
• If you have a lot of time and want to see different cities, take an open tour bus ticket. It’s a one ticket through the country, you deciding where you take off and when to go by just confirming it a day earlier. BUT, if you don’t have the extra time in your hands, use train or planes.
• Smile and be friendly out there. Not everything always goes as you have planned, but it’s not really serious. Don’t get mad at people, since it won’t do any good. Eventually you’ll get there :)