What we done

2 of Us

9 Months

29,240 Kilometres

18,175 Miles


8 Tonnes of Carbon between us (compared to 17 tonnes if we flew). We need to plant 40 trees.

18 Countries

Ireland France Germany Poland Belarus Russia Mongolia China HongKong Macau Vietnam Cambodia Thailand Malaysia Singapore Indonesia EastTimor Australia

Over 70 Towns and Cities

Cork/Dublin Rosslare Cherbourg MtStMichel Granville StMalo Paris Cologne Moscow Irkutsk Litsvyanka Ulaanbataar Beijing Xian Chengdu Chongqing Guangzhou Shenzhen HongKong Macau Haikou Sanya Beihai DongXing MongCai HalongCity CatBa HaiPhong Hanoi LaoCai Sapa Hue HoiAn NhaTrang Saigon PhnomPenh SiemReap Poipet Aranyaprathet Bangkok HuaHin Georgetown KualaLumpur Singapore Batam Jakarta Makassar Larantuka Maumere Dili Darwin Maningrida Nhulunby Seisia PortlandRoads Lockhart River Weipa Coen Cairns Townsville Marlborough Gladstone Maryborough SurfersParadise ByronBay Brisbane NelsonBay Sydney Gundagai Melbourne

Plenty of Books

Weird, wonderful and downright odd People

Boats

Rosslare-Cherbourg HongKong-Macau Macau-Shenzen Haikou-Beihai MongCai-HalongCity HalongCity-CatBa CatBa-Haiphong Singapore-Batam Batam-Jakarta Jakarta-Makassar-Larantuka Larantuka-Timor-Darwin-LockhartRiver

Trains

Paris-Cologne-Moscow Moscow-Irkutsk-Ulaanbataar-Beijing Beijing-Xian Xian-Chengdu Chengdu-Chongqing Chongqing-Guangzhou-Shenzen-HongKong Guangzhou-Sanya HaiPhong-Hanoi Hanoi-LaoCai Hanoi-Hue HoiAn-NhaTrang NhaTrang-Saigon Bangkok-Georgetown Georgetown-Singapore

Busses

Beihai-DongXing Hue-HoiAn Saigon-PhnomPenh-SiemReap

Cars

TD Golf Cherbourg-MtStMichel-Paris

Smart ForTwo Macau

Mitsubishi Lancer Sanya

Hilux Ute Nhulunby

Nissan Patrol Weipa-Cairns

Mitsubishi 380 Cairns-Melbourne

Milkfloat
DongXing-MongCai

Mule

Terelj




Give us a bit of time to catch our breath, we'll be back on the road soon enough.

Road trip!

Being a fan of things wheeled, Seamus arranged with Avis for a one-way rental to Melbourne allowing us 9 days to make the trip from Cairns. A 3.8 petrol V6 Mitsubishi 380 Platinum should do the trick. Vroooom.

We bid goodbye to our sailing buddies and headed off after a final dose of fine sushi. Night the first was to be spent in Townsville, a coastal town a few hours down the coast. We had over 4000km to do in 9 days so we'd need to be aiming for 450 or 500km a day. Queensland has an awful lot of empty space, long empty roads and roaming packs of suicidal marsupials determined to dent your bumper. We managed to avoid the koalas, wallabies, 'roos and cows that blocked our path, just about. Along the way we stopped off at tiny roadhouses, motels and parks at Marlborough, Gladstone, etc. They start to blend together after the first couple of non-descript motels.

A 3 day trip to Heron Island provided a welcome respite from the road.

Back on another catmaran

Yarr

Lemon Sharks in knee-deep water.

Yes of course we went in for a swim!

A Black Noddy, nesting outside our window

A Green Sea Turtle returning to the water after digging a pit and laying over a hundred eggs

The southernmost Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Heron Island is a coral cay, formed from dead coral polyps over millenia rather than a true island made from land, or at least that's what I think it said on the resort spiel. We passed the time snorkelling with sharks, turtles, rays and fishies, and walked the beaches by night to watch Green Sea Turtles crawl up the beach to lay eggs. What a stunning sight. The island is home to huge numbers of birds including herons, noddies, something brown that makes eery noises at night, bizarrely similar to screaming children. The sun, sea and sand couldn't last forever, we headed back to Gladstone to continue south to Surfer's Paradise, where we took a tour up the tallest residential building in the world, Q1. At 330 metres it tops the Eiffel tower. Tourists can access the 77th and 78th floors with panoramic vistas over Southport, Surfers and the ocean.

Nearly there! (Q1 at Surfer's Paradise)

We continued on to Brisbane, and drove straight past it. Byron Bay beckoned with its beautiful beaches and good food. We managed to find the same place we stayed in 4 years ago and bought some jewellery to mark the occasion. Our final coastal stop on the way south was at Nelson Bay, an hour north of Sydney. Whalewatching beckoned, we headed out on a huuge catamaran in big seas and caught up with a family of humbacks, blowhards with tails all over the place. A fantastic sight.

