The Gabba

Simon and I took in the first day of the Ashes at the Gabba (with a guest appearance from Ant who flew up from Wagga Wagga for the day).  It's not your typical cricket ground - looks a bit too uniform and ordered to have the character which other Test ghrounds have.  Sadly England showed a little of the old brittleness faced with average Aussie bowling, but we had a good day out all the same.  Finishing with beers by the river as the sun went down.  Tragically, we left the sombreros in the pub.

The Aussies from Brisbane whom I have met have been a little negative about Brisbane - I wouldn't be so down on the place myself.  It's not Sydney or Melbourne, but is wonderfully less pretentious than either place and has some fine eateries and a nice setting.

Melbourne Museum

We stopped by the Melbourne Museum yesterday.  It contains some of the usual depressing story about how the white folks turned up and got rid of anyone or anything local which was inconvenient.  Sometimes that was by deliberate means (primarily shooting), but introducing a few new diseases was also pretty effective.  One chap (the wonderfully named Mr Batman) tried to buy the land of modern day Melbourne from the locals in return for a few household appliances - doesn't really work where the land belongs to your nation, so buying and selling is not on the agenda.

The museum also reveals a bit of insecurity vis-a-vis Sydney - various comments strewn around the place about how Melbourne was the top city in Australia...  As always with these things, it was also slightly selective - very proud of being the first place in the world to introduce the secret ballot, not so much detail on the "White Australia" policy or the fact that aboriginal peoples were listed as "fauna" in the census until the late 60s.

Yarra Valley

Saturday took us out to the Yarra Valley - the wine region just an hour or so's drive from Central Melbourne.  I went out there with Simon three years ago, but the place has been transformed by the recent rain.  Wonderfully green.  We popped to Domain Chandon for lunch, which produces for all intents and purposes Champagne - they just can't call it that because they're in the wrong bit of the world.  It was then on to a couple of other wineries - finishing at Yearing Station.  Simon bought a fine bottle on the understanding that he'll open it in about 10 years (when it's supposed to get even better) as long as Eve and I come to visit.  That was later revised to 8 years when we realised that there was no Ashes series in Australia in 10 years.

Gino

After the wettest season they've had in over a decade, the sun has been beaming ever since we arrived.  It's been up in the 30s the last couple of days and summer looks like it's settling in (although I'm told no weather patterns never really settle in here - the classic four seasons in one day).  It could all only mean one thing: the time was nigh for my well overdue haircut.  Simon booked me in with Gino (whom apparently he visits once a month - which explains why his hair never seems to grow).  Gino is a great hairdresser and a good questioner, but sadly a poor listener.  The haircut was great, but the conversation was a little circular.  For example, after explaining that we had spent 2 months in China, he then asked me if we had flown straight to Australia from the UK or whether we had broken up the journey.  Mmh

Melbourne

From Tassie we flew into Melbourne (on Wednesday).  They've been having a poor weather run we were told - but at least the drought which has been going for the last decade or so is almost over.  We were told that one solution proposed was to pipe in water from Tassie - not sure that got very far.

Tassie

After a couple of days in Sydney, it was off to Tasmania.  Generally derided it would seem by the Aussies for being full of inbreds, it's a beautiful part of the country (most of it is yet another World Heritage Site) with wildlife galore.  The first animal (a possum) we saw for approximately 2 seconds before it disappeared under our front left wheel.  After driving for a couple of hours through thick fog and driving rain, we got to our cabin in the woods - open fire, jacuzzi bath - the works.  Self catering has massive benefits for me with Eve working her magic in the kitchen.  We woke up the next morning to find a wallaby feasting on the plants on our front lawn.  We also saw a fair few wombats on our treks.

Two days of trekking around Cradle Mountain later (with some parts being more akin to rock climbing) and it was off to Wine Glass Bay on the other side of Tassie (I'm sure that's some kind of World Heritage Site too).  Thankfully, no wildlife was harmed in the making of that journey.  The beach was beautiful - almost as clean as the one at our fancy hotel in Cambodia - although the staff did sift the sand there to keep it clean.  I kid you not.

Sydney

Sydney served up what you might expect - beautiful temperatures and beaches.  Although perhaps we shouldn't take that for granted as we were told it was the first nice day they'd had in six months - I assume that is all relative though.

