Thank God for the British.

Now that we're in Hong Kong, we can publish our blog freely, so here are some photos to catch you all up from our three weeks in China.


Firstly, to prove that you can get anything in China, here's an ad for the services available at a hotel in Xi'an. Note the bottom-right corner. If you're ever in Xi'an and need an enema, I know a good place.






Here is a photo of the lines to buy train tickets at the station in Xi'an.



Here are some photos of the Terra Cotta Warriors. Here I am posing as a Warrior and being a very stupid tourist.

Here are some photos of the Warriors themselves. Our guide said that there are as many as 750,000 statues buried, but that sounds like a bit of hyperbole. Each Warrior's face is unique. These soldiers are the infantry. After the Warriors we started our boat ride down the Yangtze river. Most of the ride was grey and misty, and here's a photo of one of the more scenic gorges we went through.

At the end of the boat trip, we got to go through the locks of the Three Gorges Dam, which is a pretty ridiculously large hydroelectric project. Three boats went through the locks at a time, passing so close to the concrete walls we could lean against them from the balcony in our room.
Here I am overlooking the dam itself.

One thing about Asia, but China in particular, is that everything is an opportunity to sell you ridiculous trinkets. This is the gauntlet you have to run to get to the "Ghost City" along the Yangtze. All 50 of these vendors yell at you that they are selling water or liquor or ridiculous souvenirs (all 50 stalls sell the same things).. you have to just ignore them. We long since gave up being polite.

We ended up back in Beijing, where we visited the Great Wall. We ended up with the only clear not to smoggy day. VERY hot!

Spent the next few days touring around Beijing. We visited the markets and wished for the first time since we have been on this trip that we could go directly home just so we could get some fun stuff. You can get ANYTHING you want at these markets and at very low prices. The sad part is that we can't carry it. So, alas we ended up with a few shirts to replace our very crappy, very worn shirts, a few knock off Coach bags ($6 USD each), and a silk table runner ($4USD). Could of gone crazy there. It was fun because we haven't been able to do any shopping because of our budget, sad to be restricted due to space! Oh well!

Went also to the Forbidden City. This was home to the Emperor for a lot of years (not sure how many). Construction began in 1406 though. There was so many people there that we really couldn't get any decent photos and frankly just got so annoyed with the pushing that we gave up and went home. The main issue with the tourism here is that it is summer break for a lot of the students so everyone is out tooling around. I would be interested to see if October is any different and easier to get around.

Spent our last day in Beijing at the Beijing.Zoo. The lonely planet called it death row for the animals. We were slightly surprised by this, considering that the travel guide puts such a great spin on everything they write about. We wanted to see the Pandas, so we went. It was SAD! The lonely planet wasn't that far off. The panda cages were very sad. There were just huge gaggles of people pounding on the glass and harassing the poor pandas for a better photo. They were confined behind the glass with no fresh air. We then decided to look around the zoo and quickly found out which were the most popular exhibits. The popular animals seemed to have worlds better environments. We walked by the white rhino. Which for those of you don't know is one of the rarest rhino's in the world. There are fewer than 50 Northern White Rhino's in the world today. There were 2 in the park. There was no trees for them.. no food and no vegetation in their pen. One of the rhino's was trying to eat a piece of grass that had grown between the cracks of the pavement. After, we wandered into the cafeteria and all of a sudden there was glass that the animals were on display while you were eating. The hippos and the rhino's never get a break from the tourists. Felt really bad for them. We ended up leaving there a bit depressed.

Traveled onto Hong Kong the next day and are finding it a bit easier to get around. The British influence is definitely present here. The British had a 100 year control over Hong Kong and in 1997 it was given back to China. To China's credit they have left Hong Kong to fend essentially for themselves and they are flourishing. They still maintain their democracy government and have their own currency. It is as if China and Britain merged to form a new nation, Hong Kong would be it. Here is the link if you want to read about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong



We traveled today to the outlook overlooking Hong Kong.

This is a picture of the top of tallest mountain in Hong Kong overlooking the bay. Notice all the high rises, they line the whole bay . Hong Kong is home to 6,864,346 people. You can see the need for the high rises.