We skirted Sydney, stayed away from Canberra and made the final approach to Melbourne on a rainy Friday. Our last night on the road was spent in a remarkably bland motel in Gundagai. A 5 hour trek on Saturday morning and we roll in to Carlton in time for a feed of pints with Paddy, Ben, Ruth, Barry and some of their local friends. It's been a long time coming. Stats to follow.

Having the last remains of itchy feet, we set out again at the first opportunity, taking a drive down the Great Ocean Road to Apollo Bay and Beacon Point. More Koalas than you can shake a stick at. Welcome to Australia, mate.

...and then the mast fell down.

The boat boated, the sails sailed, we headed out of Darwin on a beautiful Saturday morning after stocking up and crewing up for the trip across the top end. Jonna, a Swedish firefigher. Sara, a Scottish Dame. Elodie, a French firebrand. Jennifer, a Leeds lass. Sounds like the start of a very bad joke.

Over the course of a few days we worked our way east across the northern edge of Arnhem Land, a large part of the Northern Territories populated and governed by Aboriginal Councils. We stopped at a few islands to cook the huuuge fish we caught on trailing lines, learning how to navigate in reef waters, how not to panic when the tide drops and how to make a Spanish Mackerel taste divine. We stopped off at Mirimbina in Arnhem where crocs patrol the harbour and glass hides in the mudbanks, perfect for severing ill-protected toes. Our final destination in the northern territories was the mining town of Nhulunby and its bauxite extraction industry. After setting up camp in the Yacht Club we set about renting a ute and trying to fit in with the less than stable locals. Mining tends to attract people from the odder spectrum of humanity. It says a lot about the place that permits are required to purchase alcohol, so we duly queued up at the courthouse with the miners to get ours.

Our next odessy was crossing the Gulf of Carpenteria, connecting the northeast of Arnhem land and the extreme north of Queensland, Cape York. Naturally, the wind wasn't in our favour so we tacked and motored our way for 4 days in open water, on the go 24 hours a day and lamenting the loss of one of the masts on day 2. With Seamus hanging from the side of one of the hulls, we watched as circling sharks eyed up our idle boat while the mast stays were being reattached. A few bits of sausage got their attention and all was going well until some screaming alerted Seamus to the fact that a couple of massive grey fins were making straight for the boat. Oh dear. Turned out to be a squadron of enormous dolphins, easily 9 feet long, coming to check out the situation. With the arrival of the dolphins the sharks bolted. Wusses. The dolphins stayed close until we got moving again, their shark bullying tactics a success. The sea is a weird and wonderful place. We trailed a few hooks with glowing squid lures on the way and hauled in some monster fish, a 4 ft barracude, 3.5ft spanish mackerel and a couple of tuna. Yummy, although barracudda stinks a bit.

We sailed into Seisia on the 4th day and set about getting badly needed showers, ales and beds. Seisia is close to the community of Bamaga and serves as a good starting point to fish, sail and explore Cape York and the islands. For us it was a chance to refresh and revive before heading north again to round the Cape, the most northerly point of mainland Australia, and continue our journey down the east coast.

Our night anchored at Cape York did not bode well, with wind roaring through the night and all of it coming from the south and east, exactly where we were headed. The following day we made a break down the coast and in 30 continuous hours made it to Margaret Bay, a relatively secluded spot a million miles from anywhere. Things went from unsure to despondent as the wind kept picking up and weather warnings coming over the radio. 25-30 knots heading straight into our bows from a high pressure system all the way down in the Tasman sea. Hold tight, we'll be out of here soon. Or not.

A week later, water running low, stocks dwindling and cabin fever well established, we made a break south to Portland Roads, the last outpost of civilisation on the east coast of Queensland before the coast dwindles to rocky, crocky outcrops heading north to Cape York. Naturally, the only shop in the place was closed for the day, off we headed again for Lockhart River, an aboriginal community a few hours south, with promises of a supermarket and the possibility of car rental to get us out of dodge. The weather warnings weren't waning, the wind and swell was making sailing impossible, the timeframe to get to Byron Bay (originally 6 weeks but looking more like 12 at the rate we were going) was killing the budget. After asking all around town we had resigned ourselves to another week of waiting for a break in the weather when good news arrived. Finally, things might start to go our way. A charming Scottish man working in the council heard about our predicament and offered to take the four of us, Jonna, Sara, and ourselves, to Weipa, a bigger bauxite town on the other side of the cape facing the Gulf of Carpenteria. It doesn't bring us any closer to Cairns or Melbourne but they have hotels and a Thrifty agent, can't be all bad. We unloaded our substantial load of luggage and headed off, creeks, dirt roads, wild turkeys and trembling crocodiles in our wake.

After a night in the mecca of Weipa we collected our ride, a rented Nissan Patrol, one of those giant 4x4s the Irish Army use to wander around the world. 800km to Cairns, best to make an early start. After a bit of shopping of course. 600kms of dirt roads, gravel, creeks and road trains later we hit civilisation and make the rest of the trip on tarmac through mountains, counting the wallaby carcasses on our way. Naturally, a puncture decided to arrive only 20km from our destination, in the middle of the night on a dusty highway. An hour later we're ready to go, covered in dust and oil but delighted that we managed to sort it out with the miniscule jack and pathetic equipment provided by Nissan for the purpose. Cairns has never looked as good, nor has the lovely soft beds we found. Bliss.

