Princess and Toolmans adventures

Back in Aotearoa

2009-03-16T04:54:00.001-07:00

So maybe some of you are wondering what we have been up to?

Well the full blog posts of our recent exploits are on their way, but in the mean time heres the executive summary.

We had Xmas with Sue in Amsterdam, then flew to Geneva for New Years. We traveled with her through Switzerland, taking the glacier express through the Alps covered in foot deep snow. Continued through to Innsbruck in Austria and said goobye to Sue - she traveled onward to Thailand to trek into the hills!

We continued through to Salzburg, and then south to Venice in Italy. Wow - crazy city! From there we headed south to Florence and saw saw the statue of David, amongst the vast amount of art there. Next, down to Rome to see the sites, including the Vatican City, Colluseum etc.

Then we flew to London and saw a few mates. Stayed with Chambers, thanks! Finally a few days in Brighton with Toolmans' Grandma, then on to heathrow and homeward. We flew home via Osaka, Japan - an 8 hour layover so we looked around the city.

Landed in Auckland, and stayed with Princess' Dad for what ended up being around a month. The first few weeks were busy, as the family was planning and then celebrating a wedding! After lots of hard work, the wedding came together magically and Chris (Princess' Dad) and Gillie (Stepmum :P ) had an excellent day. Congrats, guys!

During that time, we went down to Otaki to pick up our stuff stored at Toolmans Mums'. Princess drove the car back, while Toolman drove a truck up, loaded with the big stuff.

We have just found our own (rental) place and have moved in. Now, after some trademe deals, we have pretty much got a fully furnished and operational flat. We have also got a sweet new car...

Princess has started her Vet study, and we have got a Chinchilla cage, so next on the list is: "Aquire Chinchilla".

Now that the house is organised and wired up, Toolman is preparing for employment. We are planning to come down to Wellington next month, so looking forward to seeing all the freinds and family that we haven't seen for a while..

So there you have it guys: back to NZ, and on to the next step.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

2008-12-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! Its out last night here in Amsterdam, where did the year go?

Princess' Mum, Sue, arrived just before Xmas. We met her at the airport.

Princess has been looking forward to seeing her Mum for ages!

Unfortunately, we had to say good bye to Heikki the Hampster the next day. :( We found a perfect foster family - Thanks Marco, Maxim and Lois - but we both miss him still.

Our last week involved Xmas with Princess' Mum Sue, and then lots of organizing of finances, travel plans and exit strategies.

We have spent the day cleaning the flat and getting rid off excess cruft. We have packed up our life into backpacks, and leave first thing tomorrow morning for Geneva in Switzerland.

Where ever you are and whatever you are doing for New Years , have one for us! We will be back in New Zealand late January after our travels backpacking through Switzerland, Austria and Italy.

Can't wait to see you all soon;

Toolman and Princess

Toolmans Mum arrives!

2008-10-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

Toolmans' Mum has arrived and is staying with us for a couple of weeks. We are luckily able to use our neighbors apartment for Mum to stay in, so we have lots of space.

Mum was awesome enough to bring us snacks! Yes, thats a suitcase full of Shapes, Pineapple Lumps and Burger Rings! Thanks Mum!

We have planned to go and visit Hungary together, so stay tuned for our adventure stories.

Heikki

2008-09-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Look at how cute he is.

Meep!

Kermis

2008-09-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

We were invited up to Schagen for the Kermis festival by our Dutchy friends, Marloes and Robert.

We don't know what Kermis is about, but drinking was involved, so we had to go. Before the event, we met Marloes' brother, Erik, and had some drinks at his house. He has a new kitten to play with ...

After the warmup drinks, we headed around to the pub. Unfortunately, we were quite drunk already, and Toolman doesn't remember much of the actual event. This picture explains the general idea:

Kermis is some kind of local village celebration (Spring harvest?). As with most Dutch celebrations, the drinks flowed.

Toolman and Erik toast to Kermis!

Its just beer if you are wondering...

A great night, we think !?!

Shangles

2008-08-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

Last week at the market, Toolman grabbed a great deal on a pack of Sharpies; 1 Euro for a whole pack of them!

However on closer inspection, they are actually Shangle(tm) brand!

Doesn't matter, they still work well and still work on the loo calendar. Compare with the original - similar, no?

Red Bull Air Race in Rotterdam

2008-07-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

Wesaw an advertisement saying that the Red Bull Air Race was going to be held in Rotterdam. With lots of exciting plane action set to take place we decided to go and check it out!. The race is held out over the water, with spectators along the waters edge.

The weather was a bit grey, but it was still o.k for flying. We caught a tram down to the waterfront from the main train station, then walked to the ticket booth to get some tickets.

The marina is pretty, and there were lots of nice boats.

Red Bull were sponsoring the event (hence the name - Red Bull Air Race), so the PR machine was out in force. Above is a H1 hummer, the original ridiculous size one.

Red Bull Minis are a bit better, though as expected Toolman suggests they should have got the Sport model.

The ticket sales were at one end of the track, and the entrance in the middle. We had to walk back and forth to get into our 'premium' area. Hrmph!

The show goes out live, and the crew have some neat booms in the area we hung out in.

Some nice crowdshots

We grabbed a drink and took a spot where we could see the jumbo TV...

and also the water.

We were close to the chicane in the middle of the course, so the planes came past doing some tricky maneuvers.

The pilots are released into the timing beams with the command "Smoke ON!", and the pilot turns his smoke trail on.

That plane is flying sideways, and it's not in trouble, thats the smoke trail!

Did you notice the helicopter in the left? its got a gyro camera and does some cool chase-camera shots.

At both ends of the course, the pilots do a loop, and barrel roll to go up and down the course twice.

Red Bull plane, no doubt.

They sound great as they speed past.

The half time show included skydivers. The jumbo TV followed them down, and they started their own smoke trail in Orange, presumably because its the Dutch national color.

They need to be careful, as they were all landing on a small section of docks...

but with some precision and control ...

They made it! The jumbo TV also gave some great real time pilotcams, with G force meters and speedos.

This guy on the jumbo TV isn't pulling many G, but during the loops they were pulling up to 11G !

Rotterdams' bridge at the top end of the course was an interesting design.

A plane is hiding somewhere in this picture.

After it was over, we went for a little look around the waterfront area.

Midget golf, guess Toolman can't play?

Rotterdam has a tower (which is almost as cool as the skytower ;) )

And a few other interesting buildings.

All in all it was a great day!

a quickr pickr pos

Czech Republic: Praha / Prague

2008-07-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

We planned to meet up with Toolman's oldest friend Brook and his parter Kate while they were travelling through Europe several months ago. We decided on Prague (or Praha) so flew there one Friday night to meet them.

We booked some nice apartment-style accommodation close to the centre of town, and organised to meet there.

The apartment had a nice, spacious kitchen area.

And this is the bedroom. Jazz hands!

The room had an odd painting. Toolman thinks it might have beeen ninja-eyes!

Ba..Ba..Ba..Ba..Ba..Ba..Ba.. Bird.bird.bird! - Bluebirds the word! The whole bathroom was penguin-themed.

We met Brook and Kate the next morning - they were staying across the hall as planned.

We headed into town to look around; but the first order of business is always breakfast! Coffees and bagettes while we make our plan for the day.

Like many European cites, Praha has a comprehensive tram network. And everything is made of stone.

The Burnside boys!

This government garden had a wall that looks like a huge stack of candles all melting down, a special rock/concrete creation.

The building was beautiful also.

The subway stations all had neat geometric patterns.

This subway was particularly hypnotic.

We looked around the city and walked over the famous Charles Bridge, which is covered with artists peddling their wares.

This is a beautiful building - Opera house

Toolman and Brook being silly-goats.

Praha has many puppet and doll shops, indeed there are also many puppet shows for tourists to go see.

We headed up to the castle area. The area is full of shops selling all sorts of traditional trinkets.

Some areas of the castle were being excavated for archaeological reasons.

The view of the district is pretty.

After an afternoon looking around the castle and city, we headed back to base, then headed out to a local pub.

This genuine Praha pub was doggy friendly. We got some drinks ...

and made friends with the locals.

Us? Silly? Never!

The next day, we said goodbye to Brook and Kate; they had to move on to keep to their travel schedule.

We took a train and headed out of the city centre, chatting with some single serving friends we made along the way. One guy was a translator for the EU, who was notable because he correctly guessed our nationality from our accent! He has seen FoTC, which might have helped his Kiwi ducshon.

Arriving in town called Kutna Hora, we first to see the Church of Bones (Kostnice).

True to its name, it is a church and graveyard that is decorated with the bones of thousands of people.

Where did all the bones come from? From this source:

In the 14th century, the Black Death spread the bubonic plague across Europe and now 30,000 bodies all wanted a resting place within the sacred grounds. Such vast numbers of dead led to the creation of the ossuary in 1511 by a half-blind monk who gathered up the bones to be stacked up within the ossuary, making space for new corpses, which were soon taken up by more victims from 15th century Hussite Wars.

The ossuary was small, but completely filled with bones. The decoration in front is a bit creepy, but the pile in the back is just amazing!

It seems a weird juxtaposition, doesn't it?

The bones are everywhere.

The chandelier - tough to clean.

After seeing the ossuary we headed into the actual town in order to see the other sights.

Nice day huh!

All the shops were closed. Some of the shops were ... odd.

Notice the gold bits!

This is a row of gilded statues lining a boulevard.

This is the road leading to St. Barbara Church.

Interesting design.

After visiting the church it was time to hop back on the train and head back to Prague.

Prague is a pretty city with lots to see. It is easy to see why it is such a popular tourist destination.

Holland v France

2008-07-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Holland got into the quarter finals in the European Cup. The footall (or voetbal as it is known in Holland) is incredibly popular, and everyone goes CRAZY watching the games. One of the matches was on a Friday night, so our Dutch friends came around to have some pre-drinks, then we headed to the nearest pub to watch the game.

Below is Tim proudly displaying the Nederlands flags he bravely let Robert paint onto his face. Everybody gets very patriotic, and does things like paint flags on their faces, or dress up in orange (the national colour). As you can see behind him, Marloes and Madeline were getting into the spirit too by wearing orange (and having a slightly drunken dance and sing).

Check out the hats that Marloes and Bern are wearing - awesome.

After a few drinks at home we ventured into town.

Town was insane! There were people everywhere! We managed to find a pub, and headed in to watch the game.

Here is a close up of Tim's flags.... nice facials Tim!

We managed to bump into some Kiwis who were in Amsterdam on holiday.

The best news of the night was that Holland won the match! Hup Holland hup! (go Holland go).

Unfortunately that was their last win though, as they were knocked out of the competition during the next game.

Heikki

2008-06-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Its been really hot recently, so he has been leaning against the porcelain to keep cool...

Isn't Heikki cute!

Amsterdam Zoo

2008-06-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

We decided to visit Artis Zoo, the zoo here in Amsterdam. Artis Zoo is the oldest zoo in The Netherlands. It was founded in 1838. It is a really beautiful place with lots of majestic old buildings and over 700 species of animal living there!

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, so we decided to ride our bikes there. From our house it was about a 15 minute ride.

We relaxed with our pal, Buddha.

As usual, we saw the big kitties. Who wants Go Cat?

Some odd squirrel kinda thing. Probably neurotic.

This is a pretty bird. Striking eye color, huh?

