Some people fly into Siem Reap early morning, do a full days tour of the complex (in the searing heat), and stay just the one night before flying out. To us this seemed ludicrous, and we spent four day’s touring the area, and could have easily spent longer, to see some of the temples that lay further afield. We would depart very early in the morning, beating the heat before the mercury would begin its sharp rise. Spending two or three hours exploring the complex, before heading back to the hotel to relax in the pool. We would then head back out again in the afternoon, to wander through the temples for another couple of hours, before watching the sunset over Angkor Wat each night at dusk. A great tip if you’re travelling with two or more people, is to hire a remorque-moto (tuk tuk, rickshaw) for a period of 24hrs or greater. We hired our own personal driver, who would be available to us around the clock. He would take us anywhere we wanted to go, morning, noon, and night, and at a pre-arranged cost of $12 per day, it seemed a fair deal to us. April is not only Cambodia’s hottest month, but also the month of the Cambodia new year celebrations. The actual date changes between the 13th and 14th of April, from year to year. Being at Angkor during this time had its good, but also it’s bad points. The bad, was the amount of people visiting temples, and although crowded at times, the good was that there was always something happening, with many religious ceremonies taking place, and the early morning starts we had, seemed to alleviate the crowd problem, as most temples were virtually empty before 8.00am.

Before arranging this trip to Cambodia, it was my understanding that Angkor Wat, was a solitary temple, but I couldn’t have been further from the truth. The temples of Angkor actually number over a thousand, although most of these have now been reduced to rubble, and overgrown with vegetation.

Liza standing amongst the ruins of the Ta Prohm temple. The root system of the tree's above were massive.

There are still a great many that have stood the test of time, with none other than the centre piece of Khmer architecture, ‘Angkor Wat’ that is said to be the worlds largest single religious monument. If you intend on visiting Angkor, then picking up a copy of an excellent read on the subject, ‘Ancient Angkor by Michael Freeman and Claude Jacques‘ would be well worth your while, as it contains a great deal of detailed information and images, that just aren’t available in any guide book. Spending time at the vast expanses of Angkor Wat was great, and we visited it at least three times during our stay. These visits were all at different times of the day, to take in the view with different lighting conditions, but to me the highlight of all the temples was Ta Prohm. With it’s partially collapsed state, and centuries old tree’s towering to the sky above, their root system basically holding the structure together, this temple is without a doubt the most atmospheric of all the temples of Angkor. Scrummaging around this temple on your own, it’s hard not to feel like Indiana Jones, and its well worth getting here at dawn, to beat the crowds.

After leaving Siem Reap and it’s magnificent temples, we made our way overland to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. The journey took us no more than 6-7 hours on a local bus, and cost us a mere $6. Once we retrieved our luggage from the roof of the bus, our next mission was to make it the next 2-3km to the hotel without paying the same amount or more, for the 5 minute journey. How does that work I hear you say? Well it happens that we had booked ourselves into the best Hotel in Cambodia, and possibly one of the best in South East Asia, the Raffles Le Royal. If our rickshaw driver got wind of where we were staying, there is no doubt our charge would be at least five or maybe even ten times the normal price, and our normal price in turn would be double what the locals would pay anyway.

The first rule of not getting ripped off with a taxi or rickshaw driver in any third world country, is to not go with anyone who approaches you in a bus or train station, and try and find someone just going about their daily business on the streets outside.

A short walk away I found a young fellow who seemed on the straight and narrow. We showed him on our map where we wanted to go (basically just across the road from the Raffles), and arranged a fair price. When we arrived at the location he turned to us and put both his arms out as if to say, ‘No Hotel Here’. We then pointed across the street, and over to the Raffles, with its manicured gardens and high walls and gates. He laughed and made the cash sign with his fingers, drove over and dropped us off at the front, alongside the private limousines and cars for the other VIP guests.

The Raffles was a great place to stay, and in the grand scheme of things quite inexpensive, for the luxury and service it provided. I believe we got our room for just over $100 a night, but this was off season, and peak season would see the rooms price in the vicinity of $140. Whilst in Phnom Pehn we made visits to the city’s main sights, from the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, to the very somber, Toul Sleng Museum. This museum, formally a high school before being turned into one of man kinds worst interrogation prisons, known as S-21.

The atrocities that took place within the confines of the four walls of this hell hole, between the years of 1975 and 1978 are to difficult for words to describe alone.

Some of the victims of the Tuol Sleng (S21) interrogation prison.

One must be within the confines of the grounds or inside one of the torture chambers, whilst listening or reading about it’s unspeakable history, to get some sort of understanding on what took place. After the prisoners were tortured for their information, and were seen to be of no more use to Pol Pot’s hideous regime, the Khmer Rouge. They were transported to Choeung Ek’s notorious ‘Killing Fields’, where they were often bludgeoned to death to save on ammunition. The total number of deaths, is to this day unknown, but believed to be in the region of 17,000 to 20,000. The following day, we also spent an afternoon at the Killing Fields, a short 15km journey from town. Even to this day, there are still many fragments of human remains scattered around the site’s many open graves, where the mass murders were committed. More than 8000 skulls arranged by sex and age, are visible behind a clear glass panel of the site’s Memorial Stupa.

With it’s traumatic history, strongly etched in the minds of those old enough to remember, it is now through the young the city of Phnom Penh, is beginning to put aside the horrors of the past, and move forward.

With tourism now a major contributor to the countries economy, there are many nice bars and restaurants slowly popping up around town, and we had the chance to visit some of these whilst there. Once again, we hired a remorque-moto and driver for our complete stay in Phnom Pehn. This time our drivers name was Simon, and he spent three days with us, driving all over the city. After the first day he began to loosen up a bit, and in the end we would invite him in to some of the cafes, to have a cold beer and a chat. One of our favourite places in town, was the ‘Foreign Corespondents Club,’ or known locally as the FCC. The FCC is a popular watering hole amongst tourists and expats alike, and we would make it there for happy hour each evening, to sit in the open area upstairs, grab a bite to eat, and watch the world go by on the streets below us. Although only a short stay of just over a week, our time in Cambodia was very enjoyable, and we would highly recommend visiting. Our next destination was another I had also been looking forward to for quite some time. That was Vietnam, and with Ho Chi Minh City only a short flight away, it was only logical for us to arrange a visit.

A view of Hoi An's waterfront area. There were many small restaurants along the water, and the boats would come and go all day.

Landing in Ho Chi Minh City (commonly abbreviated to HCMC, which I will use from now on) was a complete change of pace, after the somewhat tranquil surrounding’s of Phnom Pehn. HCMC (formally Saigon, and although unofficial, many locals still use this name) has four times the population of Phnom Penh, but it felt more like ten. The city has a somewhat hectic feel to it, with it’s swarming traffic problems, both on the roads and the waterways of the Saigon River. Although minus the major attractions of many other world famous cities, HCMC was alive, and we spent a couple of days here just soaking up the atmosphere before heading to our next destination Hoi An. Hoi Ann is a small riverside town close to the coast, situated roughly halfway between Vietnam’s contrasting major cities of Saigon in the South, and Hanoi to the North. Hoi An is a must see for anyone heading to Vietnam, and although it was early on in our trip I knew it would be the highlight of our time in Vietnam.

