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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Paris: Who the hell saw that coming?


The Who the hell saw that coming tour

18 September - 23 September 2014


The Eiffel tower as taken from the Palais de Chaillot

Wow, this trip was so far out of left field that when it came at me it hit me on the right side of my face. In my mind I had already pre-judged 2014 to have been an entirely ‘travel barren’ year, but as I also know in my heart of hearts, you can NEVER say NEVER. Circumstance can be odd and  sometimes can conspire for doom, and sometimes,  conspires for the force of BOOM! (yeah, I said that).
Hence, in the tradition of all my other kick-off write ups such as Life in a year full of Saturdays’, ‘The wing and a prayer tour’, ‘Don’t call this a comeback’, ’43: The tour of awesome’ and The two-timer tour’,  I bring you Paris: Who hell saw that coming?’.
There are so many components to my Parisian jaunt, elements that conspired to fashion my express saunter through several glorious early Autumn days in city of lights, that had I have even attempted to have planned the eventual route that was taken, nothing would have manifested, nothing at all.
I think the best place to start is to provide a flavour of some of conversations that were held in the hallways of the Federal Court when questioned as to what I’d be doing with my entire four days of leave that I had requested. Most conversations were structured accordingly;
Random work colleague – ‘You’re taking a few days off H, are you up to anything?’
 
Me – ‘Yeah, I’m going away for a few days’
Random work colleague – ‘Oh nice, where are you going?’
Me – ‘Paris’
Random work colleague – (insert incredulous look) – ‘For how many days!?!’
Me – ‘I’ll be in Paris for the weekend mostly’
Random work colleague – (now looking at me like I’d been smoking too much tutti-frutti) – ‘Ummm – Why?’

Me – ‘I’m there to surprise my parents, oh, and I have a date lined up, a first date actually’
Random work colleague – ‘Can I get some of the stuff you’ve been smoking??’
The ‘who the hell saw that coming’ tour had so many iterations prior to where it settled that it easily could have been called ‘World Cup Rio’ or Living la vida en Latin Europe’, but as the reality and demands of working for the Federal Court drew down on the mental time credits that I’d assigned myself in earlier months, it became all too obvious that the only travel I would be doing was via the 6:27am all stations ride from Seven Hills to Town Hall.
Let me commence however with an overview of what would be my greatest Criss Angel impersonation, aka - the Le Restaurant heist on Rue de Beaux Artes – Thursday, 18th of September, 2014. As you know, the best laid plans of both mice and men quite often go astray, and so too, my plans for making it to the World Cup in Brazil and also a France/Spain tour sadly sank into the murk of the shallow marshes, induced by merciful euthanasia. The family resistance gene to ‘required work’ however is still carried by my parents and that resistance equated to both travel fortune and opportunism. Theirs now is a life of retired bliss created on the foundation of purchased time as credited from the Bank of Life. So, as unbelievably cool a son that I am, I hooked these old-timers up with a two month holiday and also threw in an all expenses, kick-arse four day excursion to one of the most loved destinations on the planet.  I give you these lines in order now to set the foundation as to what additionally was to play out in my mind after I created their itinerary.
 
In the early months of this year, sitting back one night  and contemplating my handy work at playing the role of ‘legendary family travel agent’, I had one of those lightning bolt thoughts where the alignment of stars brought on the phenomena  of  brilliant inspiration acquired through pangs of what I thought would inevitably be travel jealousy, that was  of course underpinned by the lead tenets of ‘crazy’ and ‘cool’.
Now ‘what if’, I thought, ‘what if whilst they were in Paris I flew in, all covert, cloak and dagger style, and met them at a five star Parisian restaurant that I had pre-booked for them? What if Henry…what if you managed to pull off that stunt without so much as a word to anyone?’, and thus the planning for who the hell saw that coming commenced in earnest.
Part two of this now breathtaking story has a lot to do with the entry details in  Riga - Latvian night moves. And whilst I have made a promise not to discuss in public what should really be kept private, I will mention that the idea of a first date,  four years removed from a random, innocuous meeting in a Rigan bar, that had me wandering the streets of the Old Town like a hapless, ill-fated nomad , somehow germinated within the midst of these two sentences;
Ms Pop – ‘You know, if you could fly into Europe, anywhere, I would be able to meet you there’
Crazy man – ‘What about Paris on the 18th of September, I’m there for the weekend’
Ms Pop  - No comments to be added, just refer to the line offered by Random work colleague as outlined earlier dialogue regarding the same escapade.
…And there it was, random events, bonding to form an epic atom of awesome. It was to be Paris like a Rockstar! It idea had now somehow been dreamt, all that was left was for the dream to be realised!!
ACTIVATE DREAM SEQUENCE >>>>

Friday, June 28, 2013

Sydney - Your Saturday best - 7 years of sin and sensation (part 3)

Sydney (Australia)

This is part 3 in my Year full of Saturdays 'review and reflection' special. I think after this one I'll probably have one more left in me, and I think it might be an idea to have a look back at my top 25 moments, then it'll be time to move on, but for today, lets just go with my top 22 spots for acquiring a beverage, or many. Like many of the lists that I create, they are particularly subjective and my recollection and preferences  have quite a lot to do with the company in tow, the time and place, my mood etc. Still, I think a lot of the venues would stand up to scrutiny, so with that in mind, here we go....