Planning on heading tomorrow to Hong Kong Disney and then over to Cape Town, SA., the next day. Sorry the posts have been so few and far between. Hopefully, we will be able to get back on track. Hope this finds everyone well and enjoying your summer.

Gina& Bob

Well, at least the train was better than a root canal.

Hi All,

 

I have to say I am quite happy that I get to do this blog. That way I can describe the train ride to you all.

 

Our train was scheduled to depart from Xian at 10pm on 19th. Made our way over there after a small scare that Bob lost his ATM card. The train station was a mess. Thousands of people all clamoring away trying to get to their terminal to catch their train. All the lonely planets say that you get stared at in China, but the train station took on a whole new meaning for that one. We walked in with our very large backpacks and seeing that we are bigger then the average Chinese person and the fact that we have 50lbs backpacks on our back, they were loving us. Lots of points and laughs and close up stares. Made us feel really awkward and out of place. The average Westerner travels by plane and I don't think that they are used to Westerners traveling by train with them. The price was good only 109 Yuan for the ride (15 dollars).

 

Anyway, our train was called and we suddenly became apart of the world's largest cattle drive. Millions of people pushing and shoving (a Chinese pastime) in fear that the train would depart without them. We, finally, made it to our "hard sleeper." This entails just as it sounds a hard thin mattress with a towel for a blanket and a pillow that I was frankly too frighten to actually sleep on. We had the top bunk of a three tiered bunk in great 'ol train car 9. Initially, we settled in and pulled out our Uno cards to play on a small table. This was the cause of great interest and we quickly had a big group of people surrounding us watching us play. We attempted to include them, but they got quickly frustrated and left to do more entertaining things with their evening. The lights went out at midnight and we got into bed. I am sad to say that my initial reaction that this train wasn't so bad quickly went away. There was this repugnant smell of urine floating in the air. Now, spitting is a major problem here and there was a great bit of hawking up a loogy right on the cabin floor, as well. We were so high on the top bunk that you could almost kiss the ceiling and I think that the bad foot smell, the urine and the cigarette smoke traveled up so we ended up with the brunt of the aromas in the stagnant air.  We arose early the next morning, after  basically no sleep to find everyone up and alive at the early hour of 6am. After, 17hours (suppose to be 14hr) the train ride was over! Thank God. That concludes our train riding experiences for awhile.

 

We made it to Chongqing and boarded a boat on the Yangtze river. We boarded a great 5 star cruise liner. Just what we needed after a dirty train ride. Spend the first night in port and was startlingly awoken to an over head classical music selection. We thought our alarm had gone off so we are whacking every button we could think to hit. Till we realized it was our wake up call informing us that breakfast was coming soon. We decided that we would skip breakfast and sleep in and catch up on our sleep we missed from the night before. Yeah no! We promptly got a phone call at 8:15am letting us know that we needed to go to breakfast that we were missing it. Big Brother seems to be watching us!

 

In a way, it was kinda nice to be told when to eat, when to sleep and when you needed to go to your activities. It was effortless. Just do what big brother told you and everything would be fine.

 

The Three Gorges dam, for those of you who don't already know, is one of the world's largest hydroelectric dams, on the Yangtze river. The opening of the dam will displace 1.3 million people and wildlife. The Yangtze river that exists now will not exists by 2009. They have already lost a species of dolphin and most of the fish due to the project. The water levels will rise 175 meters by the time the project is over. Obviously, very controversial. The water is also extremely polluted. There were dead pigs just floating down the river along with trash and various styles of styles of shoes and sandals.

 

We really enjoyed the cruise. The gorges were beautiful. There is this beautiful mist that covers all of the mountains because it can't escape due to the steepness .  Just spent a lazy 3 days cruising along the Yangtze, meeting different people and learning all about the dam project.  We got to do some neat excursions, such as a Buddhist temple/tourist trap, and ride in a boat on a tributary, pulled by boatmen from the shore.  (These guys traditionally play their trade buck naked, but apparently they wear clothes for the tourists' benefit.  Phew.)