Cairns is a fantastic town. We thought so 4 years ago and our suspicions have been confirmed. Jonna and Sara started the job hunt immediately, interspersed with dinners and trips to the pub in the lively town centre. It was our pleasure to attend the Coyote Ugly night at PJ O'Briens and enjoy the spectacle of a hairy Cavan man strip off his shirt and dance on the bar in return for a small bar tab. He lost, the 5 ft tall Chinese guy had much better moves. We set about arranging for transport to Melbourne asap, we're approaching the 9 month mark, funds are dwindling and the prospect of going for a pint with our friends down south is too tempting. Onwards, always onwards. Upwards, or in this case southwards.

A good place for a village

After what will forever be known as “Maumere-gate” or “Seamus being incredibly thick”, we finally met up with Neil and the crew of the Electric Guitar Fish, a 38ft Wharram Tiki catamaran built in 2000 by some daft brothers and now owned by a Byron Bay based Plymouthian who sells icecream.

Electric Guitar Fish
Larantuka Harbour at Dawn

Ben and Wolf had been on the boat since Bali a month before, a Californian Lawyer and a German working as a Royal Flying Doctor out of Perth respectively. Paul and Haley, Canadian couple on the way to work in Oz, had gotten on in Labuan Bajo, Western Flores, 4 days previously. A quick Bintang and off we headed to our tiny berth to settle in for our first night on the water.

We left Larantuka at dawn, planning to clear Flores that afternoon and head overnight for Atapupu in the Indonesian side of Timor. Crystal clear water, dolphins, flying fish, fresh air and good food. Perfect. To expedite the sorting out of crew permits and passports we hopped off at Atapupu and made our way by moto and ancient taxi to Dili, where we spent a few quality days soaking up the tense but fascinating vibes that permeate the place. The locals get fairly rowdy on a Friday night in town, what used to culminate in pickup parades through town with AK-47s now manifests itself as a crazed frenzy when the DJ fires on “La Bamba”.

After fueling, watering, and flooding up the boat we set off again for the Eastern tip of Timor. We set a few lines off the back and after the first day we're setting up camp on a remote beach cooking up fresh Spanish Mackerel, a 4 ft specimen hauled in and chopped up by Ben. Before the fire is even lit we're engulfed by police and army pickups with forces from Sri Lanka, East Timor and African Nations. What are you doing out here? Fair question. After contacting HQ and the area commander we were promised that we'd be looked after for our stay with rotating shifts of soldiers close by and a contact number for the commander if we needed anything. Fantastic bunch, can't wait to get the photos from Haley.

Our second night on the move we pull in to Lautem farther east from Dili on the northern coast. Poverty and decimation from the Indonesian withdrawal in 1999 are very evident. No power, no infrastructure, nothing to do for some people except break up small rocks into smaller gravel by hand and wait for somebody to drive up and buy your pile of pebbles. Our industrious assistant Dino tracked down Benzine and Bintang for us for a small commission, fair play to him. We spent the night anchored off the beach and set off again at dawn, waved off by even more police on the beach.

Piglet and Puppy

We sailed across the Timor sea for 4 days and 3 nights, taking 3 hour shifts with 3 rotating teams. Not good for sleeping patterns. Waking at dawn to see 20 dolphins playing in our bow wave makes it all worthwhile. At some points we were seeing up to 50 dolphins in one area, with up to 20 of them jumping at the same time. Breathtakingly beautiful. Sea snakes, giant bats and even a whale were all sighted at some point. Our lines bagged us a few tuna at dawn which made for some sashimi and a serious steak dinner. Doesn't get much fresher than that.

Seamus and Neil keeping watchBen, Wolf, Tuna

Dolphins, Timor Leste

As the sun rose on the 4th day we spotted some land in the distance, Bathurst Island at the northern tip of the Northern Territories. By nightfall we were approaching the lights of Darwin and settling in for one more night on the boat before we could clear quarantine and customs in the morning. Fingers crossed that they would let us in.

By midday we've been given the immigration thumbs up and off we go to track down a kangaroo burger and some croc-on-a-stick. Darwin is a funky little town, aimed mainly at tourists with everything concentrated in the middle of town, a short hop to the beach. A room at the cheesy Travelodge will provide air con, a shower and a proper bed for a couple of days. Bliss.

The obligatory night out in the local Oirish Bar does not disappoint, with pints and grub in Shennanigans the onwards to every club we could find until the posse ended up at Throb, home of some very interesting dancing she-males. Seamus is glad he wussed out early and headed to bed.