The top 22 'Rethinking your drinking' experiences
This is a tip of the hat to those locales that warmly greeted me, had invited me in to their domiciles via their very own clandestine and stealthy means, lulled me into that foreseeable false security where my safeguards were felled quite expeditiously through my very own prolonged lapse of reason, to then, only much later for me, allow me to come to the bewildering and stupefying realisation that I’d been unceremoniously kicked to the grimy, lurid curbs of another unknown metropolis without so much as a cursory wave. To the bars that have supported me up to and well after the midnight hour, this is your moment. . The top 22!
1. Intercontinental Resort & Spa - Papeete - Tahiti (French Polynesia) Considering that I allowed Bardeaux (Queenstown) to make the list even though it's not included in my Saturdays entries, this then needed to be allowed into the mix,  and therefore its entry means that it certainly has to occupy the top spot. Now the story of how I got to Tahiti was a little unconventional. I recall that one afternoon whist working at OzEmail, from memory sometime in early 2000, my 'trip switch' was triggered, it may have been the fact that I was required to deal with yet another irate and irrational  customer, perhaps it was activated by the inert management that surrounded me but whatever it was my brain just went to thinking 'tropical holiday? Yeah, I think it's time!'. Now the critical factor when working in a call centre, and by far the greatest inhibitor to you being able to do ANYTHING at all is that your pay is crap, I mean it's quite pathetic, sooooo, what can you do?? Easy solution my friends, I got around to pulling some heavy duty overtime, and when I say heavy duty OT, I mean seriously HEAVY DUTY OT, overtime on steroids style! I went for one whole month pulling 6am to midnight shifts, every single day. It was ludicrous, and in the end my bosses concurred, they thought it was ludicrous too, so much so that they methodically attempted to pick holes in my 'work story' and pathetically attempted to discount hours where I actually did work. Let me say now, I actually worked a lot of those hours, but not all of them, certainly not all. In any case the trade off was that I was able to spend three weeks in Tahiti and my first port of call was the stunning Intercontinental Resort & Spa in Tahiti. Sincerely, places like this are what dreams of made of. If you attempted to describe the turquoise blue colours of the waters or the variations in hue and chroma of the sky you'd either be very misguided in your attempts or would seriously understate the scene and do it an enormous disservice. Even photos don't quite do the capture the vibrancy of colour and still do it an injustice. The bar itself, as you can see from the photos, is a swim up bar that's located on one side of an infinity pool that fronts the warm tropical waters of the South Pacific, that's for starters, it then has in its arsenal breathtaking views across a 14km stretch of South Pacific sea to the island of Moorea which in turn gives a 'best supporting role' performance to any sort of mood that the day offers, be it early morning or during those long afternoons when the sun takes an absolute eternity to drop out of sight behind the island. More than just enchanting, more than just idyllic, it's a fantasy location in your mind that's brought to life and the bar, whilst being just a token gesture in this setting, has to take out the title of best bar by a long...long...margin!

Intercontinental Resort & Spa - Papeete - Tahiti - French Polynesia

Intercontinental Resort & Spa - Papeete - Tahiti - French Polynesia
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2. Porto Bay – Copacabana – Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) It’s just the view that makes everything about this place so special. The rooftop bar of the Porto Bay hotel in Copa is nice enough, as you would expect a standard hotel bar to be, it’s inviting, relaxing, somewhere to ease off. But when Rio switches on the sun it's just so damn easy to get lost in those Cariocan sunsets that dazzle over some of the most famous grains of sand on the planet. Golden painted beaches, picturesque emerald green surrounds and the South Atlantic knocking at the front door, those beams of bedazzling Brazilian rays capture you in their outstreched arms and as the brilliance of another day sinks behind the Morro dos Irmaos which provides the dramatic backdrop to Ipanema you're just compelled to stay a drink or two longer. On those brilliant days you really do crave the chance for time to slow down for you just a little, and maybe it even does.
Copacabana from Porto Bay Hotel - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

The sun settling behind the Morro dos Irmaos - Porto Bay Hotel - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
3. Skybar – Traders Hotel – Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) – Another place that has the market cornered when it comes to elegantly framing an iconic view. Located on Lvl 33 of the Traders Hotel there’s no better place to gaze out at the impressive conjoined double phalluses that represent the unique signature of KL and knock back a couple of martini’s than right here. Jet and I spent the annual ‘conversion’ from 2009-10 here and it was by far and away our best NYE to date. Let me just add that the Burj Khalifa in Dubai could learn a little bit when it comes to lighting structures of such magnitude. The Petronis Towers were for a short period of time the tallest buildings on the planet and their night show had absolutely nobody in  any doubt that this was the case. I guarantee that you can see their beams of light from the moon, as for the Burj Khalifa, well it couldn't light a sideshow alley game at a travelling circus. Someone needs to pick up their act!
Skybar - Traders Hotel - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia

Skybar- Traders Hotel - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
4. Hotel h10 Montcada – Barcelona (Spain) – Back in 2008 this was my introduction to Barcelona. I remember on that very first evening in Barca I sat up on the terrace of the h10 gazing out at the Barri Gotic, then to Vila de Gracia, Glories, St Marti, et al, and remember thinking then that the town kind of looked a little dishevelled to me, perhaps somewhat ram shackled, like a little tumbledown jerry built pueblo. First impressions right!? What the hell do they really mean any way, other than your chance to make a particularly poor judgment call on face value!? I do remember that the main thing that caught my eye  that very first time was the unconventional and incongruously placed, 'disco dildo' (Torre Agbar), its position on the landscape looked kind of obscene. Never the less, Barca grabbed me all in one foul swoop that very night and kept me well and truly in its hooks on my return in 2010 with the Montcada hosting a brilliant ‘arrivals’ session for JJ. Good times Montcada, good times!
Hotel h10 Montcada - Barri Gotic - Barcelona - Spain
View from the rooftop terrace - Hotel h10 Montcada - Barri Gotic - Barcelona - Spain...That 'disco dildo' really makes its presence felt at night
5. Bardeaux – Queenstown (New Zealand) – Technically I shouldn’t be adding this the list as it isn’t discussed within the ‘Saturdays’ blog, but I’ve been there, I’ve loved it, loved it HARD in fact, and I make the rules when it comes to my blog and the lists that I construct! Now this place is definitely somewhere that you’d want to bunker down in for a few hours when the temperature outside drops to low single digits, when breathing in the cold night air gives you that sharp knife-like jabbing pain in your lungs and when the evening sky is musing over its decision to turn into a turbid Winter concoction of whatever it is, all the while deciding what exactly its next move should be. This place occupies a smallish corner of the Queenstown landscape but it’s just so damn cosy, you can get lost in this more than agreeable arena on the back of several whiskeys, or, several bottles of wine (hmmm,  now that sounds familiar to me...). It has that après-ski, hanging out in the lodge with my ‘huck buddies’ kind of atmosphere, but it’s the roaring fire that gives this place its charm and the ‘primo’ seats are of course on the leather lounges positioned right in front of it. On the night I was there I was fortunate enough to have occupied one of those lounges with my great friend JJ and another ski buddy of ours… for many an hour! We hijacked a three seater lounge, backed it up against the bar and managed to take down seven bottles of some of the finest red that I can recall, although after the third bottle it didn't really matter. That night will forever remain in my mind as just being LEGENDARY, and  the price for that is that the next day will forever remain in my mind as being AWFULLY DIFFICULT!

A roaring fire, a leather lounge, great company, 7 bottles of wine! Bardeaux - Queenstown - New Zealand

6.  La Poesia – San Telmo – Buenos Aires (Argentina) – Maybe I’m just old school, or perhaps I just like that classical style, or both, which is more to the point, but this typically traditional café/bar that's housed in a turn of the 19th century building, has  chequered tile floors, an enchanting dark wooden bar, shelves lined with books and random artifacts on the uppers levels, and was previously a noted place in San Telmo for attracting the artists and thinkers of the era, and area. They would come in to wile away the hours in their contemplation of what a picture of Argentinian democracy could look like post military dictatorship. The place certainly has that air about it, not a weightiness as such but an ambiance and mood that is welcoming, warm and purposeful. It’s a corner of San Telmo where I’d be happy to let a few hours slip by in the contemplation of my own thoughts or within the muted gaze and musings of the the ebb and flow of the world outside the windows.

7. Kosy bar – Marrakech (Morocco) – Make no mistake about it, when you’re in Marrakech ‘you know that you’re somewhere else entirely’. Your senses get accosted like the proverbial baseball bat to the back of the head. If it’s not the rhythmic but somehow chaotic sounds coming from the square of Djemaa El-Fna, then it’s the potency of smells wafting over the crowds from the grills in the square, or it’s the vibrancy of colours coming from the shops that frame it. If you’re not prepared  then it can catch you by surprise and your only way back into the fold is to counter attack, which can at times be a futile process. I love Marrakech, it’s a large dose of exotic, a shot of mysterious and it has an ambiance that wraps you up in its cloak of bewilderment and demands that you stay on your toes. Kosy bar is part of this set, yet another rooftop bar, it has fantastic views out over the medina with a direct line of sight to the iconic Koutoubia mosque. It's placed in a location that will  also allow you to take in one of the most stunningly brilliant sunsets around whilst the hauntingly beautiful call to prayer strikes up for the evening.
Getting Kosy - Kosybar - Marrakech - Morocco


Interior of Kosybar - Marrakech - Morocco

Sunset over Marrakech - Morocco
8. Praia Grande – Paraty (Brasil) – idyllic, what other word could do this place justice? With the emerald green waters of Isla Grande Bay lapping up against the front deck of the bar what else could you be justified in asking for? I’d be none too surprised if Corona headed on down south and shot a commercial here, it really is a postcard that can be sent with the caption , ‘from where you would rather be’.

Bar on the beach - Praia Grande - Costa Verde - Brasil
9. Hogfjallshotell – Hemavan (Sweden) – When you’re on the Arctic Circle in the middle of Winter and the sun drops out of the sky come 2pm, you think to yourself,  man, the idea of a drink really suits me about now’. So you board on down to the front door, clip out of your bindings and walk up to the lounge area for a game of snooker and perhaps a whiskey or several, all the while looking out at snow covered Lapland and thinking, ‘Now how the hell is it that I find myself here?’ . Well you could ask me, or you could ask Jay, because both of us know the answer to that question.

Hogfjallshotell - Hemavan - Sweden

Hogfjallshotell - Hemavan - Sweden
10. Hotel Majestic – Saigon (Vietnam) – And it's yet  another rooftop bar making the list. I think sometimes that’s just the way you want it when you’ve dialled your ‘action-meter’ back to tranquillo and you just want to soak in the space that you’re in with the least amount of energy possible. This bar has a great view over the Saigon river and provides the wander lusting voyeur with the opportunity of witnessing locals amassed on both sides of the river, cramming themselves and their two-stroke Hondas OM’s onto the ferries that run the cross river dash every few minutes.