 

We landed in Yichang and disembarked. We are currently here and are leaving on the next flight out tonight to Beijing. We are the only westerners here (really, the ONLY ones) although it boasts itself as a tourist city.

 

Every day has been an adventure and the reason we started this project to begin with. We have come to appreciate all we have in life and have just been rolling with the punches as they seem to fly at us. Most of the time they are funny and have given us a good chuckle.

 

Hope everyone is continuing to have a restful summer!

 

---Gina

I'm Lovin' It

Hi from China, thanks to Sean D. for helping me find a way to write blog posts via e-mail, but I did it wrong at first, so this post is a bit old.  In China, Blogspot.com is blocked for various reasons. 

 

We are now in Xi'an, the ancient capitol city of China.  Several dynasties were based here, and it's now famous for the army of terracotta warriors.  Basically, one of China's more powerful emperors about 2,000 years ago, in preparation for his death, had an army of warriors built out of terracotta for him to be placed in his tomb.  Apparently the reason he built them was because he wanted to be able to defend himself and his empire in the afterlife.  He thought they'd come alive.  The statues average 1.9 meters tall, and are all are unique.  Google it for pictures - we will post our own when we can.  There are 6,000 statues on display and they think that amounts to about 1% of the total number.  It took 70,000 people 37 years to build.  There is apparently also a vault somewhere containing a miniature copy of the kingdom, with the emperor's coffin floating on a river of mercury.  This has yet to be excavated, apparently.

 

And get this - the only reason the army was built out of terracotta was because someone talked the emperor out of burying his real army alive.

 

Also, the original plan was to have all 70,000 workers buried alive with the tomb as well, so no one would know where the entrance is and rob it.  But the workers caught wind of this and revolted, burning down the roof of the vault, crushing all the warriors.  So the ones we see today have been restored.

 

The tomb was pretty fantastic and I recommend that anyone who can, come to see it.  But come on a package tour.  Traveling in China independently has proven to be exceedingly difficult.  For starters, finding someone who speaks English is next to impossible.  This is a particular problem in restaurants, where you have no idea what you are ordering.  You have to find a place with a picture menu, which is in itself a chore.  It's funny, whenever we go out to eat, it attracts about four dozen employees, so by the time we are done ordering we have a whole entourage around us trying to figure out what we want.  Even words you think might be universal, such as "Coca-Cola" or "Internet", are different in Chinese.  God bless our Mandarin phrasebook.

 

Thus the title of this blog.  I have never been so happy to see McDonald's in my life.  Usually, we go out for one meal per day that's adventurous, then go somewhere safe for the other meal.  Yesterday we managed to have a good lunch (Peking duck, yum) and a double cheeseburger with fries for dinner.  I feel bad doing this, because the food in China is supposed to be great, but honestly we are having trouble dealing with it.  Dumplings are somewhat reliable, and you can usually get some kind of stir fry with rice.

 

Traveling in China is also exceedingly hard.  We wanted to take a train from Beijing to here, and we found out all the trains were booked for the following week.  So we had to fly.  But we couldn't book online.  You have to go through a travel agent and have your tickets delivered physically - even for e-tickets.  Which is pretty ridiculous if you ask me.  Booking our travel to Xi'an took about an hour with our English speaking concierge in Beijing.  It would have been utterly impossible without his help. Thankfully, hotel bookings are a bit easier, we have found Expedia to be invaluable. 

 

Once we got here to Xi'an, no one at the hotel spoke English so we were on our own to find our onward ticket.  So we went to the train station.  After weaving our way through the throngs of people outside, and waiting in the wrong line twice, we finally found the ticket hall.  It had 25 windows open, with about 50 people in each line.  It was a madhouse.  People in China don't understand the concept of waiting in line.  Once up front, we realized why it took a half hour to get there - people were shoving their way to the front and blatantly cutting.  Luckily we had our desired train written down, and we were able to purchase a ticket, albeit not in the class we wanted and a day later than we wanted.

