Burmese Daze

Our arrival in Burma (or Myanmar as it is now known) coincided with the rearrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma who was imprisoned by the government after winning the last election and was due to be released from house-arrest during our stay. More elections are scheduled for 2010, and it would be very convenient for the military government if she could be kept safely in prison until after the poll. The Burmese government heavily censors all forms of media but we kept ourselves informed of current events through the internet, as the kids in the internet cafes can easily hack through the government filters. Locals often talked to us about the situation and were amazed at how much international coverage the story was getting.

In Mandalay we went to see the Moustache Brothers, who perform traditional Burmese dances but are more famous for openly telling anti-government jokes as part of their show. Two of the three brothers have spent several years in jail and they are blacklisted from performing in public places, so the show now takes place in their own home. Our only contact with military government (except maybe plain-clothes secret police) was when we had our passports checked in the middle of an overnight bus journey by some very drunken soldiers, who excitedly showed us their jar of beetles they had caught to cook up for a midnight snack. Yummy!

Next we headed to Bagan, a plain filled with ancient Buddhist temples. We hired a horse-cart and driver for the day and rode around stopping at countless temples and pagodas. Inside the temples we saw amazing wall paintings and Buddha statues and in some we were able to climb to the top for views of hundreds of spires stretching out into the distance. The peaceful atmosphere at the temples was sometimes shattered by hordes of local children hassling us to buy postcards from them, or, their favourite trick, asking for foreign coins for their 'collection' then selling them back to other tourists. However there are over 4000 temples in Bagan, so there were plenty of quiet places to escape to.

Burmese buses always seem to leave or arrive at strange hours, and the bus from Bagan to Inle lake was no exception, leaving Bagan at 3.30am (why?!?). There seems to be a conspiracy to make foreigners sit at the back of the bus, the least popular seats as the ride is bumpier and the legroom is often used to store luggage. On this occasion we shared the back row with some containers of spare petrol needed for the journey (in Burma petrol is rationed and so most of it has to be bought on the black market), and the fumes coming from these made the journey more unpleasant. To add to our woes, the rainy season had kicked in and our bags, which travelled on the roof of the bus, got soaked through in a downpour. Despite all of this the bus is the most interesting way to travel as you really get to see the country and chat with some interesting locals, such as the two Burmese traditional dancers we got chatting to on our bus to Bagan.

In Inle we made friends with a couple of Mexican girls called Vanessa and Perla and the five of us took a boat trip out onto the lake together. The villages around the lakeshore are home to women who weave cloth from lotus stems, Karen women who stretch their necks with an increasing number of gold hoops, and lots of water buffalo. The lake is also used by fishermen who stand at the front of their boats, sometimes rowing with one leg hooked around the oar to give their arms a rest.

There are thousands of monks in Burma, and every man has to become a monk sometime in his life, although for most it is only for a few days. They all wear orange robes, have shaved heads, and carry big orange umbrellas, presumably to stop their bald heads from getting sunburnt. We have visited several monasteries on our trip, but the one on Inle lake was our favourite by a long way, as the monks have trained the resident cats to jump through hoops held about a metre off the ground, and they were happy to demonstrate this when we visited. We got chatting to one of the monks there, who gave Graeme tips on how to to train cats to jump through hoops and answered our questions about Buddhism, although the only subject he really wanted to chat about was last night's Champions League final between Man U and Barca.

Many of the tourist sites in Burma have a $10 entrance fee that goes straight to the government, and we put a lot of effort into avoiding paying this. We missed out on seeing Mandalay Palace, but in Bago we discovered that government workers finish work at 3.30pm and you can visit after that time without paying the $10 fee. In one of the smaller temples at Bago, we came across the whole Magwe Division football team, who were sleeping and training in the temple before they played Bago division in a few days time.