The town has a rich trading history, and was one of South East Asia’s major ports in the 17th and 18th centuries, and to me it felt like Vietnam’s version of the historic African towns of Lamu or Zanzibar.

The old town is a no go zone for cars, and with Hoi An’s relatively small scale, this made it very easy to explore all it has to offer on foot. Around every corner and up every alley way, navigating your way and exploring the old town is like a step back in time, and there is no surprise that it is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. Liza loved the shopping, with its many art and craft shops, and Hoi Ann is also famous for it’s tailors, who can produce quality made to order clothing, at a fraction of the cost of what you would pay in the West. Whilst Liza was out shopping, I would spend many hours on foot, camera in hand and looking for the perfect photo opportunity, of wich there were many. Also whilst in town, we chanced upon some celebrity spotting. It was early evening, and as we were strolling down one of the alley ways, we heard a familiar voice coming up the street towards us. From a distance and due to the accent, all I could make out was it was a thin Englishman in a dark hat. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until he had passed us by, and I turned to Liza and was about to speak, when she beat me to it.

‘Was that Mick Jagger’? As it turned out it was, and the whole town was a buzz, whilst he was in town for a couple of days.

A typical scene as you cruise down the mighty Mekong River. Sometimes there would be a whole family about such a small boat.

After three very enjoyable days in Hoi Ann, we made our way back to Da Nang, along the way visiting the impressive Marble Mountains, as well as a stop off at China Beach. After a short stroll along the beach we visited a very busy seafood restaurant for lunch before we boarded the plane and flew back to HCMC. Once back in HCMC we booked into the very luxurious and recently renovated Hotel Majestic, before booking a three day tour of the Mekong Delta. The Mekong River is one of the world’s largest, with it’s origins somewhere in Tibet, it bends and winds it’s way through six countries in South East Asia, before it is emptied into the sea via the many hundreds of tributaries that make up the Delta. Our trip to the Delta was arranged at one of the many inexpensive travel agencies dotted around HCMC. You stay in very basic accommodation, and do a number of small tours to various tourist area’s where you are taught more about life in this part of the world. I generally dislike tours of this nature, and often frown upon them, but with the limited time we had it was the best way to get a small glimpse of the region.

My highlight of the tour was simply the pure pleasure of riding in a fast boat, down this extremely busy waterway.

As you make your way south, you pass a vast number of boats, barges and even the odd canoe, all with there passengers and cargo heading to their destination, wherever that may be. Upon returning to HCMC after our two nights and three days in the Delta, we were ready for a bit of rest and relaxation.

Vietnam is famous for its many great beaches, so we decided to head back up the coast to the small fishing village of Mui Ne. This small secluded village only 200km from HCMC has a long stretch of white sandy beach, where we would spend our last few days before flying home. The area is dotted with a vast range of accommodation and we managed to find a great place that was reasonably priced. The Sea Horse Resort was a series of luxury bungalows situated in a nice garden area, and only meters from the beach. We spent our days hanging out by the pool and going for walks along the beach, as well as doing a couple of small self arranged tours to some of the surrounding sights.

To our amazement it seems that Mui Ne is also famous for its enormous sand dunes.

The massive white dunes of Mui Ne. It's hard to believe this image is from Vietnam and not North Africa.

There are actually two area’s of sand dunes, with the smaller red dunes a short moto (motorcycle taxi) ride away, situated just behind the old fishing village, and then there are the more impressive white dunes, a longer but pleasant 45 minute ride away, again on the back of a moto. The white dunes were quite stunning and walking along them gave you that feeling of being in the Sahara, and not the tropics of Vietnam. We also did another half day tour to Ta Cu Mountain, an area famous for its Pagoda and the 49m long, reclining Buddha statue. Those with more time on their hands, and feeling a little more energetic, can walk up the mountain to the Pagoda, but we wimped out and took the cable car. Yes, that’s right the cable car!

After our time in Mui Ne, our trip was coming to an end and it was time to head home, so we caught a bus back to HCMC and checked back into the Majestic, where we spent our last couple of days chilling out. We also visited the sights a little further out from the main city centre, including a day tour to the infamous Cu Chi tunnels on the outskirts of town. The Cu Chi tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters.

Many opinions say that these tunnels were a key ingredient to the Viet Cong in resisting American operations and elongating the war, eventually concluding in an American withdrawal.

We both enjoyed our time in both Cambodia and Vietnam, and only just scratched the surface on what these two countries have to offer. We will no doubt return to Vietnam some time in the future, to visit the north of the country, and could not speak more highly of the hospitality we received in both countries. Both destinations were very safe to travel, and you also get great value for money.

After spending a few days, checking out the sights of Helsinki, we boarded an overnight train and headed north to Lapland, and into the arctic circle. Whilst in Finland’s north we crammed in many activities, including a couple of days skiing at Levi, and a long day snowmobiling out to a husky dog farm, where we spent the afternoon trying to learn the skills of controlling a sled, with 8-10 hypo huskies at our command. Once again the dancing light show that is the Aurora Borealis eluded us, this being my second visit to the arctic circle without seeing, this somewhat rare phenomenon. We had what were considered favourable conditions to see them, but no luck (we will get to see them, one day. I hope).

The day spent snowmobiling to the husky dog farm was great. These machines have some serious power.

After nearly a week in the arctic circle it was time to head south. We hired a small car, equipped with ice and snow tyres (the tyres are a special rubber compound and fitted with metal studs for traction), and began to make our way back to Kemi. Liza did the driving, as I navigated. I picked a route that diverted us through some smaller back roads along, the now frozen river that makes up the border of Sweden and Finland. This was a very picturesque route, and we stopped along the way several times to take some photo’s. We also stopped to have a chat to some of the locals that were ice fishing, although they weren’t catching much. We were basically driving on ice the whole way, and we also saw many points where locals were driving across the now frozen river and therefore the border. We contemplated, taking the hire car across one of these makeshift border crossings, but decided not to as if the ice cracked (and if we survived!) I don’t believe we would have been insured.

Kemi is a smallish port town, on the northern most point of the Gulf of Bothnia. Whilst in town we had to book a room in the illustrious Kemi Snowcastle. Liza had read about it many months previous, and before arrival she pre booked a one night stay, in one of the frozen chambers. A peculiar experience, although it was not as cold as I thought it would be (it was actually much colder outside than in). Whilst in Kemi, we also arranged a day trip on the Sampo ice breaker, that is stationed at the port. The Sampo has now been taken out of regular service, and is primarily used to take tourist’s on day cruises out into the bay.

It was incredible to be standing on the bow of this ship, as it smashed it’s way through the frozen ocean, with large slabs of ice being churned up and tossed aside, by this 3,500 tonne beast.

The Sampo icebreaker wedged hard up onto the ice pack. Hard to believe we were 20km off shore.

What was even more memorable, was when the ship came to a halt wedged up onto the ice pack, and we all disembarked and started to walk on the ice alongside the ship. We also donned the ships survival suits and took our turns floating in the freezing water. It was a fantastic day, and we highly recommend it to anyone in the area, during the winter months.