Hotel Majestic - Saigon - Vietnam

11.  Bamboo bars on the Nam Song – Vang Vieng (Lao PDR) – Cruising down the Nam Song on an inflated tyre, letting your mind wander, with perhaps a can of beer Lao in hand, drifting sweetly into eternity, then being sharply snapped out of it when someone shouts out something to you, you pause for a moment, glance over at your travelling partner and just nod, nothing else needs to be verified. A rope is thrown out, you catch it and get pulled into one of the endless number of bamboo bars that are perched on the rivers edge. You select yourself a beverage, climb into a hammock and sway away on the gentle breezes.
Post-script – my memory of Vang Vieng was built upon my one and only encounter with it in 2009. Since then things have changed, the government has stepped in and dismantled many of the bars that line the Nam Song and all the evil contraptions that would allow you to fling yourself with complete disregard for your safety into the boulder riddled river have gone the same way. Foreigners have died in Vang Vieng, either on the river or post Nam Song exuberance, that is a fact. The boozy, drug fuelled, hedonistic ways of backpackers made that inevitable. The place is not what it once was, and that perhaps is a very good thing, but as I remember, ‘back in the day, this certainly was a wild place for a drink!?!?
JJ rocking those Vang Vieng hammocks - Lao PDR









Pick a bar, any bar....

12. Captain Hooks’ – Barcelona (Spain) – Back in July 2010 I spent the better part of two weeks in a fantastic apartment located on Carrer Ample in Barri Gotic, the Old Gothic Quarters of Barcelona. Literally directly across the street was a quirky, oddball, kind of ‘off the wall’type of bar whose theme was based on the fictional character of the same name from Peter Pan. This place also had a curious feel to it, an atypical barin the sense that on occasion you felt uneasy being in there. Uncharacteristically quiet except for the voices that carried throughout from the smattering of conversations that were taking place inside, this place also ended up being a favourite.I remember that they had a great drink there called the Tio, tio Garfito es mio (Uncle, uncle, Hooky is mine) or the cooler version (Dude, dude, Hooky is mine), the construct which I’ve just been able to locate, it goes a little something like this, rum, crème de café(café cream), milk, ‘nata y hielo pile’ (pile of ice cream) – it sounds simple, and probably was, but is was outstanding.


Carrer Ample - Barri Gotic - Barcelona - Spain
Carrer Ample - Barri Gotic - Barcelona - Spain

13.Bar Urca – Urca – Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) – This is a typical ‘corner pocket’ bar located in probably one of the most spectacular parts of Rio. Located on the Urca peninsula in the shadows of Sugarloaf, right on the shores of Guanabara Bay, it has views down into Botofogo and  to Christo Redentor beyond, there’s not too much that you would want to change with its setting, and, it’s all outdoor seating. Order at the bar, walk across the street and pull up a piece of concrete real estate that is the wall that fronts the bay. This place serves great seafood and all you need to do is select the right amber ale for your liking and you’re away.

Urca - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

JJ and Jetson about to kick-off proceedings - Urca - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

14.Cervantes – Copacabana – Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) – Again, another bar that’s not spectacular for the expected reasons, it doesn't have  either the good looks nor a prime location  to sing from the hilltops about, and inside it's standing room only for that matter, but with that said this place is a Copacabana institution. Its beer on tap mostly, but the catch here is, and the thing that will also get you coming back at 3 in the morning, are the ridiculously tasty pork sandwiches, or what the crew at Cervantes call  sandviche pernil com abacaxi. It’s basic fare, a roll piled high with tender pork, topped with a slice of pineapple, to be accompanied by a glass or three of chopp. That’s your only obligation. Its old school, simple, but a classic never the less!
Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

15.. Rainforest café/bar – Deira – Dubai (United Arab Emirates) – What to say about a rain forest themed café/bar where by law you aren’t allowed to drink!? You make the necessary alterations and adjusments then say ‘Time to get your shisha on! Pass me that hookah habibi!’.  I commenced a short lived love affair with the hookah in this very place, a chilled out bar where you could order up shisha of all flavours and smoke away the hours in complete bliss. I accidentally discovered what I called the rainforest café, because of its wild décor, on my first occasion in Dubai when I got to chatting with a Canadian guy in some random hotel bar and we decided that a smoke induced morning would be exactly what we needed to get us through to the morning light on other side. The second time was quite the ‘random’ encounter. I was on a flight back home with Emirates out of Vienna when I ran into an old boss of mine, who incidentally was staying at the same hotel as I was in Dubai! All I had to say was ‘Hey Michael, I have a great idea’ – of course this was said after many drinks in the hotel bar – 8hrs later as the sun was coming up at 6am we kind of thought it might be an idea to head back, both of us were on the same 9am flight out to Sydney that day too.

16.. Beatles Bar – Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) – The set up here is fantastic, except for the fact that it’s just Beatles music! I’m sorry but there music has never ‘done it for me’. Still, a place where the tables are on raised platforms, filled with comfortable cushions for you to just laze about on and drink away quite comfortably must have something good going for it.

Chinatown - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia

Chinatown - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
17. Bar Federal – San Telmo - Buenos Aires (Argentina) – San Telmo is my favourite hood in the world...in THE WORLD but somehow I haven’t quite made the ‘bar’ discoveries in the area that I might have anticipated, partly, (well perhaps wholly) because I spend most of my time in one of the copious numbers of parillas gorging on their wonderful bife de chorizos, bife de lomos, papas fritas and bottles of Malbec, but, with that said, I did manage to track down this throw back to the good ‘ole days, when bars had that musty, woody, earthy type of smell and feel. This is a relatively small place on a nondescript corner of San Telmo but it has warmth, soul, character and it makes you feel good. Can’t dispute those qualities huh?
San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