We were very sad to leave Burma, and Thailand now seems over-touristy and the locals unfriendly by comparison. Many of the Burmese people we met urged us to come back again in 2010 when elections are scheduled, especially after Debbie told them that she used to work in elections. We definitely hope to return one day, and can only hope that things will have changed for the better when we do.

Monkey Finger

Our first AirAsia flight was an interesting experience; we nearly caught hypothermia due to the overzealous air conditioning, and the pilot welcomed us to Malaysia with a cheerful reminder of the mandatory death penalty for drug-smuggling. After arriving in Kuala Lumpur, we met up with Adrian, who we hadn't seen since we left the UK, and caught up with the last year's worth of gossip (Debbie) and Arsenal news (Graeme). Later the same day we met up with Adam, who had just flown in from Brisbane and will travel with us as far as Burma. The four of us went on a daytrip to the Batu Caves, a natural cave system on the outskirts of KL, which has been converted into a kind of hindu temple filled with statues of various gods and goddesses. Our favourite was a cow with a woman's head which had both human breasts and udders. A troupe of very entertaining monkeys also lived in the caves, and we watched one of them steal a packet of crisps from an unsuspecting tourist and sit and eat the whole packet on top of a post just out of her reach. The highlight though was the monkey sitting on the steps giving the 'monkey finger' to everyone that passed by. We have now taken to posing with monkey fingers in loads of our photos. Next we went to Kuala Selangor where we saw more monkeys, which climbed all over us while trying to eat food out of our hands and pockets (lucky we had those rabies shots). After sunset we went on a boat ride to see some fireflies which flash in sync and make the bushes along the riverbank twinkle like Christmas trees.

After spending a few days hanging around in Kuala Lumpur we flew out to Sandakan in Malaysian Borneo. We had booked to go on a jungle trek, but first stayed the night at the tour company's hostel. We were the only people staying that night, and we ended up partying all night with the staff and getting drunk on a local spirit called Arak Wangi (which costs less than a beer and tastes just like alcoholic iron bru) and losing badly to them at Malaysian-rules pool. The next day we headed off on the jungle tour itself, but not before stocking up on more wangi on the way. Next we spent a few nights in the Sungai Kinabatangan jungle, living in six-person jungle huts which we shared with a couple from Bristol called Amy and Adam who were, by lucky coincidence, also big wangi-drinkers. We also shared our hut with a selection of large flying insects and spiders, and a big scorpion lived in a tree across the path from us. The jungle trip included several boat trips down the river and two jungle walks. We saw tons of wildlife including more monkeys, civet cats, crocodiles, an orangutan and some proboscis monkeys which have big fat bellies and ridiculously phallic noses – the Malay name for them translates as 'Dutch monkey' because the locals think that they look like Dutch people. After the jungle trip was over we all spent one last night playing wangi drinking-games, then the four of us headed to the island of Mabul where Debbie, Adrian and Adam had all booked diving courses. Debbie and Adrian both did their Advanced Open Water courses with a chain-smoking German instructor called Marlice. We were both a bit rusty to start with but soon got back into it, and after the the course finished we managed to get hold of permits to dive at Sipadan, which is reputed to be one of the world's best dive sites. Only 120 people a day are allowed to dive at Sipadan and because we got the permits at the very last minute we ended up going with the dodgiest dive company on the island – all of their dive equipment was knackered, and we were pleasantly surprised when none of it gave out underwater, but it was all worthwhile as it was one of the best dive sites we've ever been to with reef sharks, turtles and tons of other fish (we even found Nemo!). Graeme came snorkelling and had a scary moment when he swam too far from the boat and noticed two big sharks circling below him.

