A wild English rose.
This week, two of my fellow travellers succumbed to the needle. No, they aren’t druggies and they didn’t get new vaccinations.
They took themselves to the tattoo parlour on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand and got themselves branded.
I won’t point fingers and I won’t name names. They know who they are and they were sober when they did it. In fact, they’ve both wanted a tat for a long time. That said, I think they egged one another on, but I wasn’t there for the discussions.
They both swear the process didn’t hurt, but we haven’t seen either of them signing up to have their legs waxed!
To be honest, the tats look great and suit them, and I’ve supplied a vat of moisturising cream for them to slather on to keep the tats healthy. Guess this means I’m an accomplice or an aider and abetter.
By the way, would anyone out there believe that Poor John got a tat?
A streamlined tattoo.
Where's Poor John?
I’ve said before that Poor John has a tendency to walk nonchalantly in front of me—far, far in front of me—and often with his hands clasped behind his back. He assures me that ‘they help to propel him forward’. 🙂
Of course, he almost never looks back. If I were to be kidnapped and bundled into a strange car, he might not realise it for hours.
Even when I got hit by the motor scooter in Hanoi and ended up with a huge black eye, he didn’t see what happened. Just the other day, he admitted that he heard a small yelp—still doesn’t know whether it was from me, the woman who hit me or someone in the crowd—and turned to find me face down on the road.
So today, as part of a walking tour of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, we visited the beautiful brick Jamek Mosque in the centre of town. There’s a strict dress code at the mosque and even men are required to don a long robe.
I’ll write other blog entries on the walking tour and mosque (both highly recommended), but for now I have a question. Can you pick which tourist is Poor John striding ahead of me? Yep, I thought so.
Haystacks don't stay on the ground for long in Tibet.
You’d think something as simple as a haystack wouldn’t really catch my attention, but I’m from Nebraska—farm country—and was completely spellbound by the haystacks of the Southern Himalayas—especially because they weren’t simple.
As a Midwesterner, I’m very familiar with real haystacks—they get piled up on the ground or bundled or rolled into bales. But Tibet (and all these photos were taken east of Lhasa) is totally different. And I think I understand why.
Nebraska gets snow, but Tibet gets SNOW. Lots of snow. Serious snow. Deep snow. Unimaginable snow—unless you are from the other places that get unimaginable snow, such as Alaska or Siberia.
Haystacks in these parts can’t lie around on the ground. No, a creative approach is needed. They have to be suspended on poles or hung in trees or perched on rooftops.
These photos were taken, on two consecutive days, toward the end of September and show some of the many ways the Tibetans store their hay for winter. I just wish I could have met and talked to someone who could have explained the processes and tactics used. Without that, my comments are pure, but logical, speculation.
I’d love to hear from you if you have a better idea or actually know more.
In the meantime, enjoy the photos.
Switchbacks—the way through the Himalayas.
This is a final splash of Himalayan scenery. No doubt, I will come across more than I absolutely have to share, but this should suffice for the moment. Take note of the long shots that show just a handful of the many switchbacks we covered to work our way up and down and through the mountains. Plenty of high passes, steep drops and heart-stopping edges. Also note where the two rivers meet. The chocolate one is the Mekong, which is called the Lanchang (will confirm the spelling) in China.
Would I do it again—you bet!
Coming soon—more Himalayan entries covering villages, construction, crops and haystacks. Yes, haystacks. Who knew they deserved an entry!
And I promise to get to the other things I’ve promised. Wonderful to have more regular internet connections.
Getting on the truck in a few minutes to head to Kuala Lumpur. Back tonight.
By now you’ve figured out that I thoroughly loved our long drive through the Southern Himalayas. Every curve, every straight, every bend, every mountain, every outcrop brought a new view and more colour and texture. The photos only just begin to show the beauty of this amazing and photogenic part of the world. I took a lot of photos and I’m glad I did, because they help me to relive and share this incredible terrain.
