around the world in 80 days... plus a bit

Canyonlands, San Diego and Los Angeles photos

2009-07-28T15:28:00.001-04:00

Just a quick note to say that the last of our photos from our awesome trip around the USA are up on the web. This bumper edition comes to you in the form of not one but two flickr albums!

Canyonlands – Photos from Zion and Bryce national parks in Utah, Grand Canyon national park in Arizona and Joshua Tree national park in California. We really loved Zion and Bryce, and managed to reorganise our schedule a little (dropping Monument Valley, unfortunately) so that we could get to hike into the famous Zion Narrows. The water was only a few degrees, so we had to hire dry suits.

San Diego to LA – After the canyons, we stayed in San Diego for a few days to see the zoo. We also saw the USS Midway, which is an aircraft carrier permanently based there. The tour of the Midway was really interesting! After San Diego, it was off to LA for Disneyland, Universal Studios, scientology, mexican food and a stunning sunset over Malibu. Not to mention the House of Pie.

I might come back and fill in some of the details of our US trip, because looking at these photos is making me nostalgic. It was our favourite section of the whole trip-o-rama, we really loved our time exploring the country.

San Francisco to Vegas photos online

2009-05-14T11:48:00.001-04:00

We have uploaded more photos including Big Sur, San Francisco, Napa Valley, Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, and Vegas. :)

east coast photos are online!

2009-04-14T18:49:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note to say that our photos from the east coast of America are now on flickr. Hooray! Niall is busy uploading them to Facebook as I type this, so you can also catch them there.

Next up is the rest of the US - and we've already sorted most of them out, so it won't be too much longer. Besides, we're unemployed bums, so we have plenty of time on our hands.

south east asian online driving school

2009-04-09T19:49:00.001-04:00

We didn’t want to hire a car while in Asia for fear of actually having to drive on the roads here. That fear was well placed. There are road rules here, but they are generally ignored. People here follow conventions, the rules are irrelevant.

If you want to survive any kind of encounter with the road here, you have to learn these local idioms. So here is what we have observed, purely as outsiders.

vietnam – it’s all about the motor cycle

Fear is weakness. When you are crossing the road, you must show supreme confidence. You must put in mind that you are more threat to the motor cycles than they are to you. The weak do not cross roads here, they stare longingly at the other side.
There is no good time to cross the road. There will never be a gap. This actually means that there is no bad time to cross the road – just do it without delay. Part the flow of motor cycles like the red sea and try to subdue your screams as much as possible. Closing your eyes may seem like a good idea, but you have to watch out for cars. They don’t dodge.
Roads intersect without traffic lights or stop signs. If you’re riding and come to an intersection, honk your horn a lot and ride straight out into the middle of traffic. This is a good time to stop for conversation with the rider next to you. Continue to the other side at your convenience. Sending text messages is a good way to pass time while you’re riding.
Motorcycles are the best means of transport for bulky goods. Cars will never fit through the traffic. If you have a large fish tank or twenty live ducks to ship, a motorcycle is what you want.
Three’s only a crowd on a bike if the fridge you’re carrying is taking up too much seat room.

cambodia – dancing roads abound with music and snow

Dancing road, noun: A road so riddled with potholes that passengers in vehicles are jiggled around like numbered balls in a lottery globe.
Cambodian music: Car horns. Cambodians prefer choirs to solo performances, and admire strong voices.
Cambodian snow: Dust from the dirt roads. After a motor bike trip, the creases in my clothes had left an interesting pattern of clean and filthy on my shirt and shorts. If you need to take a hand off the handholds to remove dust from your eye, leave one hand on the bar.
If you are interested in becoming a public bus driver in Cambodia, we have a few recommendations. The horn is a sign of your virility. Use it often. Honk anything that moves. Honk anything that looks like it might move. Do not deny your own passengers the joy of your horn – install it backwards so that it honks into the bus. And remember, there is no wrong side of the road. There is only the side all the traffic is on, and the side you are on.

thailand

Speed ruthlessly, at least 20kph over the limit. If you are a taxi or minivan driver, only deign to go this slow if you spice it up by not having your hands on the wheel. Otherwise kick it up at least another 20kph. Bonus points if you can get air going over bumps in the road.

laos

The car operates best under either hard braking or hard acceleration. If traffic forces you to maintain a constant speed, approximate this as best you can by quickly alternating between braking and accelerating.
Cars are like stubborn cattle. Subtlety in steering is lost on them, so herd them around corners with vigorous swings on the steering wheel.
If you are a minivan driver and attempting a land speed record between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, it is crucial to remember that air conditioning is a serious drain on engine power. Refuse steadfastly to turn it on, only relent if a gang of angry Spanish women yell at you. Subdue such rebellions by having as few openable windows in the van as possible – heat makes people lethargic.

Across all countries here remember that using the indicator shows you don’t know what you are doing. Other drivers on the road will lose respect for you and you will find it hard to get where you want to go. Put yourself in their way and force them to slow and avoid you. This also works well for pedestrians.