While we were diving we stayed in a cute little fishing village on the island, away from the main tourist area, with loads of local kids eager to have their photos taken. We slept in a Malay longhouse built on a jetty out over the sea, where us two had to pretend to be married before they would let us share a room. Every night we were woken up in the night by thunderstorms – both by the noise and because of the water coming in through the broken windows onto our bed.
After finishing our diving courses the two of us and Adam flew back to Kuala Lumpur, arranging to meet Adrian in the Perhentian islands in a few days time. We spent one more day in KL having blind-man massages to sooth our backaches (from carrying heavy rucksacks and diving equipment). Then we headed north to Taman Negara national park, the world's oldest rainforest, according the Malaysian tourist board. We had enjoyed the jungle trip in Borneo, mostly due to the amount of wildlife we saw, but the concentration of animals in one small space there is due to the rapid deforestation caused by logging. Taman Negara, on the other hand, is more like we think a jungle ought to be. The forest is much thicker with mases of huge old trees, although here the wildlife has space to spread out, so we only saw a couple of monkeys and some mosquitos.
The next day we caught the 'Jungle Train' through the rainforest to Kota Bahru, on the North-Eastern coast of Malaysia. This was a slow but interesting way to travel, we were the only foreigners on the train and as the journey wore on we became aware that we were the centre of attention for the whole carriage. Debbie realised she was the only woman on the train not wearing a headscarf, and we stashed away the bottle of wangi that we had been sneakily drinking. At the end of the line, we got on a boat to the Perhentian islands where Adrian had already been hanging out for a few days.
We stayed on the small island, Perhentian Kecil, which is a perfect tropical island with a mixture of Malaysian and foreign tourists staying in wooden huts by the beach. Adrian told us that the best night out on the island was the 'reggae jungle party' which was advertised on handwritten posters all over the island, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be a wooden bar in a clearing in the jungle, and a makeshift stage with a Malaysian reggae band playing covers of everything from Bob Marley to Metallica. It reminded us of being at a dodgy rave back in the UK, and sure enough at around 3am the police showed up and busted the party. They separated the crowd into Malaysians and foreigners, made all of the foreigners leave and (we later found out) drug-tested all of the Malaysians.
One of the people we were chatting to at the reggae party was a guy from Thailand called Su, who told us that he was a divemaster at one of the local dive shops, so Debbie and Adam arranged to do a couple of dives with him over the following few days.

After a few days chilling out by the beach we decided it was time to head off to Thailand. Adrian wanted to stay at the island a little longer, so we went our separate ways once again. The two of us and Adam headed to the Thai border, where we were allowed to pass through only after testing negative for swine flu, then on to Raileh beach, a peninsula near Krabi that can only be reached by boat. We hung out there for a few days, getting massages every day, eating spicy thai curries, watching some Thai boxing, and taking walks to neighbouring beaches. The next beach along from Raileh was Phranang beach, with golden sand, cool monkeys and a cave that has been filled with wooden penises of various sizes and colours as a shrine to a local goddess.
Finally it was time to head up to Bangkok, and we decided to take the easy option of booking a flight from Krabi. After spending so much time on the beach, Bangkok was a bit of a shock to our systems, but we managed to do some good shopping at a ridiculously big (14 hectare) market, and also found a little dubstep night after bumping into the dj while on our way back to our hotel for a supposedly early night.
After a few days in Bangkok the three of us jumped in a cab to the airport where we boarded our flight to the land of the jumping cats - Myanmar.

Have you ever...ever felt like this?

We have been mostly leading a fairly quiet life in Melbourne trying to save some money for the rest of our trip. Graeme found a job quite quickly, working at a mental health clinic where he feels right at home. Debbie has been working in lots of odd temp jobs, such as data entry at a clothing company, counting people getting on and off trams at the Grand Prix, proofreading documents through the night for a seawater desalination plant and finally ending up back in local government (is there no escape?), working at the bushfires Royal Commission.

We found ourselves a bedsit flat in a shared house in a suburb of Melbourne called Brunswick. We like Brunswick because it reminds us of Dalston (the area of London we used to live in), right down to the dodgy turkish corner shops and the shops selling tacky plastic bedroom furniture.