Over many years of overland travel, I have always stated that the most enjoyable form of transport when covering any great distance, is definitely riding the rails. If time is on your side, then there is no doubt that you are going to get more out of this form of transport than any other (especially over large distances). During our travels we have both taken some amazing train journeys, but there was one that had eluded us for all these years. That is, the mother of all train trips ‘ The Trans Siberian‘. I must admit from the get go, that we did not take the complete journey from Moscow to Vladivostok. Instead we took a variation to the route that branches off from Irkutsk, and down through Mongolia (this route is called the Trans Mongolian), before heading further south on the China Far East system, down to Beijing and ultimately Shanghai. The Trans Siberian proper starts at the Yaroslavl Station in Moscow, but we actually made our way to Moscow, also via train from St Petersburg. I had visited Russia many years earlier but this was Liza’s first time, and although a hardened traveller, she was amazed at the poverty and was not expecting it. It is by no means the kind of poverty you would find in Africa, or parts of Asia, but to imagine the effect the harsh Russian winter would have on people living in these run down wooden shacks, we felt fortunate that we were looking out rather than looking in. This view of Russia, is not apparent when strolling the downtown area’s of the magnificent cities of St Petersburg or Moscow, but is definitely visible whilst travelling by train through the rural area’s.

St Petersburg for those who have not been there, is a must for any trip to Russia. The city has the beauty to rival any of it’s more famous counterparts from Western Europe, although with a slightly run down feel to it. We spent a few days strolling the streets and checking out the sites. We also spent an afternoon at the Hermitage Museum, a magnificent building on the shores of the Neva river. From St Petersburg, we made our way to Moscow. To our surprise, Moscow is now one of the most expensive cities in the world, and for a tourist it was deadly (at the time of writing Moscow was No.1 on the list of the most expensive cites in the world, it has recently been knocked of the perch by Tokyo once again).

We even paid $10 Australian, for a cup of coffee at one of the city hotels. Not unheard of  in Western Europe I hear you say, but this was a 3 star hotel!

A view of Moscow's St Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Tomb and the outer wall of the Kremlin.

Due to the exuberant cost, we were forced to stay in a cheaper hotel out in the suburbs (if you call $230 per night cheap). We would make our way into town each day on the Moscow Metro. From our experience, the Moscow Metro is one of the best sub-way systems in the world, with only a 2-3 minute wait between trains and stations on every city block, once you worked out the layout, it was a breeze to get your way around. The appearance of the Metro stations ranged from the drab, run down look of the outer suburbs, to the magnificence of the down town station of Komsomolskaya-Koltsevaya, complete with its massive chandeliers. This station has to be seen to be believed, and pictures just don’t do it justice. Of course whilst in town we spent our time evenly between the sites, including the Red Square and the Kremlin. The day we toured the Kremlin, I predicted a nice patch of weather as it was looking good in the morning, but by mid afternoon the snow was beginning to fall heavily. Liza, still gives me shit about my prediction on that day, and will not trust my meteorology skills ever again.

We pre booked our private cabin for the Trans Siberian journey, via a small tour company at home in Melbourne. We did pay a little over the odds for the tickets, but if we didn’t go this way, we may have been facing the total 8,000km journey in 3rd class. The day before leaving we did a bit of shopping and stocked up on all the necessary goodies. There is a dining car on the train, but the food was said to be bland, and sometimes non existent. So lots of instant noodles were bought (each carriage is fitted with a boiling water urn) as well as chocolates, biscuits and of course the most crucial ingredient for a Trans Siberian journey, Vodka!

This Russian staple flows like tap water on this journey, and kicking back in your cabin, sipping on a vodka as the train pushes its way through a blizzard, is a memorable moment.

Life aboard the train, was allot more relaxing than we imagined. The first leg of our journey was the longest lasting 3 days and 4 nights, where we would have a 2 day stop over in Irkutsk. The town of Irkutsk is quaint, with a bit of rustic charm, with it’s run down 19th century wooden buildings. Most visitors to Irkutsk use it as a stepping stone to the mighty Lake Baikal, a mere 70km away. We ventured down to this massive lake, one very cold and windy afternoon. Lake Biakal is massive in every sense. It’s the worlds largest freshwater lake, its over 600km long and up to 80km wide, with a depth of 774m, it holds over 20% of the earth’s fresh water. We were there at the end of a harsh winter, and the whole lake was completely frozen over, and the wind chill wiping of the lake was freezing. The following day we were treated to a great view as the train rounded the south western section, with the tracks hugging the shore.

With many hours stuck at the border post, the Vodka went down hard and fast.

After leaving the wind blown, frozen shores of Lake Biakal, the train begins to make it’s way south from the town of Ulan Ude. After a few hours we came to a halt at the Russian, Mongolian border. The border formalities were pretty straight forward but the train was stationed for quite a number of hours whilst this took place. There was a Mongolian man selling steamed mutton buuz from the boot (trunk) of his car, and although we weren’t supposed to leave the platform as it was in lock down during the border crossing, I just followed a few locals through a hole in the fence and purchased a bag full. Once the border crossing was complete and we were legally in Mongolia, the train then continued further south. The Russian dinning car was removed and the Mongolian car attached, as we proceed on our journey to the nations capital, Ulan Bator.

The food on the Mongolian car was much better than the Russian car, and from all accounts they saved the best for last when the Chinese car is attached.

Ulan Bator has a cold, hard edge to it, no doubt the Russian influence coming through. Living in this city must be extremely difficult during the dead of winter where the temperature plummets to -30c and beyond. Whilst in Ulan Bator we spent a couple of days checking the sights around town, before organizing a trip into the Mongolian steppe . As winter had only just finished, it was still quite cold, with daytime temperatures hovering around or just below freezing. For our trip to visit the steppe, we hired a private 4WD as well as a driver, and translator. Due to the time of year there were very few tourists in the country, and we had the run of the major sites, mostly to our selves.

The ger's are warm and cosy and when the fire was cranking they even got to warm.

Driving in Mongolia once you leave the capital is quite unconventional, and roads seem to become non existent except for the main highway only. Our driver would often push his own path through this unforgiving landscape, veering around mountain ranges and basically just heading in the general direction, we needed to go. Our base was at a small ger camp situated 10 or so kilometres from the main highway, hidden in behind a small mountain range. From this camp we made day trips to visit the Erdene Zuu Monastery, as well as taking some short walks in the area and visiting some other historic sites. On the return trip we stayed a night at the Khustain Nuruu National Park . The park is famous for its small population of the Takhi or Przewalski’s Horse . The Takhi was almost extinct in the mid 1900′s with the last sighting of one of these rare animals in the wild, occurring in 1966. From the late 1970′s various zoo’s around the planet began an intense breeding program of the wild horse, and the Khustain Nuruu has been a direct benefactor of this program, with wild Takhi numbers now over 200.

Returning to Ulan Bator, after our short time on the Mongolian steppe, we boarded the train once again and headed south east, and into China. Before crossing into China, the train had some minor modifications made to it. The carriages were driven into a large shed, where they were raised on hoists and the bogie’s were changed to suit the Chinese track gauge. This process took a few hours, but was interesting to watch, as the workmen slowly made there way from carriage to carriage completing their task. When finished, we were moving once again, with the sound of the joints in the tracks, clicking and clunking through the night, as we pushed our way onward to Beijing.

Arriving in Beijing after a poor nights sleep, due to the midnight bogie change was a wake up call, like a strong shot of Cuban coffee.