18. Wirstroms Irish Pub – Gamla Stan – Stockholm (Sweden) – I remember Jay taking me to this bar where on first impressions it looked like a ‘one lane’ in and out type of place with a ridiculously high bench against one wall where after I clambered up found  my feet to be dangling at least half a metre above the floor! Even for a bunch of 7ft Vikings the seating seemed a little disproportionate. The interesting aspect of this bar were the hidden little nooks that you encountered as you ventured to the back of the venue and walked down the flight of stairs, it seemed to be an endless cavern of potential discovery. A room for a band to play, a clandestine sitting area, another corner bar if you cared not to venture up higher from your subterranean abode, it was a labyrinth of bar space. I tried to find the place when I was back there in 2010 but didn’t have the ‘guy in the know’ with me.
Gamla Stan - Stockholm - Sweden
Gamla Stan - Stockholm - Sweden
19. Zurriola maritimo (Zm)– San Sebastian (Spain) – Overlooking Zurriola beach and with a view to Monte Urgull this place justifies its position by having a fantastic view in my one of my very favourite places on the planet. San Sebastian is a bar/tapas town and this bar doesn’t fit into that mould at all, in fact, it wouldn’t stack up against many of the places in San Sebastian if it came to food, charm and character, but as they say, location is everything and these guys have it in spades.
Dina, Jay and myself at Zm - San Sebastian - Spain
View from Zm - San Sebastian - Spain
20. Fusion lounge – Hoi An (Vietnam) – Hoi An is a dreamy little place, quaint and charming, it’s beauty is also quite disarming. Overlooking the Thu Bon River however there’s what I call a 'cultivated venue' that has some great drinks, fantastic food, and all served at a ridiculous price in a lounge area that wouldn’t be out of place in any thriving metropolis. I actually kind of enjoyed the alternate option of sitting out on the terrace and simply watching late night world of Hoi An sail on past. The lounge area was a little unused in any case and didn't really need me drawing attention to it!
The gorgeous town of Hoi An, across the Thu Bon River - Vietnam
Big night at Fusion, I was there and ummm....all my friends too..??

21.(The WTF is that place!?) – Huay Xai (Lao PDR) – Huay Xai is a two street town that sits on the Mekong, which acts as the Lao/Thai border, in the north-west corner of the country. This sleepy town hosts travellers that are either making the hop into Thailand or those that are wanting to travel further north and take up trekking opportunities out of Luang Namtha. This place SHOULD NOT have the bar in the locations where JJ accidentally discovered it on one of her random walks. As she strolled on a road heading north out of town, some way out in fact, she was somehow diverted down a random lane by who knows what and there found a massive multi-levelled, all wooden, open aired bar that had not a soul in it! Why did a place like Huay Xai need a bar of that size? What the hell was it doing in a place that no normal person could find? Why the multitude of levels? Questions that I’ll never be able to answer in my life, but I loved it never the less!


Seriously, this place is in the middle of nowhere in a town that is nowhere - Huay Xai - Lao PDR
Huay Xai - Lao PDR
22. Random wine bar – Paraty (Brazil) – Paraty is a preserved Portuguese colonial town that has prime position on the Costa Verde with the Bay of Isla Grande lapping at its door. In a place like this time just slows down, JJ and I found this out one afternoon in a charming little wine bar in the old town itself. Time just strolled on by without either of us taking notice, and I think a lot of that had to do with me getting ‘schooled’ by a Brazilian lady why I shouldn’t call JJ ‘nuts’. I mean her explanation was ALL in Portuguese, and JJ’s responses to her were ALL in English but somehow they understood each other perfectly, perfectly enough to both know that I was somehow THE problem!
Honourable mentions
Yono’s - Marais district (Paris) – Served JJ and I quality whiskey sours and gave us happy hour prices well after happy hour was over, and their service generally, as JJ reminded me, was the best in any bar, anywhere! Yono's kept us going on those nights where we waited until was time to hit Chez Robert & Louise for what I remember as being the GREATEST meal(s) of my life! As I've said in an earlier write up, when that hypothetical question is thrown up of 'What would you have as your last meal on earth?', I'd say, 'If they were open, and if I had the chance, it would be an evening at Chez Robert & Louise'
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Random bar- Phonsovan (Lao PDR) – If ever a place need a bar it would be the tediously dismal town of Phonsovan! In fact, 'tediously dismal' is talking  them up several notches but for the sake of this entry I'll let it stand just there. Phonsovan as a town has nothing going for it, NOTHING, other than the ability for you to be served a G’n’T at 8:00am. Thank you Phonsovan, I thank you for at least providing JJ and myself with that much.
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Several bars of Sucre (Bolivia) – there were some cool places in Sucre but one place, a pizza joint and bar also, sold a mojito type drink name  'The Boliviano'.  Rather than utilise mint, as a standad mojito does, their version was mixed and infused with the wholesome goodness of cocoa leaves! Taking down a few of those, both D and myself were dialled into a ride on the happy bus hours thereafter! They were AWESOME!
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Raffles Hotels – Singapore – I like this place, it’s vintage, it’s a classic in terms of name, and apparently the last living tiger in Singapore was shot under the snooker table in the bar, and to add to that, I don’t mind that the Singapore Sling is made in enormous batches, much in the same manner that you’d mix 100 litres of Gatorade on the sideline before a D-grade footy contest on a Sunday afternoon. It’s still a drink, and I still liked it!

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Hotel Atlas – Chefchaouen (Morocco) – You can’t acquire an alcoholic beverage within the city walls of Chefchaouen, but if you escape its breaches and walk up the hillside you can make it to the balconies of the Hotel Atlas which provide a fantastic view of the town and the surrounding country side. Somehow I took a liking to their rose martinis, and JJ acquired the good lovin’ of a Moroccan goat herder, but that’s another story!