The weather in Melbourne has been pretty crazy since we got here. A couple of days after we arrived, the temperature hit 46 degrees, the hottest day on record. This was also the day that the worst of the bushfires started. We went to the beach at St Kilda and had a nice refreshing swim in the sea. Unfortunately, the sand was too hot to sit on and a breeze that felt like when you open an oven door blew it right into our faces. We headed into a nice airconditioned pub instead, and consoled ourselves with the thought that we could easily have been freezing to death in the in the uk.

One of the strangest things that has happened to us here was randomly bumping into our friends Miles and Cloe from back in Brighton. The last time we saw them was at our leaving party (and we only have a very vague recollection of that), and we had no idea they were even in Australia. We were crossing the road in Melbourne CBD when we heard a voice shout 'Damskiiiii!'. Since we were pretty sure there were no other Damskis in Melbourne, we turned around and saw Miles walking right behind us. Cloe is working and travelling in Australia and Miles had come over to visit, and they were living just down the road from us. Since then Miles has gone back home but we have seen quite a bit of Cloe and she even cut our hair for us!

Every so often we notice the occasional descent band touring over here, so continuing on from The Bug with Warrior Queen, Aaron Spectre and Operator Please in Brissy we have also seen Rusko, Gorilla-Step, Starkey, Damo Suzuki (who used to be in Can) and we also went to see local punk band the Useless Children.

At Easter weekend we decided to go on a pilgrimage to Airey's Inlet, to see the lighthouse from Round the Twist. Oh, and we also saw a bit of the Great Ocean Road on the way.

On our last weekend in Melbourne we found out that two of our all-time heroes, Cheech and Chong, were making an appearance in a record shop in Melbourne for World Record Store Day. so we queued up for half an hour, said hello to them and got a cd signed.

After nine months in Australia, we are leaving for Kuala Lumpur on Monday. Although we are sad to be leaving Oz, we are glad to be jobless and getting back on the road again.

Love You Queensland

We spent Xmas day at Adam and Barbara's house, swimming in their pool and eating ridiculous amounts of food, followed by a potent combination of beer, gin, pimms and homemade vodka (although not all in the same glass). If you got a drunken phonecall from us on xmas morning, now you know why.

After xmas, we drove down to Byron Bay with Adam and the three of us spent a couple of days there, hanging out on the beach, eating, drinking and bodyboarding. Surprisingly, our cheapo Woolworths tent survived a big storm on the second night, although the boys were a bit more worried about the snake that had taken shelter in the gents toilets.

We flew straight to Sydney from the Gold Coast and met up with Bobbie and Stuart and their friends Claudio and Sally, also ex-Brightonians, who very kindly let us all stay in their flat in Maroubra for New Year. The six of us headed into town to see the fireworks over the harbour bridge and met up with lots of our friends from Brisbane who were also in town and, by coincidence, had decided on the same spot to watch the show. The fireworks were great but we then spent three drunken hours wandering around Sydney trying to get home. On New Year's day, we were too hungover to do anything except stumble to the beach for our first swim of 2009.

On Sunday we had fully recovered and met up again with Paul, Simon and Atul. After a proper breakfast of bacon, eggs and a skinny latte (yes, you Paul), we walked along the beach from Bondi to Coogee, stopping off for a swim at the end. On that evening's news we heard that these beaches had been closed later that day due to a shark sighting.

Our New Year's resolution was to leave Brisbane and move somewhere different for the rest of our time in Australia. However, despite liking Sydney's beaches, we weren't really that taken with the city itself, and so we decided to give Melbourne a try instead. With only one month left in Brisbane we tried to visit all of the local attractions that we had missed so far. We went to the Lone Pine koala sanctuary and had our photos taken with one of the fluffy little guys, and Graeme also got a photo of himself with two kangaroos getting it on - possibly the highlight of his trip so far.