And this guy is also beautiful. He looks like Hedwig from the Harry Potter books!

We saw little monkeys...

and big ones too.

Not sure what he is(Maybe a lima?), but he's cute.

This is his cousin...

suntanning. Very funny.

We were also able to visit the planetarium which is on site at the zoo. It was a really interesting experience, despite all the commentary being in Dutch!

After a good few hours exploring the sights at the zoo we hopped on our bikes and cycled home.

Luxembourg

2008-06-11T14:58:00.001-07:00

A while ago we were go given a 10-trip train pass with the last trip unused (Thanks S and G !), and so we decided to visit Luxembourg for a weekend. We got on the train at Amsterdam Centraal Station and traveled the first leg of the trip to Brussels.

We didn't have much time to look around Brussels, just enough to grab a quick meal and then continue on. We arrived in Luxembourg after midnight and slowly navigated our way to the hotel, which ended up not being very far away if you walk the right way. On our hotel hunt we met some Canadian lads on holiday from their training course based in Amsterdam.

After finding our hotel, so we settled into our room and crashed. The next morning we out into the ventured over the amazing bridges that span the valley; a valley that divides the city in 2 in an amazing snaking shape.

From the valley floor, you can see spires poking out from the foliage.

The walls are formidable obstacles for invaders and eager rock climbers.

From the top you have a beautiful vista.

Below is a close up of the stairs which take you to the top of the valley. Walking up them certainly gets the blood pumping!

The scenery in Luxembourg is truly stunning. The valley is beautiful, and the city is filled with lots of lovely old buildings.

we did an (uneventful) bus tour around the city, then checked out some caves:

They were built into the side of the valley walls, and had numerous uses over the years. After this we decided to call it quits for the day. Luxembourg is a tiny place and we wanted to save some sites to for the following day!

We settled on the only sensible plan: buy a2.5 liter cocktail and a Mexican meal :) .

Cheers!

After we finished, we wandered down the beautiful old streets to the valley...

and we went for a wander through the park.

Toolman tried to climb the valley walls. As you can see you can't climb them very easily! Toolman know knows why the Germans didn't get this city.

The next day we went for a train ride...

We quickly realised that all languages worked except English. This didn't affect the group of German tourist we were riding with, but it did put a damper on our tour. Toolman tried 6 different headphone panels, and all languages worked except the one dead track - English :| We tried complaining at the end, but they simply brushed us off - crappy!

The train took us down through the valley floor again.

We also toured the neighbourhood located on the valley floor.

The countryside around Luxembourg city is also meant to be really beautiful, but as this was just a weekend trip we didn't have time to visit anything outside the city. Before we knew it it was Sunday afternoon and time to catch our train back to Amsterdam.

Mandles

2008-06-11T14:57:00.001-07:00

Princess' good friend, Mandles, came and visited us a couple of months ago. She has recently moved over to the UK from NZ, so it's nice and easy for her to come over to Amsterdam for a visit.

She was awesome enough to bring us snacks from Sanza. Pineapple Lumps! Burger Rings! Mmmm... It was fantastic! These are some of the things we miss the most about NZ (other than family and friends of course).

We went for a bike ride all around Amsterdam which was fun. There are lots of places around which rent out bikes to tourists, so it was easy to find one for Mandles. We took a cruise around Vondel Park, and also headed into Amsterdam Centraal.

Mandles and Princess went to Amsterdam Dungeons to get a dose of spooky. It was actually really scary! The actors all play their spooky parts really well, and look very convincing with their makeup and costumes.

At the end of the tour around the Dungeon there is a roller coaster ride. Guess who the scared one is?

They also visited the Wax Museum and Anne Frank's house. Anne's house was especially interesting, especially seeing as they had both read her diary at school many moons ago.

It was a great weekend, and we hope to catch up with Mandles again soon! :)

Larena and Tommy

2008-06-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

Several months ago we were lucky enough to have Tommy and Larena come and stay with us. They had been living in the UK, so Amsterdam was just a hop, skip and a jump away.

It was great to be able to show them the sights which Amsterdam has to offer. Of course this includes the famous red-light district.

Say hi! Toolman took this pretty photo pointing along a canal.

No close ups of the windows sorry, this is a family blog. While wandering around, we saw a prostitute open her door and go completely nuts at a random lady tourist who took a photo - apparently that is not OK.

Smile everyone!

That weekend we also were invited to a Kiwi party. It was hosted by a Kiwi we met living over here.

The sign on the front door was great, and the party was too.

This party had the kiwi touch all over!

Someone made an excellent Tiki cake (pie?)

In the middle is our host, Rosita. We had a good feed and socialised with peepole whu undastund kuiwii. There were at least 20 Kiwis there and it was great to be able to speak in carefree, slurred, colloquial English and still be understood.

When the party finished up we headed to Vondelpark to finish the last of our drinks - another great night. Tommy may have been a little worse for wear though..... :)

Next afternoon Tommy and Toolman devised a plan: let the girls go shopping while the lads went and bought an RC helicopter. Tommy has one, and Toolman had always wanted one.

There it is up close, not easy to fly, but Toolman is getting better. Thankfully you can buy spare parts for them...

We had a really nice time with Larena and Tommy. Thanks for visiting guys!

Our jobs!

2008-05-01T01:20:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't already know: Princess now also has a job! This means we now are both employed.

Oh yeah, look at them contracts.

Toolman has 5 colors of business card, and a nice laptop!

For those who don't already know, I work at JTeam, making Java web applications. You can read me rant professionally on my professional blog. (Warning: high geek-quotient).

Princess is working at Trompenaars Hampden-Turner, a consulting firm that deals with intercultural relations in businesses all around the world. Princess has been learning lots of new and exciting things in her role. She spends her days assisting the office manager, the accounting department, and also reception if need be.

Yay for earning Euro's! It makes seeing Europe so much more affordable then it would be on the New Zealand dollar.

Queens Day

2008-04-30T05:06:00.001-07:00

On Queens day, all of Holland gets a day off. Its also a huge party day; the whole of Amsterdam goes crazy.

Toolman considered what clothes he had to wear in the national color, but the (togs, togs, togs) undies were not flattering - this trick worked better on superman.

Vondelpark hosts myriad enterprising youngsters selling goods ad services. Some were just garage sales of old toys, and some were more carnival in their approach.

Knock the tins down to win...something.

Smash the tomato as it rolls past. There was an even better one we didn't get a picture of: $1 to throw some eggs at a kid. He had a well defined area and he could try to dodge them.

Everywhere was simply PACKED with people.

This is a quiet area. Some places were ridiculous - we couldn't get out our camera for lack of space!

Even the canals were full of people partying.

Eventually, we visited Kiwisauce, our favourite (and only) Kiwi shop; they sell pies!

Princess is happy now she has a pie. What a crazy day.

Paris

2008-04-30T05:05:00.000-07:00

We planned to meet up with our Kiwi friends, Sherryll and Geoff for a weekend in Paris, so we hopped on a train. It took 4 hours to reach Paris, and it was a lovely journey. European trains are very comfortable - even second class! We passed lots of quaint looking French towns on our way

4 hours of scenery, iPods and chats, we arrived in Paris. Met up with Sherryll and Geoff, and headed to the subway to find our hotel.

Toolman immediately noticed the rubber wheels on the subway - Why are they on there?

It took all weekend for us to come up with a good reason. I'll tell you later, but anyone got guesses?

The subway in Paris also hosts some disturbing adverts...

and some disturbed people. This guy in the green wig was trying to earn a busker wage by singing loud and crazy for 20 second then passing his hat around... not very entertaining sorry - just crazy.

The city has rental bikes that have lots of drop of depots like this around the city.

It seems to be used by the locals, a new way of thinking about public transport maybe?

Princess' other alias heralds from Paris surely - we saw many things with this name!

Is this on monopoly, Paris edition?

mmm...

Aren't they all spelt wrong, though :P ?

Paris is full of incredible buildings. This one is known as the Opéra Garnier, sometimes also known as the Paris Opera. This building, completed in 1875, was designed by Garnier. It was the inspiration behind the famous musical, The Phantom of the Opera.

We walked around the streets and bridges that criscross the river Seine. Check out the ornate decoration on the bridge.

Heres us relaxing out at the fountain in Place de la Concorde . This is also where the FIA headquarters are:

Naughty Max Mosley!

Geoff and Toolman admired the carpark goodies. Thats a Ferrari, if you are wondering.

We then headed towards the Eiffel Tower. This was our first real glimpse at it from anywhere near it - wow its big!

The view from the second level was scary. And thats only 1/2 way up.

In the lift to the top, you realise how small the top cross section is. It feels quite sparse looking at the framework.

And here is the difference in view - wow! It is quite a sight.

We spent lots of time looking around. They had distances and directions to countries (something like the signpost @ cape Reianga) and the direction to NZ seemed completely wrong - due north from Paris!

The light was fading as we descended, and the towers lights came on, giving a whole different look to the structure.

Isn't that cool?

Thats even better! They turned on the sparkle lights now and then, and it shimmers like a discoball xmas tree.

For breakfast, what else: coffee, oranje juice, jam and baguettes - mmm.

We took a hop-on, hop-off bus tour (yes, it is exactly what it sounds like).

One of our first stops had a ride that the ladies just had to go on.

Very mature.

The ladies spun around on the ornately decorated horses.

Then up the stairs to this beautiful church. The view over Paris from here was amazing.

We visited a Salvador Dali museum, exhibiting lots of well known works. This is a good example of a common motif in Dali, the melting clock. If you look carefully, It also has a face shape, doesn't it?

Some of his stuff is truly bizarre.

and some is more technical - look closely at the reflective cylinder in the middle of this one.

from a different angle.

This pooch puts the great in Great Dane.

We had a lunch in a closet sized restaraunt. They used mirrors everywhere to give the illusion of space.

Toolman found the only way to get a group photo - creative!

Back to the bus! We cruised on to the next leg of the hop-on, hop-off. We took in a lap at the Arc de Triumph, which wasn't as insane as we'd been told. Sure its a 5 lane roundabout, but thats nothing on China, and most of South East Asia. Maybe we are desensitized after all that?

The clouds pained an everchanging sky. Look at these clouds!

We also stopped near Notre Dame, and went and had a look.

The stained glass work is awesome.

The stonework on the outside is beautiful.

And the gardens outside are great too!

We visited at a good time of year, the blossoms ...

are also amazing!

In the garden behind Notre Dame, Toolman met his (Italian) doppelganger - spooky!

Isn't it pretty at night?

We took a boat ride - was a bit cheesy in parts, but nice overall.

Cruising the river Seine showed off the beautiful lights around the riverbank.

That is an (accidentally) awesome picture.

As is this one - it looks better when you look in detail - the focus is on the stone in the foreground. This would make an excellent desktop background.

This store has 2 words we never imagined would go together. Maybe the French are more girl-y at rugby?

Our stop outside the Moulin Rouge - didn't have the time or inclination to go inside.

This is the back of the Louvre.

And this is walking into the square. This glass pyramid is constructed with no central pillar, instead it has steel ropes in a lattice to keep each face true and solid. The Lourve is actually both underneath and all around this courtyard - there is art in the floor above our heads.

Another shot of the pyramid entrance.

Thas central cylinder actualyl recesses into the floor, and is an elevator for wheelchairs etc. Very cool!

The Louvre is an amazing building.