And here are a couple of photos to help you understand best practice when on the road in the region.

how to cross the road in Hanoi

how not to cross the road in Hanoi

how to transport boxes around the city (you can just see the leg of the rider in front of the boxes)

there’s always room for one more in Ho Chi Minh city

turning left across traffic in a cyclo

you can move anything on a bike

delightful 70s era curtains in the Vang Vieng –> Vientiane “VIP” bus

all VIP buses have air con. On good ones like ours, they even leave the door open the whole way to really get the breeze through.

thanksgiving in vegas

2009-03-07T11:59:00.002-05:00

So it’s time to jump way back to late November last year, when we arrived in Vegas after going through Yosemite and Death Valley national parks. Heading towards Death Valley in the pitch black of night, in the middle of nowhere, we could see a glow over the horizon. This was Vegas – 200km away. The roads were so dark and straight that we’d see a car’s headlights and drop the high beam, then wait 5 minutes before we actually passed them. With nothing visible except the road in front of us and the distant glow on the horizon, it felt like we were somehow lost or where we didn’t belong. We drove like this for a few hours, and through it all, Vegas was there, waiting.

As we approached the outskirts of sin city, we could see signs of the impending insanity. The hotels on the strip stand out like sore thumbs, and the light from the Luxor drew us in like moths to a flame.

Lots of our friends have already been here, it’s hardly breaking new ground. But for anyone who hasn’t, the city is insane. Just wandering around the streets at night leaves you boggling a the crazy things you see on each casino. It’s so tacky, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Each casino has it’s theme or central attraction, and I can’t think of anywhere else you could get away with such cheese. Except CSI Miami.

We checked out all the casinos (except for the crap ones!), which is an amusing tour around the place. Most of them have themed decor inside, so the New York New York looks like the streets of NY inside, and a roller coaster through its cityscape on the outside, as well as the Brooklyn Bridge. The Paris has boulangeries and Metro signs, and a giant Eiffel tower. The Venetian has a canal you can take gondola rides on (it’s inside and they have a fake sky). Caesar’s Palace has the Trevi Fountain and the shows are held in the Colosseum. The MGM Grand has a lion enclosure. There’s a Camelot casino which has turrets and towers. The Luxor is a giant glass pyramid with a huge spot light coming out of the top.

And last but not least is where we stayed: The Bellagio. We wanted to go somewhere fun and zany, so it was a toss up between here and Caesar’s Palace. The Bellagio was pretty nice and had a bit of zanity, but we both agree Caesar’s would have been a bit more Vegas. That said, we did have a room with a view of the dancing fountains, and they are really impressive! They also look better from above than from the street level where people gather every 15 minutes to watch the shows. The shows are set to different songs, like Singing in the Rain, Hey Big Spender, Luck Be A Lady, etc. The jets are really powerful – the water got to the height of the Eiffel Tower across the road, and you’d hear a bang when the big jets fired off.

As for luck being a lady for us, well that didn’t happen. We played in the Bellagio, the Paris and Caesar’s Palace. We didn't have any luck in any of them, except for a not bad night on our last night in the Bellagio. The bastard dealer in the Paris chatted us up, enticing us to start playing, then after we sat down and dealing out a hand to me, he asked Daph for ID, even though it was me playing. The supervisor came over and wouldn’t accept her driver’s license, it had to be a passport, which she didn’t have. Meanwhile as we were trying to sort this out, he left me sitting on something like 14 against a face card and proceed to play out the hand for everyone else and took my money off the table when we lost. In short, the guy was a knob. So we don’t really like the guys from the Paris, although the steak in the restaurant there was pretty good.

Daph did have some luck with roulette, which was fun to watch her play. I have a curse with roulette, so I keep out of it. There was a $300 minimum roulette table near us, and we saw a guy just plonking down thousands of dollars each round all over the table. We saw him on multiple nights, wearing the same clothes, which was a worry. He didn’t seem like he was short of cash though.

We also saw quite a few brides, which was funny to see, but I suppose in the Vegas spirit. They’d come down to the gambling floor in the wedding dress and wander around making bets. We went to the Coyote Ugly bar, which was a bit lacking in energy, but fun for a while.

Lastly, we were there over Thanksgiving. Which was probably lucky, because the place really filled up for the holiday, and if we were anywhere else, we might have had to deal with things being closed down. We looked around for a place to have a traditional thanksgiving dinner and settled on a bar in Caesar’s Palace. It was really tasty! It was the first time I’ve had pumpkin pie, so I’m not sure if it was the real deal, but it was ok. The turkey and stuffing was great, though. Best value expenditure we had in Vegas by far!

We enjoyed our time at Vegas, but probably could have spent a day less there. We already chopped one day off to add to Yosemite, which was a great idea. Should have taken another day to add to something else and it would have been perfect. Luckily hotels in the US seem to have very liberal cancellation/alteration policies, so you can pretty much make whatever changes you want.

The Paris with the Bellagio fountains

The Trevi Fountain in Caesar’s Palace

Good food was never hard to find

Blackjack tables at Caesar’s Palace

Canal inside the Venetian

The Bellagio fountains

doing the funky gibbon

2009-03-06T10:37:00.002-05:00

Well I guess we’ve fallen off the blogging wagon for a while, so what goes up here now might be a bit random and out of order, but I don’t think that will make much difference. We’ve been travelling for almost 5 months now, which is a loooong time. We’re actually almost completely finished which is simultaneously a scary and welcome thought. So hopefully I can get some of the highlights up on here as much to help us remember as to share it with the ever expanding readership.