For the Australia Day bank holiday weekend we decided to hire a 4wd again with Adam, Paul and Paul's friend Billy, and go camping near Rainbow Beach. Being Australia day, and baking hot, half of Brisbane had the same idea and the 15km stretch of beach was packed. In the late afternoon, about half of the people on the beach showed up to watch two utes burn themselves out after their fuel tanks dramatically exploded; rumour had it that the owners had been trying to siphon petrol onto their campfire.

The next day we awoke at 6am to find the sun pouring into our tent (which we had cleverly pitched facing east), accompanied by armies of random giant biting insects that looked like they came straight from a 1950's B movie. It was hot and we were in desperate need of a swim but our cossies were locked in the car and no one knew where we had put the keys, so we decided to go bodyboarding in our pyjamas. After locating the car keys (in Debbie's handbag) we spent the rest of the day fanging around Rainbow beach, stopping for a last swim in the sea before heading back to Brisbane. Just after getting in the water, Graeme was swept off his feet by a huge wave and suddenly sucked out to sea by a rip tide. Luckily, after a minute the rip had taken him sideways to a shallower area where he could reach the floor again and walk back to shore. From now on, we are only going to swim between the flags!

We celebrated our last night in Brisbane with a BBQ at the house in Kelvin Grove. James and Dave had returned from Africa, and had invited some other friends, including Wookie, who we had also met back in Central American trip, and we worked our way through two crates of beer and played Guitar Hero Rock Band all night. We were so hungover for our flight the next morning that we accidentally packed a penknife in our hand luggage and Debbie looked so rough she was selected for 'random' explosives testing (damn, I knew I should have shaved my beard off!).
Since arriving in Melbourne we have managed to find a big, clean room which admittedly looks like it hasn't been decorated since the 70's, and we are looking for temp work. We have also been to see Rusko DJ in a club made from old shipping containers. Melbourne is currently in the middle of a heatwave and it was 46 degrees yesterday. The government is warning people to stay indoors. Screw that - we're off to the beach!

Happy Xmas everyone!

Love from Grom and Debs xxx

Brisvegas

For the last few weeks we have been settling in to the Brisvegas lifestyle. Staying in one place will never be as good as travelling, but we have managed to fit in some fun times along the way.

Not long after our last blog post our friends Bobbie and Stuart, the fellow-Brightonians who we met back in Canada, came to stay with us. They are travelling around Oz in a camper van which they parked outside our house for a week. The weekend they arrived we went to meet them in a town called Surfer's Paradise along with our friend Paul and a Chilean girl called Merasol who he works with. Disappointingly, Surfer's Paradise turned out to be nothing but a beach and some high-rise hotels, and when it rained in the afternoon there was nothing for us to do except go to the pub. Luckily it happened to be happy hour so we all spent the rest of the day getting so smashed that no one could remember the journey back to Brisbane.

The next weekend the four of us drove up Mount Coot-tha in Bobbie & Stuart's campervan, where we had a bbq and got some great views over Brisbane. On the Sunday we went to the Bowls Club for an afternoon of barefoot bowls - all that practice playing petanque in Brighton has finally come in useful! We also drank lots of dangerously alcoholic ginger beer, and lowered the previously refined tone of the bowls club by several notches.

Over the last few weeks the weather has been getting really hot, and in Brisbane hot weather also means big thunderstorms. A few weeks ago a really bad storm hit the next suburb to ours (the worst storm in 25 years, apparently), roofs were being ripped off houses and people lost everything to the floods. We got off quite lightly with just a little bit of flooding and a visit from a giant spider that took refuge under our front porch.


The beginning of summer also marks the end of the Australian school year. Coastal towns are invaded by a swarm of 'schoolies' – teenagers who have just finished school celebrating in time-honoured fashion by drinking alcopops until they throw up. The university year has also finished, and after finishing his exams our friend James has gone travelling to Africa for the summer break. The upside of this for us is that we have moved into his room in a lovely big old Queenslander house. So now we have a garden with a BBQ, a flatscreen TV and a lovely flatmate called Ellie whose band have just found out are going to play at Big Day Out (hooray, Ellie!).

