Ab & Gareth's Travel Blog 2005

See http://cronin.co.nz/blog2/

Well now we are back in Auckland and adapting to our 'life without castles' as it has been called. It's sad to say goodbye to (in no particular order) the abundance of history and prehistory all around in the stately homes, castles, towns and mysterious stones, the culture (music gigs, art galleries, museums, fantastic free digital tv, the bbc), the pubs, the motorways with their competent drivers, the Harry Potter movie sets and our local homely power plant cooling towers (that have since been blown up anyway). However, after our chance to compare the old homeland and the NZ homeland, we have to conclude that NZ is the better place to live, not least because of all the lovely people here :o)

On our way home we stopped off to visit Gareth's sister Bridge in Cambodia and for one further chance to see some fine old-world monuments.

Phnom Penh was a very cool city and a great introduction to south-east Asia. The royal palace complex had beautiful gold and silver temples and the streets were filled with motorbikes and skilled crouchers.

There was a fascinating mix of architectures, including the remnants of French colonial mansions surrounded by high walls. The huge wealth divide means that these fences are often topped with razor wire, and the degree of road maintenance depends almost entirely on the importance of the residents or organisations on each street. The view from Bridge's 4th floor apartment gives some idea of the skyline, and I got the first of my sereptitious monk-shots looking down at the street below.

On our first night we went to a great backpackers bar where all the 'tables' were cushion-strewn platforms set among lush foliage and fairy lights. The typical punter looked like they were searching in vain for the Beach.

The next day Bridgette took us to some of the local markets to pick up a few bargains (top deals on silk, software, dvds and various designer clothing).
Gareth and I also visited some disturbing sites related to the Khmer Rouge revolution, including an old high school that had been converted for use as a prison camp, and some 'killing fields' with a skull-filled memorial.

Bridgette took some time off work, and together we travelled up to Siem Reap, to see some more of Cambodia including some incredible temples.

Angkor Wat was the largest of the temples, and most impressive from afar.

We managed to arrive quite early and and see it in that golden quiet period just between when the sunrise-watchers have gone, and the lazier tourists arrive.

Exploring it involved climbing up several flights of steps that were so steep that they evoked images of the Rocknazium climbing wall (with some of the associated fear of falling off for me). However, the view from the top out over the treetops was well worth it (the whole top level was previously reserved for just the Angkor king and the high priest).

The next temple on our priority list was Bayon, a fantastic sort of wedding cake, topped with huge benevolent faces on towers.

For the rest of the day we continued exploring the temple mountains in Angkor Thom, a walled complex of temples that was one of the ancient Angkor capital cities.

Of course at the end of all the hard exploration work each day, we had the hotel to return to for a drink and a swim. A fortuitous room allocation mistake meant that we had about the most gourmet abode in the place - on the top floor too.

The next day we had a good look around some of the monastic complexes: Ta Prohm and Preah Khan.

These are ususally all on one level and have a great 'lost in the forest' feel, especially as some parts have trees growing all over them.

Ta Prohm was used as part of the Cambodia scene in the Tomb Raider movie - if anyone saw it. I had a great time posing as Lara Croft as we explored about but was hampered somewhat in my performance as I couldn't get hold of a large pair of pistols.

All of the big temples had accompanying tourist markets with souvenirs and lunch for sale.

Preah Khan was one of my favourites, as there was hardly anyone there.

There were some great carvings hidden around the place,

as well as some atmospheric ruin caused by the encroaching forest.

All the dark passageways were great shelter from the heat of the midday sun.

In the afternoon we took a break from the temples, and went on a boat trip out on Tonle Sap, a massive lake in the middle of the country. This was interesting as we were stopped on the way into the dock village by the local collective who relieved us of US$10 each for a boat ride. Although this was an incredible rip-off in Cambodian terms we wouldn't really have minded paying that, if the local armed policemen hadn't been lazing around waiting to take the lion's share of the fee so obviously. Still a bargain compared to the Venetian equivalent I guess.

