And the word for today is...........

Juxtaposition!

Never one to shy away from the (over) use of a cliche, I expect that this word will crop up a lot to describe much of what we find in South East Asia, but it particularly well describes the mix that is Kuala Lumpur.

We paid up front for a bus from Singapore to KL, and were surprised at how comfortable it was - with only three huge seats per row. The journey took about 6 hours, but disappointingly the scenery wasn't that great.

As KL was to be our Xmas stop over point, we choose to bypass the usual hostel accommodation and go for a swanky(ish) hotel. Our excuse for this was that we needed internet for a marathon skype session on Christmas day, but it didn't hurt to have a good a/c and buffet breakfast available. Walking the short distance from the bus to the hotel proved that KL is quite hot (30C), and very humid.

Kuala Lumpur Tower

Petronas Towers - worlds tallest buildings from 1995 to 2003

Much of the tourism in KL was based around shopping, and unsurprisingly the shopping centres had gone xmas crazy, with pantomime like performances and huge christmas trees. Most of the shopping centres were massive, one even had its own theme park......

"Times Square" shopping centre / theme park

We enjoyed christmas in KL, but unfortunately discovered the chinatown area too late, as this proved to be where the best bars and cheap food was. We spent a fun boxing day evening here though, and had a few beers and spent some time haggling for tourist fake t shirts.

English man abroad - "I've got my beer, now where's my sausage, egg and chips?"

 

Putting things on top of other things?

Singapore is widely touted as an "easy" introduction to south east asia, with good levels of hygiene, and lots of western food and comforts available. In many ways, its perhaps gone too far, as the strict rules and regulations are apparently backed up by officious police who are a little trigger happy with fines and worse.

Arty Farty Shot of Marina Development Tower Behind Sun Grill

Its also probably the most intensely high rise city I've ever visited, with prolific development where every building site seems to be trying to out elevate its neighbour. Not only are the boundaries of height being pushed, but also the imaginations of the architects. I don't think the Gerkhin in London would have got past the drawing stage, as it would be far too conventional.  

Singapore flyer - largest observation wheel in the world

Chinatown in front of CBD

The improbable shapes of some new high rise architecture often reminds me of the monty python sketch (hence the blog post title): Anyone unfamiliar with the sketch? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pBTK-pdMP0  Maybe all this travelling is getting to me!

Singapore GP street circuit

Despite all the modern stuff, there is of course some interesting older parts of the city to view, including the authentically busy and noisy "little india", and the few sections of chinatown that have survived recent developments

Chinatown temple

We stayed in a Chinese run hostel which was very different from the modern chain hotels that are the norm. The room was tiny, had no windows and featured one bunk bed complete with winnie the pooh sheet and pillow sets. It was cheap though.

Raffles Hotel

There are of course many colonial buildings still present, mostly these are high price tourist destinations now.

Christmas parade

Its the dark side don't ya know......

So windsurfers (the good side!) and kitesurfers (the dark side!) don't always have the easiest of relationships.... To my mind its not down to a them and us mentality, but more a simple case of the best use of the space available on the water, with the kiters seeming to need a clear water radius of about 50 metres, which is tricky in the crowded south east of the UK.

I hadn't really anticipated learning to kitesurf, but the high number of kitesurfing instructors in NZ, and the lack of windsurfing kit hire made it an easy choice. I took a couple of lessons with an excellent instructor, Steve (http://www.facebook.com/pages/RipD-Kite-Boarding/183343693393?ref=ts),with a total of almost 6 hours of tuition.

Right location - wrong kiter (no camera due to rain)

I found learning to kite a very interesting challenge. I've done a bit of wakeboarding before, and the kite board is very similar, and I've also flown kites on land a few times, although I've not used a four line kite before. I've been told before that success in kiting is more down to kite, not board control, which seems only partly true, as if the board control doesn't come quite easily, then its easy to loose focus on the kite, shortly after which it either slams into the water, or it drags you face first through the brine.

At the end of lesson two i was quite consistently getting up on the board, and managed about 10 runs of 50-100 metres. The wind was perhaps lower than I would have liked - but an experienced kiter would have had much more success with getting enough power than I did. 

With diving and windsurfing I am very used to getting face fulls of salt water thrown at me, but the kite learning process certainly took this to a new level, as the inevitable body drags always seem to be head first. I really hope I'm past the worst of this.......

I'll definitely give it another go, but I'm still a windsurfer - if nothing else I don't have enough garage space for another load of kit.

Who are you calling riff raff?

Ok we are looking a bit scruffy now after travelling for 9 weeks, but......