Monday, April 29, 2013

Sydney - Your Saturday best - 7 years of sin and sensation (part 2)

Sydney (Australia)
26 April 2013

In the last few weeks I've taken to scheming once again, scheming and hatching plans. And why is that you ask? Because I'm restless, because 'wanderlust' for me is more than a word and is about as integral to my daily living requirements as caffeine, fibre and vitamin D. Sometimes I don't even understand how some of these plans present themselves in my mostly occupied mind, take the 'Osaka whimsy' for example. I was sitting at home reading the paper one Sunday morning, beams of sunlight from a beautiful April morning cutting strips across the pages of print in my hands and then BAM-O! In a flash of either genius, insanity or perhaps both I just thought 'Osaka!..yeah, I think there's good food there, maybe I should go!' ...and that was it! Sometimes the want of my own discovery is as simple as a flash of inspiration and a heavy dose of perserverence in order to be able to get me there. So Osaka? A place that is probably everything that I never knew that I wanted! And also a story that is waiting to be written another day because it's on standby, moments waiting to be lived out a few months away from where we are now, and this entry on the contrary is part of a series dedicated to the last 7 years.
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Today I'm starting off my trip down travel lane with  a nod of the the head to those lengthy journeys where it was 'better to travel hopefully than to arrive'. An idiom that I've kindly borrowed which suggests that sometimes the process of travel should be enjoyed in equal equivalence to, or perhaps even with more anticipation than that which exists for the arrival at your chosen destination.
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The top 5 '...ummm, how did you get there?'
This top 5 is dedicated to those journeys where brain cells were forever lost, sanity was checked at the counter never to be seen again and patience was erased from the turbid sea of resilience by the subtle brush strokes of time.
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1. La Paz (Bolivia) to Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 2010 - Overland bus (60hrs) - You read that duration correctly by the way! It was 2.5 days locked into the one seat on the same bus. Intermittent stops made only for 20min refreshment breaks and an achingly long lunch stop somewhere in Northern Argentina in the final 12hr stretch. But how you ask? But why even? All pertinent questions, so let me answer them below.
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Back in 2010 I'd taken an extended break from everything and was living out an age old dream of mine which was to travel South America with no planned agenda, just to take it as it presented itself, but then came the WildRover Hostel 'incident' which can be read here - You've got what you're worth and also here - Shaken not stirred - La Paz to Buenos Aires, it was a 'happening' where my wallet was ever so elegantly lifted from my bag whilst I was out of the room and without going into those specifics let me fill you in on what happened next.
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I had decided to take the cheapest  travel option back to Buenos Aires as I the wallet lifting escapade meant that I was preparing to head back home. The cheapest option out of La Paz to BA was a $100USD bus ride through the wilds of the altiplano, into Northern Argentina and then south east to Buenos Aires on the Rio de la Plata.
Somewhere between La Paz and the border - high on the altiplano - Bolivia
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Now bus rides don't harm me, I can switch off my internal systems and dose away those bland and boring hours on the road quite easily. In instances where mere mortals tend to 'lose the plot' I'm happily off in my slumber world, oblivious to anything but the creation of images and dreams that meld with the relentless hum of tyres on bitumen and the relentless rocking of the transporation chariot. On this trip however I broke down, I became 'one of those' people that get overwhelmed by cabin fever and there was nothing that I could do to reign in the internal carnage.
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What broke me however was not the 3hrs in took to cross the border at Villazon, the same one that I had walked across a month earlier in under 10mins, nor was it the 14yr old kid that kept leaning on my shoulder right through the second night trying to find a comfortable position for his head, nor was it the constant police stops in Argentina and requests for me to produce my passport every few hours, BUT, what flipped me out was the fact that our scheduled time of arrival was meant to be 10hrs earlier than when we actually arrived AND the fact that it felt as if the speed that we were doing from the border all the way down to Buenos Aires was never more than 40kph! I absolutely lost my shit!!! I started hitting windows, hitting seats, swearing out loud every now and then, there was just nothing to control that internal fury of being locked up in this tin can without knowing when the end would appear.

Rainy day in Buenos Aires - Argentina
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2. Gibbon Experience - Bokeo Province - near Huay Xai (Laos) - 2009 - Huay Xai is a two street town that lies on the Lao bank of the Mekong  which itself acts as the Lao/Thai border in the north-west part of the country. Getting there by road or water is a long proposition, so we elected to fly in from Vientiane, a 2.5hr flight with 'Air Maybe' from the capital - Air Maybe - The Gibbon Experience. From Huay Xai it was then a 2-3hr right on the back of a truck to a small village outpost that was overun with chickens, stray cows and all other things related to this particular version of the 'Lao farming Disneyland', and then to get to the 'huts in the sky' it was a 6hr walk across the smoke and haze riddled jungles of the remote Bokeo province.


'Air Maybe' - safely on the ground Huay Xai - Lao PDR
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This place is fairly remote. I mean if you sustained a serious injury whilst out in the jungle then you would be in a fair amount of trouble. Getting back to the small town of Huay Xai was difficult enough but needing to be evacuated anywhere else? Well, thankfully it didn't occur, we all survived our food poisoning with Lao parasites that we'll carry for life and we'll remember a journey into the back of nowhere.
The two street town of Huay Xai - Lao PDR
Our ride - bounced from pillar to post - Bokeo Province - Lao PDR
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3. Sydney (Australia) to  Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) - 2011 - (48hrs) - I know that there's a direct way to get to South America from Sydney, I know that flying across the Pacific from Sydney is the DIRECT route and is probably something like 20hrs faster than the route we actually took, but, by the time JJ, Jet and myself had all gotten on the same page to attacking Rio for NYE the prices of direct flights were hovering in the $5K range and flights from Sydney to Dubai to Sao Paulo were in the $2700 vicinity. Do the maths on that! That's $115 per hour saved, or $115 per hour for the pain transference of not paying the additional $2300. Honestly I was ok with not having to pay the additional sum. So we busted out of Sydney on Christmas Eve, had Christmas drinks in Dubai 14hrs later, had an odd Christmas Dinner in Sao Paulo 14hrs after that and then  jumped a 4hr bus ride from Sao Paulo to Rio the following day. It was 'the long way' and then some but it did the job when it came to value - Hitting up Sampa

