That really Tikals me

May 19

Adding Guatemala to our round-the-world itinerary was a spur of the moment decisison made in an internet cafe on a cold night in New Zealand. A decision made all the easier by the cheap flights on offer: it was just $300 return from LA.

We’ve been here about two weeks now, and so far, we love it. We chose a

Very mellow yellow in Antigua

great country to travel around for 24 days: it’s small enough so you don’t have to spend ages on public transport, but big enough to have really varied landscapes and towns. It’s got volcanoes, lakes, Mayan ruins, World Heritage-listed towns and the people are extremely friendly.

Like most backpackers here, we completely skipped the (supposedly dangerous and not so interesting) capital and headed for the beautiful town of Antigua instead. It’s got pastel-coloured houses and cobbled streets, with a few yellow-and-white churches thrown in and a lively market. Three volcanoes surround the town and we climbed one of them!

Health and safety measures not being a major concern here, the guides let us

Two hot lavas!

get as close to the flowing lava as we could stand. Take my word for it, it’s hot. The falling debris from the crater — that at one point caused a group of Dutch tourists to jump out of the way — merely served as a bit of added entertainment for the guides. Dylan had to climb over some of the brand new rock to get some pictures. It was incredibly brittle and awkward to walk on – he still has a splinter from the rocks in his finger. His volcano superpowers have yet to kick in, but we’re hopeful. Any day now.

From Antigua, we took a minibus across the border to Honduras to visit our

The ruins at Copan

first Mayan ruins. The temples and statues were impressive and really worth the detour, it’s just a shame a large group of school kids bombarded the site while we were there.

Back in Guatemala, we took the Lonely Planet’s recommendation and headed north to Livingston, a Carribean-influenced towns accesible only by boat from the Rio Dulce. Staying on the river in Rio Dulce was a lot of fun actually, we had the hostel pretty much to ourselves (that’s what you get for travelling in the rainy season) and were the only ones sleeping in a barn-sized dorm during the season’s first major storm that lasted all night.

Unfortunately, the boat ride to Livingston was overpriced and not all that spectucular. Maybe we’ve just been on one too many great boat journeys on

For all the Madrecitas

this trip and we’re getting a bit spoiled. Livingston itself was a bit of a dump, although we were lucky enough to catch some traditional dancing for Mother’s Day, which is a big deal in Guatemala.

Back on the mainland, we took our first ‘chicken bus’. They are the buses the locals use for long and short distances, and they are without exception recycled American school buses, pimped up in bright colours and flashing neon lights. We were going to the world famous ruins of Tikal in the northern part of the country. But so was everyone else and we ended up having to stand for four very crowded hours.

Still, Tikal was absolutely worth it and we saw some of the most spectacular ruins of the whole trip. Only Angkor Wat comes close. Again, health and

It certainly does Tikal the boxes

safety were of no concern when we were invited to climb a 60m, crumbling pyramid on a rickety wooden ladder. The views were breathtaking but it was a little scary being up there in the wind without any barriers to hold onto.

Since Tikal is in the middle of the jungle, howler monkeys provided a very loud and eerie soundtrack to the day. We watched them jump from tree to tree, some females even carrying their young on their back. We also saw a big, black tarantula and some toucans.

 Next up was a six-hour drive to Semuc Champey, a stunning mountain spot famed for its clear-blue limestone pools and waterfalls, with a river raging ferociously below through a natural tunnel. It’s hard to describe just how beautiful this place was, we’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

'Pond'ering the view

We stayed at a small friendly hostel, which was essentially a group of small wooden huts by the river. We made a few friends as meals were always at the same time, and the handful of guests all chatted at the dinner table.

After relaxing in the pools we returned to the south of the country and took in a huge Sunday market in Chichicastenango. It’s the largest in the country, and we had a great time watching the locals haggling over the various wares on display.

We were only in the City of Angels for two days but we did manage to squeeze in a trip to Beverly Hills, where we window-shopped on Rodeo Drive

LA de dah

and shared a hot cherry pie in a fifties diner.

Our Hollywood hostel was walking distance from the Walk of Fame, we were surprised how few contemporary stars were included actually. Of course we also put our hands and feet in those prints left by Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and the likes. Will Smith’s hands are huge!

But more importantly, we had just enough time to catch up with Jen, an old housemate from Utrecht, who took us to Formosa on Sunset for a Chinese fusion meal in an old railway carriage.

All in all, an enjoyable flying visit to LA. Not a town we’d like to spend a lot of time in, but still nice to see some of the famous landmarks we’ve always seen on TV.