Last weekend we decided to get out of Brisbane for a few days, and five of us (us, Graeme's sort-of cousin Adam, Paul and his sister Leanne) hired a 4wd and went to North Stradbroke Island (aka Straddie). On our first day we stayed in a campsite next to the sea and tried our hand at bodyboarding; the second day we took turns at fanging (driving really fast) along the beach, went for a swim in Blue Lake, then found ourselves a free campsite which was completely deserted except for a few kangaroos and lots of insects. Debbie had a big shock when she shone her torch at her glass of wine and saw a giant spider swimming around in it. It could have been much worse though - if we had been drinking red wine, she probably would have swallowed it whole.


Now we are just chilling out in our new house and looking forward to to a hot and sunny xmas. We hope you lot are all having fun and enjoying the winter. Brr!

Brisbanus

We spent our first week here in Brisbane staying with our friend James and his flatmates Dave and Ellie. We met James back in Central America in 2004, where we formed a bond when he lent us money for the bribe to get throuh the dodgy border crossing between Belize and Guatemala. We also shared one of the most surreal experiences of that trip, the bizarre Todos Santos drunken horse race.

James lives in a typical 'Queenslander' style house, made out of wood and raised off the ground on stilts, with a storage (party?) area underneath, and possums in the roof. We spent a few fun evenings with James & co, eating barbecue and drinking beer, playing guitar hero and Traveller IQ challenge while reliving our Guatemala experences.

After a few days exploring Brisbane, we went on a day trip to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Australia Zoo is really hands-on and you are encouraged to feed the elephants (which slobbered over our hands) and stroke the kangaroos and wallabies which roam free in an open enclosure. You can also stroke the koalas, but they aren't as cute as they look – apparently baby koalas eat their mums' poo! The excuse for this is that they can't digest the poisonous eucalyptus leaves themselves, but still! As we were leavng, Graeme almost wet himself with excitement when he spotted the original 'Crocodile Hunter' Jeep.

With our savings rapidly diminishing, we registered at loads of employment agencies in Brisbane and quickly found ourselves work; Debbie found a temp job in local government and Graeme has ended up back in hospital admin. We also found ourselves our own little studio flat which is pretty small but is located in a leafy part of town called Ashgrove, with views over the whole of Brisbane. We have decorated one of our walls with a collage of pictures of lots of our friends printed out from Facebook.

There is a lot going on in Brisbane and we haven't had time to get homesick yet. Better still most of it is free. We have been to a couple of free screenings of old silent movies with live music accompaniment, a few free festivals, a free Operator Please gig, and we also got free tickets to see Queensland Roar FC. They were almost as bad as Spurs (only joking, they were loads better!). They are playing LA Galaxy next month, but sadly there are no free tickets for that, so no David Beckham for us. One weekend we went to a bollywood-themed party, where the guests were given bindis and bangles and a bollywood screen-name at the door, and the monsoon-style rains just added to the atmosphere. This weekend, we dressed up as Zombies for an early Halloween party.

A few weeks after we arrived in Brisbane we got a message from Graeme's aunt saying that he had some relatives in Brisbane – his Granddad's brother's daughter (Barbara), and her son (Adam). We met up with Adam for a few drinks during the week and then went to their house for Sunday dinner. It was really strange to discover we have relatives on the opposite side of the world, especially as they also live in Brisbane.

We have also been hanging around with Paul, a fellow Arsenal fan we met in the Whitsunday Islands who is also working in Brisbane, and the three of us discovered the Brisbane Polish club where we found decent beer at last. Since then we have visited the German and Irish clubs with the Czech club next on our list.

It was still officially 'winter' when we arrived in Brisbane, and the locals were complaining about the bitter 20 degree nights. However, as spring advances the weather is getting slowly warmer, and we have already had a few humid days and a couple of big thunderstorms. And it's only going to get hotter!