The boat took us through a floating village where we caught tatntalising glimpses of the houses' occupants (they seemed fairly acoustomed to gaping tourists gliding by). I spotted some of the largest, flattest tv screens I've ever seen on water (perhaps the local police lived there), and I felt rather sorry for the floating cats, though at least they had more tail length than the Cambodian average. At the end of the ride we encountered an ingenious begging method where a mother motor-boats around with her cutest and most petite offspring, whom she then throws overboard with only an eight litre bucket and a small paddling stick for company. The child alone then paddles in the cutest possible way towards the boat full of fat, rich tourists and pleads endearingly for money.

That night we went to a French restaurant that had a show with traditional Khmer dancing and shadow puppets.

On our last day in Siem Reap we took a long, bumpy tuk-tuk ride to Banteay Srei, a small pink sandstone temple with incredible carvings.

On the way there and back we got to see some beautiful countryside filled with green rice-paddies and little villages.

We took another temple-break in the afternoon to visit a silk farm, where the silk-making process took place, starting with silkworms eating locally farmed mulberry leaves and ending with very attractive cushion covers (we bought a few for my mum). All of the work was done by hand, including the cloth weaving, which could take a day to make 30cm, depending on the complexity of the pattern.

In the evening we scaled our last temple mountain to see Angkor Wat in the sunset.

So Cambodia was a pretty marvellous stopover on our way to the right side of the world. I had been promised parasites and fantastic weight-loss, but all seems normal on that front. We avoided bird-flu successfully as well. At the end we had one night in Bangkok, spent rather sedately after our super Cambodian tourism blow-out. No hard-men made humble then - we'll have to go back some time for that ...

On our last Saturday in England we decided to go and take a look at Biddulph Grange Gardens - a property an hour north of Branston that we'd thought about going to on our way up and down but always had something else to do. The gardens were the land owner's pet project and he was a keen collector of trees, so there were plenty of interesting specimens around. We've been getting very excited as the holly berries have come out, so the streets all have big holly trees covered with red berries and ivy creeping up them - nice to actually see the real thing. Biddulph Grange has a "Weeping Holly" tree.

The estate includes a couple of theme gardens - one is a Chinese garden, complete with a little bridge over a pond, a golden cow statue, and with three huge and spectacularly brightly coloured Japanese Maples. The Egypt garden has a mini-tomb to wander though and is topped by a topiary pyramid.

The highlight at Biddulph is supposed to be the rainbow of rhododendrons, but being autumn we just had to make do with the rainbow of leaves.

After the gardens we cruised back down to Lichfield and met up with all my UK workmates for a farewell party in honour of one of the guys who has been at the office for a few years but is transferring to the US office soon - also my chance to say goodbye to some of the people here who won't be in the office this week. We spent a few hours at the greyhound track (Ab and I did totally dismally - not a single win) and finished the evening with a midnight curry.

The train into Venice is pretty cool - you go out over the water across a long causeway and arrive in no-car land. Venice is one of those places like Paris or LA that has been in so many movies ("Don't Look Now!" if you haven't seen it, you should - 70s thriller set it Venice) and TV programs that it looks pretty much just as you expect. Most of the locals live across the water on the mainland, so it's definitely a tourist town, but it still has a quaint feeling thanks to all the old buildings, little specialty shops (admittedly many of the the carnival mask and/or murano glass specialty), narrow alleys, bridges and of course canals.
The directions we had to our accomodation were... er... wrong.... so it took some time to find the place, tucked away behind a famous fish market. Once we had dropped off our stuff we proceeded take a wander around the shops. Venice has spectacular confectionery shops - which tends to make me a bit hungry - so we bought a giant pistachio meringue, and a big chunk of the tastiest nougat I've ever eaten.