One of the biggest focuses for us on this whole trip has been trying to plan getting onto the Gibbon Experience. I have to say that looking back over everything we’ve done since the first day, it has been the hardest thing to organise by far. Contact with the people is difficult, it’s in the middle of nowhere, it takes at least 4 days to get into and out of on either side of the gibbon trip itself, it’s expensive, often booked out, and you have to pay with the devil's own online payment system, which of course won’t work, so you’ll have to tell them you’ll pay in cash when you arrive and hope they hold your place. Everything after our Intrepid trip (which was great, by the way) revolved around these three days.

It’s certainly not a comfort trip – you stay in tree houses about 20 metres off the ground. That sounds great until you start running into travellers who have been and tell you about the giant spiders, rats, and last but definitely not least, the bees’ nest under the toilet. It’s really hot during the day and you get very sweaty and dusty from hiking all over the place. Twenty-five percent of our group had dreadlocks. I hope you’re starting to get the idea of what kind of trip this is.

So it’s lucky it was a great experience. The idea of the trip is to take you into the jungle hills of Bokeo Province, Laos (which is supposedly prime Malaria habitat) and spend time in the tree tops surrounded by nothing but nature. Black gibbons live here, hence the name of the trip, and you can hear them every morning around 6am calling out through the forest. If you’re lucky, you can get to see them during an insane sprint over uneven ground with a crazy Lao guide. We weren’t lucky, so the second morning we decided to be a bit more calm and watch from our private tree house. We still didn’t see any, but it was nice to sit there and listen to them.

The other component of the trip is that moving around the reserve is done by a combination of hiking and zip lining (ie flying foxes). The zip lines can be over a hundred metres from the valley floor and several hundred metres long. Before arriving, but after booking, we read stories of people who were unable to jump from the platforms, which made us a bit nervous. I’m definitely not good with heights, but I can say that for the most part it was fine. Some bits were a bit hairy, but I never felt in danger, just very cautious while hanging over the canopy so high up.

The zip lining is lots of fun, as well as a bit scary. The feeling of pushing off your starting place is exhilarating, as well as relieving, as usually the take off is the worst part. There was an observation platform in a huge tree about 50 metres off the ground which was a half way point between two long and very high zip lines. This was one of the more nerve wracking parts, as you’re really high up, the platform is very narrow, and you have to unhook yourself from the incoming line and clip onto the outgoing one. You should keep your safety clip in the middle while moving your rollers from incoming to outgoing. At one point I got the order of operations wrong and was temporarily completely unattached to the tree. That was not a good thing to do, but hey I’m here now! I also knocked my glasses off into the canopy below when pulling myself in after not reaching the end of a cable. Luckily Daphne found them for me.

Tree house 1 had a log book with a list of fastest times around a section of three zip lines called “The Golden Triangle”. These cables were really fun, and you had to actually transit through the first tree house, literally jumping off out of the middle of their home in order to head towards our place – tree house 2.

Our tree house was the honeymoon suite, built for only two people. It was a pretty nice place, once we negotiated a truce with the swarm of bees that invaded the showering platform on the first afternoon. Without going into too much detail, the toilet here is open straight to the trees below. It’s also open straight to the bees below. They like to come up. In numbers. At bad times. At least there were no rats or spiders. Apparently the rats like to nest in the thatched roofs of the tree houses, but ours has a slightly less romantic green cast iron roof which the rats don’t like. Other houses had rats nibbling through shoes and bags, so I’m happy with our roof.

Our bathroom was communal. Not that everyone could use it, but everyone could see it. We were right near the start of a major cable back to tree house 1, and the paths around this point had a pretty good view of whoever happened to be using the shower or toilet. For those that couldn’t see everything from where they were standing, they could still marvel at the fluids dripping from the tree house. This was a popular spot for the guides to hang out and talk and eat our stolen fruit.

Getting into and out of our tree house was done via two cables. The cables are all one direction only, which sounded weird at first, but if you ask yourself how you can gain altitude on a free falling cable, it makes sense. So you always have to climb up somewhere so you can take a cable across and down. The cable out of our house was a bit dodgy at the start. There wasn’t much room to get yourself set, and a tree right where you wanted to stand. To take off, you have to walk forward while attached to the cable till the gap between cable and ground increases enough to make the cable start taking your weight. This point was about 5mm from the edge of our take off platform. I’ll post a video of Daph leaving our tree house for the last time.

On the second day we took a long hike out to see tree house 5, which is where people doing the more active style of trip stay on the first night. It’s a really nice tree house suspended high in the air, looking over the valley. It also has a massive swarm of bees in it and you have to take a bit of a drop off the step when you take the exit cable.

Food was brought to us by a guide who would zip line in like a maniac, so hard that our tree would actually be rocking. It wasn’t too bad – rice and various dishes, mostly vegetable based. They would usually grab something from our rat proof food storage bin while they were there, and very often while we were out. Our supply of peanut candy seemed to dwindle very quickly. After dinner, Daph and I would light the candles and sit around playing cards or scrabble, listening to the sounds of the jungle.