Now that we're sort of Australian, for 12 months at least, we set about the boring tasks of opening accounts, getting tax numbers, Ozzie mobile phones and all that stuff. Mostly we're enjoying the sunshine and sat around soaking up the ambiance and whatever else was going. Our shipmates, except for skipper Neil, are all heading their separate ways, back to the US, Perth or onwards to Melbourne. New crew are required, the boat needs a hose down and the galley needs some serious stocking for the next few weeks. The plan is to head east across the Gulf of Carpenteria then south along the East Coast through the Whitsundays and Barrier Reef as far as Byron Bay. Onwards from there in new car hopefully, to Sydney, Tasmania and Melbourne as our final destination.

www.flickr.com/photos/seamuswalsh

Shipshape

A furious hotel spree in Singapore and we're off. Batam, one of the Indonesian Riau Islands south of Singapore, beckons with its promise of further luxuries and a boat onwards to Java. Our ride to Australia has made it as far as Flores with the next stop being East Timor. Time to get a move on and overtake them.

Our hotel in Batam wins the inauspicious award of being the most hideous, tacky thing on the planet. A full scale concrete model of a ship with a small gunboat beside it. The "Greek Mythological Inspired" decor, porthole windows and gilded Titanicesque windows contributed to a bemused thumbs down. Thankfully the staff were able to help us arrange tickets on a Pelni ship heading to Jakarta, even if they couldn't help us get decent food or a nice Margarita.

Thirty miles of bumpy road later and we're piling into what can only be described as a giant cattle shed with 400 other souls, all waiting for a ship that may or may not be arriving today. Oh dear.

Just as the rain is beginning to pick up, the ship arrives and we all pile on, elbows and shouting being the preferred means of heading up the rickety gangway. Bye bye Batam.

We settle into our little cabin and prepare for 30 hours of waiting to get off the boat. And waiting... And waiting... A mere 5 hours laters that schedule the ship heads off into the night, just as we're tucking in to a dinner of dry rice and cold tofu with fish heads with our new friends, the only other westerners on the ship who have been forced to make our acquaintance as the crew shepard us all towards a table laden with cloudy water and something approximating chicken bones.

Naturally, the Australia couple are doing almost exactly our trip, London to Brisbane (instead of Cork/Dublin to Melbourne) and after 5 months of Trans Siberian, Chinese and Southeast Asian delights are on the home stretch. They have similar notions of ships around Indonesia, perhaps a brief jaunt to East Timor then onwards, somehow and on something that floats, to mainland Australia. We wished them luck, but we'll try to keep a bit of that luck for ourselves.

On reflection we're had to trim and chop our itinerary for a number of reasons. We traded 4 fantastic months in Vietnam for the honour of spending less than quality time in Northern Thailand, Laos and the Thai and Malaysian Islands. We were disappointed not to have had a chance to see Fiona's uncle and his growing family in Pattaya and missed meeting a contact in Singapore by a day because we were rushing to get these boats to Indonesia. We also didn't have a chance to get to Bali, Lombok and Komodo on this trip or to catch up with Eoin and Caoimhe in Bali due to shipping schedules, and we might not have a chance to experience a full month of Ramadan in Indonesia, all that fasting and prohibition we were so looking forward to. All of this and more has gone out the window for the sake of the over-riding mission, to blaze a trail to Flores and board a catamaran that promises to take us around Flores, onwards to Timor and across the Timor sea to Darwin, maybe even around the coast as far as Byron Bay. Not the most harrowing trade-off we've ever been forced into. And anyway, we'll be back.

Still on the ship to Jakarta we've just been treated to another wholesome meal of cold rice, tofu, burnt fish and some sort of green past. Dessert was a view of the sun setting over the equator off the starboard bow. Picking our way back to the cabin over the hundreds of bodies littering the deck, we wait patiently for the evening call to prayers to boom over the intercom. Our fellow intrepid travellers had tried to avoid the 1st class option and opted for 2nd class closed cabins with 6 berths. "No" said the Pelni ticket office. Apparently women are not permitted in these cabins. Best not to ask any more.

A couple of thrilling taxi rides later and a decadent club sandwich in our Jakarta hotel, we were ready to head off again into the big blue, but the boat was leaving in an hour and we weren't sure we could survive 5 days on pot noodle alone. 20 minutes of supermarket sweeping later and the pantry looked thusly...

Off we go.

The 5 days on the Kelimud from Jakarta to Surabaya to Sulawesi to Flores isn't hard to sum up.

Day 1
Fish and Rice. Hollow man on HBO.

Day 2
Fish and Rice. Perfect Stranger on HBO. Our walk on deck was only mildly interrupted by a thump from a salivating girl chained to the deck railing. Pelni, moving people around Indonesia around Indonesia like cattle for donkey's years.

Day 3
No fish. No rice. I think we've been forgotten about. Hollow man on HBO. We made our own Sudoku puzzles from scratch to pass some time.

Day 4
Fish and Rice. Perfect Stranger on HBO. Getting sick of "Heh, mister", "Hello, mister", "Marijoowana, mister?". Where you work, where you from, where you wife, give me cigarette, no cigarettes sorry, oh no no give me cigarette, where irlandia? The ship pulled into the port of Makassar on Sulawesi and we once more stood witness to the chaos and mayhem of unloading and reloading with everything from onions to people, vases to coffins. We leave Makassar severely overloaded. No longer possible to leave the room with the amount of people on the floors.