 

Xi'an is a nice town, it still has city walls and there are three dozen universities or colleges here.  Tonight, we are taking an overnight sleeper train south to a city called Chongqing (capital of Szechuan province).  They say the food there is great, but we're not staying, as we are getting off the train and onto a boat on the Yangtze river.  Besides, even if we did stay, I am not sure I'd be able to order food anyway.

 

The boat lets us off in a town called Yichang, then we'll have a week to make it back to Beijing.  We leave China on August 1.  This means that we will be completely offline for at least the next four days while we are the boat.

 

China's proving hard, but we are coping OK and managing to keep our bellies full.  We are taking precautions against pickpockets and such, and we're staying totally safe here.

Just when I thought that I had seen it all!

Hi Guys!

We are currently back in Bangkok and surprisingly happy about it.

On the 4th on July we had worked out a deal with a lady from Bangkok (BKK) to take us by bus (for 500Baht about 14 USD)to the border of Cambodia and then we would be picked up by another bus (in a big air conditioned bus) and then taken to Siem Reap where we were going to see Angkor Wat. Sounds simple huh... yah no...

So we were picked up as scheduled from BKK and then coasted over nice paved roads for about 2 hours. We stopped about 25km from the Cambodia border to "have lunch" This ended up being a scam. They told us that they had to get our visas for us at the low low price of 1200 Baht (36USD) We were under the impression that the visas were 20USD. After we had paid, a very smart American girl asked if we could just pay at the border. "Oh yes," he said "but very very long line 2hours." We later learned that we had ended up on the scam bus.

So, I want to paint a small picture here before telling you about Cambodia. Bkk very urban lots of cars... all the roads paved...very easy to travel around... I am not sure what happened after we got into Cambodia.

We got into Cambodia and we went from urban status to 3rd world status... It was mind numbing. The roads all were dirt roads with big pot holes in them. As we were walking over to customs a 6year old girl had a naked baby in sling in front of her. The children were following us and had there hands out.. with the most awful of sad faces. Truely, something I will never forget.

They loaded us into a bus with the expectation of taking us to the bus station to the air conditioned bus. The bus station was calf high in water. They pulled the bus up to another bus and loaded us off. The bus I am afraid to say was not air conditioned or big by any stretch of the imagination.. it was small and no aircon at all. our bags ended up on our lap. Now the bus ride was only 140km away which on a paved road should of only taken 2hours max... but due to the roads it took us 9 hours over the bumpiest dirt roads I have ever been on. Weirdly enough, I am happy that I did it. I saw things that I never would of seen in Siam Reap.

There was a child playing in a big puddle and next to it was a gas station. Now, a gas station consists of 1liter recycled liquor bottles filled with gas or giant gas containers filled with gas. We pulled over to fill up the bus. I watched a man take water out of a bucket and clean off the ground that had gas on it... it unfortunately was running into the puddle the child was playing in.

Just 9 hours of nothing to do but sweat and look out our dust covered window - too bumpy to read! The scam continued with the bus driver when we finally arrived in Siam Reap, they conveniently pulled into their guesthouse at 10pm. They know, of course, that it is to late to hire a driver to take you to your hotel and are forced to rely on them for a ride. OR if you didn't have accommodations they were happy to provide that as well.

Siam Reap was poor but regular western standards, but the hotels were very impressive. They all had a grandeur to them. It is almost like they wanted you to forget that you were in a poor nation. But a five minute tuk tuk drive out of town, it looked like this:

The next day we went to Angkor Wat. Left our hotel room and was greeted by Mr. Say, our new tuk tuk driver (for those of you who don't know it is an open carriage in the back with a motorbike on the front). For 10USD, he would take us around for the day to all the Angkor temples. Here I am in Mr. Say's tuk tuk.

On a quick side note: their currency is called a real... for about 1000 real yields .28cents----10,000real yields about 2.85 USD dollars... terribly confusing.. we changed 50 dollars and got 175,000 real. We found this very hard to use, but that's OK they turn their noses up at you when you want to use their local currency. They want to use USD only. How sad that their currency is so weak that they don't even want it, and when you do use it they hike up the exchange rate so you will be deterred to use it. This bites me in the ass later...