We really did have a great time, it’s something completely different. It does take a lot of effort and patience, so be forewarned!

So, let me try putting some photos and videos on this post.

Map of the area near our tree house (Ikos). Dotted lines are cables.

Tree house 1

Tree house 2 – home sweet home

Tree house 5

View from our tree house

Holding on carefully on the observation platform

incoming cable to the observation platform, about 100m high

These are a couple of videos I plucked off youtube that show things pretty well.

This cable runs from just under our tree house to the observation platform. The person doesn’t quite make it to the end, but there’s a crash pad there on the tree because normally you do.

This is the long run in to tree house 5. I think it’s the longest cable we did, about 400m or so long.

Well these videos show it pretty well. We have a couple which are giving me grief right now, so I might try to get them onto youtube when I feel less frustrated with the whole thing. Not helpful when my little Canon takes a 2 minute video and turns it into 150MB. Uploading that in Laos will take a few days.

We had a great time, it was certainly unique!

fully sick

2008-12-11T02:34:00.001-05:00

This is just a short rant. A rant about getting sick. I hate catching a cold, a good one takes weeks to fully get rid of. I am currently incubating my third of the trip. That’s three colds in seven weeks. I had a cold in London that lasted for almost seven weeks, that was pretty bad. This isn’t so bad but it’s really getting my goat.

I want my goat back.

did the earth move for you too?

2008-12-06T01:32:00.001-05:00

We're currently in the town of Twentynine Palms, just outside the border of Joshua Tree National Park. At 20:18, there we were, enjoying a dinner at the 29 Palms Inn with a groovy local band entertaining the crowd, when ... zomg... there was a (very tiny, please don't worry mum, we're fine) EARTHQUAKE!!!

It wasn't very strong. We were sitting down at the time, and I thought that it must be a train travelling through (very stealthily and rather close by). Niall thought that it was someone trying to walk behind our chairs and not doing a very good job. Then, the band stopped playing mid-song and announced "hey, it's an earthquake!"

I have to admit, that's not a phrase I expect to hear being yelled out in a jovial manner. They must get them all the time here, because nobody freaked out. People started cheering and clapping, and the band resumed their song. About 5 minutes later one of the other diners had checked it up on the internet and announced that it was an aftershock from an earthquake in 1999 measuring 5.5 on the richter scale.

:-O

So of course, after we got back to the motel we had to read all about it on the internet, and we discovered how organised all these Californians are. If you go to http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/ they have current data on any earthquake that's happened in California and Nevada in the last week. The big blue square in the image below is what I will affectionately call "our quake".

You can also report your experience of the quake online which is collated and added to that earthquake's report.

SO AWESOME. Most definitely a unique and interesting Californian experience!

tickets, tickets everywhere!

2008-12-05T04:27:00.001-05:00

It's 2:20am in Arizona, and we've specifically woken up to buy tickets to Britney Spears and Porcupine Tree concerts which were being released this morning at 9am... London time. Bloody time zones.

Happily, we've managed to purchase tickets to both events (woohoo!) and I guess we should be thankful that they were released on the same day, so that we didn't have to get up at 2am twice.

I'll let you guess who wanted to go to which concert. :)

sigh.

2008-12-04T02:01:00.001-05:00

Every time I type this into google, it hurts.

If there's only one thing I've learned, it's this: if you're planning to travel during a worldwide financial industry meltdown, buy some traveller's cheques for your target currency a few months before you leave - ideally when the exchange rate is at a 26 year high - before your local market dives like an Italian football player.

new york – wrap that up for you

2008-12-04T00:27:00.002-05:00

“Wrap that up for you?” is a line we’ve heard quite a few times on our trip. Seeing as all the meals are enormous, it’s very common to take half or more of your main course (remember, that’s an entrée) with you when you’re finished. The difference is that you never have to ask for a doggy bag – the waiters assume that you want to take it with you, and so ask the aforementioned question when coming to clear up the table.

Taking food with you isn’t really that easy when you’re travelling through the place, so often we felt quite guilty saying no. The waiter at Peter Luger's in Brooklyn was a little miffed we didn’t take the rest of the steak with us. It was touted as NY’s best steak, and we almost finished the enormous steak for two. With two slices left on the plate, the waiter still asked if we wanted it wrapped up. The steak was pretty good, though we actually had better in the Paris casino in Vegas. I know, I know.

So this brings me to the point of this post, and only two paragraphs in! We’ve been on the west coast for a while now, and we’re getting very close to leaving the US completely, but it feels like I need to give NY a bit more air time, to wrap it up. If I could wrap some parts of NY up and take them with us, it would be these:

Election Plaza – Watching the election coverage here was great. There was so much energy and people were really keen to see Obama come good. In the UK and Australia, elections are generally swapping one con man for another, and maybe the same is true of the US, but at least they really do seem to care about their politics, even if ironically so few of them actually vote. So perhaps with that sentiment and the campaign Obama ran, we’ll see something good come from his time in office.

