It's been a beautiful Brisbane weekend. Unbelievable, really, considering it's still September. It got to 30 degrees yesterday, and is going the same way today.
So what do you do on such a summery weekend? That's right - you head for the beach.
And that's exactly what I did yesterday. I went and sat on the beach at Bribie Island for a few hours. Of course, I got stuck in the traditional summer-weekend traffic jam on the Bruce Highway. All the way from the Narangba to Caboolture was stop/go. Very frustrating.
Still, it was worth it, I think. The beach was great. There was a fairly gentle cool breeze blowing down the beach and that felt great on my skin. The water was still pretty cool though; it is still September after all. But that just made it all the more refreshing, and it was so nice being back in the ocean again. The last time was in Vietnam, at Mui Ne, so not that long ago really, but it just felt different here. Cleaner, for a start...
Today I didn't feel like driving all that way again. I've been out on the bike instead, for an hour or so along the bike track. Not quite as relaxing as sitting on the beach, but still good. And I needed the exercise, too. I went out before it got too hot this morning. It's warmed up a lot now, though, and I think I'll be heading off to the air-conditioned shopping centre for coffee with some friends soon. That'll be nice, too.
A great weekend - shame about work tomorrow, really...
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Summer comes early?
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Stardust
I went to see Stardust last night. I wanted to see this movie because I enjoyed the book. It's another screen adaptation - this one from a book by Neil Gaiman. I thought it was pretty good overall - a good night out.
It's been years now since I read the book, but from memory I think the movie was pretty faithful to it. The witches, with Michelle Pfeiffer leading them were evil and fun at the same time. The love story between Tristan and Yvaine was well handled. And the scenery was lovely. I think the effects owed quite a bit to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but I guess there's only so many ways to show magic onscreen.
I couldn't remember the Captain Shakespeare character from the book, though. I'm going to have to re-read the book now - maybe they inserted him into the movie to make it easier for the characters to cross Stormhold, rather than having them walk the whole way. But maybe I'm wrong; like I said I'll need to re-read it now and find out for sure.
I think I might even have to buy the DVD when it comes out. I love this kind of movie - simple story, a hint of magic and dreams that captures the imagination. It might not work so well if you're not familiar with the book, but it is worth seeing.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Telling it like it is
Politics the fun way! This is the ad created by GetUp! and hopefully will be screened during the AFL grand final tomorrow. Spoofing John Howards taxpayer funded election campaign ads. Good for them.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The politics of fear
Here's a new scare campaign being run against the Labor party. No prizes for guessing that the government is behind it. Bring on the election!
Personally, I don't care if Labor is in power right across the country. Maybe that will be an incentive for the Liberals to get their acts together and actually offer some quality opposition. I just can't wait to get rid of John Howard and friends from Canberra. I think they've been a very damaging government, especially over the last 5-6 years. The sooner we get rid of them the better.
As for the Labor government being run by the unions, I think that's probably a bit overstated. Yes, there are a lot of union officials in the party. Hopefully that means that they will be concerned about the rights of employees more than the current government. They will hopefully care more about fairness - I know John Howard talks a lot about a fair go and mateship, but if he has to talk it up so much I think it just means that the concept is in trouble. You don't have to talk about something that is taken for granted by everyone; you only have to keep emphasisng it and encouraging it when the idea is in trouble. So John Howard has, I think, pretty much killed off the idea of a fair go at the political level. It's still alive and well for most people in their everyday lives, but it isn't reflected in our national politics. Hopefully Labor can do something to restore that.
Anyway, enough political crap - bring on the election and get it over with!
Recovery is slow, unfortunately
Well, after being all proud of myself for not getting sick while overseas, what happens? That's right - I catch a cold! Dammit!
I spent all weekend in bed with a cold, and ended up taking Monday off work since I was feeling pretty bad. I dragged myself back to work yesterday, though.
It always seems to happen when I travel these days. Once I get off the plane, I get sick. I guess I'm just lucky I didn't get sick on the way over to Vietnam, so it could be worse. But each time I've travelled this year I've ended up catching a cold. Very frustrating, especially since I've got at least two more trips this year involving planes and airports. Ah well...
So I lay around all weekend feeling miserable. Very unexciting - although it did give me a chance to finish two books. The first was "First among Sequels" by Jasper Fforde and the other was the new Terry Pratchett book "Making Money". I was a little bit disappointed with the Fforde book - it started slowly, but it did get better. Of course, the Pratchett was excellent and made me feel much better.
Ah well - here's hoping I can kick the rest of this cold soon. It's supposed to be a hot and sunny weekend. I might wander off to the beach if it looks good!