We spent the day in Angkor Wat. The biggest temple in the group very pretty. Amazing stone carvings on the walls of battles and gods.. all telling a story. One nearby temple, Bayon, has hundreds of these giant faces on it.

It was oppressively hot that day and upon leaving decided to get a bottle of water. Now, when you leave you are attacked (attacked is the only way to describe it) all wanting you to buy something. A girl asked if I wanted water... asked her how much and she said one dollar. (you can buy 1liter of water for about .35cents) I was so tired I said how much in real. I had a 10,000 bill in my hands and obviously sensing I had no idea what I was doing proudly said 10,000 real (2.85USD). Took it out of my hands quickly and handed me the water. Nothing like 100% profit. Gotta love the sucker! Have to say that I think it is almost a game. You haggle with them to get the lowest price and they haggle with you to get you to screw up. The thing is you don't want to haggle to much because we are talking about a matter of a dollar. A dollar to them means a whole lot more to them then it does to me, but you don't want to get screwed either.

The next two days were spent with Mr. Say traveling around seeing different temples. The temples were something out of Raiders Of the Lost Ark. Lots of little tunnels to explore and hand done carvings at every turn. Amazing that people built these structures by hand. Some of the temples were restored and some left to nature and the ones left alone took on the entire ecosystem. Trees made there way up the temples and embedded themselves into the buildings to create the most beautiful, peaceful sanctuary. Vines covered the sides of the walls and animals made homes there. Both Bob and I fell in love with the ones left to the elements. They possessed a beauty that the restored ones lacked. Here's a photo from the one described in the guidebook as "an Indiana Jones experience":

The last day we went to the floating village. This is a village were all of the buildings float on the water. They need to float because the river level is so variable - it can be bone dry or under 10 meters of water. They move their houses accordingly, and all can float, so if the river rises the whole town goes with it. This is all the buildings: houses, schools, churches, markets, even basketball and soccer courts. The down side is there is very poor water quality. Most people have to buy their water from the local water pump... there is no hygiene facility so most are forced to urinate into the water. This is the same water that they fish from and bathe from. Some houses had a generator so that TV was possible. The main purpose for the floating village was for fishing. Catfish is a big industry there and can give you a good profit if the season is right. They are forced to fish when profitable and hope to save the return for later in the season when the fish are fewer. Surprisingly, we found that there were a lot of immigrants there from Vietnam.

On the boat trip down the canal. Boats would come over to us trying to sell us cold drinks. This was not the uncommon because that had been happening to us for the last few days, but they also had on the boat very poorly dressed children with the saddest faces ever with their hands out saying "one dollar" "one dollar" Heart breaking. I can see now how Angelina Jolie adopts so many children from there. They are really cute and its very sad.

Ended the night back in Siam Reap, with a great meal. (Thailand and Cambodia have fantastic food) Took a tuk tuk to the airport today (11th) and have arrived here safely in Bkk. I felt bad that I was happy to leave. It was hard to travel around, and you felt on guard most of the time and had to watch out constantly for any scam. The irony was we didn't fear theft or other crime, because Cambodia is a very, very safe country. The bulk of the people that we encountered were lovely. They were friendly and always willing to help whenever possible. The children when you drove by them would wave and when you waved back they would light up. Put a smile on my face every time, so much so that I would go out of my way to wave at them to get that reaction. We are off to China, a little bit wiser for the experience.

The blog might be tougher to do, if at all, while we are in China. If you don't hear from us for a few weeks that is why. We will keep in touch as best we can by email and phone. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

Love to you all,

Gina

Boiling in Bangkok

Hi from Bangkok. We made it here yesterday with no worries, it was about a nine hour flight from Sydney that went by pretty quickly thanks to the inflight entertainment on Qantas, which we loved.

Anyway Bangkok is quite the attack on the senses. It's raining and about 90 degrees, so the air is thick with moisture and exhaust fumes. The traffic is unsurprisingly ridiculous.