Next stop: Guatemala!

May 1

NZ in plane sight

Don't drop the soap!

Just before landing in Christchurch (17 days ago now), we were blown away by the aerial views of the snow-capped mountains. Everybody had already told us we would love NZ, but now we knew we were onto a good thing.

Not long after we landed we ended up in jail. The jailhouse Hostel that is, which was an actual prison up until 1999. Everyone gets their own cell complete with heavy steel door and bunk beds. There’s still some graffiti on the walls from some of the original inmates. It was a really quirky place to spend the night – if you ever go to Christchurch go straight to jail – do not pass go!

Along with pretty much every other tourist in NZ, we hired a campervan and set off to explore first the South, then the North Island.

Happy campers!

We saw beautiful turquoise lakes, drove along winding roads with endless views of rolling hills and yellow, red and green trees. NZ in the autumn is a thing of beauty.

Breaking the ice

One of the highlights was a walk on the Fox Glacier (not as cold as it sounds), where we were given crampons and a walking stick to trek up the ice. It was unlike anything we had ever done before and definitely an adventure we’ll never forget.

We also enjoyed the wild coastal scenery, and seeing the yellow-eyed penguins coming home for the night was very special. We had been warned penguins are very shy creatures, but when we got to the look-out point, there was one not five feet away, proudly posing for the cameras.

We saw perfectly round boulders on the east coast, spooky-looking pancake rocks on the west coast and watched seals playing in the surf on both sides of the island.

A not-so-shy yellow-eyed penguin

A ferry took us across to the north island, guided by a few dolphins off the starboard side. The scenery on the north island is not quite as impressive to us, it looks a bit more like Wales here. But with a few volcanoes and some Maoris thrown in.

Actually, the town of Rotorua blew us away. It’s true what they say, it does smell of rotten eggs. But that’s because it’s an area of intense geothermal activity, dotted with hot springs, mud pools and geysers. The funny thing is that the town is built around these natural hot spots, so any time you turn a corner, you can expect to see hot steam rising from a crater in the ground, right next to Burger King or something.

Lucky for you, the smell doesn't come across in the picture

Dylan spent a happy day there mountain biking in the forests and through the steam, while Michelle went to a spa and soaked in hot pools for a bit.

We also took in a Maori concert and learned a little about the indigenous culture. The haka dance really is quite scary, it made almost all of the babies in the audience cry!

Getting the haka of it

Seeing NZ in a campervan is really the only way to do it. But you have to be careful. We don’t recommend trying to find a campsite in the dark in the middle of nowhere. If you do, be sure not to drive down any heavy sloped dead end dirt roads in the rain. Because we did – and sure enough we got stuck. We tried using sticks under the wheels, trespassed an abandoned yard to find some metal strips to use, and had a go with our sleeping mats, which the vanette’s spinning wheels just chewed up and spat out. In the end we gave up and spent the night sleeping at a 45 degree angle.

Check out our little Vanette in the background!

Luckily the following morning a little old lady happened to be walking her dog nearby, and offered to have a go at towing us out with her 4 wheel drive station-wagon. I guess they must be used to it around here as she had a tow rope in her car which looked well used. We were out within ten minutes and ready to hit the (concrete) roads again.

We’re now nearing the end of our time in NZ, there’s just Auckland left on the itinerary. Come Saturday we should be on a plane bound for Los Angeles!

March and April

Dylan's birthday

The next few weeks in Sydney passed in a blur of working, lots of lovely evenings at my uncle and auntie’s place and discovering more of the city’s beaches, bars and restaurants. Chinatown was a special favourite for its dumplings, but it’s hard to beat Mietje’s Belgian steak frites. We also got to spend lots of time with Elaine and Jean (old friends from London), they organised an architecture tour of the city, celebrated Dylan’s birthday with us and even made us home cooked tajine one night, which we enjoyed while watching the Poirot season finale.

Ted's future work place - the new parliament building

Towards the end of our Australia stay we took a 3 hour bus ride to visit Canberra – home of the Aussie PM Kevin Rudd, and more importantly, our mate Ted. We had a great weekend visiting the impressive War Museum and taking a tour round the Parliament buildings. Ted took us along to an Africa-themed house party. Everyone had gone all out, but unfortunately Dylan had left his giraffe costume back home. The city itself wasn’t our favourite place, it’s a little artificial and lacks character somehow. Since Ted moved there though it’s become much more lively.