Not only is there tons of genuine artwork there, the whole building is decorated in amazing detail.

Is that sculpture doing the fingers?

This was a particularly striking (modern) work in the Louvre. Disturbing, but strangely alluring.

We came across a sign in a park that wasn't very obvious. What does the sign that you see as you leave mean?

An adult holding a childs' hand with a big red slash thru it: any guesses? Beware of paedophiles? No holding your childs' hand as you exit the park? WTF?

We visited the Pantheon, an amazing building.

It is huge, and the interior is beautiful.

They have a huge pendulum that swings back and forth, and can tell the time. How is that? The earth rotates underneath it, but it appears from our (rotating) view like the pendulum swings in a different direction as time passes.

We took a tour up to the roof. The stairs were old; we saw graffiti in these corridors spanning over100 years!

The view from up top inside.

Closeup of the outside of the dome.

Admiring the view.

Group photo. Only a few more things to mention.

The parking is done by touch here - this is not an extreme example.

They do sell the Royal with cheese! Toolman got bounced from McDonalds for taking this picture.

And lastly, Toolman thinks the subway has rubber tyres so that it can get traction to go up (underground) inclines - something that is hard on metal wheels.

Easter Chocolates...

2008-04-30T05:04:00.001-07:00

... but where? Belgium is famous for its chocolate, so we decided to head to Antwerp for a day-trip and look around. We got up early and said goodbye to Heikki.

With his food bowl loaded, we left him and headed out to the trams. Cue obligatory self-portraits.

The public transport in Europe is excellent, though expensive.

The train ride is about 2 hours, and is very comfortable. Travelling by train is a nice way to see the countryside.

Antwerp Centraal has 3 levels of trains all coming and going, as well as a beautiful interior endings on the glass dome over the whole place.

We headed out the main door, past the huge inflatable monster that was in the square (plein). It had techno music and kids screaming inside.

We headed to the zoo and spent the morning looking around.

Guess what the first bird we find is? Kiaora to the little brown Kiwi. As Kiwis are nocturnal we didn't actually get to see him in the flesh, but it was nice to know that he was there.

Nieuw-Zeelander! Love the interpretation of what a New Zealander looks like - wearing a check shirt and chewing on a piece of straw!

So what are we named after? Lots of Dutch think we are named after the Chinese gooseberry - I don't think so!

The gardens in the Zoo are beautiful. The top spire is where Princess will read her books, once we move in...

This bamboo water feature is a bit like the Cuba mall bucket fountain, with each bamboo tube filling with water, then tipping out. The bucket fountain is waay cooler, sorry!

Ca-caaaw!!?

Kiaora to another Nieuw Zeelander. This guy was cheeky!

This animal is a Dutch native (we think), and its odd looking. We shouldn't speculate on how they came about, but ...

... they do have these animals ...

... and these. Say no more!

We said hello to the chimps.

This little monkey was cute.

Hrmph!

This owl was snapped mid-ruffle; a very grand (any maybe wise) owl.

The penguin enclosure had a map with a neutered map of NZ - where has northland gone?

We wandered around and saw all the animals, then headed in to the city to visit our next attraction.

This is the outside of Rubens Huis.

The internal courtyard.

A statue. Stat-you bro?

Toolman looking cool.

The garden has been there since Rubens lived here.

A beautiful building. No photos allowed inside sorry.

After that we went looking for some chocolate. There are lots of shops! Unfortunately it was also very busy, so it was hard to get a good feeling for all the variety on offer. The visual treat was excellent!

So much nice food!

We spent ages looking at all the shops, and ended up just getting pre-packed sets with lots of flavors.

We walked around the streets and looked at the architecture. It is very similar to what we have seen of Holland, and the countries share languages (and beers). Still very pretty! We saw this guy jamming on the street with a novel technique for wheeling his piano about.

We went to a diamond museum (again, no photos) and learned about Amsterdam and Antwerps' rivalry for top diamond town honors, and all the techniques used in production. Antwerp has lots of diamond shops.

As the sun was setting it was time to hop our (warm) train back to Amsterdam Centraal. We get back to Amsterdam, and its SNOWING! OMG!

Toolman got to cycle home in a snow shower a week before, but this was the first time we both saw snow in the city! Very pretty.. and cold.

It didn't settle much, but some places were collecting piles.

It was even snowing the next day, when we inspected our chocolate heist.

Before.

After.

Pussenboots

2008-03-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

We heard about a cat sanctuary that was on a canal boat, so we decided to go and have a look. We wrapped up warm and headed out.

On our way we popped into the NZ shop: Kiwisauce. These guys sell mainly specialty gourmet sauces and NZ wines.

I think they also do Kiwi catering, and we are guessing that the NZ embassy would be their number 1 customer. They also have some Kiwi classics. Mmmm Vegemite!

But the best thing they have is: proper pies! Vege pies, mince, steak and cheese, all covered in yummy pasty. We bought some frozen pies to heat up at home, and a birthday present for our friend Marloes the Dutchie.

After stocking up on NZ supplies (no pineapple lumps though) we headed for the Pussenboots float. The kitties who live aboard have a pretty lavish pad! The whole boat has been designed just for them, and there are places to sleep, play and eat. They are taken care of by a group of dedicated volunteers.

when we arrived it was feeding time, so all the kitties were eating.

There were lots of nice kitties, but we liked this guy lots. His name is Kiss and he was very happy to receive some love. He was also pretty happy as he had a very comfy bed set up by a heater. Mmmmm..

Some of the other kitties are more scare-dy..

The kitties were all cute, but look at this cutie we met in a pet shop down the street! He has a very grumpy face, but is actually very friendly! We make the occasional visit to the pet shop to visit him.

Meow!

Paasve

2008-03-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

We were invited to Schagen for the Paasve festival. This is a very localised celebration, a time whne the farmers auction off cows and show off their farm-wares. Its a sort of mini AnP show, but is also used as an excuse for drunken madness for the whole reigon.

Any excuse to drink! I took a day off work, as it was on a Wednesday during the day. We needed to collect our finalised Residents Permits (yes, we are 100% legal now, not temporary residents), so I used this as a 1/2 excuse.

I saw this sign on the way and had to take a picture.

If you don't find this funny you are mature. I'm not...

So we took a train north to Schagen. That is a hrd word to say - the ch and the g are both said like a loogie hoick. Something like sckkkkhaaaa-kkkkhen. It's very phlegm-y.

This is Robert, one of the Dutch we have talked about. He met us at the train station (not terribly sober) on the back of his brothers bike, and they guided us to a bread shop where his mate works.

We got given lots fo free food, including these baguettes. I joking suggested Robert should take them to the pub and try to swap them for drinks.

This is an awesome pose of Princess and Robert. The guy over Roberts shoulder is his brother - thats why they look alike!

Hmm, whats that coming out of his jacket?

The whole town was seething with drunken youth, and all the pubs had the drunken >18s ! It was truly messy, but very funny. It reminded me of Courtney Place after a rugby match.

We met up with Marloes (the other member of the Dutch) and her crew of friends. They had been drinking separately, and so we all kind of met in the afternoon, and most of us were drunk. By most I mean everyone but us :(

But no problem, we know how to fix that - Wheres the pub?

Before we headed in I took this photo. Schagen has a beautiful church in the center square. If this photo zoomed out you would see the youth pissing on the side of it... messy.

This is what it looked like when we left the pub. But I have skipped ahead - we headed in to this pub.

It was very packed and you couldn't move, everyone was pushing you around. At least everone was relaxed about the fact, you just had to put up with it. The weather meant that no one wanted to be outside, hence the pubs were MAD! We headed on in and claimed a spot.

It turns out that Robert accidentally found a way to get the ladies attention. It turns out that drunk chicks love a guy with baguettes stuffed in his jacket. It was hard work for him to keep them away, and even I got my jacket searched, in case I had any more snacks! Robert was very professional and didn't let the attention get the better of him.

We drank iced white wine (thats how it was served) and listened to Dutch pop music. Some was good, some was bad but it was cool to socialise with lots of Dutch people. All of Marloes friends also speak excellent English, and we all had a fun time. Eventually we stumbled out (took a picture of the spire) and headed to the takeaway shops.

This shop shows how ridiculously busy it was. we walked further away and still had to battle queues. Some chips and cheese toasties lined our bellies and we then said goodbye and headed to the train.

and introducing...

2008-03-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

Our new hamster:

Both of us love animals and were really keen to get a pet. As we are only here for a short time getting a cat or a dog wouldn't be a wise decision. So we decided on a hamster. They are cute and small, and easy to take care of.
We did some research on pet shops in Amsterdam, and found one near our house that sounded good. So, one Saturday morning a week and a half ago we set off to the chosen pet shop to buy our hamster!

At the pet shop the guy spoke broken English, but was happy to show us the hamsters. We initially thought we would get 2 so they would have company, but the owner said they'd fight and may even kill each other! We then settled on a little grey and white dwarf hamster. Princess chose him because he was alert and cute; Toolman liked his grey racing stripe! We got a cage, with all the other bits and pieces and jumped on a tram headed for home.

Our new pet is in the box on top of the cage. He definitely didn't seem to like been stuck in the little carry box. All the way home he was furiously scratching the bottom of it trying to make an escape!
We finally got home and started to prepare the hamster's new house. Inside the cage is a wheel, food bowl, drink bottle, hamster kennel and a mezzanine floor with a ramp that goes up to it. We've covered the floor of the cage in a thick layer of special wood chips, as hamsters love to burrow.

You'll have noticed we haven't introduced him - we've have been teasing you since the title.

Princess chose the name Heikki (pronounced high-key) when Toolman was talking about Formula 1 racedrivers (see Heikki
Kovalainen). Heikki the hamster has a nice ring to it! He is very cute, but hard to photograph as he doesn't like to stay still for long! We are trying to make him tame at the moment by taking him out of his cage every night and letting him run around getting used to us. He's definitely getting more confident, he's quite happy to crawl around on us and isn't too hard to get out of his cage.

You can see his grey back with race stripe. He even has McLaren colors like his namesake. Hamsters have such cute stocky little bodies, and they only have a tiny little fluffy tail.

This is his little doghouse box. We bought special hamster fluff for inside it so he can keep nice and snug throughout the colder months.

If you look on the right corner of the laptop you can see him. We also got him a exercise ball as shown. He rolls around but our floor is very uneven and he has to work hard to go uphill. The ball is heavier than Heikki so he really has to work to run about, and sometimes he can't slow it down and gets tumbled about. He seems to enjoy his time in the ball though, and is always happy to hop inside it. Hamsters have a lot of pent up energy, so the hamster ball is the perfect way to use some of that up.

He is getting spoilt a fair bit! We have bought him special sand that he has in a dish in his cage so he can play in it. He absolutely loves it and spends lots of time rolling around in it! We also try and keep him entertained but putting cardboard tubes and things into his cage for him to explore. We are also trying lots of different types of food out on him. He is quite fond of bread and also raisins.

He is nocturnal, so doesn't tend to make much of an appearance until night time. Princess woke him up yesterday morning to show her family via Skype and he was most upset, squeaking and carrying on!

We will post more pictures of him as we take them :)

Toolmans tech endevours:

2008-03-12T01:50:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned, I am now working at JTeam. For my first few weeks I have been cycling around and working in other business offices. I dug up an old Dell laptop from the depths of the server room. It weighs a ton, but is quite powerful. This is my mobile office

When I am in the office, this is where I sit.