Day 5
No fish. No rice. Hollow man on HBO. The cockroaches and screaming babies are getting to be a bit much. We met a Catholic nun at dinner, we think there might have been a call to prayers for the Jesus-folk. A screaming erupted on the deck outside our window, lots of screeching and hair pulling, lots of laughing men enjoying the show.

Midnight of day 5 we finally arrive into Larantuka and search for an open hotel with something soft to rest our weary heads. Hair-raising moto ride later and we've checking into a "VIP" aircon room at Hotel Fortuna I, feels like a small slice of heaven after the confines of the boat. Here's hoping that catamaran shows up.

More foodie stuff

You have me on a mission now Cathal!!

Fiona's food to do list:
Huevos rancheros
Steak tartare
Carp
Heirloom tomatoes
Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
Bagna cauda
Wasabi peas - mmm, nobody said this was gonna be easy
Salted lassi
Root beer float
Clotted cream tea
Curried goat
Phaal
Fugu
Umeboshi
Abalone
Dirty gin martini
Poutine
Frogs’ legs
Gjetost, or brunost - Dedicated to Jonna from Sweden (this is really getting tough)
Roadkill - DONE at the Mindil Beach Sunset Market, Darwin.
Baijiu
Hostess Fruit Pie
Lapsang souchong
Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (they have them in Japan now!!)
Kobe beef
Horse
Rose harissa
Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
Snake


Ok Cathal, I do as you say!

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare (One to try, deffo)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (couldn't get away from it in Russia)
10. Baba ghanoush (thank you Drea)
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (God bless Copenhagen)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns (Possibly my no 1 fav snack)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (grrrr)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (do crúibíní count?)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (yummy - Earwig)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (thank's to Rong)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (do Hostess Twinkies count?)
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (soon, verry soon...)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare87. Goulash88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano (in Edinburgh of all places)
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Oooh! That was fun, lots of Wikipedia needed there! 66/100 isn't too bad. It seems I will have to eat a tomato to finish the list though, I think I'd rather the roadkill. Might have to go to mexico too! Cant wait to do number 84, in Chapter One when it gets three stars :)
I think I'll start completing the list tonight with a Dirty gin martini.

http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/uncategorised/the-omnivores-hundred/

Onwards, upwards, seawards

Booted out of one Singapore hotel to another, tentatively booking boats to Java, getting lost in the world's largest and cleanest shopping malls, attending jewellery and technology expos and pretending to be posh, besieging the Irish Embassy to get what we want, drowning in a lovely midsummer storm and seriously pondering spending a fortune on a "Where the wild things are" t-shirt. Singapore has been...interesting.

And off we go again. Java beckons, our friends in Bali are there for another few weeks, the boat to Darwin is currently in Sumbawa and heading to Flores in the next 3 weeks or so. Pressure is on.

Rushin' through Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore

Bye bye Saigon, bye bye Vietnam after 4 great months. We now have a small but hot fire lit under us and it's time to get a move on.


12 hours on a bus later we're in Siem Reap. Irish breakfast in Molly Malones, off we go again on a 4 hour car and 9 hour train journey to Bangkok. Doing our very best to avoid Khao San Road off we go again on a 32 hour train journey to Butterworth in Malaysia, 4 hours of sleep then another 14 hours on a train to Singapore. Why aren't we using planes again? No matter, Singapore will look after us.

We checked into the Pan Pacific along with a Swedish couple we met getting off the train who had the good sense to book ahead. Plush room, massive TV and stunning view over the city. That'll do me. Next adventure is to sort out Fi's passport, find a giant boat in the harbour belonging to Seamus' doctor's cousin, find a way to Indonesia and on to Flores and try to get some sleep after the hectic couple of weeks since leaving Jungle Beach.


Singapore struck us 4 years ago as a clean, organised, pretty but slightly dull city. Nothing has really changed since, but I think we are appreciating the calmness of it all a bit more. Are we getting old or just weary? Weariness aside, the next month or so until we find our boat will be madness so we're going to make the most out of the plushness and room service while we can.


News from home of small architectural practises shutting down, larger firms letting dozens of people go, and a general stagnation of the building trade, sales and the economy. Hopefully we can stay away for the worst of this and find work in Australia until things start to rebound.

Saigon and onwards

After dragging ourselves away from Jungle Beach after 61 fantastic days, we boarded another train to Saigon.

Gai with Seamus' sand turtle

Saigon is like Hanoi on all sorts of stimulants. Bigger, louder, slightly more bonkers. The people are almost invariably friendly and even the incessant hawkers have a grin for everyone. After a couple of days of hotel-hopping and a good dose of CNN we felt almost ready to face the world.

Our plan for Saigon was to gradually get back up to speed with the real world, eat some fancy food, visit Sheridan's for a bit of pub grub and plan our escape to Cambodia. Buses to Phnom Penh and Siem depart every day, we just have to steel ourselves against the prospect of 12 hours on a bus on Vietnamese and Cambodian roads. Might take a day or two to build up the nerve

In other news, we got a tip to use findacrew.net to look into making the SE Asia-Australia trip on a private boat. A quick registration and search later and we sent off a half dozen emails to boats that might be suitable for us as unskilled but enthusiastic sailors. A couple of days later and an English/Aussie captain gets back to me about a trip from Bali to Dili then onwards to Darwin and Byron Bay, PERFECT! Hopefully this will pan out and we will make it to East Timor in time to meet them.