The sheer number of people at the station, all trying to board trains, buy tickets or meet people was intense. Our time in China would be short, around 9 days in total, so it’s always best in these situations to organize an onward ticket the day you arrive. At a busy Beijing railway station, this sounds easier than it looks. Although I believe that after the Olympics, the amount of signage in English would have changed dramatically, at the time it was pretty well non existent. Without the help of a couple of students wanting to practice there English, I think we’d still be there. They pointed me to the correct line and told me how to pronounce sleeper carriage, I put two fingers in the air and shouted Shanghai on the end and gave the attendant my money. She through me back a couple of ticket’s. I thanked the students and went back to where Liza was minding the bags. It was a short taxi ride from the station to the hotel, where we would rest up for a few hours before heading out to see some of the sites.

Liza strolling 'The Great Wall'. Photo's don't do it justice. It has to be seen to be comprehended.

Beijing was completely different to what we had imagined, the mix of century’s old architecture with the modern shopping centres and tall buildings just seems to work. We spent our time here visiting the main sights of the Forbidden City , Tienanmen Square and of course the Great Wall . One thing that we really enjoyed in Beijing was the food, and due to it’s expense at home we indulged in Peking Duck on a few occasions. One place you have to visit if in Beijing is the Quanjude restaurant . This restaurant has been serving Peking Duck since 1864, and is considered one of the best in the city.

A restaurant spanning five levels and serving one main dish, you reckon they might get it right after nearly 150 years.

From Beijing we made our way to Shanghai, and we thought Beijing was a large city, but this place has to be seen to be believed. Arriving early morning, we were treated to a great view of the city as the train passed, what literately seemed like hundred’s of 30-40 storey apartment buildings scattered across the horizon. With Beijing taking the role of the historic and cultural heart of the nation, there is no doubt Shanghai is the engine room of the new Chinese economy. Shanghai is ultra modern, with the glass towers of the Pudong district, to the happening cafe’s and rooftop bars that line The Bund, this city is a must visit for anyone heading to China. One highlight of our visit to Shanghai was to take a trip on the Maglev Train that runs between downtown, and the international airport. The construction of this train is somewhat a statement to the world that Shanghai has arrived, and is a modern city on a world scale. Although the Maglev technology was in no way a Chinese invention, it is still very costly to develop and therefore only the world’s richest nations can afford to build it. With a top speed of 431km the 30km trip between downtown and the airport takes a little over seven minutes, and was more like taking a ride at an amusement park, than public transport.

The busy and crowded streets of Kowloon, Hong Kong. We both loved this city.

Our last, but certainly not least destination on this trip was a short stop in Hong Kong, before flying home. After only a few days in the hustle and bustle that is downtown Hong Kong, I was sold. There is no doubt that Hong Kong , is one of the worlds great cities. The way I judge whether or not a city is worthy of a statement like this, is to picture myself living there for any length of time. There is no doubt that Hong Kong has all the things that are needed for this. Liza loved the shopping, and we both enjoyed the food. The Octopus Card that drives the public transport system, is a joy to use and it was great to relax around the busy harbour area taking in the sights, including the spectacular sound and light show the brings the night skyline to life each evening. Whilst in Hong Kong we also took a short ferry ride over to Macau for a day trip. Macau is a place I see booming in the next decade or so. With it’s proximity to Hong Kong and Las Vegas style casinos, it was worth spending a day here, but in comparison to Hong Kong, it seemed somewhat dull.

To anyone thinking of taking this journey, our advice is simple, Go! We thought the time on the train would be drawn out, and a little boring, but it was quite the opposite. We met some interesting people and except for the border crossings, the time on the train was relaxing. Just load up your iPod with the latest songs or movies, grab yourself a couple of good books, and the most important piece of the puzzle is a few bottles of Russia’s finest. Since this trip we have discussed doing the complete journey in reverse, from Vladivostok all the way over to Europe at some time in the future.

The Shangri-La resort was sensational, although quite expensive. We spent the mornings lying around the pool and the nights eating in the fine restaurants, it had to offer. During the days, we would make our way into Kota Kinabalu to look around. The city was larger than I expected, and quite modern in parts, although there were some area’s arround the bay that were acutely poor as well. Whilst sitting around the pool, we did a bit of research regarding what we would like to see when we began our tour of Sabah. The main attractions to this region are the orang-utans and the mighty Mt Kinabalu. We knew that we wanted to get of the beaten track a little, so a 4WD would be our hire car of choice. It just so happened that the resort had its own hire car service, and we knew we were coming back to the Shangri-La before flying out, so it seemed like a logical place to hire.

The Mazda Fighter, looking new and clean. It didn't last!

Our original though (although solely based on cost) was to hire a small 4WD. Just something that would get us safely motoring along, on a wet or muddy dirt track. We arranged our hire the night before we were to leave, and when our vehicle arrived in the morning, due to a shortage of smaller 4WD’s we were given a brand new Mazda Fighter. At first I thought it may have been a bit of a con to get some extra cash out of us, but the price was the same. My initial concern was where we would lock up our bags, when we weren’t with the vehicle, as they will not fit in the front. As it turned out, there was a fully lockable back compartment, so we took the keys and off we went. Making our way out of Kota Kinabalu, we headed north towards the Kinabalu National Park. It was here where we would spend our first night at the base of Mt Kinabalu.

Although not large on a Himalayan scale, this mountain is still quite a monster and stands over 4,000m to it’s highest point. The true summit is hard to make out, with its jagged saw tooth like appearance of many false summits.

The views from our lodge looking up to the summit at dusk were spectacular, although we had to wait for a bit of cloud to clear before we got a clear view. As the sun began to set, a full moon began to rise, and enabled to see the summit well after dusk. It was an impressive sight. I’m not sure of the altitude of our lodge, but it was quite cold at night, and we definitely needed our blankets, which was something we wern’t used to over the previous 5 days.

The next morning we set off early for our next destination, slowly winding our way down from altitude, and back to the heat at sea level. Although time was short, we wanted to make a quick visit to the region around the Kinabatangan River. This region is famous for it’s wildlife, although it was mid-day and the chances of seing anything were quite remote. It was only a short drive from the main highway to Sukau, and we still had a bit of time up out sleeves before, we needed to be in Sandakan. When we arrived at Sukau, it was quiet with no one around. I walked around the village asking about for someone to take us on a couple of hours cruise up the river, and down some tributaries. I managed to arrange a guide and for a reasonable price so we locked the car and made our way down to the jetty. We must have eaten something a little dodgy the night before, and Liza was busting to go to the toilet, and the only place to go was what I would describe as a floating loo perched upon some old logs. As the saying goes ‘when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go!’, so Liza didn’t have much choice, and in all reality it was far from the worse toilet we had seen over our many years of travel.

Pushing our way through the tributaries of the Kinabatangan river.

We made our way up river at quite a pace, before pushing our way through some thick vegetation and into some of the smaller tributaries. As we figured there was not much wildlife about, except for some birdlife and the odd monkey. Even without much in the way of wildlife sightings, it was still a nice way to spend the afternoon as our guide nodded that we were making our way back to Sukau. Durring the return, through a fairly dense patch of virgin jungle, it was my turn to go. My guts started to rumble, but I thought I could hang on until we got back to the floating loo. I waited a little longer, but there was no chance. I had to go, so I signalled our guide and told him to stop.