The thing about Bangkok that strikes you as you walk down the street is not necessarily the stores and the noise, but the smells. People are selling all kinds of food on the street, from semi-outdoor restaurants to little fruit carts. Vendors have a propane burner and a wok and whip up fried rice. We've only had one meal yet, and let's just say it was pretty great. We might want to stay here just for the food.

We are staying in a great hotel that is comparable to anything in Boston for about US$41 a night. Lunch for the both of us - this included two rice-based entrees, soup and drink - was 50 baht, or about $1.50.

Bangkok is surprisingly easy to get around, everything's in Thai and in English, and people are happy to let you order your food by just pointing. It definitely feels safe and there are a lot of Westerners here, although we do stick out totally. At lunch the little plastic seat I was sitting on gave way - I think I have about 100 pounds on the biggest Thai guy in Bangkok.

Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Cambodia, a town called Siam Reap, which is the entry point for Angkor Wat. Angkor is a very old temple. You can read about it here if you are so inclined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_wat

Not sure what internet access is going to be over there but we will blog as best we can.

What do you mean you are at the airport!!!

Hi Everyone!







Sorry for the delay between blogs... we have been having a bit of an issue finding reliable email access. So I am afraid this blog will be a bit long again... sorry :(







Sydney (thought I would use some color)







We did a stop here because Bob's friend Tom decided to tag along on our trip up the eastern coast line . We had expected him to come into Sydney on the 22nd of June. We got into Sydney on the 20th. We figured that we would spend the day tooling around on the 21st and then go pick up our rental car on the 22nd at 7:30am and then go pick up Tom at the airport. Sounds like a good plan, right? Yah no...received a phone call from Tom bright and early on the 21st at 7:30am. I awoke mind you to the cellphone scaring the crap out of me and for whatever reason the alarm clock that was provided by the hostel didn't like the fact that the cellphone was going off and decided to alarm at full blast. We had screwed up the date in which Tom was suppose to come in and we got the great task of flying out of bed and running to the car rental place and then to pick up Tom... Tom had to spend 2 extra hours at the airport....OOPS!






Anyway, after that fiasco we decided to still continue on with our plan and hit the town. Spent the day touring around doing the bridge climb, looking at the opera house and we met one of Bob's friend, Shannon for dinner there. Very nice day and then out bright and early up the coastline.






Coffs Harbour






We did a layover stop here on the way up to Brisbane. We got up bright and early to try and drive to Gold Coast. We on the way we discovered the BIG banana. This I have to digress on just a bit. This country prides itself on creating large creations of animals or things and then they put a gift shop and a restaurant in and then they let the money roll in. We have also seen big prawn, a big mango, a big marlin,a big Capt. Cook, a big wool merino,and a big bull (this interestingly enough comes complete with all of his anatomy there was an issue of him being castrated by the locals that they had to have his boy bull parts disintegrate upon removal, ouch!). The list doesn't end there. There is an entire map devoted to BIG items.. gotta love this country.





Caloundra.


Next stop on the Rt one road trip.(Rt one goes the entire length of the eastern seaboard of Australia.. makes getting around without a map easy). This part of the trip was suppose to only take 4hrs to get there. For whatever reason it took 6hrs. We wanted to go to a koala sanctuary. This place allows you to hold and pet a koala and feed a kangaroo. We unfortunately got there at 4 and it closed at 5pm. So we did the hour a bridged version of the park. Gotta say it was worth it. Those koala's you just want to stick one in your pocket. The kangaroo's were in an open paddock you were able to get right in there with them and feed them like a sheep.








Australia Zoo


Drove the next day from Caloundra to Beerwah to the Australia Zoo...Steve Irwin's zoo. This zoo was started in 1970 by Robert Irwin, his father. The Irwin family are all conservationists and Steven spent his life with his dad capturing crocodiles and he took over the business when his dad retired. There was a sad memorial to him in the park. All kinds of letter and pictures from all over the world mourning his death, really amazing.