Since this photo, I now use the Dell laptop and this screen for a dual screen setup. The DPI difference is huge (the Dell has a very high res screen), so moving something from one screen to the other causes the size to scale up about 50%!

This is a sneaky photo of my workmates Tim and Martijn. Work provides a free lunch for everyone. It is well catered, with lots of breads, cheeses, spreads and other delicatessen items, as well as lots of nice drinks... Mmmm!

I love Pindakaas! Thats peanut butter for you non-Netherlands-types.

The view out the window is average, but we are moving soon, and the new place is very nice. I found a second of these old Dell laptops at work, and have taken it home so that we have a laptop each.

Now that I have my own computer, our Acer laptop has been Princess-ified ..

f

PINK!!

I have succumbed to temptation and bought a pair of C64 DTV joysticks. This is a complete Commodore C64 implemented in a single silicon chip and embedded into the joystick. It has a 2Mb flash rom that holds the 30 games included.

The developers were nice enough to provide ALL pintouts for peripherals: keyboard (ps2), second joystick port, original 1541 disk drive serial lines, S Video and the true C64 ROM basic. I bought 2 so that I can hack one of them. I'm not yet sure what the hack will be yet...

For now I'm just honing my California Games skills. These are cool, but I need to change some of the games on it.

On an unrelated note, the big supermarket chain here (Albert Heijn) are giving away Smurfs. Look at the left most smurf :

LOLSmurf!

Marksy

2008-03-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and I got up early to prepare for our pal Marksy to come stay. I found a single mattress stuffed in one of the communal closets. I pulled it out, and headed off to the train station.

Took a tram to Centraal and hung around to meet up. Eventually found him and took him back home. We dropped his gears off at the Van Eeghenstraat pad and then us 2 lads went for a look around town.

This is the Iguana park. "Hello Colin !?!". These brass statues look very real, especially on a grey day - I've done double-takes on the ma few times. We walked around the shops and then headed back to the pad to prepare for some drinks and food out.

We met up with the Dutch and went to a classic Dutch pub (whose name I dont know). We all tried the local favourite, Amster beer, talked some, sank a few more, talshkd, drinkded, tshalked then ...

then headed down to the cheap Italian pizza! We said goodbye to the Dutch after dinner and had a wander around the red light district. Yes, its actually pretty un-seedy. There are red lit windows and pretty girls in undies. You can wander around and window shop (so to speak). Not really our scene, but novel to wander around and observe.

Sunday we decided to try a few local foods, including some not-very-nice ones. His face says it all...

We all went for a Sunday walk thru the Vondelpark and saw all manner of doggies on their outings. Lots of great doggy-spotting in the park. I read a news article noting that the council here allow sex in Vondelpark; but dogs must be kept on a leash. Make of it what you will.

Mark felt a little ill that afternoon, so we let him rest and have a shower (ask him how he felt). We all had a lazy afternoon watching crap TV - you know, that reality TV that keeps on repeating the same clips over and over. Its like being in a infinite loop sometimes!

For the whole week, I had to go to work :( . Marksy and Princess spent the week together, looking around and taking pictures. You can read his blog post here (http://www.mechanicalmarksy.com/?p=500) and see his neat-o pictures. Some of them are quite pretty!

There is lots of junk food options here, so we sampled lots of new things. One nice treat we found was these "Fatty-Boom-Batty" cakes that are awesome. I don't know their names, but MMmmMmmmmm! We ended up drinking and nerding most nights. Lucky we had 3 laptops!

One night we went for a walk through town past this building I spotted cycling by a few weeks ago. Its all blue-lit and it looks like its hollow. We spent the 4 euro to get into the Sex Museum, and looked at all the weird and wonderful variety in sexual expression thought the ages. Plus its fun to point and giggle..

I know Mark found it amusing.

So yes, lots of computing - its much better then conversation and all that kind of thing. Why talk when we can just instant message? Or skype?

Another geek glamor shot.

This is a nice pic of Marksy checking the street below. Unfortunately he might be smoking a cigarette - thats naughty! I hear that he has given up now - hope so.

I usually take one cigarette out of his pack, out it down my pants and wiggle around a bit. Then I slip it back into the pack and give it a shake. Instant dis-incentive. I think that deep down he appreciates it even if he does get grumpy on the outside. Marksy took some nice pictures around town; check this one out:

...and in the window...

Yes, its as bad as you think it would be. But seriously, some of his pictures are very pretty.

Amsterdam has a style best summed up by my cousin, Scott:

lol, gingerbread houses!

We planned on hiring a bike for Marksy, but while we were looking for a rental shop we stumbeld across some people racing up and down the canal in bathtubs! it looked like a charity event, and looked cold!

I never found any information on why they were doing it, but I'm sure it was something very scouting-like. We got Marksy a bike and took a bike ride around a few local parks in Amsterdam: Vondelpark and Rembrantspark.

We pulled some skids and chirped a wheelie here and there. My bike survived a few bunny-hops and a jump over a ramp. I wasn't confident, but the bike has proven very solid so far.

There is a video that I'll be putting up on youTube soon with us doing some ace skids. Stay tuned. Was awesome fun to have Marksy stay - we had all manner of shennanagins!

Toolman: Life setup in Amsterdam

2008-02-17T13:33:00.000-08:00

Well hello loyal readers, this is Toolman speaking in the first person. I can't be bothered writing in 3rd person, so this is from me only. We have been seting up our life here in Amsterdam, and I have some good news. But first:

Princess has been enjoying being able to cook again, and so we have enjoyed a few meals made just how we like it. This is Princess making some spinach puffs for dinner.

And how about our wireless keyboard - do you know this brand? I did a google search for "virroscit" got 0 results.

I got us a set of Logitech 230x 2.1 speakers, and they actually sound very nice considering their size etc. The sub (below) is pretty good.

So no more crappy laptop sound, we can hear stuff in full fidelity!

So my good news is that I have got a job at JTeam. From their website:

JTeam is always looking for motivated Java developers. The more experience you have the better, but far more important is your willingness to learn! At JTeam you will be continuously working on state of the art projects, ranging from advanced web applications to complex enterprise applications including difficult integration aspects. You'll take part in a growing development team of experts, including internationally known Java & Open Source gurus. You'll receive a thorough grounding in sound development processes plus all the tips and tricks of developing high quality code.
We strongly believe in personal growth. We allow and encourage you to explore a wide variety of topics that are not necessarily related to your current project, write blogs and articles, contribute to open source projects, speak at conferences about your favorite topics, etc. And to make things even more attractive; several times a year we all visit the leading Java conferences in Europe, SpringOne and JavaPolis. There we present and learn about the next hot things, meet our friends and have a good time together.

So I am very much looking forward to that. We both got our tax numbers, and I have applied for a bank account, so I have nearly everything I need for living here.

Including a bike! I got given a bike that needed some love. Its crappy enough to (hopefully) not get stolen, and good enough to not kill me on the roads. One of the guys at my new job had this one cluttering up his hallway. I spent $10 on spare parts and $50 on a padlock.

I also got some tools and proceeded to tidy up the bike - it now has front brakes, LED lights front and back, and no dangly broken bits.

Our house isnt very full, but at least I have some tools! Its nice to be set up - the first month here has been pretty low key, and we haven't seen much of Amsterdam as we have been saving money. Now that I am employed we can start seeing Europe!

Our house in Amsterdam

2008-02-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

Amsterdam is a beautiful city which is steeped in history. Every building seems to be ornately decorated, therefore making it very interesting to look at! The museums in particular are really impressive buildings. They are so grand and impressive looking that they draw you inside for a better look. The museum pictured below is the Rijksmuseum which is not terribly far from our house. Princess is very excited about the prospect of so many exciting museums to explore. You can purchase a museum card which allows you to visit the various museums around Amsterdam as many times as you like. We will definitely be getting those.

As we have mentioned before, there are lots of bikes here. Today we saw someone who took security seriously:

Look at the thick cable used here! and how ridiculously long the cable is.

The lock is the weakest link in that case! It pays to be incredibly security conscious when it comes to your bike as apparently theft of bikes in Amsterdam is really common. This is why people tend to buy crappy looking bikes instead of incredibly flash ones. The more nondescript the better your chances are of it not getting stolen!

This is our street, with the usual litter of bicycles. The houses here were apparently built on sand, and over time the ground has sunk, leaving some of them (including ours) on a bit of a lean. We are up on the right there, see it? Our entrance looks just like all the others, and walking into the house we have three staircases, all dangerous and steep!

Yes, those banisters are vertical for most of it, and the stairs are about 5cm wide unless you swing out wide. It's quite scary carrying stuff up and down them as there is not a lot of room for error! Such stairs seem to be the norm in The Netherlands. Other Dutch houses we've visited have them too.

We have a locked door on the 3rd floor, and share a building with about 4 other flats. There is a lady in our building who comes from Whangarei in New Zealand! Chur.

Now we'll show you around our little house. As you walk in, on your right is the kitchen. It's a good size, with lots of bench space. As the house came fully furnished we didn't have to worry about buying pots and pans etc - they were already provided.

The kitchen is slightly risen up from the rest of the room. From here you can look out over the action in the rest of the room and also out the window.

The dining table/office is in front of the kitchen, along with the lounge, in an open plan room. We've got a nice black leather sofa which is real comfy and a couple of other chairs.

This is where the getting a job business has been operating the last week. Both of us have been scouring the 'net for jobs. On the left side of the flat is both the bathroom and the bedroom.

As you can see, the obligitory NZ Tui calendar is hung up. We have a bath and a nicely finished bathroom. Odd considering the rest of the house is so tatty.
Princess is really enjoying having a bath again, especially in this freezing cold weather!

The bathroom also has these glass tiles which look directly into the bedroom. They're a nice way to get some natural light into the bathroom, seeing as it doesn't have a window, but you can see straight through them! So, if you are coming to stay with us be warned - your nakedness might be revealed to whoever is in the bedroom at the time...

The bathroom glass tiles are to the left of this picture. Our bed gets real sunlight, and passes it into the bathroom too. The bedroom is really small, but as you can see there are some drawers for clothing, and there are also some shelves for toiletries etc. There is a reading light for Princess which is very useful!

This is the bedroom door, with the lovely large window we have in addition to a skylight in the roof over the dining table. Because of these the house is always light and airy.

The window looks over our street, very nice view. The houses look like they are made out of gingerbread don't they? The street we are living on is reasonably upmarket, so Tim is always drooling over the flash cars that are parked along the road.

And, like every building in Amsterdam, we have a hook to lift stuff in the top window. Its a good thing, because moving anything heavier then our backpacks up those stairs would be hard and dangerous. The house has lots of quirks, as it is not square in lots of respects.

Look a the top of that door! our floor has a definite lean to it, and they seem to have just cut everything to fit when the house sank or something!

Weird! The floor is also on a lean, and Toolman has demonstrated to Princess how a ball can roll from one corner of the room to another on its own.

Toolman did a video tour and posted it on youtube. it is embedded below, so you could watch it if you have broadband by clicking below:

Both of us are really enjoying being in a house again. It's so nice to be able to unpack our things, and to be able to prepare and cook our own food. After months of not particularly clean rooms it's nice to be able to keep things clean the way we like it. We're not sure how long we will stay in this apartment, but it's a good start for now.