He pulled up along side the muddy river bank, and I got out. Liza through me a tube of mosquito repellant and some toilet paper. I pushed my way through the jungle, until I was out of sight.

The mosquito’s and bugs were buzzing everywhere, I got bitten a few times before plodding my way back through the mud, and back to the boat. The guide just smirked as I got back in the boat, and we made our way back to the village. After leaving Sukau, we made a brief stop at the Gomantong Caves. These caves are famous for the swiftlet nest’s, that are used to make birds nest soup. The birdsnest’s are collected from the cave roofs, by men who should be working in the ‘Circ du soleil’. They shimmy there way up and down bamboo poles and swing from place to place, to chisel the nests (the nest’s are edible because they are made from the bird’s saliva) from the cave roof. As you would expect the caves are very dark and have what can only be described as a perpetual odour. To get to the Simud Hitam (Black Cave) we had to do our own bit of fancy footwork. Climbing up several ladders in other small, but open caves to finally get a glimpse of Simud Hitam. The cave was also filmed as part of the BBC TV series ‘Planet Earth’.

It was the 23rd of December, and Christmas was almost upon us. We wanted to spend the next couple of days in a larger town, so Sandakan seemed a good choice. The town is a lively commercial hub, on Sabah’s east coast. We booked into the Hotel Sandakan, a slightly run down establishment, that was perched at a high point above the city. The hotel had a weird kind of feel to it, as it was surrounded by forest, even though we were only 5 minutes from town. Liza picked out a charming place from the guidebook, for us to have Christmas dinner, but on arrival we were informed that it was booked out. After a quick discussion, we arranged to have there dinner on Christmas eve instead. The name of the place was the ‘English Tea House & Restaurant’, basically right next door to the hotel. As it turns out Christmas eve was no where near as busy, so we booked the el primo position. A solitary table on the lawn under an old gazebo, with sweeping views of the city below us.

The endangered Proboscis monkey of Borneo

Before we would sit down to our Christmas Eve dinner, in what I would describe as the ‘Rock Star’ seats, we would spend the day at the Sepilok ‘Orang-Utan’ Rehabilitation Center and the Labuk Bay ‘Proboscis Monkey’ Sanctuary. Both of these primates are endangered species, and although they are still living in the wild at these sanctuary’s, they are habituated to human contact, and in most cases become dependant on humans for much of there food. Although I’d seen the Orang-Utan’s many years earlier in Sumatra, Liza had not yet seen them. Neither Liza or myself, had ever heard of the Proboscis Monkey before visiting Borneo, let alone that they are extremely endangered. Although it was great to view both of these primates, by far the biggest attraction was the pet otter, that lived at the sanctuary.

The otter took an extreme liking to Liza, and actually followed us to our car, climbed inside, and started rolling around, and jumping from seat to seat.

After the novelty wore off, and we had to leave, we coaxed him out and jumped in. Then one of the most funniest things I have ever witnessed happened. The otter began chasing our car (at a decent speed mind you) down through the Palm Oil plantation. I had to really put my foot down to loose him, or not run him over. We pray that he made his way home safely….

Leaving the otter behind us, we made our way back to the hotel, got changed and headed out for dinner. Our meal’s were delicious, and the service fantastic. After dinning, we spent the next hour or so, with myself downing a few vodka’s and Liza a couple of champagnes. We listened to Christmas carols as the sun began to set. The city lights began to illuminate below, bringing another day to an end.

It was strange to be in a predominantly Muslim country, but with Christmas Carols playing in restaurants and Christmas decorations, all over our hotel (not to mention a drink or two).

Not even sure what these critters were called, but they were mighty tasty.

The Malaysians are a very tolerant people and quite a friendly bunch, and we never encountered anything but great hospitality, everywhere we went. We never really had anything planned for Christmas day, so we decided to go for a drive around Sandikan, as it was another beautiful day. We cruised down to the western end of town, and called in to the Ocean King Seafood Restaurant for lunch. This very busy place is perched on stilts over the water, and serves fresh seafood daily. You know it’s fresh as you go to the tanks to pick out what you want, and in 10 minutes, it’s on your plate. After lunch it was back to the hotel for a swim and a bit of relaxation, as the following day we would be heading for Semporna.

Semporna was a tranquil non distinct town, but many westerners come here as a stepping stone to many of the great dive spots off shore, and there were a few dive operators in town. We booked into a cheap wooden hotel/guest house for the night. It was a strange sort of place, and like many homes throughout this part of the world, it was supported by stilts over the water. Doing some research that night we discovered what sounded like a very cool place to visit, although quite expensive at approximately $250 US per night. That place was the Borneo Rainforest Lodge, and it was situated on the edge of what is know as the Danum Valley Conservation Area. The Danum Valley is a small piece of untouched, pristine virgin rainforest in central Sabah. The area, is famous for its wildlife, and sightings of many rare animals including Sumatran rhino and pygmy elephants can sometimes be spotted. Like many regions of Borneo, the area’s surrounding the Dannum Valley have been, and are still being heavily logged.

Our drive into the Borneo Rainforest Lodge was a 70 odd kilometre journey on a good, but at times muddy dirt track. All guests to the lodge were actually shuttled in by private 4WD, an no one really drives there own vehicle. We decided to take a punt, and head on in to the area, making our way through various check point’s controlled by the logging companies. At times we would get stuck behind logging trucks that were transporting some serious pieces of timber, that would have been many hundred’s of years old. Liza was in shock.

After making our way through the logging area, and into the conservation area proper, the scenery began to change. We were now surrounded by rainforest on all sides, dodging and weaving our way through switchbacks and up and over hills. Dusk was almost upon us and we were racing the clock to get to the lodge before dark. There were no signpost’s, but we new we were close, as we are now over 60km from the turnoff on the main highway. Pushing further into the forest we proceeded around a bend a rampant pace, and low and behold, there we were 50m away from a small herd of the rare pygmy elephants. The elephants were using the road for easy access, rather than having to bash and crash there way through the jungle. It was quite a site and we were very fortunate to make this sighting. We later found out that many people come to the Borneo Rainforest Lodge in search of these rare creatures, and go home without even hearing them in the forest, and there we were in our 4WD nearly driving straight into them. There were seven elephants in total, and from what we could make out there were three adult females and four young ones. A young male repeatedly made false impressions that he was going to charge our car, with his trunk raised and his ear’s erect, but soon gave up when I revved the car quite load. Within a minute they were gone and it was now very dark, so we crawled our way into the lodge and booked our room, much to the surprise of the employees and guest alike (as stated before, people vary rarely make there own way here).

The Borneo Rainforest Lodge was a relaxing, and peaceful place to stay for a few days. The whole complex is an open air construction, and built from local timber. The location was perfect, with the restaurant area surrounded on three sides by and amphitheatre of lush forest.

After a fairly steep hike, I took this shot of the lodge below. It's location was amazing.