Jungle Beach Photos

Dawn fisherman

The puppies, Porky and TwoTone

Kirsty and Seamus at the waterfall

Fi and Seamus having a dip

Posing over the bay

Suzie welcoming the dawn

My view from My chair

Lazy afternoon

Our hut

Gai, Raina, Fi, Suzie, Will, Nick and Anna

Jungle Beach Vietnam

The call for daft decisions was finally answered after considerable consternation and indecision, as well as a few ponderous pizzas in Nha Trang. Off we headed to Jungle Beach, 60km northeast of Nha Trang, feted by the Let's Go guide and google as a calm and quiet place on a secluded beach with none of the hassles that invariably dog a traveller in the more heavily touristed areas of Vietnam. "The Anti-Open Tour". Perfect antidote to a traveller's malaise.

On the 90 minute ride out of Nha Trang along Highway 1 we passed a series of small villages on this extensive peninsula, as well as an enormous Hyundai shipyard where the speciality is cutting huge car transport ships in half, adding another 20 metre section in the middle then welding the whole lot back together again to make a super-super-ship.

Almost at the end of an increasingly desolate road we pull up to an innocuous looking gate whcih gave little away as to what lay beyond. As we enterred we were greet by Sylvio, the French-Canadian owner, and a tray filled with glasses of fresh-squeezed lemon juice to refresh our palates. This was a promising start. The grand tour, hosted by Syl(vio), took us through the main house with kitchens, communal dining area, library, anda big poster of the Euro 2008 fixtures. The 3 acre site holds an assortment of huts, cabanas and suites, all constructed on site with bamboo frames, woven screen panels, handmade roller blinds and open beds with mosquito nets strung from 2 of the 3 walls. 4th wall is optional. As luck would have it the only 2 guests when we arrived were leaving within the hour and the pick of the huts was ours. We (as in Fiona) chose the prime beach hut with a huge covered veranda, strung with hammocks and furnished with bamboo recliners and tables. The view of the ocean could be enjoyed from bed or any of our handmade chairs.

Our first day involved little more than a swim on the pristine, empty beach, a quiet dinner and an early night. About as far away from the bustle of Nha Tranf as we could have hoped for.

We were woken shortly after dawn by the rising temperature and influx of sunlight into our sleeping area. This day started as they all seemed to during our stay; delicious breakfast cooked to orderas much lemon juice as we could drink and a swim in the cool, clear water. We had come out for 3, maybe 4, days before a planned return to Nha Trang then onwards to Saigon. As the days passed our exodus became ever more arduous a prospect and ever more unlikely.

Without wishing to descend into an interminable food review, we can sum up our meals very simply. Delicious, fresh, a constantly changing combination of dishes from meatballs to lemongrass-chilli beef, chunks of marlin to ginger shrimp, fresh morning glory to brocolli cooked in a tempura batter. All of this is a mere footnote to the culinary revalation that is Jungle Beach Guacamole. Fresh, citrussy, served with prawn crackers to make the perfect crunchy snack. Bliss.

As the days and nights passed we had the pleasure of enjoying a rotatio of guests from as far apart as Brooklyn and Melbourne, Singapore and South Africa. Being slightly off the beaten track, the place attracts a clientele generally from early 20s to early 30s (with exceptions from 7 to 70) who are looking for a counterpoint to the madness that seems to permeate most travel destinations in Vietnam. Doting honeymooners, resting writers, longterm travellers and people on emigration treks like our own were the proverbial bread and butter. Special mention has to go to Jungle Beach Alumni of Suzie, Will, Raina, Nick and Anna who provided some of the best company and most enjoyable few days of our trip so far.

Gathering wood (half a tree) for the beach fire

Nightly bonfires, catching some waves on our Chinese bodyboard, swimming in darkness to enjoy the phosphourescence in the ocean, treks and snorkelling, building our own sundial, watching monkeys on the heavily forested mountains looming around us, building chairs and plotting with Syl on the next phase of development and the finer points of a solar pizza oven. Far too many highlights to mention them all.

Fire on the beach

Our hybrid Vietnamese-English-Irish languse lessons with the delightful and ever-helpful staff made the prospect of yet another evening sipping beer and debating the nature of the universeeven more appealing than we could have expected. "Cam on, Gai" becomes "Thank you, Gai" become "Go raibh maith agat, Gai". Nios mo ris? Toi loi roi!! In the absence of any possibility of a Vietnamese tongue wrapping itself around the sylabbles of "Seamus", he has been rechristened "Anh" by the girls. This could mean anything from "A young driver" to "Heh, you" to "Elder brother". We live in hope.

The only break of consequence in our coma-inducingly pleasant routine is the 3km trek along the white sand beach to the village of Ninh Phuoc to check mail, read the latest from RTE and BBC World and confirm to our families that Yes, We Are Still Alive.