End

Real time post: Second week in Amsterdam

2008-02-01T04:32:00.000-08:00

After our xmas and NY with Mark, we took a flight from Heathrow to Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. We navigated our way to the hotel, after missing our tram stop and having to switch to one heading the other way!

We quickly checked in to our hotel, the Hotel Bellington and Toolman rushed back out to meet up with Jono and met a few of his Amsterdam based friends. Jono was here on his way back from the UK to NZ. We walked around the city, then Toolman headed to the Nomad, a lounge bar that serves huge 3 course finger food dishes, while Princess caught up on some much needed sleep.

It was good to meet some people who were knowledgeable about Amsterdam and talk about all the choices we had coming up. Where to live? Where is this? How does public transport work here? Bicycles? Lots of boring but useful questions! We did have a good night though, and some of Jonos friends are Kiwi - always nice to hear our accent!

We were in dire need to be contact-able and so we got new SIM cards for our mobiles. Unfortunately we had no NZ plug adapter, so Toolman rigged up a quick way to charge his phone until permanent arrangements could be made:

Yes this is not recommended practice, but we needed to be connected - we are contact-able! We are both now available via mobile numbers:

Toolman: +31 6 1934 1481
Princess: +31 6 1934 1479

We noticed that the numbers differ only at the end, '81 and '79, which are our birth-years. Unfortunately, we got them the wrong way around and Toolman already gave his number out as '81. Toolman takes safety seriously, so the exposed prongs were covered with a sock to make them less exposed.

The room we are in is small, but does have its own small bathroom, cable TV, and a kettle and fridge. Until we get a residents permit, we can't do anything like: work, rent a house, get a bank account, get a tax number, so we are stuck living in this room. The laptop has been invaluable.

Our hotel includes both wifi internet and a free breakfast, making it perfect for us to get the paperwork rolling and become residents, get tax numbers, find jobs and find accommodation. As CVs are going to be needed, Toolman got a wireless mouse and keyboard. Much easier to work on!

This is a particularly nice picture of us goofing around, we miss you all!

It turns out that the street our hotel is on is the most posh, famous and expensive street (PC Hooftstraat) in Amsterdam! Luckily the (2 star) hotel was not very expensive (or luxurious) but was perfect for us. Below is the view along from our window.

This road has some very expensive shops, and there have been lots of nice cars parked along the road at times. Toolman has been oogling plenty!

This is a nice black Ferrari.

And this is the new Audi R8. Toolman got a photo of one of these in a showroom in Shanghai, but this is on the street. He also saw a matching pair of black Maseratis (but no pics sorry) - was awesome! Plenty of money down this street.

In contrast, most of Amsterdam is very much public transport and push bikes. Traffic density in the city is very low, and there are lots of other forms of transport in use. Like these things:

Toolman is certain that they use lawn mower engines. They are 2 seater, but are so narrow they are allowed in the scooter lanes. They are not very fast, but the old people seem to love them, as we've seen lots of them buzzing about! If you look closely in the street picture above, you'll see another one.

(not our picture)

This city has an amazing amount of bikes. They litter the streets everywhere. The local junkies have a black trade in stolen bikes, so most people have very crappy bikes, in an attempt to minimise the likelihood of theft. And most people spend more on their lock then their bike!

There are some cool bikes though, like these bad boys.

Lots of lucky kids get front row seats to cycling around the city. No one here wears helmets, which is alien to us Kiwis who have been indoctrinated by the govt. enforcement of helmets. Our Dutch friend, Marloes, says that only German tourists wear helmets, and everyone laughs at them. So what do you think everyone? Safety nerd or peer pressured conformity?

We spent a night with our Dutch friends, Marloes and Robert. They cooked us a multitude of yummy Dutch foods and treats, washed down with all sorts of drinks. We ranted and raved about our travels, the drama of having to get jobs again, and discussed famous people from NZ and or the Netherlands. Robert recently told us that Lurch from the Addams Family movie was Dutch.

The tail end of the night got a little blurry, but the food and the company was excellent. Thanks guys! Dutch food is very tasty, and there are so many gourmet items that we have found in the supermarkets.

This city has a huge selection of foreign food in the restaraunts, but the number one local snack seems to be frites'. Luckily we like these too! There are shops on most corners selling them, especially around the pubs and suchlike. And yes, they do put mayonnaise on their hot chips unless you ask for tomato.

It took 2 days to find out that the immigration process had changed since we left NZ, and we no longer needed to register at the Aliens Section of the Police. We went to the Naturalisation department and talked to a lady at the information desk. She gave us forms that suited our situation - 1 year cultural exchange working holiday programme for NZ under 30s - and explained that we needed to make an appointment via the 0.20€ per minute phone number. Urg!

On top of this, the earliest appointment was over a week away! We had to take it, and wait out over a week with very little we could organise. We started looking for accommodation, knowing that the the process takes a long time. It turns out that there is not huge numbers of options, and the agencies are very slack, considering they charge one months rent for their show you the house service.

One of the few agencies that did show us a few places did have one place that was perfect. We asked the agent to go and find out how soon we could take it, and what paperwork the landlord needed. We ended up holding off other choices and nagging him for 2 weeks about the place. By our second week here we had cash and a resident permit, but couldn't seem to get the agent to get the paperwork happen. The rent for the agency offered place was €1100 per month, so you'd think the agent want that commission.

We went in and got our provisional resident permits, which all went smoothly. That afternoon, with all the correct paperwork, we went to the tax department to register for tax numbers. Not so easy! Again, we had to call a pay-number and book - we are now scheduled to visit on Feburary 11. This means that we can't work or get a bank account till after then.

We did look at lots of other places, and eventually we found somewhere that suited us. Our new flat is rented directly from the landlord, so there was no commission, and he was happy to let us move in straight away. So, as of January 25, we are now residing at:

Van Eeghenstraat 52
Amsterdam 1071 GJ
The Netherlands

Our flat is very central; it backs on to Vondelpark which is apparently great in summer. Our neighbor has generously offered her wifi for use, and so we are also online. We can't sign up for internet without a bank account, and can't get bank accounts till we have tax numbers.

So as of this evening, we are both settling in to our new flat, and pouring over the internet websites for job opportunities. Toolman has had a few interviews already.

In the next post we'll get some photos and show you all around, but for now you can look at the pictures the landlord has at his website:

http://www.kyboma.co.uk/souswww/3epics.htm

Stay tuned to our now-current blog!

London with Mark

2008-01-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

After a platform full of hugs from Nana and Keith, we boarded the train into London, Vauxhall Station. We were to meet Mark at 6pm, the waiting was very cold. the whole London area has been hovering around 0 degrees for days. Mark arrived and we all had some quick hello shenanigans, before dropping our bags at his flat and heading out to a comedy night: "Four Kiwis walk in to a bar ...".

We were a little late and managed to get guided to the last table available, right at the front, while the MC had a few laughs at our expense. We were within licking distance of the MCs shoes!

MC: Why are you late?
T: Ur, I'm from New Zealand and got lost !?
MC: Haven't you got an A to Z yet !?!
...
(Should just keep our mouths shut and smile...)

We caught up with Cat, one of Toolmans' mates from Wellington at the first intermission. She had told us about the night on facebook. Was a crowd of about 80% Kiwis, and the rest were Aussies, South Africans and only a few locals. There was a lot of Ponamu and Paua jewelery in the room.

(start of part 2)
MC: Hey!? where did the 4th person come from on that small table... Did you meet her at the bar ?!?!
T:
...
(Don't give them any bait... )

Was really great to be around so many Kiwi voices again. Great to see you, Cat! Toolman's friend and first flatmate ever (Ben Hurley) was on stage and on form, as well as lots of other talented Kiwi comedians. Very funny! Like Cinderella, we had to leave at 11.45pm as the tubes stop at midnight. Would have like to have mingled a bit longer, but we were super tired by now anyway.

We met up with Toolman's mate Jono in Camden Town and looked around the markets. Jono was looking for possible wedding presents, and we were just looking - the conversion rate is killer on NZ$ !

We lunched down at the cheap markets food hall, then went for a look through Hamleys, a huge toy store in London. As it was just before xmas, the place was busy. Its really cool how there are lots of demonstrations of the toys so you can try before you buy. We also looked around the huge Mac store and fondled all the new electronics... mmmm. We had a coffee under St. Pauls Cathedral, and planned to meet up again in Amsterdam. Jono has a few kiwi friends living there, always great to know some residents :)

So yes, this leg of the trip is all about seeing friends who are living in London. We met up with one of Toolman's old workmates, Dan and his wife, Nikki. He is now working in London building web applications, so geek conversations were inevitable. Had a nice lunch in Covent Garden, which has no actual gardens, all you antipodeans! After lunch we nipped around the corner to the SANZA shop (South African NZ Aus) which has all our favorite snacks ...

Except one! Luckily we got sent some Pineapple Lumps from back home - thanks! After loading up on Perky Nanas and Squiggles, we ended up by going down Tottenham Court road looking for a video-Skype capable laptop (for the xmas Skype calls...)

Awful photo but its the only one of all of us! We looked in lots of shops and most shops laptops were pretty similar in price/performance. After much deliberating, Toolman finally chose one an Acer 3680 laptop. It is a factory refurbished new(esque) laptop with Windows Vista, 1G ram 1.6MHz Celeron and a one year warranty, and it cost about £350 incl VAT. Very cheap really! Princess will inherit it once Toolman buys a nice new iMac 24" (When he has a job).

Toolman also got in contact with his cousin* Cristy and organised to meet up for a meal. She chose an awesome restaraunt: Eat and two Veg
on Marylebone (like the Monopoly street!). We met at the tube station and Cristy brought her friend JJ along too. The all vege menu was excellent, as were our faux-cheeseburgers! After an afternoons chatting over our meals, we had walk in the park in the quickly fading sunlight. We ending up needing to jump a fence to get out!

* We talked about the technical relationship and its tricky: Toolmans step fathers' cousin is what relation to Toolman? Step-second-cousin? Meh, close enough.

We stayed up very late the next day (xmas eve) talking to family and friends on Skype, and eventually the clock rolled over to midnight. That meant that technically it was xmas, and we were late by NZ standards who are 12 hours ahead. Therefore, most Kiwis were well on their way to xmas lunches and drinks! We ripped open goodies that had been posted by our families and friends - thank you all!

There is lots more photos of us presenting our pressies if you click on a photo, you will go to the photos website (As always). So many goodies!

Mark surveying his many treats.

Toolmans awesome xmas tee shirt. Merry xmas and thanks everyone!

We planned a massive xmas lunch ourselves, but Sainsburys closes at 6pm xmas eve and we were a little late in the actual preparation. Thankfully the convenience store had Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes! We got up xmas lunchtime and prepared a feast of roast potatoes, Yorkshire puds, veges, and some chicken for Princess and Mark.

Yummy! The afternoon flowed with more eating, wine and duty free vodka, shenanigans and ...

... and some emailing. Princess looks tougher, somehow, in this picture?

We also met up with Katie, our old flatmate and previous caretaker for Boswell (who has since retired to Napier to live with Princess' Mum, Sue)... twice. The first time Mark and us met Katie and we all went through the Tait modern gallery. The Art was nothing to talk about, but the view from the cafe was pretty!