As you sat down to a meal, there would be rare birds flying overhead, making all sorts of weird and wonderful nosies, as well as monkeys swinging in the trees and a large variety of colorful butterfly’s everywhere you looked. Not trying to pigeon hole anyone but many of the guests boarding at the lodge were a bit stiff (botanist’s and like), and were generally much older (and considerably more wealthy as well). We found it hard to engange in conversation with may of the other guests. Part of the high cost of staying here allowed you to go on any number of guided forest walks and night drives, in search of animals and there was also a magnificent canopy walk through the tree tops built from suspension wires anchored from tree to tree, and in some places over 100 feet above the forrest floor below. We were not intending to visit a place like this, or to do any sort of bushwalking or hiking. We only packed sandals and some other basic shoes. Liza only had three quater length pants and no socks, and the other gusets were kitted out with full bush walking gear as well as leech garters. The sight on their faces as liza walked into the leech infested forrest with bare skin on her ankles was one of shock and horor, but the trusty old Bushmans Extreme insect reppalant with 70% deet, kept them at bay. On return to the lodge, some of the othere guests were dripping with blood, despite all of there best intentions and preparation.

The final leg of our journey in Sabah, was to head back to Kota Kinabalu, and whilst traveling, I have a golden rule that I try never to break. Where possible, try never to take the same road twice. This rule, as we found out would get us into no there trouble. We were looking at the map in the guide book, and trying to figure out how we would get back to Kota. The guide book showed a possible route heading back in the direction we needed to go, but between our position and the capital of Sabah, was several hundred kilometers of dirt tracks and jungle. We were confronted with the prospect of having to backtrak several hundred kilomters along the same route that we drove to get here and therefore breaking one of my golden rules of travel. Whilst walking back from breakfast I noticed that there was a map on the wall of the lodge indicating a thicker line, resembling a better road than what the guidebook presented. We asked various people from the lodge and recieved several differnt answers, ranging from, there is no road, to there is a road but it is extremely difficult to pass in the wet . We decided to take the later advice, and try our luck to see if we could get through. There had been a soaking of rain overnight, but nothing that would get Noah excited, so we packed up the car and started our journey into the unknown.

We made our way from the lodge and back to the main highway, before stopping at Tawau to fill up with fuel. It was shortly after Tawau that things began to get a little scary. The badly pot-holed, but sealed main road came to an end, and after clearing a security checkpoint we were confronted with a road that was basicaly compressed clay. The Mazda Fighter was  all over the shop, swinging from side to side due to a lack of traction of the back wheels. Although the vehicle was a 4WD, it was fitted with street tyres and they had no traction on the slippery clay base, as we had no weight over the back axle. Liza was pissing her self laughing, but all I could think was,

If this was what it was like 15 minutes from town, how bad is it gunna be out there, as I gazed into the jungle, towards the mountains ahead.

Getting through some sections of the road was hard going. This truck was not going anywhere soon!

After 10 or so minutes I began to get the hang of the way the car was handling, and we kept on pushing our way forward. Light drizzle was falling, and the time was now somewhere around 11.00am, and we had been driving for about 3 hours. At this pace, I had us in Matiku (the town where the dirt track became a sealed road again) in about 6-8 hours time. After another hour or so of hard driving, it was apparent that we we may have bitten off a bit more than we could chew. The mud was getting thicker and deeper, and we had to traverse what I would loosely describe as bridges. These bridges were constructed from several large and heavy log’s, covered in mud and spanning the river below (in some cases over 10 meters below!). It was at this stage that we began to realize the severity of our situation, but we were several hours into the journey and we had already bashed our way through numerous difficult obstacles to get this far. There was only one other vehicle on this road, that was foolish enough to try and get through in these conditions, and that was a large Ford Bronco V8. We passed several logging trucks along the way, and due to the conditions had called it a day (or maybe a week) and were sitting it out for some drier weather. If only we had time on our side, we may have done the same, but with our flight leaving in two days we pushed on.

After nearly 8 hours straight of hard driving through the mud, we made it to Matiku. The car was a complete mess, with every square inch encrusted in mud. The moment we hit the sealed road we pulled the car over and tried to clear some of the mud that was compressed into every nook and cranny of the under carriage. I managed to clear a little, but it was so tightly packed, that it was hard to clear. We got back inside and started to drive, a little further. At this point I noticed that the front end was vibrating quite badly. It was late afternoon and in an hour or so, it would be dark, so we pulled into a one of the road side car washes to get some professional help. These small businesses were dotted all over this part of Sabah, and offered a complete car detail for around $4. I manoeuvred the car onto the wodden ramp and the boys began to clean the car with high pressure hoses. We couldn’t believe the amount of mud that was dislodged from the bottom of the car.

Come to think of it, when I look back. There were times when we were so deep in mud, that I had to just ram the car through, and the mud was like cheese going through a grater.

After a very tough day's driving the car needed a good clean.

Night began to fall, and as we drove from town to town, there wasn’t much in the way of decent accommodation. As we were now on sealed roads, we decided to to head all the way back to Kota and spend the last two days there. All up, it was a 16hour day and after about 14hours I was so trashed, that Liza drove the last couple into town. We spent the last 48 hours relaxing in Kota, before hoping on a short flight to Brunei. Our short stay in Brunei would be at the luxurious Empire Hotel and Country Club, about 25km from town. Once again Liza had read about this place on the net, or in a guidebook and had pre-booked the stay. There is no doubt that this is one of the most amazing hotel complexes we had ever seen. The 80m atrium was the centre piece for the new years eve celebrations, and our 3 nights here were a dream, with great food and all round good service. I even got to sample the birds nest soup I mentioned earlier in this post. Although quite small on a world scale, downtown Brunei was an interesting place, with many impressive Mosque’s, as well as restaurants and shops. We even managed to catch a riverboat on dusk for what was only a short motor down river, but within 5 minutes it was like we were back in the Jungle. After Brunei we made our way back to Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days before heading home.

This trip was a bit of a mixed salad as far as travel goes. With accommodation ranging from 1 to 6 stars. With lazy days spent around the pool, to hell raising four wheel driving through some pretty treacherous roads, and everything in between. We would recommend Sabah to anyone that has seen there fair share of South East Asia’s main tourist spots, and are looking for something a little different. Who knows, we may even go back to Borneo one day to see what Sarawak has to offer.

If there is one thing that sticks in my mind from our time in Vanuatu , it was the food. You are absolutely spoilt for choice and although the town of Port Vila is quite small, with a population of just under 40,000, there were numerous options to eat and we did our best to try as many places as we could. We ate at a different restaurant every night, and also had lunch at a few restaurants as well. We ate everything from local seafood to a Sri Lankin curry, but there is one meal that stood out for me and that was an eye fillet steak. Now believe me when I say I was dubious when I overheard two people talking by the pool in the resort, conversing to each other about this restaurant and how good the steak was. I mentioned it to Liza and she seemed keen, so that night we took the ferry across the bay and made our way to the what I have now leart is the infamous ‘Flaming Bull Steakhouse’. Flaming Bulls, was a short walk from the ferry dock on the northern end of town. We had a little trouble trying to locate it, as it was dark and we were looking for a more upmarket establishment due to the rave reviews, but there it was sitting in a dimly lit corner opposite an empty car park. Liza tried the fillet minion and I went for the more stock standard eye fillet on mash.

Believe me when I tell you that this was one of the best steaks I have ever eaten (and I love my steak), top five or quite possibly the best. It was cooked to perfection and just melted in your mouth.