Richard Obrien statue

Hard to believe, but Hamilton NZ was apparently part of the inspiration for the Rocky horror picture show -who'd have thought it......

C'est une conspiration, n'est pa?

Getting the ferry across the Cook straights, we arrived in Wellington at 1 am. We didn't try and find anywhere to legally park up the van, instead we headed for a parking area in a nice (read safe) area. Sods law states that we found one of the only train lines in the area, so an early start was inevitable.

NZ's primary museum is called "Te papa", and proved to be excellent (and free), which modern, interactive displays. Quite an achievement for a relatively small country.

One of my primary motivations for spending time in the north island was that it is apparently home to some excellent windsurfing. Unfortunately, there is a complete absence of hire kit, although there is shop with excellent kit, although at quite a price. It was gutting to look out across the bay at a particularly windy day and not be able to sail.

Mt Taranaki

Heading north, we stopped at Mt Taranaki, which also promised windsurfing, but again the conditions delivered, but the kit availability didnt. There is an Mt Fuji esque volcano here though, so had I not been so perverse we could have done some excellent altitude hiking

With time running short, we continued north to Paihia, in the "bay of islands". We had two things to do here:
1. As a boat obsessed teenager, I always wanted to have a go on a big racing catamaran. In activity obsessed NZ, trips on such craft a readily available, irritatingly the boat was not available at the time

On the Edge - No show!

2. Dive the Rainbow Warrier Wreck.
Famously sunk by French secret agents in 1985, the rainbow warrier was relocated and donated to the ocean as an artificial reef, and is now a famous dive site. We booked in to dive it on a rainy but otherwise ok looking day, and got up at 6 (ish) to join the group heading there via minibus and then a RIB speedboat. With the northisland run of luck continuing, the fog prevented the boat from getting to the reck, so we had to dive an ok reef  instead (good puffer fish, octopus and conger eels though)

The Rainbow Warrior Memorial

'Scuse the geography......

The last blogging session managed to completely ignore the west coast of the south island - not quite sure how this happened as we don't have a teleportation / tardis etc device at our disposal.

Following the the Keppler track, we headed north, sadly missing the Fjordland area which is a must see on many itineriaries. The first area of interest was the massive glaciers at Fox and Franz Joseph areas.

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier from trailhead

One of the great attractions of the area are the views of the surrounding mountains, including Mt Cook, australisias highest, which can often be seen reflected in the glacial lakes in the area. Unfortunately we chose a day to visit where the cloud base was particularly low, and the drizzle was also quite consistent. 

Franz Joseph Glacier

Water falls in the side of the glacial valley

Heading north from the glaciers, we stopped at Punnakaki, home to the "pancake rocks". This is a stunning area, with a coast reminiscant of dorsets jurrassic coast, but perhaps on a bigger scale.

Punnakaki

Sea Blow hole

Pancake Rocks

Crispy Fingers

I have always been a little bit obsessive about sun protection (my mates would say more than a little bit). I got sun burnt on the crater in Hawaii, but apart from that I had been pretty consientouus. Kayaking around Abel Tasman was to give me the biggest sun burn ever - on the backs of my hands. Abel Tasman is a pretty new national park and as such is still really untouched. So we rented a two person kayak for a couple of days. We’re given a safety briefing and a recommended plan for 36 hrs and off we go on our way. We ignore the plan entirely.

Herons dive bomb their fish so expertly and effectively. You can only watch in wonder when it happens. There are also seals breeding all over the place. The biggest pod of dolphins i’ve ever seen, around 30.

But the best thing was the beachs. These beaches are truely undiscovered and tiny. Yu can only get to them on foot or by sea and they were magical. Our pack lunches and dinners were best on the beach and our camping was magnificent when all you can hear are the waves.

Eau de Feet and Deet

So the Kepler Track was our big expidition into the NZ unknown. Three days and 2 nights in the wilderness. It was great. Sleeping in alpine huts, eating pot noodles and bunking with snoring strangers. The views and ‘tramping’ through forests and mountain ridges was so physically challaning it took several days to recover. Obviously I was always going to take several pairs of shoes travelling, but it never became more pravelent that Mike only took 2 pairs travelling on the kepler track. His walking shoes/trainers/day shoes are now resigned to a carrier bag in the front f the van when we sleep.

1st night - luxmore hut

Stalactites in Luxmore Cave

Snowball fight on Mt Luxmore



Top of the Mountain - 1450m

 The first day was up up up through forest, the second was a magnificant ridge walk and summit climb, the third was ridge, forest, river and lake. The third day was about 22 miles and at the end of it all I wanted to do was take my shoes off. When I did I discovered that my veins in my feet were massive, I mean really prominent.