Dubai to Sao Paulo - only 14hrs to go! Dubai International Airport - United Arab Emirates
'Merry Freakin' Christmas Jet!!' - Frichot crashed out in the lobby of our hotel after suffering 28hrs of air travel trauma - we still had the Sao Paulo to Rio bus ride the next day! - Sao Paulo - Brasil
 
4. Stockholm (Sweden)  to Belgrade (Serbia) - 2010 - (28hrs) -  This ride was one of the most epic pieces of driving 'endurance' that I have ever been part of and had the good fortune to witness first hand. I'm not entirely sure whether it was the intention from the start or whether the competitive spirit of my cousin (Big V) just overtook all his good sense about what a 'comfortable' amount of time driving through Europe would account to but we commenced our journey from Stockholm after an afternoon/night out drinking with a friend  of the family- Gumball Rally (Part 2)We woke up the next morning at somewhere touching 4am with dry mouths and the stench of whiskey still oozing from our pores but still harnessed the will and requisite insanity to point our vehicle south with the full intention of cutting the great continent of Europe in two.

We exited Stockholm at 5am on day one. In those next 28hrs we cut through the countries of Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and then finally Serbia. At a little after 9am the next day, with my cousin only having taken a 90min power nap on the backstreets of Slovakia we cruised into Belgrade triumphant, with trumpets blowing, marching bands out on parade and our car parked proudly at its destination in Topcider.

Sunset on the road - 'somewhere in Denmark'

Great Belt bridge near Odense - Denmark
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5. San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina) to Sucre (Bolivia) - (30hrs) - For some reason this ride even now feels like a haze of early morning stops, blurry faces and the metaphorical transience of movement. I recall making port in places such as JuJuy, Villazon (and a ram shackled hostel that had a view into a mechanics workshop) and then a 5am arrival in the quaint town of Sucre which had us arriving to our hostel several hours prior to the time that out hostel could actually accommodate us and thus we find ourselves sprawled out on the couches in the common room until suitable beds were found.

Morning stop near JuJuy Argentina - It's 4am, you just 'gotta drink' after 16hrs in the saddle

The Bolivian border town of Villazon

The top 5 - 'Best sunsets'
I love an aesthetically pleasing view and additionally I adore the glorious wash of colours that comes with a sunset that decides to paint itself over the canvas that is the view that I'm appreciating. The shots below are the best sunsets I've witnessed during my travels thus far. Hopefully the shots do these places a little bit of justice.
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1. Porto Bay Hotel - Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) - 2012
Porto Bay hotel - Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

Porto Bay hotel - Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
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2. View from Tanjia restaurant - (Marrakech) - Morocco - 2010

Marrakech - Morocco

Marrakech - Morocco



3. The dunes of Dubai - (United Arab Emirates) - 2012

Dubai - United Arab Emirates

Dubai - United Arab Emirates

4.On the beach in Mazatlan - (Mexico) - 2011

Mazatlan - Mexico

Mazatlan - Mexico
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5. View from the Eiffel tower - Paris - (France) - 2010
Paris - France

Paris - France



Top 5 - 'You're a little bit of an idiot aren't you?'

These stories are dedicated to some of those moments where hindsight would have been the advantageous card to have been pulled from the deck prior to the moment of impact, but they are also moments where the value of the story in the present far outweighs any of the consequences suffered at the time.


1. Dicing with Yuma - 'That's the jaw of a puma around my knee right now isn't it!?' - Parque Ambue Ari - (Bolivia) - 2010 - This one takes out the title purely for the fact that there were moments of blinding flashes in my head when I thought that my being was going to be terminated on the jungle floors of the Bolivian Amazon! I always laugh when I read this entry - 3:10 Express from Yuma - because I remember the speed at which my brain was processing information regarding 'the situation' and the conversation that it was engaged in with itself in those few moments when puma jaw enveloped human leg. Reflecting on it now its quite hilarious but I recall that at the time I was doing an express sanity check that followed some logical pattern akin to the below conversation, i.e.,

Brain: Question to Henry - 'This is real, is it not?'

Henry: Answer to Brain - 'F**k, the flipped out b*tch has her mouth around my knee and is ripping into my leg with her claws! I think it's freakin' real!!!'


Brain: Follow up question - 'Huh...interesting'. Additional question. You do realise that wild animals like this can kill people, right?'


Henry: Answer to Brain - 'Yeah bro, I'm onto that caper as of right now!'


Brain: Response to Henry - 'OK, best of luck with that, I'm checking out now!'


Henry: Response to Brain - 'Ah brain, hello!? Hello!!!??!?'


When my brain checked out during that experience then I realised that there was the potential for there to be much carnage. I can only thank Ms Puma that on this day her 'moody b*tch dial' was on low otherwise you may not be reading any of this!

Big jaw, sharp teeth...around my LEG!!!!! Parque Ambue Ari - Bolivia

That's right, you eat that chicken and leave me the hell alone!