Friday, September 21, 2007
The road never ends... updated again!
On a related note - the people that brought you the map of visited countries now also bring you a map showing all the important places you've visited. Apparently I've been to 17 of the top 100 destinations! Cool!
Here's the map.
visited 17 destinations out of a beenda's top 100 destinations.
create your own map
The road never ends... updated
Since I've now been to another three countries on my latest trip (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia) I thought it was time to update this map. Here's the new version.
Create your own visited countries map
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Photos! and more photos! Vietnam and Cambodia
So here's a few of my holiday photos. Thought I'd post them here, just to see if the slide show thing works. Enjoy!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Stamping Butterflies
This book was my holiday reading on the trip through Vietnam and Cambodia. Mostly it was for reading while on planes or in airports, since I didn't plan on having a lot of downtime while over there. But a day or so by the pool in Mui Ne saw me get through it all.
The book is by Jon Grimwood - an author I hadn't heard of before. I came across him while browsing through LibraryThing and saw some good reviews. I'm glad I did, because I thought it was a pretty good book.
The story is convoluted, so may not have been the best choice for a relaxing holiday novel. On the other hand, these are the sorts of books that I find really interesting to read, so it still worked for me. The story is told in three parts. There's one stream set in Marrakech in the 1970's. Then there's one set in the current day or very near future, revolving around an assassination attempt on the most popular US president in history (that's not GW Bush, obviously enough, even though the book was written in 2004). And finally there's the story set in the far future in an empire of 2023 worlds.
I thought all three parts worked well. The first two streams became linked fairly early on in the book, sharing characters and history. It was well written and realistic in describing its events and locations. His writing style is descriptive and detailed, while not slowing down the pace of the book. The link with the third, future, stream wasn't obvious until very close to the end of the book. Hints were dropped before then, of course, but the link wasn't obvious to me until the end. The suspense was maintained very well right to the final pages.
Overall, I thought the first two story streams were the best. I couldn't relate quite as well to the future stream or characters. I think that was because they were the ones I felt the least sympathy for - particularly the Emperor. They just didn't seem as realistic as the others.
I enjoyed this book. I will be looking for other books by the same author now, as I think he's definitely one to read more of.
Stamping Butterflies, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
All Templed Out...
And the final email from Cambodia...
Well,the sunrise over Angkor Wat was a bit of a washout. It is the wet season, so there are plenty of clouds hanging around. Basically the sun rose into a cloud bank, with very few colours or spectacular effects. It just got gradually lighter, and not much else. Still, it was worth a try I guess...We wont be trying it tomorrow,though - once was enough!
For the rest of today we toured a few more temples. I've got temple fatigue now. There seems to be o end of them after a while, and they begin to look all the same. They're all beautiful in their own way, but trying to cram them into two days is way too much. We managed to see all the main temples, including the one where the movie Tomb Raider was shot. There are no signs pointing it out, but the tour guides don't let you miss any of the important movie sites !
After that, it was just a final trip around the markets looking for souvenirs, then a quick swim in the hotel pool. That part of the day was great. I can always spend time by the pool, or the beach... but after two days of solid walking around temples and jungle it was nice just to kick back for an hour or so.
It's not all relaxation and natural beauty though. At every temple entrance there were bands of musicians playing. They are all victims of land mines, and make a living selling CDs of their music to tourists. There are lots of beggars around with missing limbs too - we saw one boy about 16 working in one of the markets and he had two false feet. It was a shock to see that as he was walking quite normally, until you looked down at them. They're still working at clearing landmines from all across the country (and in Vietnam too) and wont be finished for years yet. The markets are full of books about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot - the fighting wasn't all that long ago. It's all pretty sad - like I said earlier, this part of the world has had a very rough time over the last 50-100 years. And they're all still incredibly poor. I spent $15 tonight on dinner - the average monthly wage is $40. Anyway...
So the trip is almost over. Tomorrow morning we head for the airport and a flight to Kuala Lumpur. Then on Friday night we're on a plane home... not looking forward to getting home. Maybe I'll just take a plane and head on somewhere else...
Cambodia - Angkor Wat
From the first part of our stop in Cambodia...
Just a quick one tonight, as it's late and I want to go to bed. we're off to see the
sunrise over Angkor Wat in the morning, starting from the hotel at 5am... not my idea of agood time to get out of bed while I'm on holiday! But it should be worth it, I think.
Anyway, we're in Cambodia now. We're in Siem Reap, which is the town just next to
the whole Angkor Wat area. We spent today exploring some of the temples. We'll check out a few more tomorrow before heading off on Thursday. This place is just amazing. Its hard to believe they carved this huge temple complext out of the jungle over 1000 years ago. We''ve all taken lots of photos, of course, but they just don't give you the whole picture.