Faced with a land and sea voyage across 6 countries, several thousand miles and inumerable "Hello Motobike!", I hope we can be forgiven for our absurdly procrastinatory ways. It is without regret, dear reader, that i predict we may stay right here for some time to come.

Central and Southern Vietnam

Special mention to Glenn and Fergus of Finnegans and Sean in the Irish Embassy in Hanoi. Always good to to dragged to more and more good eateries and drinkeries on your travels.


We managed to drag ourselves out of the place eventually, settling on Hue as our next stop, a day by train down the coast. After a day of ironing out accommodation and avoiding ghastly tours to see bombsites, we made the most of the scorching weather and settled into some air-conditioned bars with pool tables, interspersed with trips to the citadel, the old town and the Hue Tourism Education Restaurant for a great meal. Bumped into a crowd of lads all the way from Tuam we had previously met in Finnegans, eveyone seems to be on the same route around here. Where ya come from? Heading north or south? Where to next? Oh, me too. See ya there.


A short bus-hop later and and we're in Hoi-An, home of the tailors of Hoi-An and (incidentally of course) the UNESCO World Heritage Site that is the Old Town. Chock full of bars, restaurants and cookery schools, the old town was the first real evidence of old world charm that you could reach out and touch. A tour of the city took in Ancient Houses and Assembly Halls, a fascinating mixture of Chinese and Vietnamese Architecture that tells a muddled tale of occupation and rebellion long before the Americans and Ho Chi Minh went at it. The My Son Temple complex an hour out of town has been reduced from it's original 70 temples, rediscovered in the late 19th century by a moustachioed Frenchman, to less than 30; the remainder having been blown to smithereens by the US of A (yeeeh hawww!!) when the VietCong based its operations there in 1969. A single hour was enough to walk the whole complex twice, a miniaturised and brutalised version of Angkor.

In our ever increasing list of bizarre coincidences a day of lounging by the pool in Hoi An was interrupted, in a good way, by a fellow traveller from Malahide joining us in the pool and commiserating with all of us on our hangovers. The usual swappage of routes, plans and tales ensued and Fiona was halfway through the round-the-world-no-planes-we're-daft spiel when he comes out with "This might sound thick, but do you know a Cathal Brugha?". Well, yeah. We do. Turns out that shortly before they left home himself and his girlfriend had bumped into the Brughas at a funeral and learned all about our routes and plans and he (Rob) had been regalling people all over Vietnam with tales of these eejits who were heading from Ireland to Melbourne without using a plane. Eejits.

We've had plenty of people, mostly Ozzies, who tell us it can't be done, no way you'll get to Oz without a flying machine of sort or another. Eejits like us, this sort of talk only strengthens our resolve.

After a day of cooking lessons for Fi and Paddy, we again bumped into our Tuam shadows at a pool table. This was to become a recurring theme as we headed down the coast. In another freakish but inevitable coincidence, a CBS Midleton alumni suantered into the Thanh Binh III Hotel with a hurley under his arm. Small world. We avoided the urge to have a cheap wardrobe made in Hoi An which the eager tailors could then fill with shiny suits, silky shirts and custom-made-on-the-spot shoes, heading south again to the beach party capital of Nha Thrang.

Naturally, five minutes after arriving after a day of reading and snoozing on a train, tucking in to our half-cooked burgers, we once again ran into our erstwhile Tuam buddies. One of them had headed for HCMC to make his way back to Oz, the others happy to take it easy and enjoy the beach, sun and ales that Nha Trang offered in buckets and spades. The tiny Irish Pub, the dodgy TexMex, splendid Louisiane Brewhouse and disreputable Sailing Club all clamoured for our attentions.


After a couple of days nursing the mildly pathetic Seamus out of a tummy bug, we turned our attention to celebrating his promotion to a twentysixth year. A sleep in followed by croissants and frosties to kickstart the afternoon. Hours lazing by the pool in the Louisiane sipping fresh juices then onwards to glory. Glory being a rake of pints. Huzzah!


Stuart from Sydney was also celebrating his advancement in years and was happy to encourage the beer, whisky and bad karaoke fest that followed. May 30th is an esteemed day all round. His girlfriend achieved a feat unmatched in all of Asia by picking Seamus out as being from Coonty Cark, like. Respect.


The adventure continues while we try to figure out where we're off to next. The beaten track is losing its appeal, daft decisions are called for.

Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam

Eye of the storm

Myanmar and China in swift succession.

The tail end of the cyclone brought horrific weather to the mountains of northern Vietnam and the tremors from Sichuan were felt in higher buildings in Hanoi. Hard to imagine the isolated suffering of the people left unaided by the junta, so soon after the Christmas Tsunami of 2004. The toll in China continues to rise as excavations continue in the rubble of collapsed schools and other building around Sichuan. Our friends in Xi'an were severely rattled, trapped in their 24th floor apartment where the effect of the quake is even more pronounced than at ground level. A friend in the Irish Embassy in Hanoi (around 1000km from the epicentre) evacuated along with the rest of his staff. There was no noticable effect at ground level.