A day at Maroubra beach with Mietje and Eric.

Michelle worked at the copyright agency until the day before our flight, but luckily there was a bank holiday weekend before that which gave us a chance to see more of the nature around Sydney. Eric and Mietje took us for a drive to some of the national parks and farther out beaches, the places we saw where absolutely stunning and we never would have made it there without them and their car!

After three months in Oz, we decided it was time to move on. We’ve still only seen the East Coast and a bit of the Outback. This country is just too damn big! We’ll have to go back and do the rest another time…

]]> http://dylanandmichelle.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/more-australia/feed/ 0 dylanwalker dscn3272 dscn3310 dscn3338 http://dylanandmichelle.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/aussie-wildlife/ http://dylanandmichelle.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/aussie-wildlife/#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:44:36 +0000 dylanwalker http://dylanandmichelle.wordpress.com/?p=170 ]]> Hi, Dylan writing this time. One thing that’s really been impressive in Australia is the variety of wildlife – in the outback; the rainforest; the city, and also on the roads inbetween those places – albeit a little flatter.

So here’s a rundown of which of mother nature’s little beasties and beauties we’ve seen, heard and run over so far down under:

Kangaroos

I thought I’d start with the favourite and the most obvious. As we drove further and further into the outback we were anticipating seeing them. We knew there had to be some around when we saw our first road-kill example. Then a little later when there seemed to be a fresh carcass every couple of kilometers, we knew the surrounding red earth shrub-land must be bounding with them. We became a little nervous at this point, as we seemed to be driving the only car around without ‘Roo Bars’, and had an extremely high insurance excess with the rental company. We didn’t hit any live ones, but I did manage to drive over one of the (already flattened) skippys, which made the outside of our car stink for days.

Michelle was the first to spot a group of  Roos standing in a field. We were unsure whether or not they were livestock (yes you can buy roo meat for your BBQ in the supermarket), until we got a little closer and they leaped clear over the 6 foot fence.

When we got to Welford National Park (literally the middle of nowhere) we were surrounded by hundreds of them.

 Emus

These huge scary looking flightless birds were another sighting for us at Welford National Park. When we first spotted them we had stopped the car to watch some kangaroos, and on the other side of the road there they were. We were surrounded. I wondered which would win in a race between the kangaroos, the emus and us in the car – but they all went different ways.

Later on we came across a group of about 10 or so. We stopped the car and they slowly came towards us. We think they were a little curious. They had probably never seen a Kia Rio before. We drove away slowly when they got a little too close for comfort.

Koalas

These little critters are really hard to spot in the wild, but once a stranger has pointed one out to you, it’s easy to watch them as they hardly move. Apparently because they’re too doped up on Eucalyptus leaves.

We cheated with this picture here, it’s actually taken at a Koala hospital in Port Macquarie, where we joined a tour led by a lady who looked strangely like a koala herself. I really wish I’d taken a picture of her.

Parrots

We’ve seen many colourful parrots. At the entrance to one of the national parks the birds would land at your picnic table, on your hand or on your head to get a beak full of your dinner. They can also be seen (and heard screaching) throughout the cities.

Turkeys

Also stalking the National Park picnic areas for your dinner. Michelle noted they wear the colours of the Belgian flag – and yes Sven, the German flag too.

Possums <

It was our old house mate Pete who spotted the possum on his fence after we’d been for a midnight visit to the supermarket. It stayed really still so we could get close enough to take this picture. The poor thing was probably exhausted after suffering Melbourne’s hottest day on record at a whopping 46 degrees. Lucky for us Pete had air conditioning and a good collection of DVDs.

A little reunion!

Upon arrival in Melbourne, our good friend and ex-housemate Ted picked us up from the airport. We crashed at his place for the first week or so, and Ted introduced us to that great Aussie icon: the bogan (think ‘Kath and Kim’ or Johnnie and Marina for the Belgian readers). He took us to see it in its natural habitat, ie. the mall. Actually, the real reason we went to shopping centres twice in three days was to buy camping gear: a first for me and Dylan!

Getting ready for outback driving

Ted also threw us a bbq, where we had kangaroo meat for the first time and more importantly caught up with another good friend from our Holland days: Karen! It had been about six years since we last saw each other, but it was like no time at all had gone by. After being on the road for a few months, it was really good to see some good friends again!

Since Ted was starting a new job in February, we decided to make the most of his free time and went on a ten-day road trip.