The second time just us 2 met Katie for a meal out in Putney Town. A nice Italian meal. She has just started a new job at Network Rail. Hope its going good! We talked about how cute Boswell is, and about Katies' secret business plan. All we can say is: you customers out there, get ready!

Some pizza, some pasta and a bottle of wine later, we all walked back to the train station in the cold. Back to our warm beds. Staying with Mark was so convenient, we managed to catch up with so many people!

We also met up with Emma and her partner Ray at Covent Gardens, and had a nice lunch. Emma is one of Princesses' Uni friends. As we are all Kiwis we decided to (re)visit the SANZA shop - Chambers bought some Marmite, Perky Nanas and Burger Rings, and we stocked up on Squiggles. We then went to bar called the Walkabout (yes Aussie bar) and had a Snake Bite for the first time. A Snake Bite is is raspberry cordial and beer mixed together, not too bad, but we don't drink much beer anyway.

We both wanted to go to Abbey Road to look at the Beatles old studio, and check out the famed zebra crossing. Emma and Gabrielle, friends of Princess from Auckland, were keen to come along.

So we met up with them! Inside the shop behind was all manner of Beatles memos: Cups, postcards, pens, books, caps ... you can imagine... Toolman grabbed a coffee from the shop and we headed around to Abbey Road.

The first thing about that crossing is that every other tourist wants the same photo as we did - there were lots of tourists waiting. The second thing is that there is lots of traffic on Abbey Road wanting to get past. They must get frustrated with endless groups of 4 posing in the middle of the road. Oh, and its the middle of winter so, unlike the album cover, theres no leaves on these trees.

We quickly abandoned hope of the picture, and instead settled for a quick snoop about outside the studio. This was what we saw on the wall outside:

This is the post outside Abbey Road Studios graffiti and all. Not sure how often it is repainted, but I think that it gets pretty heavily graffitied, so probably quite often.

This is the studio. We didn't see anybody famous coming in or out, and didn't feel stalker enough to hang around for anyone. Who would be recording there nowadays anyway? We ended up looking around London and having lunch ...

... near Shaftesbury Memorial in Piccadilly Circus, in a backstreet pub. This self portrait is typical of the artists style. Its great how London has high street shops and back streets with all the pubs and cafes etc. We chatted over a quality pub meal and a bottle of wine.

We went with Mark to the Science and Technology museum to look at all the interesting stuff. This below is one of the first generation Apple computers in its wooden box. Look how happy Mark is - he doesn't know that it can't run OSX!

There was collections of all sorts of technology: from white ware to computers, cars to space rockets. One of Toolmans favorite exhibits was ...

... this - A very famous mk1 Mini demo car. It comes from the 1959 car show, the year the Mini was first released. There were 4 floors of interesting exhibitions.

That night we went out to a farewell party for one of Princess' friends, Trudy, who has been living in the UK for the last couple of years. Trudy and her boyfriend are now heading to live in Australia. It was good to catch up with her, as well as a couple of other friends from Wellington: Alesha and Jess. We had a few drinks and a nice catch up on a bar in Fullham before heading home to meet Mark.

For New Years we ended up just having some drinks at home, and heading out to one of he bridges overlooking the London Eye to see the fireworks.

London's streets were thick with people, and the banks along the river were busy. As new years arrived, we cheered and yelled ...

And then we went to bed. Tired! What oldies we must be.

We went to see Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben and the parliament buildings.

No photos were allowed inside the Abbey, but it is beautifully architected and decorated. The floors are inscribed with tombstone messages and memorials for many royal, saintly and noble people.

Toolman snuck a single photo. The stained glass was beautiful, and many tombs had beautiful carvings on top.

Ali, Marks flatmate, had a birthday early in the new year. Toolman tagged along with Mark. After a warm up round at a vodka bar, we had some lovely Thai food, and a good time was had by all.

Toolman had to leave early as we flew out the next morning - next stop: Amsterdam!

Lancing, England - Nana!

2008-01-08T06:34:00.000-08:00

This post is late in the making, but as of post time, the countries between Laos and Amsterdam have already been visted: Laos, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, (back to) Thailand, India, and so the story picks up on the plane from New Delhi. We are now in Amsterdam.. will be up to realtime, and fill in the missing countries asap...

Having finally made it aboard a flight to London, we sat back and played with the new planes media screens in front of us. The plane had an index of 50 odd movies that you could look thru and watch, pause, ff and rewind as you pleased!. Very cool, and lots of new releases: The Simpsons movie, Transformers, Ratatoullie. Apparently the plane was only a few weeks old, so it was all new and shiny. Very nice.

As we were getting closer to London, Toolman mentioned to the indian guy he was sitting next that we were going to Lancing, and he offered us a lift from the airport out to Crawley, which is quite close. Saved us lots on public transport, as well as time. We have been up for about 30 hours, so navigating unknown public transport can be hard work. It was also incredibly cold, so it was nice to be able to sit in a nice warm car with the heater going.

So thank you Gerdeep from Gatwick airport Engineering division, your lift was very useful :)

After arriving late to nana Wins house, we slept in the next day to recover, and emerged around time for the sunset - gosh its early in London! It starts getting dark around 4.30pm, even earlier some days.

We managed to catch this sunset, which was beautiful. I think Nana got a picture on her camera too. We also headed down to the local supermarket to get some groceries...

...only to find that they sell V! Couldn't be found anywhere in Asia that we saw, but we have been missing it. Just look at Princess' excitement!

We also spent some time with Catherine and Keith, who took us out shopping down a high street with lots of charity shops. We managed to score some cheap clothing, and we needed it because it is soo cold here! We both got winter coats made in Vietnam, but posted them to Marksy in London, so we haven't picked them up yet! The shopping was really useful (Thanks). We might have frozen otherwise!

Nana asked us to get down the decorations from the attic and decorate the lounge, so we set to work preparing and decorating the tree and walls. Streamers were hung, lights were strung and the tree was tinseled, baubled and set!

And here is Toolman and Nana surveying the result!

The whole family had an (early) xmas dinner feast, including roast, chops, pies, veges lots of roast potatoes (for Toolman and Keith) and we rounded it off with a flaming xmas pudding and custard.... mmmm!

We passed around a couple of presents, and took the obligatory group photo: say cheese everyone!

Catherine and Keith also brought over a computer so that we could watch the pictures and videos we have taken on holiday so far. We spent lots of time looking at the pictures available on the blog (and flickr), and other videos yet to be put online.

The 5 days we spent in Lancing were really welcome after the madness of India. The simple joys like making your own food exactly how you want, and not having to move rooms is a welcome change! It was also really nice to spend time with Toolman's Nana, as well as getting time to spend with Catherine and Keith.

Cambodia: Phnom Penh Day 1

2007-12-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

Leaving Saigon with the Dutchies , we took a bus to Phnom Pehn in Cambodia.

As we crossed the border, the landscape and road got a bit rough. Much of the highway was mud.

The rubbish in the towns was bad. There are lots of accumulating piles on the side of the road and in the waterways. The bus dropped us off in the middle of town, and we spent the rest of the afternoon finding suitable accommodation to relax in.

The next day, we hired a taxi to take us to an important Museum in Phnom Phen.

The local taxis around the city look like this: A motorbike and a 4 seater trailer. The motorbikes have very low torque, so are very slow to take off, The bikes braking system is inadequate for such a large weight so the ride can be hair raising!

This is the destination; Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

This former school was used by the Kymer Rouge to imprison, torture and kill their own people. If you haven't heard the story, here is an abridged quote from Wikipedia:

The Khmer Rouge is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people or 1/5 of the country's total population (estimates range from 850,000 to 2.5 million) under its regime, through execution, torture, starvation and forced labor.

Following their leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society — a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population (est. 1.75 million people, as of 1975), it was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century.

The Khmer Rouge wanted to eliminate anyone suspected of "involvement in free-market activities". Suspected capitalists encompassed professionals and almost everyone with an education, many urban dwellers, and people with connections to foreign governments.

The Khmer Rouge believed parents were tainted with capitalism. Consequently, children were separated from parents and brainwashed to socialism as well as taught torture methods with animals. Children were a "dictatorial instrument of the party" and were given leadership in torture and executions.

1/5 of the population killed in 4 years, with young children being indoctrinated into the killing. The original ideal was to killing the Bourgeois class to return to an agrarian country - A very twisted view on Marxism. This killing degenerated into near indiscriminate killings. Again, Wikipedia article:

During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who had the potential to undermine the new state (including intellectuals or even those that had stereotypical signs of learning, such as glasses) and killing many others for even minor breaches of rules.

This prison served as one of the torture and prison facilities for this atrocity. This is the entrance on the ground floor.

The room had brickwork forming small cells.

Each room was very small, and had no amenities at all.

"The pain of Mans inhumanity to Man is unbareable (unbearable)"

-- Wayne --

There was evidence of the violence that went on here.

The next floor had wood cells, but was still the same sad story.

Woefully small and bare cells.

The top floor, which used to be a holding pen now has photos and stories of people who lived through the horror.

The top floor also looks over the grounds.

From this main building, we headed down and walked around the grounds.

There are memorials marking the loss of life suffered here.

This annex room housed one of the last unfortunate victims.

The room still has the same equipment seen in the picture on the sign. These bed were used as torture racks for waterboarding, electric shocks and other cruel and inhumane things.

This room also has a picture of how it was found. Awful.

The final rooms we visited were a museum of the pictures kept during the Persecution and Genocide.

The Khmer Rouge kept detailed photos and documentation of the prisoners. There were many walls of montages bearing witness to the scale of the atrocity.

Words to not convey the sadness of this insanity. The only thing we can do is never forget the history and learn from it.

The Museum was interesting and horrifying in equal doses, so we decided that we needed recover by going for a nice walk through some of the parks and temples in the center city.

Still with the Dutchies! It was a really hot day, and the midday sun is particularly warm.

This park fronts a large temple, which looks quite cool.

Up close, the temple is ornate.

The trees surround the temple, and the shade is welcome given the heat!

For the afternoon, the Dutchies left us to it.

This is outside the the Royal Palace, a garden and building complex denoting the royal abode of the Kingdom of Cambodia. We queued up in appropriate attire, as it is a holy site.

We got into the Garden complex. This is the Chan Chhaya Pavilion, the same building as shown in the previous photo. This photo is taken from the other side.

The gardens were well maintained.

The gardens were also very pretty, with lots of manicured plants.

Tricky!

Balls.

Beautiful flowers.

This is the Throne Hall, the official seat of power.

The back of the Throne Hall.

In the foreground, a small model of the Silver Pagoda which also resides in this complex. Behind it is a large Buddhist Chedey - the same thing as the Thai Chedi seen in many temples.

The Enlightened One who sits under a tree and meditates.

This impressive altar has a lotus flower at the top.

It also has serpent dragons guarding the base!

There was also this model of the Angkor Wat. It was a mini version of the whole temple complex that we were going to see in the flesh when we travelled up to Siem Reap.

Thats an impressive model, the real thing is going to be spectacular!

Phew its been a challenging and hot day - Toolman looks pooped!

On the evening menu for Toolman was one of Phnom Penh's specials: a Happy Pizza. It ended up being a novel precursor to Amsterdam.

Stay tuned for Day 2.

Vietnam: The utility of bikes

2007-12-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

We were impressed with the creativity of transport in Vietnam: cyclos, bicycles, scooters, motorbikes, as well as all sorts of scrapyard-challenge style half a motorbike welded to a trailer types of vehicles.