They also don't give you the heat, and the humidity. I hate the humidity - it just
drains me completely after a while. And we've been walking all day today, climbing over stone temples out in the sun.
The final few days of Vietnam were great, too. The two day on the beach at Mui Ne were the best - not too hot or wet, and we just sat by the pool for most of our time there. That's more like a holiday. The Mekong Delta was hot, wet and sticky - interesting, but I'm in no hurry to go back there.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. Just a few more days until we head home - wish I could extend
the trip another week or two.
Vietnam part 2 - Tunnels and Temples
Part two - Cu Chi and Cao Dai.
So - part two of the trip!
Yesterday we went off to see the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai temple. Both were
interesting, but the tunnels were definitely the highlight. It was a full day trip, on the bus most of the time. That in itself was really nice after all the walking we'd done on the previous day. My feet are complaining about this trip already, even if the rest of me isn't :)
Anyway, we started at the Cao Dai temple. Cao Dai means High Tower, and is a religion that is unique to Vietnam. Basically you take all the religions you can think of and mix them up together. They have a pope, who is picked by conducting a seance with the ancestors. Their saints include Victor Hugo, the french poet. The temple was decorated with pink dragons for some reason, with a great eye sitting on top of a globe, symbolising the One God that rules over all. They pray and have a service in the temple four times a day, and we got to see one of the services which involved a lot of chanting, gongs and incense.
After lunch we went off to the Cu Chi tunnels. This was the main highlight of the day. THe tunnels were used during the war by the local guerillas, and stretched for around 250km all through the area. The original tunnels were 60cm, by 80cm - just enough room for a small person to crawl through on their stomach. They've also put in a few lights - definitely not an original feature. Fortunately, they've enlarged them for tourists, so this section was 120 * 160cm. I could get through these if I crouched. Still, it was pitch black in sections and went for aroudn 100m. It was all very claustrophobic. I can't imagine using them to live in and fight from. Apparetnly they tunneled into the nearby US base during the war and would pop up at night and shoot at them from inside the base. It took quite a while for the Americans to catch on, but they couldn't clear all the tunnels.
There was also a museum area, showing the different types of booby traps used by the
guerillas. They involved pits full of bamboo spikes and rusty nails in various combinations. It all looked very nasty. And there was a ruined American tank, blown up by a landmine and left where it was destroyed. The entire back half of the tank was a twisted ruin.
It was quite a sobering experience all around. Everywhere we've been so far there are
reminders of the war - from the markets with army surplus, to old planes and tanks, museums - it's just everywhere. In that respect its been a holiday that makes you think about all that's happened.
But from here on it gets lighter. Tomorrow we're off on a twoday tour of the Mekong
delta. And that's followed by two days on the beach at Mui Ne. Both should be great side trips. I think we've seen most of what Saigon ahs to offer, so it'll be a good to move on,
Hopefully I'll get another chance at the internet in a couple of days. Talk to you then
Hi from Vietnam
Well, I'm back from holiday! Here's a couple of emails I sent to friends while I was away - but forgot to post them here. Oh well - better late than never, I guess.
Just a quick hello to say that we all made it safe and sound to Ho Chi Minh City. It's been a big two days, of course, with all the travelling etc. Flying from Brisbane to Vietnam via Melbourne really is the long way of doing things. Anyway...
We got to the hotel around lunch time on Sunday. After a quick lunch we went for a walk to some nearby markets, and attempted to get used to the traffic. I'd just about forgotten what it was like to have to step out into endless streams of traffic just to try and cross the road. They do avoid you though - those little scooters that everybody rides are pretty manouverable. I managed to avoid spending too much money at the markets, although I'll probably go back there at least once before we leave.
Today we toured some of the museums. The Fine Art museum was mostly modern art (post-war) so it's all about the glories of the communists and beating the Americans. Some of it is pretty good, even if the message isn't exactly subtle. The Reunification Palace was interesting - it's the old South Vietnamese presidential palace, and is pretty much exactly as it was in 1975. The final museum for the day was the War Remnants museum. Again a very one-sided story, but intense. It's full of photos and stories of abuses committed by various invaders of Vietnam (French, American, etc). Again, not exaclty subtle, but very powerful. People did awful things in this country.
Anyway, thats about it so far, apart from eating some great and cheap food! Tomorrow we're off to see the tunnels used by the VietCong and a couple of temples. Then later in the week we're off to the Mekong Delta for a couple of days, followed by an overnight trip to one of the nearby national parks. Should be good I'll let you know how it all goes, of course!