The next morning (Saturday) Ab and I got up early and went out to have a look around the markets. The fish market was in full swing, as was the big produce market. We watched little boats being unloaded from the canals onto the shore to stock up the markets. Once Nick and Ange were up we had our breakfast and headed across the Rialto Bridge through the streets to the Piazza San Marco - the big tourist square flanked by a palace and a church. Rats-with-wings - otherwise known as pigeons - are treated with a mysterious reverence there. Instead of stalls selling people-food, there were stalls selling pigeon food. People buy a bag of it, scatter it around themselves and then hold some in their hands - thereby becoming covered in pigeons sitting on their shoulders and heads, giving an effect a bit like those people who allow bees to swarm on them: needless to say we didn't participate.
It was time to actually get on the water, but we weren't sure whether to ride the super-expensive gondolas or to get on a water bus to have a look around. After some failed negotitations to get a good price on a gondola we opted for the water bus. We took a circular bus that goes down the Grand Canal and around the cruise ship port and had a good look at all the famous buildings along the way.

Nick and Ange headed off for some more shopping and Ab and I joined the queue for St Mark's Church on the Square. The church is famous for its mosaics on floors, ceiling and walls and for its four gilt bronze horses. The horses on the balcony are now reproductions, but the originals are inside the church in a museum area. We went up on to the balcony and got great views out to the canal, sea and across the city.

It just so happened that Suzie and Doug were in Venice as well as part of their giant 3-month pan-Europe expedition, so Ab and I met up with them on Saturday evening. We decided to splurge on the gondola expense and had a very nice punt around the smaller canals of the city, followed that with a few drinks at a taverna and finished off with a nice pasta and pizza meal at a ristorante.

It was great to catch up again.

The next morning we checked out and headed to the bus station to catch a bus to the airport. Sunday evening and we were back in good old Branston having had a brilliant holiday in Italy. Definitely going to have to go back there some time to see the south and east.

We successfully used the self-service ticket machines at the train station and booked ourselves a journey on Trenitalia - the inter-city train service - to Florence. The carriages were of the compartment-type variety where six people get put into each sealed off compartment and a long corridor runs down past all of the compartments. We shared our compartment with a nice older Italian lady who took a shine to Ange. The train journey took us through a chunk of the Tuscan countryside, so we were able to peer out at the vineyards, olive groves and orchards as we sped through in the train.
Our accomodation in Florence was right next to the River Arno - the big river that runs through the center of the city.

We were in a proper old-school pensione and our windows and shutters opened out to get a spectacular view over the river and the grand old buildings topped with little bell towers, and down the banks of the river to the famous old pedestrian bridge now covered in jewellery shops.

We arrived early afternoon, so we had enough time to do a bit of exploring in the market and to climb to the top of the "Duomo" - another St Peter's-like dome offering panoramic views of the city (and plenty of stairs to climb to the top).

The most striking thing about Florence is its shops... it has everything from a super-value leather market to an astounding collection of high fashion European label shops. We spent a lot of our time walking around waiting for Ange to catch up after she was way-laid by displays of boots.

On our way back to the hotel we decided to scout about for potential eating places (it was only about 6pm and nowhere in Italy opens for dinner until 7pm at the earliest). We spotted what looked like a nice friendly (and cheap) traditional "trattoria" - the Trattoria Marione. After a quick stop back at the pensione we wandered back to the trattoria and arrived just after opening to find that most of the tables had been taken. We managed to get a seat and were really impressed with our entrees and then our mains... and then we noticed that a rather large queue of people was building outside the restaurant: apparently we had stumbled upon a guide book favourite. We liked it so much that we also ate there the next night!
The next morning we got up nice and early so that we could avoid another Vatican experience and we joined the queue for the Uffizi gallery. After a short wait we entered and had a great time browsing around (one of the big highlights of the Uffizi is Boticelli's "Birth of Venus"). We spent the afternoon poking around the shops and checking out the big pedestrian bridge - and I finally found bargain-basement priced Limoncello.