Notice how most scooters have 2+ passengers. We witnessed a whole family on a single motorbike, 7 people!

When this Hoi Ai cyclo rider doesn't have fares, why not do a bit of courier work?

Give this guy in HCMC a wide berth, who knows which way his ~~joust-stick~~ cargo will go?

Got a house to move? Sofa, table and desk? no problems, on that trailer-motorbike!

Small pianos are no problem! For grand pianos, they use 2 cyclos, side by side.

This guy has a smaller load, but probably just dropped off the second one he was carrying.

That load must create some serious drag.

This guy must be heading to the markets.

Thats a custom fish rig - this is a professional fish transporter!

Vietnam: Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City Part 2

2007-12-14T11:18:00.000-08:00

After our day touring though Reunification Palace and the war museum, we managed to meet up with the Dutch, and all headed out for dinner.

Over food and drinks, we discussed our recent adventures. The Dutch told us about their adventure around the Mekong Delta, in the south of Vietnam.

We made some plans for the next day together.

The next day, we all met up and headed to the zoo, with a stop to look at Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, a Roman Catholic church set up by the French in late 1800s.

In the zoo, this cute gibbon was happy to casually dangle for us.

This guy did not look happy - the zoo was a bit shabby, an unfortunate reality for the animals here.

The tiger was obviously enjoying the relief of this cool rock on a hot day.

That is a happy kitty.

The cheetah had the same idea, lounging around on the concrete.

This gibbon got his own island, which is great for him. Its a pity the other gibbon didn't get this kind of luxury.

What a sweet elephant - is he smiling?

The elephant liked being fed, and his trunk reached out over the moat to suck treats up from us.

This place also had Muntjacks (snigger), eh mang?

After a day spent wandering around, we all went out for dinner. Over dinner, we bumped into Matevž , a real nice guy who also was aboard with us and the Dutch, when we boated around Halong Bay. What are the odds of bumping into him?

Apparently the odds aren't too bad: Vietnam is long and thin, so everyone is basically visiting the same cities either up or down the country. We actually saw quite a few of our other Halong-boaters during our travels south.

That evening, we all walked through town to the bowling alley. The roads were teeming with scooters, it was crazy.

When we arrived, the bowling alley was in disco mode, with blacklights and mirrorballs. It was funky, but would be harder to bowl in, right?

Thankfully, disco hour finished just as we were starting. Here is Robert carefully selecting a ball.

only 1 pin left, nice technique.

As usual, Toolman is goofing around with balls.

Toolman also has a nice style.

Princess lines up ...

... swings the ball ...

... and lets go at the wrong time, sending her ball backwards!

A second attempt is much more successful.

We all had a great time bowling over a few drinks.

The next day, Princess decided to get her hair chemically straightened and cut.

The hairdresser did a good job, and Princess was happy with her hair.

Unfortunately, one of the ladies there decided to give Princess a makeover, and may have used a little too much makeup.

An "I'm not impressed" finger points at the problem area.

Thant night, we caught up with the Dutchies again and went out for icecream.

Robert takes a photo ...

... at the same time as Toolman takes a photo.

We all had yummy icecreams. Its hot, even late at night!

Princess shows us how to really enjoy an icecream.

After our final day in HCMC, we went back to our room to crash and rest before travelling on to our next destination.

Toolman zoning out to the TV.

The next morning, we all board our bus heading for Phnom Phen in Cambodia.

If we look happy, its because ...

.. every passenger gets a free cap!

Across the aisle, the Dutchies put theirs on.

Princess looks pleased with her cap.

As do the Dutchies!

Toolman does a double take at the sign writing. What does it say?

After a good laugh at the truck and our new caps we plug in to our headphones and settle in for the bus ride.

Toolman and Princess are snapped mid-nap by the Dutchies...

Vietnam: Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City part 1 - Arrival, Palace, War Museum

2007-12-14T01:00:00.000-08:00

The last ticket in the prepurchased travel chits were for travel from Mue Ni and to what was formerly called Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City.

As we arrived, it was clear that this large city also has lots of scooters. There were heaps!

Half way down this alley is the accommodation we booked for our stay in HCMC.

Our hostel had some cute and friendly puppies for Princess to cuddle.

This is the view from the room, with the access street(alley) pictured earlier running up from the bottom left.

Our room was small but complete, with a bed, TV and small bathroom on the other side.

The next morning, we headed out for a walk around HCMC to see the important sights.

Our first stop was Reunification Palace, formerly South Vietnam's Presidential Palace. It is kept just as it was the day Saigon fell to the North.

The storming of the palace on April 30, 1975 marks the fall of Saigon.

This was the first tank to crash through the gate, and bring about an end to the war. The rest of the Viet Cong army were not far behind, and quickly captured the Palace.

The South offered an orderly handover to the new rulers. As explained by Wikipedia:

However, the North Vietnamese were uninterested in a handover and simply took the city, arresting Minh. The gates of the Independence Palace were destroyed by PAVN tanks as they entered, and the NLF flag was raised over the Palace at 11:30. At 15:30, Minh broadcast over the radio, stating "I declare the Saigon government...completely dissolved at all levels." The dissolution of the South Vietnamese government effectively ended the Vietnam War.

We wandered around looking at the gardens and monuments. Toolman inspects this jet fighter.

We headed inside to see the 1960s communist style.

Here is a large meeting room, one of many.

A grand dining hall, left in is original 60s state.

Here is a stately office, cordoned off to stop rude visitors tampering with the desk. As we saw in Dalat, many tourists need this kind of hint..

The office wouldn't be complete without a stuffed leopard, apparently.

We wandered around lots of smaller offices and meeting rooms, each with a unique color scheme and style.

Check out the 60s colour tones!

This is a large and grand circular carpet. Mr. guy-in-red can't read the "keep of the rug" sign.

From this vantage point looking over the front lawn, you could have watched the tanks roll in.

Here is a picture showing the event - I bet Minh and his soon-to-be-ex government were pretty scared at this point.

The upper level had this nice zen-like garden.

Note the tower on the rocks, with a godzilla-sized frog to its left.

There were lots of odd gifts on display, such as these elephant boots. Poor Ele-phante'...

We went all the way to the roof, another great view over the lawn, with HCMC in the background.

Parked on the roof is a helicopter left from the war.

We headed down into the rabbits warren of a basement, and looked all the old hardware they had stocked inside.

There were all sorts of radio transmitters, amplifiers and receivers.

This looks like an operator station for patching communications together.

Another cool looking something.

Charlie in the trees!

From the palace, we headed towards another museum, doing our best to avoid the swarms of scooters.

On most corners are huddles of men smoking tobacco in pipes, just like in Hanoi.

We arrived at the War Museum, which documents the history of Vietnam. It has lots of hardware on show, left over from the war.

Not sure who owns this helicopter.

This mean looking gun is mounted inside the helicopter.

Yes, lots of the items are from the USA.

Some old-looking planes ...

... and some newer looking ones.

There are some truly mean looking tanks. Look at this one's huge barrel!

The same tank has some kind of shovel scoop at the rear, presumably to clear dirt, mud or snow?

A more conventional looking tank.

The caterpillar tracks are very solid looking.

Here is an example of the BLU-82 seismic bomb. It will destroy a 100m radius, and inflict damage in a diameter of up to 3.2km.

As well as the hardware exhibition, the museum documented the brutality of the war. Yes, that's a NZ flag above.

There were many grim and saddening photos, with plenty of the propaganda and other documentation of the events.

This legend shows NZs involvement in the war for the diagram below. It was shameful for both of us that NZ was involved in the war.

NZ was stationed east of Saigon. Having seen the devastation caused by the fighting, we were embarrassed for our involvement.

" War! huh-yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh.. "

- Edwin Starr

Vietnam: Dalat

2007-12-10T03:58:00.000-08:00

From Nha Trang, our bus ride to Dalat took about four hours. Dalat is inland from the coast, set at a high elevation. The road that winded up to it was long and very windy in parts.

As we traveled upwards and inland, the produce being grown started to look different, and it got noticeably cooler and less humid.

We arrived early evening and found some accommodation, then had a look around the city center. We were looking for some nice food, eventually settling for a pizza.

Dalat is also known as the City of eternal spring. The city has lots of French influenced architecture. Its like a Little Asian Paris...

The next morning, we hired a scooter and went for an adventure around the city and the surrounding area. Our first stop was a Datanala, a waterfall at the bottom of a valley in the middle of the forest outside Dalat.

You can walk down into the valley by track, but there is an optional ride to get down which we took. It is cross between the luge at Rotorua and a rollercoaster - you are on rails, but you control the brakes.

It was more of a look at the forest then a thrill ride, but Toolman made the best of it and had some fun, while Princess yelled about slowing down... See a youtube video of the ride here.

Looking back up the valley, you can see the luge return system in the background.

The falls are very pretty, and cascade down in multiple steps.

Princess poses with the waterfall, which was quite impressive.

Notice the funny totem pole on the left; a Vietnamese guy dressed as a cowboy was lurking around the tourists for pictures. We weren't really sure why the park chose a cowboy!

After looking at the waterfall, we headed back to the scooter just as it started to rain. The 30 minute ride up a steep road on an underpowered scooter fun to say the least - torrential rain with nothing but shorts and purple ponchos!

After lunch and some drying out, we headed up to the summer home of the former King of Vietnam.

To protect the floors inside, we had to wear these elegant booties, as modelled by Toolman.

The house is kept more or less how it was left the last time the King visited.

There are lots of fenced off parts, though we saw a few rude tourists trying to sit on chairs that were clearly off limits.

The bedrooms were all roped off, otherwise tourists would probably try and sit on the beds in them too.

Plenty of space for those family meals!

As we exited, the gift shop had an *odd* selection of trinkets.

Yes, that is a dog molesting a baby.

The gardens outside were nice, so we walked around for a look at them.

There was a little rain, but the gardens are very pretty.

Princess is struggling with her umbrella as the rain pickes up again.

Toolman does his best impersonation of an odd statue adjacent to the summer house. From here, we headed on to another famous landmark in Dalat...

Hang Nga Guesthouse, also known as the Crazy House, is a guest house that is also a work of art.

The house is designed and built in a style that is basically Dr. Seuss, Dali and Alice in wonderland all mixed together. We enter at ground level to the forest floor.

There are stair cases and other features all over the place, like this tiny room under some stairs.

Climbing up one of the staircases leads you in to a rabbits warren of pathways weaved together.

As we explored, we found a hidden room, up a ladder moddeled like a reptile.

The space is the size of a child's playhouse, and is not visible from any of the walkways.

We wandered around these ramps and stairs to get some kind of perspective on the place.

This is a guest house so some rooms can be hired to stay in, though they were at premium prices so we just did the day-tour.

We kept exploring the tunnels to find a good view.

Most of the rooms were unoccupied, so we could look in.

This front section has crazy spikes growing out of it.

The spikes up close.

At a castle like structure, Toolman shows off his poncho.

A staircase leads all the way down to floor level.

Down at ground level but deeper into the complex, we look back up to the castle.

The garden was full of Alice in Wonderland decorations.

The central building has a master hall, and is used as a restaurant for customers.

We continued exploring through the rear section of the complex.

Looking back at the castle from another angle.

Many guestrooms have a theme and name - This is the Tiger room.

And, yes, this is the Eagle room.