Waterfront fares at the Irikki Resort. We stayed in the garden fares just behind these.

It’s hard to believe that you could find beef so good, on such a small island in the south pacific. The cows are grazed in open coconut plantations and are farmed with Australian and New Zealand methods to create the quality meat that is served night after night at the restaurant. The government also run’s a small export company for their product but I am yet to see it on a menu in Australia.

After 4 days of lazing around the pool and eating some great food it was time to do a bit of exploring, so we hired a car a couple of days and took off around the island for the day to see what we could find. Whilst walking to the hire car depot I spotted a blue land cruiser that I recognised, it was from a swiss couple who are the king and queen of overland travel. Their names are Emil and Liliana Schmid, and they are in the Guinness Book of records for the longest driven journey. They have been traveling the world in their 1984 Land Cruiser since 1984 and have clocked up more than 600,000km driving through over 150 countries. I have been reading about this couple for years, and for the rest of my time in Vanuatu I was on the look out for them, but no luck. I would have loved to have caught up with this couple as there would be no end to the information they could provide on travel destinations around the world and the stories they would have would just be mind boggling.

We hired a small Suzuki 4WD from an informative lady at the hire car depot. She gave us a small map of the island and penciled in all the places to visit whilst touring Efate for the day. Efate is Vanuatu’s third largest island, with most of the country’s population living in the capital. Once you get out of Port Vila, life begins to slow down dramatically. There are very few store’s as the locals are mainly substance farmers living off the land. The coast line of the north side of the island is either dotted with rough coral outcrops or mangroves and there were a few small sandy beaches, although some of the best spots have been bought and they were now on private property, although you can swim at some places if you pay a small fee. We did manage to get the car down to one of the beaches a go for a bit of a drive close to the waters edge, dodging and weaving our way through the scrub. We stopped for lunch at the Beachcomber Resort (don’t let the name fool you, it was nothing more than a couple of fares and restaurant), and I took a swim in the  hot mineral pool right on the waters edge, whilst Liza laid out in the sun to work on her tan.

A sunset view of Villa bay from the resort. The large yacht sailed into port that afternoon.

After leaving Beachcomber, we started to make our way back to Port Vila and came across a very odd site indeed. It was like something from a cartoon, there was a massive rock that must have been over 30 feet high sitting directly in the middle of the road. We both looked in amazement trying to work out how it made it’s way to be there. A quick glance to the right made this apparent. You could see a trail of destruction from where this massive boulder had dislodged itself from the mountain side. As it made its way down it had crushed everything in its path, coming to a complete halt directly in the middle of the main road that circles the island. There were local workman with an old excavator and jack hammers, slowly breaking the rock it to smaller pieces so it could be taken away. It was quite a funny and bizarre moment, and I am now kicking myself that I didn’t get a photo of it.

When we booked the hire car, the lady that completed our paperwork was an expat Australian, who had been living in Vanuatu for a number of years. She told us that on our return we must visit ‘Tamanu on the Beach’, and try and make it for lunch. As we had already had lunch a an hour or so earlier, we decided to stop in for a drink. I am not quite sure how to describe Tamanu. I suppose its like a small beach resort, with 5 very well presented colonial style cottages on a secluded beach area, only 30 minutes drive from Port Vila. We parked the car and made our way to the bar, and ordered our drinks. The day’s driving had been long, even though the island was small, and relaxing in the afternoon sun, sipping on a Vodaka was a perfect way to finish it. After downing our drinks, we checked the menu and thought that it would be a perfect spot to come back to in the evening for dinner, as we still had the car until morning. We booked our table and did return later that night for a delightful seafood dinner, with great service as well. If you find yourself in Vanuatu for any length of time, I would highly recommend dinning here, and although we never stayed overnight, I am sure it would be a great place to stay as well.

Villa bay and it's surrounding area's were quite beautiful.

Our last couple of days in Vanuatu were fairly uneventful. Liza, wandered around town for a spot of shopping while i made my way down to the local port to try and get some interesting photo’s. I always find that in the port area’s they are always full of hustle and bustle and you can get some great photo’s anytime of the day as people go about loading ships and cargo vessels.

There was also a bit of drama in town whilst we were there. The local prison was burnt to the ground during a riot and all 63 maximum security inmates were on the loose.

I think most of them were caught by that afternoon, but a few were still on the run a couple of days later. Liza and I discussed the possibilities of a conspiracy theory, as there was what we believe to be an unmarked Australian Military ship in the harbour. The ship had been anchored in the harbour all week, with plain clothed people going to and from all day in small run about boats. Maybe they had something to do with it?

Although this trip was more of a holiday than an epic travel adventure, it is great to get away even if its just for a week like this trip. Vanuatu has so much more to offer than Efate and we only scratched the service but our time here was very enjoyable and the local people were very friendly. If and when we ever return I think we would like to make our way to some of the outer island provinces of the country. Whilst we were there we tried to book a flight to the island of Tanna, to visit it’s famous volcano on Mt Yasur. The flights were booked solid due to the holiday season, so we had to save this one for another day. Oh yeah, did I mention how great the food was……….

After what was a very quite New Year’s eve, we decided to make our way over to the Isle of Pines , a short 2 hour journey via a small ferry service that runs a few times a week from Noumea. As Liza had done a bit of research before we left, she found out that tourist infrastructure in New Caledonia would be fairly minimal, and bringing a tent along would be a good idea. We didn’t book any accommodation (not that there is much on the island anyway) and thought that we would just stay at one of the many camp sites around Kuto (where the ferry docked).

Our tent pitched in some kind lady's backyard.

This was our first mistake for this trip, as we arrived on what was one of the most busiest weekends of the year. After docking, we got a lift from the port by one of the many camp site taxi’s to his particular camp site. He said there was room at the site, but when we pulled up we were turned around due to not having a booking. It seems that all the camp site’s on the island were booked out and the next drama we would face was that there are basically no restaurant’s on the island as everyone eats in there campsite or gite in a group with all meals pre-ordered that afternoon. Well, after walking several kilometers pulling our luggage along the roadside (no backpacks, on this trip) trying every place marked in our guide book and many others that were sign posted along the way, we managed to find a lady that would take us in and we could pitch a tent in her backyard. It was quite amusing where we had out tent. Under a large tree for shade, but surrounded by an old wrecked car and various spares and bit and pieces. At least we had a roof over our head….

The ‘Isle des Pins’ was a very scenic place and extremely photogenic. The pure white sand beaches, turquoise blue lagoons and of course the pine tree’s made the island that of picture postcard stuff. After a couple of nights at the ‘Hotel des Junkyard’, we made our way back to Noumea to begin our circumnavigation of the main island (Grande Terre) with our hire car that we booked before we left on the ferry two days previous. Without a shadow of a doubt, 80% of all vehicles on New Caledonia are of the hatchback variety,and we picked up a little Honda hatchback that would be our companion for the next two weeks. Once again Liza took the honors of driving, whilst I navigated. The plan was to be mostly self sufficient, so we had the option of just staying where we felt. We crawled the city centre of Noumea for supplies, and bought some camp beds, and esky (a cooler to those not from Australia), an assortment of food and our trusty 2 person dome tent that we bought with us from home.