I plan to keep posting more scenery photos from this amazing drive. Then I’ll post some pics of the daily life we saw along the way. That was equally fascinating and inspiring too. Stay tuned. I need to buy a new adaptor so I can stayed charged up. Who knew Malaysia used an English plug?
Sorry, but I can’t help myself. These photos are all taken on a single day in the Himalayas. As we drove from Lhasa in Tibet to Lijiang in China.
The scenery was spectacular—the plants and trees, the rocks and mountains, the sky and clouds, the waterways and animals—and I fear that these photos hardly do it all justice. I feel so privileged to have travelled this route.
Off to Malaysia in just a few hours and no internet for about two days. See you when I get back. 🙂
Whatever the right name is—the southern Himalayas are spectacular.
We spent about a week driving from Lhasa, Tibet, to Lijiang, China, and I have to admit that the journey delivered some of the most fantastic scenery I have seen in my life.
It wasn’t really ranges of snow-capped peaks or heart-stopping views, but mile and mile after mile was filled with colour and light. I’m not sure that any of the photos really depict all the beauty we saw, but I’m going share some anyway.
I took 800 pictures in one day, and that was just for starters.
I’ve found it hard to put my finger on an exact nickname for this road, and I plan to do more research when I have a good and ongoing connection at home. But I have seen it referred to as the Yunnan–Tibet iIghway, the Southern Himalayan HIghway, the Southern Silk Road and the Ancient Tea-Horse Road. Each name may be right—or wrong.
So the files aren’t too large, I will post photos in at least three batches. I apologise in advance if the sheer magnificence of what we saw doesn’t come through. Could you try to crawl in behind my mind’s eye?
Here’s a starter pack of 12. I’ve noticed this batch focuses on green and water and trees and rock. but it’s all still beautiful.
Southeast Asia can have serious rain. Keep your passport dry. Photo courtesy of Ian Webb.
Your passport and your money are the two most important things you’ll take on an overseas trip.
Other things are useful but, seriously, almost everything else can be replaced easily. Credit cards, for instance. If they are lost or stolen, you can cancel them and keep travelling. In case you didn’t know, they don’t always work—and let me tell you that MasterCard is much LESS likely to work than Visa, but that’s another long story.
But your passport and money are your lifelines.
So here are a few tips on looking after your passport (I’ll cover money in a different post):
• When possible, leave your passport in the truck safe or a hotel safe. Don’t leave it in your room, tent, hostel unless you are there too. If you carry it with you, put it in a secure pocket. I carry mine in a back hip pocket that has a velcro tab. My merino tops are long enough to cover the opening, and my backpack usually covers it too.
• Regardless of where your passport is, carry photocopies of it with you—not the whole thing, just pages with personal details. In some countries, is also a good idea to have a photocopy of the relevant visa too.
• Email yourself a copy of your passport’s main page, as well as copies of your birth certificate or any other paper work that confirms your identify and nationality. You can also carry these on a laptop, but laptops get stolen, lost or die, while emails (such as hotmail) are out there all the time. I’ve also carried this info on a thumb drive that I have worn around my neck.
• Keep your passport dry, especially if it’s Australian, although other nationalities may be affected too. Pop it in a zip-lock bag or some similar plastic covering. The colours on the new Aussie passports run—BIG TIME. Last year, Poor John and I got caught in a downpour in Indonesia. We had our passports in our pockets (and in a plastic sleeve provided by the Australian Government). His new passport bled all over his main page and passport photo, my old passport was fine. And here’s the really annoying rub—the Passport Office made him PAY to get a new passport. Oh, pleeze! Hey people, make a better passport. If you can incorporate a bazillion security measures in the damn thing, the least you can do is make the ink stable.
• Take along a mitt full of photographs of yourself. These are great when you need to have photos to apply for visas. Money-saving tip: the photographic place in Canberra wanted about $30 for 16 photos. That’s downright robbery. We took digital photos of each other and got them printed off at the local Dick Smith’s (an electronics/gadget place) for 9 cents each. It was a bit fiddly to cut them down to size, but 40 photos for less than $4 was worth it.