Rows of US flags in Election Plaza

Central Park – I love Hyde Park in London. Hyde Park in Sydney is a postage stamp compared to its London namesake. In London it’s a place where everyone comes to worship the sun for those three lovely days of summer which can occur anywhere between May and September. Central Park is a much nicer, though with a slightly less “sit on the grass” feel to it. It’s groomed and landscaped, whereas Hyde Park is just open space for all comers. Central Park really is a lovely place, especially in the Fall. There are people happily strolling through it in the middle of the week, tourists and locals alike. It did leave me wondering how I can be one of these rich people who can just stroll through a park in the middle of Manhattan when everyone else is out earning their living. The sky scrapers are a funny sight from the middle of such a large park, but I think it’s great that they have such a large piece of land set aside in such a small, bustling city island.

Wandering through Central Park

The view from Belvedere Castle in Central Park

Uptown Manhattan with a very conspicuous Central Park

Brooklyn Bridge – We didn’t end up eating at Grimaldi's, the famous pizzeria at the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge, but we did make time to cross the bridge on a rather frigid night. It was pack with local joggers and cyclists, and camera armed tourists (including us). It has a great view of Manhattan and is well worth the time for a walk.

Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge

New York was a great experience. I really enjoyed our time there, I think it’s been one of the big highlights of the trip for me. If you like cities, you’ll love this place. It has such a buzz about it, partly to do with the general enthusiasm Americans seem to have, and partly just because there’s so much going on. Definitely go if you can, just take someone to share the food servings with.

an adventure at the vending machine

2008-11-22T02:11:00.004-05:00

We're staying in Yosemite this evening. It's very cold but you can see a lot of stars :)

We couldn't be bothered going far for dinner, so after we'd eaten our food court spaghetti bolognese, we decided to swing by the vending machine to see what kind of American candy goodness was available for dessert.

The machine was choc full of snacky goodness. There was a few of the usual - m&ms, skittles, oreo cookies, snickers bars. And then there were a few that we hadn't tried/seen before, so we were busy deciphering the wrapper descriptions to see which was the most palletable. Should we go for a Butterfinger bar with peanut butter and chocolate, or a Hershey's whatchamacallit? An Almond Joy? Or maybe one of the random things with mint... or even more peanut butter?

As we went down the list, peering at this brightly lit machine in the complete darkness (and very quiet surroundings), Niall innocently asks, "what about a... spunow?"

A spunow? huh? I'd looked at pretty much every single candy bar in this machine and I hadn't seen anything that sounded like that, but maybe I'd missed something.

And then, I look to where he's pointing. And I crack up laughing.

It's a Mounds bar.

At least he's not the first person to have done it.

(It's worth noting that I kept laughing so hard at this joke that he told me to write a blog post to get it out of my system. So here it is.)

slightly off topic – patagonia photos online

2008-11-22T01:52:00.001-05:00

So a year ago, pretty much exactly to the day, I went to southern Patagonia in Chile for a photography workshop in Torres del Paine National Park. Afterwards I spent time in Argentina in Los Glaciares National Park.

And now I have finally finished the pictures and site, so go forth and check it out at http://www.patagonianreflections.com if you’re interested.

California is heaven on earth!

2008-11-21T21:30:00.002-05:00

The first half of our trip, while beautiful and scenic, was rather cold. And wet. We were both kind of used to the weather since London afforded nothing better, however when we landed in California... wow. We were greeted with sunny blue skies and balmy 25 degree temperatures EVERY DAY. And it's been like that ever since.

I think I have actually tanned since I've been here. Our first night was spent in sunny Santa Barbara, by the beach. The place where we stayed had free bikes for rent, so the next morning we rode by the beach, amongst the palm trees.

We followed it up with a night along Big Sur, a dramatic coastline drive between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and had breakfast on an outdoor terrace overlooking the coast.

Unbelievably, San Francisco, Land Of Enternal Fog And Horrible Weather, actually felt hot while we were there. Locals flocked to the shoreline. We did all the touristy things and soaked it all up - walked the Golden Gate bridge, rode the historic cable cars (hanging off the side), visited Alcatraz and had a giant Ghirardelli hot chocolate sundae. Niall's cousin Mia and her boyfriend Pete were coincidentally in town, so we all caught up for a few drinks and an Alcatraz tour :)

Next we hit the Napa Valley wine country for some wine tasting and good food. The valley is well known for its Cabernet Sauvignon, and we were happy to taste! We decided to forgo the car and instead did a bike tour, visiting 4 wineries and cycling about 15 miles. At this point, we discovered that being a C# programmer is not very good training for a 15 mile bike ride, especially when wine is involved. I had sore legs that day, but it was really fun. I definitely recommend it.

We decided to round out the Napa Valley experience with a dinner at Bouchon, one of the local Michelin starred restaurants (and there are several here, including The French Laundry, which is apparently #4 on the list of the top 50 restaurants in the world). It's a charming little restaurant and feels just like a Parisian bistro. Worth noting however that the servings of pommes frites are definitely American sized. Neither of us had the steak and fries, but we saw them overflowing on other people's plates!

new york, new york, it’s a hell of a town

2008-11-20T02:24:00.001-05:00

In our wanderings through New England, during which we drove 2000 miles in just under two weeks, we saw a lot of countryside. Perhaps countryside isn’t the best term. In Australia we have city and we have country. Country is sparsely populated, away from the coast, and the pace of life is slower. Where we travelled in Maine was still coastal, and we were never really passing through areas where simply no one lived. But the pace of life was slower and the people less rushed. So it’s still countryside to me, despite the big towns, enormous walmarts and biggest yet, the breakfasts.