Toilet with a view

I would try to describe the scenery, but I think we’ve all seen Lord of the Rings.

You get complacent in NZ, because it’s persisently awesome, sometimes it’s easy to forget to apprectiate how wonderful the vista is. There are times when all you want to do is get to ‘point B’, so you don‘t stop at a massive waterfall, or a bright blue lake.



Its a perfectly good plane, so.......

why would you want to jump out of it?

For many tourists, NZ is treated as a giant adrenaline trip, and nowhere is this more true than Queenstown. There are so many ways of scary yourself witless here that no budget or stomach strength could do them all justice. The key therefore to my mind is to sample a couple and then run away with mind and body as close to being intact as possible.

The easiest first choice was a trip on a jet boat. The jet boat is apparently a NZ invention where a speedboat with a powerful V8 (Chevy) engine is fitted to a water jet, which fires out water from the back of the boat at rates of up to 700litres per second. The advantage of this over a normal propeller system is that the craft can travel in incredibly shallow water, at least when it is skimming along at high speed. The Kawarau jet I went on travelled through the lake around Queenstown, before negotiating barely credible sections of the Kawarau and Shotover rivers, all with regular 180 degree spins. I’ve never been on a boat before that actually went appreciably uphill, quite a hard concept to get your head around. The driver was amazing, to the point where I felt completely safe. It was a little shocking to read a local paper later to find that there had been several quite serious injuries on a competitors boat which had crashed a week earlier.

King of Cheesy grins......

Ignoring the obvious choice of Bungy jumping, I instead decided to jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane, at 12000 feet. This might seem a weird choice for someone whos not great with heights, but my reasoning was that attached to the instructor, I’d have less chance to “bottle it”. The plane took off with 9 people on board, (3 customers + attached instructors, and 3 photographers), which was incredibly uncomfortable as there were no seats, and everyone else had something to lean on. One of the selling points was the scenic view in the plane of the Ben Nevis mountain range (NZ has one too), but I hardly noticed, as I was too busy trying to avoid having my own private panic.

Nzone Jump Plane

Ben Nevis Range

Someone else coming in to land - i did jump - honest!

I quite enjoyed the parachute part of the flight, and encouraged the instructor to do some spins on the way down. The landing was very easy - simply a short run to a halt, followed by a rapid change out of the kit and a much needed tea, most of which I spilt (glad I didnt have to drive back). I got to have a look at the video (couldnt keep it as I didnt want to pay the extra $170 NZ for the priviledge), and my head was facing down all the way, and I didnt even register the camera person at all.

Incommunicado

Not a quote from Phil Collins, but more a statement of the difficulty of getting a connection. We both love NZ, but the internet here......

One of the inevitable realities of travelling is that news is often hard to come by, especially when budgets dictate sleeping in non hotel accomodation. We arrived in New Zealand shortly after the Pikes River mine disaster, and despite being relatively close to the area involved, we didnt realise the scale of the tradegy, and the desperate search for the sadly deceased miners was something we only got occasional updates on via sporadic local radio reports.

The south island has also recently suffered a big earthquake. As a country with only a recent history, its especially sad that the majority of buildings affected are the oldest and most interesting, although the locals seem to be upbeat, and very positive and friendly, which seems to be a welcome national trait.

Christchurch Arts College with earthquake damage

After spending a day touring Christchurch, we picked up the campervan, a much nicer VW model than we expected, which is tall enough for me to stand up in (just). As this is home for the next month, the fridge and water with sink are very welcome.

Travelling the short distance to Akoroa, we camped for the first night nearby this beautiful village, which was first settled by French immagrants, and has place names to match, and a few patisseries available too. As with much of NZ, this area is an old volcano, with tall mountains and deep lakes in old calderas in evidence.

Akoroa at sunset

From Akoroa, we travelled south in the foothills of the southern alps. The scenery here is breathtaking, and seems to simulate areas of wales, then the pyrennees and then full on alpine mountains all in close proximity. Many of the lakes are a rich turqoise colour, with the water an icy temperature due to the mountains snow capped peaks melting in the NZ spring.

Rush Hour South Island Style

Stopping off en route south - just a taste of the scenery to come

We stopped at Lake Tekapo, and did a 2.5 hour walk to the Mount John observatory, which had a handy cafe at the top which served excellent coffee and cakes. The cafe is staffed by PHD students and researchers from various NZ universities, who study the skies at night (apparently in the cleanest air anywhere in the southern hemisphere - so the guidebook says) and then serve food and drinks to tourists during the day. Not sure how much time to themselves they get, but its all done with typical kiwi hospitality.

Lake Tekapo and the southern alps

Mt John Observatory