Liza relaxing, taking in the view of the lagoon from our campsite at Poe beach.

The toughest thing about driving in any foreign country is getting your way out of the major cities, and with Noumea’s population a mere 100,000 this should have been easy, but thanks to the many one way streets we ended up backtracking a few times before we could begin our journey north. Before we left home Liza picked up a road map of the country that would prove to be of great value to us and $20 well spent as it was better than any other map available in the country (or what we could find anyway). After a bit of research, the plan was to head quickly up the west coast with a couple of nights spent at the Poe Beach campsite and then make our way to the northern tip of the island. Poe was a nice introduction to camping in New Caledonia, with its large camp ground and couch grass camp sites the couple of nights we spent here were great and with out tent pitched right on the edge of the sand and the lagoon only meters ways (New Caledonia’s lagoon is World Heritage listed and the largest in the world). The trip up the west coast was in many ways bizarre, as parts of the north west of the island looked exactly like Australia, and was in no way what I pictured New Caledonia to be like. The vegetation was similar and the red earth made you feel like you were in outback Australia. The road map that Liza purchased was huge and had every little village named on it, so it gave us a false sense of scale as we are generally used to looking at maps of much larger countries of even whole continents. We arrived at the northern most tip by late afternoon and took in the view of what is know as ‘Boat Pass’, a small channel of water between the northern most point of New Caledonia and some small islands just a few kilometres of shore. After leaving Boat Pass we began to make our way south along some small dirt tracks where we arrived at our next campsite in the village of ‘Poingam’.

Poingam was another beautiful spot and we spent another couple of days here relaxing. It was kind of nice not having anything to do but prepare you meal’s each day (well not to much preparation as we basically lived on Baguette’s for lunch and dinner everyday) and being in bed some nights by 7.30pm as it was pitch black. As well as looking forward to our nightly vodka, lime and soda, I also looked forward to our hot tea and coffee in the morning. Liza, had another great idea of buying a cheap electric kettle instead of buying a gas cooker, and as it turned out there was only one campsite that had no power available to use. After Poingam we headed south, down the east coast. The contrast between the east and west coast’s in terms of scenery is massive.

The west coast is dry and arid, and the east coast is wet and lush with the two area’s no more than 80km apart and a small mountain range separating them.

The Ouaieme river ferry, runs 24hrs a day. The last remaining ferry of its kind in New Caledonia.

As written in many guide books and tourist brochures, the journey south was very scenic. One special memory was the crossing of the Ouaieme river by ferry (well ferry is being generous as it is more or less a barge with a small outboard motor). The ferryman stops at either side of the river and swaps the propeller blades from one end to the other and then he makes its way back across, 24hrs a day. Grande Terre was dotted with these ferry’s at almost every river many years ago, but the Ouaieme ferry is the last remaining as the river mouths are all now spanned by bridges. After the river crossing we came to the small picturesque town of Hienghene, a touristy spot for foreigners and locals alike. It is this region of the Grande Terre that the Kanak culture is most prominent. The Kanak’s are quite a friendly lot and at times it was getting difficult for Liza to concentrate on the road whilst waving at every single person along the way. The Hienghene area is a must see if you make it to New Caledonia. The steep rock formations, dotted along the coastline and a lush mountain backdrop make this area an essential visit for a couple of days. We found another campsite on the beach, this time the site was run by a local scuba diving operator. We set up camp for the night, and before dusk we headed for a walk along the beach, wading our way through small streams and also took some shortcuts through the forest to eventually make our way to the Linderalique rock formation, one of New Caledonia’s most famous landmarks (it features on their 500 Franc bank note and locally it is know as the ‘Billet 500′ rock).

On our journey south from Hienghene, we decided that we would try and head for the beach campsites at Canala or Thio. On the map they appear to be a long drive, but once again, due to the scale of the map we were actually only half a days drive away. There was one part of this drive that was extremely interesting and that was the navigating of the ‘One Way Road’ that stretches a mere 13km from Canala to Thio. This small gravel route winds it way up and over a small mountain pass, and it is only permitted to drive one way on this stretch of road due to its danger (especially in the wet).

One way roads are are not unusual, but the rules of this road had a slight twist to them.

Whilst waiting for the 'One Way Road' to open from our direction, we made some new friends.

The road is one way heading south from Canala, between the even hours of 6am to 6pm leaving on the odd hours heading north between 5am to 5pm from the Thio side (oh yeah, and all other hours of the night the road takes traffic from both directions and is basically enter at own risk) leaving on the even hours. You have approximately 40 minutes to make the crossing as it is forbidden to make the crossing after 20 past the hour. Liza manoeuvred her way along the switchbacks and we stopped a couple of times along the way to take a some photo’s. As we made our way through the most dangerous section, we made comment to each other that it would be quite treacherous to make this journey in the wet (we were lucky, as it rained quite heavy for the next few days) especially in a small hatchback car that was not designed to be treated in this way.

Thio was smaller than we imagined and we made our way to our next campsite for the night. The town was a sleepy hollow with not allot going on. We picked up some supplies and headed to the Gite Ouroune only a few kilometres out of town. We made camp for the night in a small spot all by our selves. Dusk was almost upon us and we once again pitched our tent on the lovely couch grass. There was absolutely no one at this campsite except for us and three dogs. We actually had to go to the house of the caretaker who looks after the site to make sure it was OK to camp for the night. We made dinner (baguette’s again) and I went for a short walk along the beach before the sun set. After Thio we were trying to work out what to do next, we had the car for another few days and had already spent nearly a week in Noumea. Although we thoroughly enjoyed Noumea, we wanted to just relax a little more rather than go back into town for another 5 days.

We decided to head to the far south of the Island to spend a couple more days before heading back to Noumea to fly home. The far south was an atractive place, but not what you would expect on a tropical island in the Southern Pacific. The area again reminded us of the Australian outback, with its dark red earth. The earth is red due to its mineral composition of iron and nickel, and the area had some very large mines that must provide a massive source of income for the local government (or maybe it all goes back to France?). This region of Grand Terre is sparsely populated and has many national parks and reserves. If you have alot of time here, there are many inland and costal bush-walks that you can undertake, but we just wanted to relax a little further so we made our way to Gite St Gabriel to camp for the last couple of days before heading back to Noumea. This Gite was the best we had stayed at for the whole trip and we had saved the best for last. The site was surrounded by a small sandy bay and once again the campsite was nestled in between the coconut palms. Although the weather had turned a little and we were getting patches of rain through out the day, it was still a great place to spend the last few days before having to go home.

A view of the 'Le Roof' restaurant. One of many great places to eat whilst in Noumea.

Once we got back to Noumea, we had enough of roughing it, and needed some 5 star comfort, so Lyz got us a great deal at the Meridian Hotel for the last 2 nights before heading home. For those wanting something a little different than your typical package holiday to a south pacific destination, then New Caledonia is a place that has enough attractions to fill in a two to three week vacation, and with a bit of effort you can easily see the whole of Grande Terre in a two week period. After the trip it was apparent to us that if you want to see the whole of New Caledonia then you are going to need a tent, or at least you will need to pre-plan your accommodation in Gite’s well in advance as there are not many of these available through out the country. We thoroughly enjoyed our time here, and would like to come back again to explore what the Loyalty Islands have to offer.