Despite from the differences throughout New England, it was all thrown into stark contrast by our arrival in New York city. Quite simply, New York runs on raw energy, and nothing is done half way. If it’s small, it’s tiny. If it’s big, you can fit your whole head inside it. People are generally really switched on and quite engaging. A bit contrary to expectations, I found more extroverted, friendly and cheerful people than I found angry, impatient and rude. I’d have to give them the prize for most zealous car horn users in the world, though.

Food was generally pretty good, and there was so much to do. Daph had organised us an apartment downtown on 14th street, which was a great location, and we spent more time wandering around and soaking it up than we did hitting a tourist checklist. We still managed to cover quite a few tourist highlights without feeling like we were following a Lonely Planet itinerary.

One of the things that hit me is that this place never sleeps. London is in the list in ‘I still call Australia home’ as one of the cities that never close down, but that’s a blatant lie. It closes down early and hard. New York just changes shifts and keeps going. Bars, restaurants, cafes, shops – they’re all open late. You don’t get the impression of being around when people are trying to wrap things up, it’s just non stop. Speaking of which, the subway runs 24 hours. Hello TFL, are you reading?

Walking through the city on the first night to find the election plaza, I was staring around like a wide eyed kid in a lolly shop, and when I think back to Manhattan now, I still feel the same way.

snow? in the white mountains? who’d have thought…

2008-11-13T03:56:00.001-05:00

I’m currently on a flight from New York to Los Angeles, where they are expecting a heat wave, with temperatures in the mid thirties (in the nineties if you speak foreign degrees). So it seems appropriate to write about the opposite end of the scale, which we encountered in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, and the Adirondacks in New York State.

I mentioned foreign degrees, which I have slowly been getting used to. New York has been mostly high fifties and early sixties, which is mid teens in non-gibberish. 32 foreign degrees buys you a flat zero degrees outside the States.

We had intended some hiking in the mountain trails in New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, hopefully through autumn foliage. As it turned out, the foliage up north had definitely turned a lot earlier than in Maine, and most of the vivid colour was gone. Instead, we had an unusually early snow storm, with a foot of snow falling and daytime temperatures around 25 in the mountains.

In normal person degrees, that’s… well, it’s cold. Less than zero just fits in one category: cold. Definitely cold when you’re not skiing.

We were driving through low mountain passes that were being repeatedly plowed as the snow fell. We mostly kept to the car, it wasn’t the most pleasant weather for hiking. The White Mountains and Adirondacks are popular holiday spots for the locals, especially in summer and the fall. They have old covered bridges, which I never did find out the story behind, but they’re a nice sight:

Covered bridge at Albany, New Hampshire

In winter, people come to ski. Lake Placid in the Adirondacks has been host to the winter olympics twice. Of course, if we’d known this, we might have been prepared for the snow…

Kancamagus Highway near Franconia, New Hampshire

We arrived in Old Forge in the Adirondacks on Halloween. We coughed up a few dollars more for a room with a view, and we got a lovely one:

Old Forge, Adirondacks NP - the tiny white spot in the red haze is a slim crescent moon

We headed into town, which was small and sleepy. But even here, people were out in costume everywhere. We spent the evening doing our washing and swimming in the pool…

maine lobster direct!

2008-11-10T22:01:00.002-05:00

I was looking at an email for phil’s comment on the lobster lobster lobster post, and google’s advertising came up with a link to lobster dinners from Maine Lobster Direct. Check it out! See if they ship internationally…

PS: Late breaking news - there's more of them! I just got this on gmail - lobster guy.

election day

2008-11-06T23:24:00.011-05:00

So in an exciting coincidence, we arrived in Manhattan on election day! A lot of news crews had set up outdoor studios to mingle with The People, so after we had dropped the car off and hiked into Manhattan, we hightailed it up midtown to see what was happening.

First off we stumbled on a Fox news crew broadcasting outside the News Corp headquarters. That was pretty exciting to see, but nothing compared to just around the corner at the Rockefeller Center. The NBC studios are located here and they had a really huge and sophiscated getup. They had set up the whole outdoor area in Rockefeller Plaza in red and blue, with giant screens broadcasting NBC news out to the crowd. They had made badges and other election paraphernalia, like coffee hugs with Election Day 2008 on them. The best part was a tally on the side of the Rockefeller building showing the number of electoral votes each candidate had won. The current tally total for each candidate was represented by two guys in a window cleaning platform painted either red or blue. As each state was declared and its electoral votes won, the guys would move the platform up the building. Pretty funny.

They also had a huge map of the US painted on to the outdoor ice skating rink, and as each state was declared it got painted in red for a Republican win, or blue for Democratic.

It was clear that the crowd was very pro-Obama, and there was lots of cheering on the night. Any time that he moved closer to the magical 270 electoral votes, the crowd cheered wildly. Any time that someone mentioned something pro-American about freedom or democracy, the crowd cheered wildly. When New York was declared a Democratic state, the crowd cheered wildly.