The Outback and the beaches

Next pub - 300km

After arriving by plane in Rockhampton, we rented a car and headed for the outback. We spent our days camping in stunning national parks, taking in the wide open views, the famous red earth, we gazed at kangaroos and slowly rolled up the window when the emus got a bit too close for comfort. We drove through tiny towns, drank a beer in the local outback pub where we were the main attraction.

With these curious emus it was hard to tell who was watching whom!

Dylan loved the answer he got when he asked a young guy in Longreach how he spends his days: “Roo shooting and pigging”. This was the same guy who had hurt his collar bone in a rodeo. You couldn’t make that stuff up. There was even a flying doctors office in this town!

Whitehaven Beach - the picture doesn't even do it justice. Go there. Now.

After the outback, we headed for the coast. The three of us picked an island off the coast of Airlie Beach and camped there for three days. It was a great little spot, but the march flies were killer. They bit us through our stinger suits!

Flippin' brilliant (minus the flies)

So as much as we liked the camping, we were only too happy to walk over to the island’s only building, a hotel resort, and hang out at the pool away from the flies. I know that’s a bit like cheating, but you should have seen the bite marks we had!

It was also the start of Queensland’s rainy season, and boy did it rain. But Dylan and I got lucky and managed to pick the one clear day for our boat trip around a few of the Whitsunday islands.

It's oh so nice to be travelling

Arriving at Whitehaven beach, surely one of the world’s most spectacular places, is a sight I’ll never forget. The snorkelling there was out of this world (at least for us newbies).

Ted went back to Melbourne after that, and Dylan and I made our own way down to Sydney by car over the next few weeks. We got a great rate, just a dollar a day for the car, and took our time stopping off at lots of little towns and camping in national parks along the way.

In Brisbane, we ran into an old classmate of Dylan’s, which was a bit surreal. A bit further south, we drove up a very long, windy road to visit a bird park and aside from the parrots and other birds, we saw our first wallaby! In Macquarie Port, we visited a koala hospital and in a town called The Entrance, we watched pelicans being fed not three feet away from where we were standing. On the days that we were driving, we would stop off at the beach and go for a swim (to keep Dylan awake, the poor guy had to do all the driving!). We had a really, really good time.

Us and the Three Sisters

Once in Sydney, my uncle and aunt (who have only just moved to Australia) kindly took us in and we very much enjoyed catching up with them and staying in their beautiful, central apartment with an amazing view of the city. You can see the Opera House from their balcony! While we still had the car, we drove up to the Blue Mountains, another great site. But to be honest, by now we have seen so much nature and so many wonderful forests and lakes and waterfalls, that it’s going to be hard to top what we’ve already seen.

If you can't stand the heat, get back in the house!

After a few days of sightseeing in Sydney, we went back to Melbourne for the last time. We stayed at Pete’s place (he’s another old housemate of ours from London!) and braved the heat wave together (46 degrees – sadly also the day the deadly Victorian bushfires started). On the bus from Melbourne back to Sydney, we saw miles and miles of blackened earth and dead trees.

That was about a month ago. We’ve been in Sydney ever since, looking for jobs, getting to know the city and just generally enjoying being in one place for a while. I quite like my job, working for a copyright agency and making sure artists get paid when their work gets copied. It’s a bit strange to be doing 9-5 again but I’m not complaining. Dylan’s been doing photography work, he updated his photoblog if you want to see the results (http://dylanwalker.wordpress.com)!

Would you be in a hurry to leave?

We don’t really have a plan for the time being, but we think we’ll be here for at least another month or so. Anyway, we can’t leave anytime soon. We haven’t been to all of Sydney’s beaches yet!

What we’ve learned:

- No smoking signs are meaningless on Chinese trains

- A full car in Cambodia means nobody’s going anywhere until there are at least six people in the vehicle

- The Japanese sure like their toilet gadgets (but then so did we!)

- Whatever the guidebook says it will cost, add on 50%.

- You can’t escape the credit crunch

What we haven’t:

- Who owns all the chickens you see wandering the streets of Laos and Cambodia?

- How do you keep your head lower than a monk’s when he’s shorter than you?

- Where did Dylan’s ipod go?

The first pic of 2009!

Happy New Year! Hope everybody had a good one!

We were in Chiang Mai for the big night, and celebrated on a square near the eastern city gate. There was Thai entertainment, lots and lots of tasty food and of course fireworks. It was a great way to see in the new year.

What we liked best was the custom of lighting huge paper lanterns and then letting them go. After a couple of hours the sky was full of them, it looked like all the stars had turned orange (although a couple of lanterns did get stuck in power cables and satellites, causing small fires here and there).