We also took in a museum.  I hadn't previously realised that transportation of convicts was not a new thing when we decided to colonise Australia - we'd been doing transportation to America for a while apparently (that was sadly interrupted when the Americans decided they didn't really want us any more).  I also didn't realise that the convicts effectively became indentured labour - indentured to the free inhabitants of Australia, which often was just the spouse of the convict in question.

Bangkok

After a six hour bus journey on Monday, we got to Bangkok around early evening.  Eve's friends have a got a cracking place - an enormous flat, a lady who has now done all of our washing and a swimming pool on the roof!

The Museum of Siam was interesting - not least the bit about Thai governments of the last 50 or so years.  The general picture seems to be military coups and corruption.  One interesting novelty was that, prior to the introduction of democracy, the king of the day decided to experiment with democracy in one city in his kingdom.  He set up two parties.  The experiment lasted 7 years.

We're off to Sydney tomorrow...

Koh Chang

After a sunset cruise on Friday night, we left the eco lodge on Saturday and needed to get to Bangkok by Monday to meet up with some friends of Eve's (who are also very kindly putting us up).  We thought that would mean a night in a nondescript town on the way, but the guys running the lodge suggested that we should have enough time to spend a night on Koh Chang (an island about 45 mins off the mainland by very slow ferry).  The border crossing all went swimmingly, so we were able to get to the island by lunchtime.  We shared a taxi from the border to the ferry port with a Swedish couple.  He was one of the leading journalists with a Swedish daily newspaper and has also just finished a documentary on one of the Khmer Rouge leaders - the guy who was the respectable head of state which they showed to the world.  Sounds all very interesting - it's called Facing Genocide.  In line with most of the others, apparently he didn't know what was going on on the ground and therefore is not responsible for it...

It was a cracking idea to spend a night on the island - the interior is a rainforest and the coast has some fine beaches.

The dam

Our final day at the lodge was spent chilling in the hammock on our balcony and kayaking upriver to a waterfall.  The river was beautifully calm and the temperature was perfect - the sun just nipping out from behind the clouds now and again.

If we go back in a couple of years, the scene may be very different.  Some guys from China have apparently convinced the locals of the need for a hydro electric power station on the river.  This seems to involve cutting down large amounts of forest and flooding large areas around the river.  Apparently, the idea was originally sold to the locals on the basis that electricity would transform their lives.  More recently, some people have twigged that the local villagers don't have any money for electricity, so it is unlikely to be sold to them.  In fact, the plan seems to be to sell the electricity to Thailand and the profits for the first 30 or so years are going to the Chinese guys building it.  Which all begs the question why the project got the go ahead in the first place.  We were told that cash can be quite persuasive.

The trek

After our first evening at the lodge (which was accompanied by very, very fine food), we set out for a trek with the guide, Mr Lei.  He had hacked the trail through the jungle with his own bare hands (and a machete) and knew his way around.  He could see insects which we could neither see nor hear - it was almost freaky.  We had lunch down at "the lake" - it wasn't actually a lake, more of a swell in the river, but very nice all the same.  Completely unspoilt - the only way to get there was by foot through the jungle.  A lovely spot for a cooling midday swim.  It was then on to the waterfall (after another couple of hours through the jungle) where we were met by the boat carrying beers.  Wonderful.

When we got back to the lodge, we broke out the Chinese Chess for our second ever proper game.  Annoyingly, it turns out that Eve is rather better at the game than me.

The eco lodge

We hopped in a taxi and made our way east towards the Thai border.  When we hit the fourth main bridge, we jumped out as instructed by the lodge and walked under the bridge in a seemingly deserted part of rural Cambodia (apart from a very random sign marked "German food").   Despite the fact that there seemed to be nothing around, when we got under the bridge we saw (as promised) a small wooden boat waiting to take us upriver to our little eco lodge.

It's all very worthy stuff - local materials, built by locals, solar power etc.  It's also wonderfully quiet - just 7 bungalows sandwiched between a jungle and the river.  

The seaside has treated us particularly well.  After the jet skiing, there was a boat trip through a mangrove forest to a remote island, then it was scuba diving for me and today we hung around our hotel taking advantage of fine pedal boat facilities, lovely beaches and our beach ball (and, of course, the swim up bar at the pool).

Tomorrow we're off to an eco lodge towards the Thai border...