2. Smuggling goods out of a jail - San Pedro prison - La Paz - (Bolivia) - 2010 - You'll start to see a pattern with my stay in Bolivia, am just calling that out up front. Initially made globally famous by a little write up in the Lonely Planet guide for Bolivia some years back and by the name of the book from which the title of my blog entry was borrowed - Marching Powder - San Pedro prison is somewhat of an oddity. Prisoners of San Pedro pay for the privilege of staying within their walls and paying rentals on their pieces of real estate depending upon where in the prison they are located. The place operates like a small closed economy, shops, restaurants, gyms, hair dresses etc, all being operated by prisoners for prisons, within the prison. It's an interesting set up, which additionally allows for visits by tourists such as myself to help sustain and grow their little enterprises. Their main form of income by the way is not from the payment that 'we tourists' make as our 'safety assurance' on entry but rather the sell ingof cocaine base which is made in the prison.

So, the additional part of the story now logically follows. You reach the end of your tour and you're taken to a small-ish room away from all other inmates. The guide  then poses the following question, 'Would you like anything else'? It doesn't take a Nobel prize laureate to work out what this tienda  is wanting to offload. My cohorts and I quickly look at each other and just nod, 'sure' we say collectively. OK, so how many times in your life will you rack up lines inside the joint? For me I sincerely hope it's just the one time! There is more to the story however...

...Preparing to make our departure the question is then posed on whether we would enjoy taking any goods out of the prison, you know, for our own entertainment purposes. Several members of my group do so. My mind still active at this point declines the invitation but realises that it's now part of a group of people that are smuggling drugs out of a jail!.....'Ahhh F*cksicle!'...Now I don't know how many tourists get busted doing this, obviously this method is well accepted at the prison and tolerated within reason, but what happens if the guards decide to do a search? What's the bribe to be paid? What's the penalty? Can you actually get busted for taking drugs out of San Pedro? Who's backdoor bitch will I become if I stay inside? These were all questions that thankfully did not require any answering other than evening scrutiny and discussion of the event upon our successful exit.


3. Mountain biking the 'Death Road'- La Paz - (Bolivia) - 2010 -  Do you have that annoying and nagging sensation that perhaps the altitude in La Paz played a little with my ability to make rational life choices? Another unique Bolivian experience involved mountain biking down the notorious 'Death Road'. It should be known that this is the 'little boulevard' where at one point during the 80's they were clocking something close to 600 deaths per year and averaging 2 bus loses a month into the Coroico valley. These days traffic is mostly from those oddballs such as myself that feel the need to freewheel the 32kms of the Death Road and live to tell the tale,although, with that said, there was as of November 2010 (33) biking fatalities on the road. I've also included a link to the blog entry here if you want to have a read - El camino de la muerte

My little dice with the Death Road came from the relative weight of speed that I assigned to the portion of the road that I was on and the fact that rain in the previous days had turned section of the camino into mud pits. I realised how treacherous the road was 'if you weren't paying attention' when I crossed up my mountain bike prior to a turn in the road and stared into a 50mtr drop that would have had me headbutting forest floor at 100kph! Not so bad considering drop in some places are known to be 600mtrs!

The cruise before the storm - outside of La Paz - Bolivia

'The Balcony' on the Death Road - Yungas Rd - Bolivia


4. Here, have a phone, and let me pay you to take it from me! - Marrakech - (Morocco) - 2008 - Oh brother, if  this wasn't the screenplay to a C-grade horror movie then it should have been. Actually it was the exact script lifted from 'what not to do' when encountered in the exact same situation.

So I'd just taken a 6hr  ride down from Fes to Marrakech on a relatively comfortable train. The only problem being that it was 50 degrees outside and the air conditioning on the train was losing its will to live, so it was warm and the stench of Moroccan man sweat was starting to pervade all cornices of the carriage. Encountering direct sunlight and the furnace of Marrakech was a completely different proposition after the travails of the train adventure. Thankfully Marrakech presented a dry heat but it was pushing the 50 mark on the day that I arrived. I jumped a taxi from the station and took a ride to where my riad was located. Somewhere 'near' my riad the driver stopped, grunted and pointed me to 'somewhere' down the street. The entries that relate to this exercise in stupidity can be accessed here Marrakech and here Marrakech C.S.I. The short of it is that I asked a 'random' passer by for assistance to my accommodation, this opportunist then assisted himself to my mobile phone, 100 dirhams and walked away from me without me so much as blinking. I still recall this guy walking to the end of the alley where he'd directed me, turning left and then me thinking at that moment 'Ahh f*ck! He's got my mobile hasn't he? He's not coming back either, is he? And I still don't know where my accommodation is!? I'm just a rip roaring mong right about now!'

Back alleys of Marrakech - Morocco

5. Entering Mexico without acquiring a visa - Tijuana - (Mexico) - 2011 - Now this isn't exactly as dumb as it sounds. The Mexico/US border is fairly liquid in terms of allow foreigners to pass through without a visa, well, from the Mexican perspective anyway. The deal is that if you want to stay in TJ then ok, there's no visa required but for escapades further into Mexico you'll need one. At the time Jet and I entered Mexico we thought we would only be staying in TJ and then making our way back into the US and then across it, funds put pay to that. Thr residual affect of not acquiring the needed visa at the border gave rise to a spectacular sequence of event at the airport in Mexico City which had us waving goodbye to our flight to Los Angeles as we picked up our offloaded luggage from the flight on the tarmac. Again, it's one of those days/nights when on reflection you just have to laugh but at the time, man did it suck balls!!! This entry for it is amusing I think, check it out - The Project



No skateboarding across the border! Remember that! - Tijuana - Mexico

That's the border exit! Turn right and walk 5mtrs and you have yourself good 'ole Mexican tacos! Of course that's exactly what you're looking for after you've crossed - Tijuana - Mexico