Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Shameless plug!

Hi folks!
Whilst I have a second to sit down and think... (always nice) people may or may not recall that I have an ebook available through kindle.
It details my journey from Dhaka in Bangladesh to Dakar in Senegal - much of which was before I started blogging. I cut the book into three volumes as it was HUGE - Asia, Europe and Africa. However after getting the first book ready to go (Journey through Asia) I realised that it might be better to chop it up into chapters as well.
Thus I put out the second and third books out as single chapters (one per country with a couple of exceptions) and then later released them as whole volumes as well. I never had the chance until last week to do release the first book in chapters. Now, I have done so! If it interests you - I think the Iran, India and Pakistan chapters are very interesting! - maybe you'd like to take a read. Here are the links:


Chapter One: Malaysia and Singapore
Chapter One at Amazon











Chapter Two: Bangladesh
Chapter Two: Bangladesh (at Amazon)







Chapter Three: India
Chapter 3: India (at Amazon)







Chapter Four: Pakistan
Chapter 4: Pakistan (at Amazon)











Chapter Five: Iran
Chapter 5: Iran (at Amazon)







Chapter Six: Turkey
Chapter 6: Turkey (at Amazon)





And of course, the whole first volume is also available:
Dhaka to Dakar: Volume One: Journey Through Asia


OK - sorry for the shameless plugs, normal service will be resumed soon....

Monday, March 18, 2013

Air Asia to Melbourne

How time flies!
I am home for three weeks in Melbourne, with a lot planned. Hopefully can bring you some info on the city and some pics of course.
I took the Air Asia way home, by far the cheapest. I left fair Ichinoseki on Saturday morning and took a train, a bus and another train to get to Haneda airport. So I had been travelling for 11 hours before I checked into my flight!
Then seven hours to Kuala Lumpur. A little sleep, on and off. The LCCT part of Kuala Lumpur airport is a special terminal (LCCT = Low Cost Carrier Terminal) which I have now been through a number of times. It's not so clean, few shops or eateries, bad internet but it serves and I make it sound worse than it is. Basically it's only there for Air Asia, who are based in KL.
The main airport is one of the nicest in the world I think!

Air Asia though get my thumbs up! Okay you have to pay extra for food, choosing a seat, bags over 15kg but they do have great service and generally run on time. I can't recall an Air Asia flight that left more than 15 minutes late that I've taken, and I've taken a few now.
But this isn't a plug. I slept on and off the whole journey from Ichinoseki to Melbourne. An hour.45 minutes here or there, but never a nice long sleep. Such is the way with travel.
The second flight, to Melbourne, was again around seven hours. It seemed longer, but finally touched down. Through via the new 'e-passport' system and in my old home town.
Whew.
so
soon something else i am sure
stay tuned!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Two years ago....

Hello folks,
as many may be aware, yesterday marked the 2 year anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake, the tsunami that followed and then the Fukushima Nuclear Plant Crisis.

Here is a little information via BBC, because I was not here when it happened.

BBC - Japan Marks Quake and Tsunami Anniversary

BUT I am here now, in a region devastated March 11th, 2011. I read a friends recollections/diary yesterday and I wondered how I would have coped if I had been here that day. The only conclusion I could reach was that I would be a gibbering mess.
In December last year there was a pretty decent quake, 7.3. I turned off the iron, the gas stove and ran to the bathroom. A few things fell to the ground. We have a shake now and then, in the last month it's been rather quiet - which make me rather nervous. Last year for the most part we have a tremour every one to two days. In some way that was reassuring because it felt like the Earth was letting out its anger little by little. If it holds it inside for longer though...

Here in Ichinoseki, away from the coast, the damage was done by the quake. There was no power for two weeks, and I am told manhole covers popped out of the ground, the building opposite my apartment block was severely damaged, and still stands unoccupied today as a reminded. A marriage hall in town was also severely damaged and is no longer in use.

Water was a huge issue after March 11th 2011. People couldn't flush their toilets. Many stuck it out in shelters. I know someone who lost their home and didn't know for a while if their family was alive. Everyone here who survived had a similar worry over friends or loved ones. And here I sit, I came over to live here just under a year ago. For me, it's hard and terrifying to imagine.
Those who survived went through so much, and rebuilding their lives must at times be very difficult, and very brave indeed.

Then we have the Fukushima situation, still a situation today. I hear varying reports about the dangers. Last year one of my schools had a think layer of top soil removed because of radiation. And Ichinoseki is a fair way from Fukushima. From near as I can understand, there is a lot of danger still at the plant, and another massive earthquake could have dire consequences. Few people realise, it seems, that there was a full-on nuclear meltdown there.
A couple of articles:

Ravages of Fukshima Nuclear Disaster will never end (The Age)

Pictures from the affected area (from The Guardian)

But still life goes on. People rebuild buildings and lives with incredible courage and determination. That's the human race for you.