• If you travel a lot, consider buying a super-size passport. Mine cost double the price, but it has double the pages. My last normal-size passport was used up within two years. There is an exception for those who hold USA passports. Last I knew, you could still get more pages added to your passport, and I think your embassies will do this for free.
P.S. In addition to my passport and money, there is one other essential for me. I’m a buxom gal, and it’s hard to find bras in my size. I’ve brought four, but have only used two, so I have two back-ups, or should I say hold-ups, in reserve. 🙂
The 500-litre water tank is that big grey box on the lower left.
Water is always an issue when you’re travelling. For starters, it tastes different—sometimes better than home and often worse.
On an overland trip, the greater concern is whether it’s safe to drink.
The truck on this trip can carry up to 500 litres of water in a special tank. We fill up from a variety of sources, including from village wells, petrol stations, and creeks and streams. Whenever there has been a concern about water quality or cleanliness, Lu has to sterilise it. To be honest, I haven’t noticed whether she uses a liquid or tablets. Either way, it works.
Overall, the water has been tasty and quite good in terms of quality. For the most part, Poor John and I have used truck water all the time. Many of our fellow travellers prefer to buy bottled water, but we reckon that drinking the local water gives us a leg-up on fighting off illness. So we buy bottled water only when we are away from the truck or, as happened once, when the truck water was accidentally contaminated.
This is the way we look at it. If we ever have food or drink from a restaurant, cafe or street stall, there’s a very good chance that we will consume water that hasn’t been fully boiled or purified. So by drinking the truck water, we are adjusting to what is available locally. It’s been a good approach, as we have never had tummy issues from food or drink.
We used the same tactic in Africa.
I remember once in a petrol station in Angola when a local used sign language—I still wonder how I figured out what he was trying to tell me—made it clear that the water we were using to fill the jerry cans wasn’t safe to drink. I passed this on to everyone, but most filled their water bottles anyway. Within a day, it was obvious that the water was not good unless boiled or used for washing up only, so everyone ditched what they had taken. The lessons we learn along the way.
Dogs are everywhere in Central Asia.
I love dogs, but I’m very wary of them when I travel in developing countries. I usually don’t pet them or feed them. I won’t pick them up and I don’t call them to me.
Why?
Because in 1986, I was bitten by a dog that later became rabid.
It was a provoked bite.
This happened when we were living in Burma and the dog belonged to a friend who was on holiday. The dog (Botcha) was being looked after by the household servants. Yes, everyone had servants in Burma—even servants had servants. I said I’d be a back-up for the dog, and was surprised early one Saturday by my friend’s cook (Rose) who called to say the dog had been bitten by a Bad Dog.
I rushed over to find Botcha lying in a lounge chair, looking ever so relaxed. On questioning Rose, I discovered that Botcha had been bitten by a Bad Mad Dog.
Rabies!
It turned out this rabid dog had bitten quite a few dogs and all but Botcha had been destroyed. The Bad Mad Dog had also bitten the wash nanny’s three-year-old.
I won’t go into all the details.
The short version is that I hauled the child off to get the first of a long series of rabies injections. I also got the vet to come give Botcha a booster rabies vaccination (that’s when he bit me), and we locked him up for observation.
Twelve days later Botcha went crazy. In the end, the head vet from the zoo came with a dart gun and an elephant gun (in case he missed with the dart), and Botcha was destroyed.
That’s also the day that I, along with several others, began the course of anti-rabies injections. Luckily, they were the then new French injections in the bum, rather than the old ones in the stomach.
In 2009, before we left for Africa, I was tested for rabies immunity (which only buys me time if I should ever be bitten by another rabid animal) and I tested eight times over the recommended level.
That said, I still tell difficult clients that I was bitten by a rabid dog in 1986 and had all the injections and that, while I have been fine ever since, I keep a list of people I’d like to bite.
Where to next? 