There was more fun to be had in Chiang Mai (Thailand’s second city after Bangkok): we went to a ‘monk chat’ session at a local wat, it’s supposed to be a chance for visitors to learn about the monks and their lives, while the monks get to practice their English.

Too much monkie business

Well, when we showed up there was only one monk and he was busily chatting to a Canadian tourist about photography. Turns out the monk was quite the amateur snapper. Dylan, the Canadian and the monk spent a few hours happily discussing their cameras and lenses.

The sight of the monk wiping Dylan’s dusty lens and chiding him for not taking better care of his camera, is one I won’t soon forget.

Another weird and wonderful  moment was going to the Chiang Mai women’s prison for a massage on New Year’s day. Even

Got my watch back - what a relief

 Dylan agreed to get one! The idea is that the prisoners/masseuses, who are months away from being released, learn a new skill and the money they earn is given to them upon release from jail.

The massages were a bit brutal (Thai women might be small, but they’ve got strong hands!) but we both felt really good afterwards.

And no, they don’t tell you what they were in for.

December 29

Chiang Rai, northern Thailand

On a whim we decided to stop in Chiang Rai, a little visited town in the very north of Thailand. It was close to the border with Laos which we had just crossed, so we thought we’d go for it.

Having my cake & eating it... with chopsticks

It turned out to be a fair-sized, comfortable town, with a fantastic and very lively night market complete with live entertainment. We were keen to explore the surrounding countryside and local villages but all the tours seemed too expensive. In the end, we just showed up at the bus station and asked the girl at the counter where she would go. She seemed a bit flustered, but then remembered there was a festival going on in a village of Chinese heritage. So that’s where we went!

Getting there was easy enough (public bus and then a shared taxi up the mountain, the drive up there is stunning). The festival was not at all touristy but the more interesting for it, several tribes from around the area were there in full tribal outfits, each playing their own music and dancing in their own unique way. Because of the Chinese influence in the town, there was lots of tea to be had and Dylan discovered the joy of dried kiwis.

phew!

Getting back to Chiang Rai proved a bit trickier. We were told there were no more taxis going down the mountain, so we decided to hitchhike. It didn’t take long for a pick-up truck to stop. We happily jumped in and shared our kiwis with the other guys in the truck. We couldn’t believe how easy it had been, until after about 5kms, the truck stopped to let us out. Turns out they weren’t going all the way down after all (and we had at least an hour left to go) . So there we were, standing by the side of the road with no more cars stopping. But soon enough we saw a shared taxi coming our way. Luckily, it stopped for us and that’s how we ended up not spending the night by the side of the road in the village of Mae Salong.

After Cambodia, we intended to head straight up into Laos. But we made a rookie visa mistake. We’d heard from loads of travellers that it’s easy to get visas at the border crossings. Unfortunately, it only occurred to us too late that all these people had entered from the opposite direction. So while it’s fine to get a visa from Laos going into Cambodia, it doesn’t work from Cambodia to Laos.

So we had to trek all the way back to Bangkok (12 hours on the bus), spend a day there (which we didn’t mind at all) and then catch a (very, very comfortable) night train to Vientiane.

All this bad planning meant we only had about a week to see Laos, so we just stayed in the north and hit Vientiane (quiet capital), Vang Vieng (typical backpackers town) and Luang Prabang (beautiful World Heritage site).

Highlights:

- Cycling to the golden temple in Vientiane  

I'll never tyre of this

- Tubing in traveller’s hangout Vang Vieng – it basically involves a lazy trip down the river sitting inside a big inner tube. Without a doubt, one of the most relaxing things we have ever done. It helps that you can stop at bars along the way (the bar staff pulls you in from the water using rope and bamboo sticks!).

- Dylan’s first time kayaking

- Strolling through the pretty streets of Luang Prabang – think lots of temples, bars and fairy lights. It did rain on our last day there, scrapping our plans to cycle to a nearby waterfall. Instead we swapped films and tv shows with a Danish couple at our hostel, which was also good!

Standing in a row

- A children’s dancing show, celebrating local hilltribes and different dance styles. Very sweet and entertaining.

- The food: thanks to their French legacy, the Laos really know how to make a good baguette and they sell them on every street corner, with any toppings you want. I actually had peanut butter and jelly for the first time in months!

We had a great time in Laos, but I feel like we barely scratched the surface. We left thinking there was still so much more to see and do… we’ll have to save it for another trip.