I think the US is much more electronic with their voting systems, because as each state closed its ballot, the results for that state could be announced almost immediately, so when some of the swing states critical to the McCain campaign fell to Obama's side, there were big cheers.

At 11pm Eastern time, when California and other western states closed their ballots, Obama was declared the next President of the United States.

The winning tally at about midnight:

We stayed for the speeches and finally took ourselves home at about 1:30. We decided to snack in a diner to celebrate, and every five minutes some random person would run in and scream "Go Obama!!" or "Yes we can!!!" followed by cheers in response from the customers.

On the whole, a very unusual and exciting experience!

lobster lobster lobster

2008-11-06T23:23:00.001-05:00

Maine is known for its seafood in general, and lobster in particular. You can get it just about any restaurant or take away joint, in all sorts of forms.

Our first taste was in a lobster chowder from Bob’s Clam Hut on the side of the road in Kittery. The place was pretty much just a shack, but the food was good!

The best part, though, was the day we managed to have lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast was lobster scrambled eggs at the Blue Hill Inn, lunch was a lobster bisque, and dinner was lobster linguine for daph and lobster in a herb butter sauce for me.

Scrambled eggs with lobster

After all that lobster, you might think we’d be sick of it, but nope! It was good stuff, and tastiest when done simply I think. And it was not expensive at all, so it felt a bit ridiculous to be eating so much lobster all the time.

What is ridiculous, though, is the lobster worship you see around the place. Daph had to claw me away from taking photos of everything lobster (yes, that was a pun, just for you, Phil). There is lobster paraphernalia everywhere, and we got more than a couple of strange looks while we took photos.

But who could let these photos go?

Maine number plates have lobsters on them!

We got strange looks for taking this photo, but it’s a lobster in a taco!

Daph chilling with Pinchy

ice cream, apples and cheese

2008-11-06T08:44:00.002-05:00

A little while ago we drove through Vermont! Land of charming little villages, beautiful foliage, gourmet foods and the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory :) We decided to visit on a whim and take a break from driving. The factory is open to the public and they run tours to show you how they make a quarter of a million pints of ice cream a day... and they also give you a free sample of ice cream. How can you say no?

This is me doing an impression of an ice cream:

When you first walk in, you get a big impression of "very cute". It looks like a little wonderland aimed at five year olds, with bright colours and cartoons painted all over the halls. The first stop on the tour is a short video where they explain the history of Ben and Jerry's and how they select new flavours. Next comes the actual production factory, and you get to see the ice cream floor from a top viewing platform. The scale of production is pretty impressive for such a small place. They run the operation 24 hours a day for 3 days making just one flavour, then they clean the machines for 12 hours and run a different flavour for the next 3 days.

Our tour guide told us that every employee gets 3 pints of ice cream for free every day. Surprisingly, they weren't all obese. ;p

Last stop on the tour is the samples room! Our free sample was a small scoop of strawberry cheesecake, and it was *delicious*. I've never tried that flavour before, but it was a good way to make me a convert.

Then of course, you're herded out to the gift shop where there's all manner of cute merchandise to purchase. We restricted ourselves to a postcard, but it was a pretty fun experience.

Since we were in Food Mode, we went to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill up the road that is famous for apple cider and cider doughnuts. As soon as you walk in, the most amazing fried and doughy smell wafts over you. Mmmmm... doughnuts. They're nicely cinnamony and have a subtle apple taste, crispy outside and soft on the inside. Especially good with hot apple cider. :)

Of course, as we were munching on the doughnuts we found a pamphlet for Cabot's, which is a local cheese shop with a famous reputation, so off we went to pay them a visit. A sign above the shop says it serves "the world's best cheddar", and while I was skeptical walking into the shop, I would have to say I agree. I've never tasted something so creamy yet sharp at the same time. We decided to buy a block of it for dinner, accompanied by Her Majesty's endorsed Carr's crackers and some Cabernet Sauvignon. Dinner of Champions :)

Niall gets down with his bovine side:

I prepare dinner. Hurray!

more than words

2008-11-05T01:50:00.001-05:00

One thing that I’m still adjusting to over here is the friendliness and attentiveness of the service over here. Maybe this will change in New York, but so far it’s been pretty good. People seem to really want to go the extra mile to help you. When you walk into a shop, they’ll always say hi. I guess a lot of it is to do with the tipping culture, but usually it doesn’t feel like they’re only doing is so you’ll pay them more.

It’s quite a difference from the UK, where getting service from people requires skillful manipulation or clear and obvious signs of wealth. It is a bit odd sometimes when people want to help you with things you’re pretty capable of doing yourself, like picking your size off a rack of clothes.

But the first prize, the championship cup, must go to the toll collector we passed on the bridge near the US-Canada border at Niagara Falls. In a stark comparison to the situation we’d seen so far, where any odd request you might have was quickly pounced upon as an opportunity to help, this guy was not going to let his job get between him and a good read.

I pulled up to the booth and wound the window down. The guy was reading a newspaper. After a few seconds, he was still reading the newspaper. A few more seconds inspection revealed that, yes, he was still reading the newspaper. After some careful consideration, he turned to his left to address us… silently. I handed him the money, which he took… silently. The change came back, and despite his continued muteness, I couldn’t stop myself from saying “thank you”. I really wish I hadn’t, because like a British Palace guard, he kept his iron strong demeanour and simply turned away.