Our thoughts are with the people who were lost and especially those who have lost.

The all important books - Updated

These are the books that have filled our 18nights and many more days on trains........(so far)
We've included marks out of ten- just for fun.

We've added a few more (without marks)


Cloud atlas - David Mitchell 8.5/10

The lovely bones - Alice Sebold 8/10

On chesil beach - Ian McEwan 7/10

Never let me go - Kazuo Ishiguro 6/10

No country for old men - Cormac McCarthy 7/10

In Siberia - Colin Thubron 7/10

Shadow of a silk road - Colin Thubron 8/10

The last Templar - Raymond Khoury 4/10

The 'Myrsco'? helix - ? 3.5/10

The black Angel - John Connolly 5/10

The runaway - Martina Cole 7/10

Everything's eventual - Steven King 3.5/10

The damage done - Warren Fellows 3/10

Dead souls, Let it Bleed, Black and Blue, The Hanging Garden - Ian Rankin 6/10

City of bones - Michael Connelly

Some Hope - Edward St Aubyn

Senior Vivo and the coca lord - Louis de Bernieres

'Round Ireland with a fridge - Tony Hawkes

Sophie's world - Jostein Gaarder - Katie, read this one, you'd love it!

Saturday - Ian McEwan

The killing fields - Christopher Hudson

Lonely Planet unpacked

Void moon - Michael Connelly

And then we came to the end - Joshua ferris

Under the banner of heaven - John Krakauer

City of Joy - Dominique LaPierre - Fiona's favorite

Horse whisperer - Nicholas Evans

May you be the mother of 100 sons - Elizabeth Bumiller

The girl in the picture - Denise Chong

Heart of darkness - Joseph Conrad

The summons - John Grisham

100 years of solitude - Gabrial Garcia Marquez

I chose to live - Sabine Dardenne

The return of Merlin - Deepak Chopra

The memory keepers daughter - Kim Edwards

Forgotten Kingdom - Peter Goullart

High Society - Ben Elton

Night Fall - Nelson Demille

Sea Lion - ?

Point deception - Marcia Muller

The tunnels of CuChi - Tom Mangold and John Penycate

First they killed my father - Loung Ung

All the pretty horses - Cormac McCarthy - Favorite Writer

The gathering - Anne Enright

The kite runner - Khaled Hosseini

Brave new world - Aldous Huxley

Animal farm - George Orwell

Bravemouth - Pamela Stephenson

Haunted(Oz Ghosts) - John Pinkney

Into the wild - John Krakaur

The zahir - Paulo Coelho

From potters field - Patricia Cornwell



and a plethora of vaguely useful travel books

Lonely Planet Trans-Siberian Railway

Lonely Planet Beijing

Lonely Planet China

Let's go Vietnam

Lonely Planet Southeast Asia

Frommers - Australia

Northern Vietnam part deux

Hanoi, where cats are tethered to shop fronts and dogs roam free in feral, dribbling packs.

Hanoi, where a taxi can travel 7km in 90 seconds in crawling traffic.

Hanoi, where a grimy dorm bed is $7.50 but a spacious double room is $15.

Hanoi, where Bobby Chinn, his miked up staff and his daft haircut serve up finest lamb overlooking the lake.

Hanoi, where we find ourselves yet again after a week in the mountains of Northern Vietnam.

A few days spent soaking up the noise, shrieks, Irish pubbery and lakey shrubbery of the Old Quarter of Hanoi and the three of us loaded up on the night train to Sapa, nestling 1600 metres above sea level in a beautiful mountainous area near the Chinese border crossing of Lao Cai-Hekou. The train broke, the staff smoked, the karaoke continued until 4am while Paddy and Seamus were taught the finer points of Vietnamese pronunciation while bellowing loudly into a microphone and hoping smoke didn't start erupting from the underside of the train again. Vietnaaaaam, Vietnaaaaaaaaaamm!!

View from Hotel room(without fog)

Another hour by bus and we arrive into Sapa, a town consisting of one part hills, one part hotels, three parts restaurants and the rest a mass of H'Mong villagers flogging everything from blankets to cushions, trinkets to Class A drugs. We resisted the powerful urge to go on a three day trek in the rain and checked into the Mountain View Hotel. Misty View Hotel more like. Visibility approaching zero and 2 hours kip on the train catching up with us, we surrendered to a lazy day. A two day stay in the mountains turned into a week, with good food, walks in the surrounding hills and a few good nights out with pool, chess, poker and Halida.

M'hong girls take their pool very seriously

Another exciting day playing look-who's-scamming-us-now and we're back in Hanoi, 5am and the taxi is mysteriously clocking up dongs by the dozen as the meter tells us that we're half way back to Sapa by the time we reach the hostel. 7am before we find a room, plans ahead include a visit to waxy HoChiMinh, the oh-so-important Visa extensions and tickets to Hue, 12 hours away by train, sitting on the coast where the Gulf of Tonkin meets the South China Sea, promising beaches, another UNSESCO World Heritage Site, cooking courses for Fiona, a new hat for Paddy and hopefully some waves and a hammock for Seamus.