Monday, March 04, 2013

Brilliant Budapest!! (no I don't work for their tourism department either!

One of my friends here in Japan is heading to Hungary later this year, so I was prompted to think about my very very short stay in Budapest, the amazing capital of that country.
Bridge over the Danube in beautiful Budapest

Hungary is one European country that I have visited that I would really like to return to and explore one day. Budapest is one of Europe's secret gems, up with the best capitals across Europe, but with only a fraction of the tourists visiting.
Okay, so I visited in 2004, but even today when compared to the likes of Prague, it doesn't receive the amount of tourists it deserves. Now that's good for the tourists who do go there of course!
My memories are of arriving at a fairly chaotic train station early in the morning, but it was already quite warm - about twenty-five degrees. I navigated my way via public transport to find my hostel.
Square in central Budapest

This was not easy, it was in some big apartment style building, I went into a couple of wrong buildings, and finally found the right one. Took a rickety lift up to the right floor, to find a sign on the door saying there was an electricity problem and they were closed until it was fixed. Very frustrating, as I had booked online and received a series of confirmation emails and then they didn't bother to contact me.
So I had to pull out the book, buy a phone card and ring around until I found a hostel with a bed. Budapest does not have a wealth of budget digs, although if you want to pay a bit more you can find a place to stay. I found a hostel that had backpackers packed in in every corner. It was a house with mattresses on the floor, a backyard and a decent kitchen for cooking.
Memento Park - one of the monuments.

There is plenty to see and do in Budapest, a city on the Danube river and a city with a lot of history. It's dalliance with communism for many years of the previous century can not be forgotten, as the images of Soviet tanks rolling through the streets will certainly never be. If you want a reminder then there are two places I recommend visiting.
The first is the strangely named 'Memento Park'. A park featuring a wide array of Soviet era statues. The communist times were punctuated by  giant statues of communist figures - you know the dudes. Lenin, Stalin, Marx and the like. Instead of destroying them when communism fell, statues were taken down and put into this park. It's an unusual tourist attraction, but I have to say that it's not the only one of it's kind. In Semey, Kazakhstan I visited a smaller park with lots of Lenins. However, this one is probably the biggest and most interesting. These remnants are important in some ways, because the era these days is well hidden. Budapest has many Gothic buildings obviously pre-dating communist times, and walking around the city it's very impressive how they outlasted what many regard as a dark period of Hungary's history.



The 'House of Terror' Museum also gives a window into the Communist times. Not just that, but it looks at World War II and oppression and violence in Hungary and Budapest. A very eye-opening museum indeed. I found it confronting and worth visiting.
There are a number of museums in Budapest, as one might imagine. There's a beer museum, history museum, Holocaust museum and a Bath museum. One thing Hungary is famous for is it baths, its banyas. I visited one in the city centre, there are many. I just went for a swim, but if you enjoy steam baths and the like, then Budapest surely has the sauna fix for you!

Parliament building from Castle Hill.
I ventured to a place called 'Castle Hill' - no prizes for guessing why it got that name. It's a wonderful area of Budapest. It sits above the Danube, and across the river you can see the Parliament building - one of the most remarkable Gothic buildings in Europe. Very grand and very large, the view of it from Castle Hill side is superb.
Matthias Cathedral - exterior.

On the Castle Hill side you find the 'Matthias Cathedral', an interesting church (if you haven't been in Europe too long and seen a hundred thousand churches already) with museum attached and the Hungarian Crown jewels. NOT what I expected to see there.
The streets are cobblestone, it's delightful. The walk along the Danube is predictably nice too, with little enclaves along the stone footpath called 'Fisherman's Bastions'.
Inside the Budavari Labirintus
Inside the hill itself is a wonderfully interesting and exciting set of catacombs, a must see for visitors and catacomb-enthusiasts alike. The Budavari Labirintus is a system of tunnels up to sixteen metres below Castle Hill that stretch for 1200 metres.
 
Budapest also has more churches, bridges, baths and parks than you could count, not to mention a wonderful history seeped in music. I took in a wonderful orchestral performance at the Opera House. Still using their own currency and not the Euro, Hungary is a good place to see classical performances and opera for a much cheaper price than say Vienna. It has festivals too, I had just missed a wine festival by a day when I arrived. One day, I shall return!
A night out at the Opera House never goes astray!

It's a true gem. I had three days there, one of them lost completely to walking about and finding accommodation, but that was enough to recommend it to anyone I hear is going to Europe, I always spruik for them to make a visit to this glorious city on the Danube. What I saw was only the tip of the iceberg!


For more information on Budapest, here are my writings containing further details available on Kindle.

Chapter on Budapest, Zakopane, Olomouc and Vienna from "Dhaka to Dakar Book 2"

Dhaka to Dakar Book 2: Europe