We got a great day there. It was the warmest day since we have been here. It was fun poking around the zoo with more koala's, kangaroos, wombats (Bob's favorite), and all the other native animals from Australia. The interesting part about this is that a lot of animals were brought here from England. The dingo, for example, was brought here for hunting. A settler decided it would be a good idea to bring over 24 rabbits to let loose and hunt. Not thinking about the consequences of such a thing, the rabbits mated like crazy and they are a huge nuisance to the plants and animals and are hurting the ecosystem. Brilliant huh! There are countless other things that were brought into this country that has turned very bad. They imported camels from Saudi Arabia to help build the railway. When they were done they had no more use for them so they just let them go. So, now one humped camels still roam Western Australia free and wild. The REALLY funny part about that now is that if Saudi Arabia wants camels now they have to get them from Australia, funny huh.





Rockhampton


Packed up the next day and headed to Rockhampton. My friend Angela lives there and was gracious enough to take us out for the night and let us spend the night there. Thanks Ang!!





Witsunday Island





We had at this point spent a ton of time in the car. We decided we needed a break and thought a day playing in the islands was just the way to do it. The Witsunday's are a bunch of islands about 800km south of Cairns. This is the beginning of the Great Barrier Reef. A beautiful area much like the cape at home. Took a ferry around the island and relaxed. Felt really nice!





Cairns


The last leg of our trip with Tom. We are here now. The place is very touristy. Lots of tour buses, of all different ethnicities all trying to capture the pictures of the different tourist attractions. I think on this trip we have learn to appreciate the non- touristy things more. They are harder to find and usually worth the trip. Don't get me wrong the Great Barrier Reef is amazing and scuba diving there is something that you cannot measure anything against, but there are times on our trip that we have pulled over to check something out and it has been such a joy to find it hidden in amongst some trees. The nice part I think that it is untouched and there are no crazy tourists trying to jockey for a position. It makes me wish, we had more time to find those spots. Our trip has thus far been a very fast pace. We are not in a place for more then a 2-3days, which makes finding the unfindable a little bit harder. I guess, if it was easy then it might lose its mystery to finding it in the first place.



-Gina





Uluru/Ayers Rock





And a quick update from Bob. Today is the fourth of July and our last day in Australia. We are currently at Uluru, otherwise known as Ayers Rock. We can't post pictures from here, but here is a photo of it. I am sure you will recognize it straight away.
http://www.zetleins.onau.net/photos/uluru.JPG

Uluru itself is just as amazing as you might imagine from the photos. It took us three hours just to walk around it, and it's about 350 meters high. The sunsets are absolutely stunning, with the rock changing color by the minute, finally erupting into a blazing red just at sunset before dimming completely when the sun goes away. It has been worth it to come here, despite the annoyances that we have encountered.

First off, understand that the Australian outback is a pretty fantastically remote place. The main train line through the middle, from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north, was started in 1877 and the first train finally rumbled down the finished track in -- ready for this? -- February 2004. Uluru is right smack in the middle of this place.

Once this place became an international symbol of Australia and started attracting visitors in numbers, one company decided to cash in. So they built a purpose-built town just outside the national park, with three or four hotels. As you might imagine, the whole thing is built to twist the knife into tourists' wallets as best they can. There is no competition here, just this resort. For example, a ride to the Rock and back costs $35 (it's a fifteen minute drive).

So we are staying in this resort and trying to do it on a budget. Dorm beds go for $110 in this place, but we booked early and got them for $41. There's a self-catering kitchen.. but it has one frying pan, no spatulas, no plates, no cups, and no silverware other than butter knives. There is a 1% surcharge on all credit card charges at the resort. Needless to say we are a bit put out that it's so expensive to be here and they can't even charge my credit card without a fee, or provide me a fork. So the lesson of Uluru is, if you have the opportunity to gain monopoly, take it.


Bottom line - Uluru is amazing, but seeing it is a tourist trap of epic proportions. The thing is though, it's totally worth it.

Internet cafe time is fading fast (internet: $.20 a minute here) so I'm going to sign off. Tomorrow, off to Bangkok and then to Angkor in Cambodia.