Daph and I were just watching a poker tournament on tv. Maybe we’ll see this guy on the next episode. I think he’d be an ace hand.

niagara falls

2008-11-02T08:44:00.005-05:00

We're staying in Niagara Falls today, just a hop over the Canadian border. Check out the awesome view from our hotel room!

(tee hee, I'm so funny aren't I?)

Seriously it's quite tack-tastic over here. So many chain restaurants and breakfast buffets and stuff open 24 hours.... The Canadian side is undoubtedly the better one to get your "I was here!" photos from. And mysteriously, we couldn't see any signs to get over to the Canadian side unless you were literally about to cross the bridge over into Canada. Is it a conspiracy to keep the tourist dollars over in America?

harvest

2008-11-02T07:14:00.005-05:00

It's harvest season in America, which means lots of pumpkins and scarecrows and apples. The yanks really go all out with decorations - in little towns and villages, the majority of houses have a pumpkin or three out the front, plus a zombie or ghost or witch or something scary for Halloween. It's really festive, and the colours look really lovely against the backdrop of the yellows, oranges and reds of the season.

These couple of photos were taken through Maine. I think a lot of the decorations come down quickly after Halloween so I'm not sure if we'll see much else, but it was definitely nice while it lasted.

autumn leaves

2008-11-01T23:22:00.001-04:00

We were hoping to get to see the vivid colours of the fall as we drove through New England, although we knew we were arriving towards the end of the season. While the trees in the mountains have been largely bare, we were lucky enough to catch Maine still in bloom, so to speak.

The variety of colours is really amazing – bright reds and yellows, deep oranges and crusty orange browns of leaves that have almost finished for the season. It’s really nice to be driving under such a colourful canopy. Sometimes when the wind picks up, you end up driving through a thick shower of falling deep orange leaves.

Catching good photos of the leaves can be tricky, but here are a few we prepared earlier:

On the road through Acadia National Park

One of countless beautiful houses in Maine

The entrance to our hotel in Bar Harbor, Maine

Driving through Vermont

entrée vous

2008-10-29T22:30:00.002-04:00

One thing that has caught us off guard over here is the naming system for courses in restaurants. We were in a nice restaurant in Blue Hill, Maine, and had some trouble deciphering the menu. it offered both appetizers and entrées, with no sign of main courses.

The dishes listed in the entrées sounded rather large… but everything over here is rather large. Everything. And almost everyone, but hey… I’ll probably be part of that slur before we’re done here.

I asked our incredibly friendly, cheery and personal space invading host to explain, and to her credit she did explain, with no sign of indignation, what must be the equivalent of asking whether “dessert” is meant to be the “pudding course.” We were told that we could choose to have the appetizers as well, or just the entrées. We nodded like we understood and later there was food.

We’ve seen the same thing many times since then, and so it led to some research. Wikipedia tells us that, indeed, North America is unique in its interpretation of the word. However, I’m coming to appreciate that North America is just unique. Full stop. Or should that be “period”?

Ironically, the "entrées" here are enormous – far bigger than normal main sizes in the rest of the world.

culinary adventures

2008-10-28T21:59:00.008-04:00

A big part of America is the food (which is definitely big.) So to start our trip off, here's a quick culinary summary of our first day.

Breakfast

What: Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food
Location: Heathrow Terminal 5
Summary: Restaurant space is really nice and open, with big windows facing the planes outside. The male waiters wear suits (big plus). Food reasonably tasty, but overpriced and the portions aren't big enough. Service is a bit patchy - Gordon evidently hasn't done enough yelling in this restaurant, because I frequently observed people delivering meals to the wrong table. Epic Fail.

Lunch

What: McDonalds
Location: On a highway somewhere just past the state border of Connecticut
Summary: Chicken McNuggets seem a bit more 'faux' than their British and Australian counterparts but are reassuringly "made with white meat". Drink sizes are huge. The paper bags are written in Spanish on one side, and English on the other.

Dinner
What: Domino's
Location: Lexington, Massachusetts
Summary: Pleasantly surprised that Dominoes deliver to motels. Familiar greasy stomach sensation experienced after consumption. Thorough examination of pizza box reveals that Americans are wackier than we thought.

I think it sums up the level of quality we're probably going to eat for the next couple of months. Let's hope you still recognise us when we return to Sydney...

greetings from the US

2008-10-28T21:27:00.001-04:00

Hello and welcome to our new blog! We’re currently a few days into our trip through the US, and just sitting around in our room in Conway, New Hampshire. So it seemed like a good time to get the ball rolling on this thing.

We’ve just come from Maine, where lobster and fog were the maine-stays. Get it? I made a funny. But I’m not the only one to pull this pun. It’s all over the place, usually as the name of some business, such as ‘Mainely Used Cars’, ‘Mainely Antiques’, etc. There are a lot of antique shops around, but at least one of them had the honesty to call itself ‘Antiques and Junque.’

Anyway, I hope you tune in for the ride. It should be an interesting journey, as long as daph doesn’t kill me before it’s over.

Niall