There is an unfinished building at the back. You can see the tarpaulin as part of the construction site, and the structure is bare and empty inside. Note the completed walkways on the top left.

The weather fluctuated between drizzle and rain, but Toolman was keen to explore the walkways and look into the construction.

It was slippery up the steep stairs, but Toolman went up and into an opening in the side of the building. The walkway abruptly stopped where the internal floor should be.

Here is Princess admiring the view.

We left the crazy house and returned our scooter before walking around the city again. During our walk, Toolman got his sandle repaired on the roadside, just like in Hanoi.

The weather forecast looked pretty bad, so we decided to continue travelling south the next day to Mue Ni.

Vietnam: Nha Trang

2007-12-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

After an all night bus ride from Hoi Ai, we arrived early morning in Nha Trang. Nha Trang has a long beach front with plenty of ritzy restaurants and bars, and lots of high rise hotels. From the bus, we donned our heavy packs and walked for far too long along the esplanade looking for suitable accommodation. Not recommended, especially when tired from not sleeping on the bus...

We eventually found accommodation and relaxed for the morning in the hotel room. For the afternoon, we hired a scooter and visited the famous Thap Ba thermal mud baths. We first took a mud bath in our own wooden tub.

We didn't get a photo, but this is an artists impression gives an idea. The mud bath was filled by tap; the mud was lovely and warm and it was poured after we were seated in it. After a relaxing muddy soak, we washed off and relaxed in the thermal (water) hot pools onsite.

After our thorough soaking, we finished the afternoon cruising the city on our scooter.

Nha Trang has a large fishing industry visible in the harbour, in addition to its glitzy foreshore. We scootered around the city and along the coast, managing to get lost somewhere south of the city. No problems, just find and follow the coastline...

The next day we were feeling more adventurous, so we made a plan to visit Hon Lao Island, 30km north of Nha Trang. We scootered north along the coastline for about an hour, looking at the beautiful countryside. The coastline is dotted with of fishing vessels, more evidence of how large the industry is here.

This is pier for the ferry to Hon Lao Island, famous for its large monkey population left over from science experiments conducted by the former Soviet Union.

We got on the ferry and took the 20 minute ride out. It was just us and an Canadian girl also interested in visiting "monkey island".

On arrival, it was clear that this island also functioned as a tourist resort. We looked at the map to find the monkeys. They inhabit the whole left side of the island as seen in dark green on the map.

We had arrived in the off season, so pretty much everything was closed. No problem, we can have fun without go karts, mini golf and tennis.

Turns out that it wouldn't be too hard to find the monkeys - they roam the whole island!

This is the sign that marks their side. The monkeys don't respect the sign, and they roam over the whole island looking for mischief.

Princess making a few new friends. We had to be a little careful as these guys are quick and cheeky and might go for the bag zip; or a nice ponamu necklace ....

Toolman having a chat with the monkeys.

That one is considering swiping your glasses, Toolman.

A cheeky monkey with something in his mouth. We heard stories of monkey throwing fruit and things at people, which can hurt.

In this shop we were able to get some food to feed the monkeys...

and it didn't take long to realise why they locked the door behind us. These monkeys all know where the food comes from!

Although we were warned and told to guard the food very carefully, within 30 seconds both the girls had their entire foodbags ripped out of their hands and scattered everywhere. Quite a monkey scramble was had, and the girls got a big scare. Our Canadian friend even got bitten!

Toolman managed to hang on and get his packet out. It took lots of threats and angry faces to keep the monkeys away. The above pic is just after the feed was scattered, lolly scramble style.

The monkeys are everywhere, relaxing and grooming in the shrubbery.

This guy is self-grooming.

They are cute in small numbers, but once a large pack has gathered, it can be scary.

We spent time messing around with the more curious monkeys. They are used to humans and are quite comfortable with us around it seemed.

"Can I see your ticket please?"

Here we see Princess trying to exit the toilet, while being harassed by a couple of scary monkeys.

Toolman had to step in and out-scare them. Grrrr!

After a good look around the island, we headed back to the pier. All sorts of stuff washes up on the shore, and the monkeys love to scavenge.

We sat on the beach waiting for the ferry, watching the monkeys scavenging and playing in the water.

On the way back, we saw a Vietnamese Coracle - a hemispherical weaved boat that looks like a bumper boat with no motor.

Commonly used by local fishermen, it looks hard to control, but at least its easy to turn around in.

Back on land, we said goodbye to our Canadian traveler and headed back to Nha Trang, another long scooter ride.

Back at our accommodation, we booked our next bus ride to Dalat and rested up in preparation for travel the next morning.

Vietnam: Hoi An

2007-12-08T03:47:00.000-08:00

The next bus chit in our ticket book took us via minivan through Da Nang to Hoi An, a city famous for the volume of Tailors packed into the small city. We arrived just before dinner, and found accommodation in town.

The accommodation we chose was Chinese style, with lots of bamboo and artwork. We stored our bags and headed out for a meal. As we sat down for a curry, we bumped into the Norways again! We had a nice meal together, checking the tea price very carefully!

This is what Toolman thought of the accommodation. It was reasonable quality, but the price was a bit stiff, so we relocated to more affordable accommodation the next day. After shuffling our bags to the new hotel, we went for a look around the town.

Most of the bad weather was now further north, but the flooding was still present in many areas. The locals are very used to this kind of thing.

Just like in Hue, they just get on with living. Can't take the motorbike? I'll take the boat. We saw motorbikes put in those boats above! Paddle the motorbike to the other side of the city, then continue on..

Surprise! We also met the Dutchies again here in Hoi An! They had also been mostly stuck inside their hotel for the last few days.

The ladies enjoyed flicking through stacks of swatches and fashion catalogs, as the discussed what clothes they should get made. When in Rome ...

Princes looks warm trying on an example jackets. As we are traveling to London and Europe, which will be very cold in winter, are going to get some warm jackets made. We planned to post a package forward to London to collect from Marksy at Xmas.

The number of Tailor shops in the city is now over 400; they are literally everywhere. We looked around, and eventually settled on a place to order clothes. We ordered and got measured up for warm coats and business clothes to wear when we made it to Europe.

There are lots of sewing rooms around, like the one on the left Turnaround is 24 hours, less if you pay extra. We ordered quickly to have a few days to alter stuff. They are happy to alter till its just right, and so we had time to perfect our clothes.

After a hot days shopping, what better then to sit down and relax with a nice meal and some drinks.

The next day we went for a wander around the city. For those who want to get about quickly, hire a cyclo ride from the stand. We were in no rush, and simply walked around.

We met up with Toolmans' mate Justin, who was slowly traveling north through Vietnam. The bad weather had been following him up the country!

Togehter we visited the Chinese meeting hall in the center of Hoi An.

Outside is an intricate garden, with lots of small trees.

Here is Princess checking one out. What kind of tree is that?

The meeting hall is also a dog sanctuary, lots of strays end up living around the temple.

This little puppy knows how to work the cute thing...

These spiral cones are very long insence sticks.

Photo from below. Anyone can buy one, a hang it and attach a note with their name and prayers on a tag.

They burn for a long time, maybe up to a month!

At the rear of the hall, the exit sign led us out to the back courtyard that seemed to not have an exit. Just as we found a door, we were scolded by a local and told to exit out the front way. Nice incorrect sign, guys!

We got tickets that allowed us in to a few sites around town, so we wandered around following the map.

We smiled and said hello to the locals.

Here is another Temple we visited. Justin approves! We saw a few other sites, then had dinner and made plans for the next day. We planned and booked a visit to the My Son temple site for the next day.

Princess went to bed while the lads headed to the bar to talk some smack over a few drinks.

This is one of the buddies Justin met earlier at the bar. Look how short he is!

An early start on our tour bus took us out to the side. Above is our guide and group at the gate, talking about the site.

The My Son temples are a large complex of religious monuments originally comprised of more than 70 structures. The remains of 25 of these structures remain today, as it was badly damaged during the war.

In small groups we were ferried up the hill in ex-army jeeps.

Remember back in 'nam when we were cruising in that army jeep?

We tore up a jungle path towards the site.

Feeling nicely rugged from the Jeep ride, we got out and walked the final path to the site.

There was a light mist in the air, and the place had an mysterious feel to it.

The whole area was one part of the Champa Empire, and is laid out using Fung Shui principles.

Some of the temples still stand, but many are ruined. The Viet Cong hid here during the war, one of the reasons these ruins are so badly damaged.

Here is a row of various Lingams, popular with the Kings of the Champa kingdom.

From Wikipedia:

A linga (or lingam) is a phallic post that serves as a representation of Shiva. Cham kings frequently erected and dedicated stone lingas as the central religious images in royal temples. The name a Cham king would give to such a linga would be a composite of the king's own name and suffix "-esvara," which stands for Shiva.

Toolman scowls at the awful reminders of the war.

UNESCO is attempting to restore parts of the site, with work ongoing.

We wander around the site, inspecting the ruins.

Princess is surveying the heavy damage.

The tour was only 1/2 day, so after we had looked around, we headed back down the hill in the Jeeps and bussed back to Hoi An. With our clothes packed and posted, we boarded the next overnight bus trip south to Nha Trang.

Vietnam: Hue

2007-12-04T03:45:00.000-08:00

At the end of our second day in Ninh Binh we were able to catch the evening bus to Hue. Our bus ticket booklet got us on board, and so we settled in for our all-night bus ride.

As you can see from this pic, we were ZOMBIES with headphones! Neither of us got much quality sleep overnight, but at least we made it in one piece. Arriving early morning, we were greeted with torrential rain. As we have traveled south, we have known of the nasty weather creeping north up the country. It was inevitable that it would meet us in the middle somewhere..

The bus dropped us in the middle of town, and we checked into some accommodation close by. It was awful outside and we were tired, so we relaxed in our room for most of the day watching TV.

The next morning we had a break in the weather, so we got out to stretch our legs and look around. We wandered through the city, and visited a major feature of Hue: the Imperial City.

This bridge leads into the Imperial City, which was was modeled after Beijing's Forbidden City.

There are many leftovers from the war, such as these cannons. The city of Hue is positioned just south of the north/south divide, and suffered badly during the war. Lots of rebuilding is ongoing to restore the Imperial City.

This is one of the temples that has been restored. The zen style gardens are amazing.

The gardens were pretty cool, lots of Bonsai.

Who is that in the reflection? A pretty cool picture.

The outer moat and Northern gate.

Unlike the Forbidden City, there are moats inside the walls also.

We wandered around the ruins as the weather started to sour.

Toolman investigates a Hobbit hole amongst the quiet ruins.

As Toolman poses, the clouds loom grey...

We headed for the exit when it started spitting. It picked up intensity quickly, us sheltering in the gate as it pelted down. A smart salesman was selling purple ponchoes by the gate, making good money no doubt. We both put one, making us look like Grimace impersonators. They do keep you dry, though!

These tanks are parked outside the museum we sheltered in to get out of the rain! The museum had lots of old furniture from royalty and other important Vietnamese people. It also had a creative arrangement of tarpaulins, cups and pots all set up to collect the water that was leaking in all around the building.

Toolman thought Ryan would like some tank pictures - here ya go mate.

As we walked back to the center of town, it continued to rain! The constant rain caused really bad flooding in places. Unfortunately this all too common for the locals, they have just learned how to deal with it.

Some streets are elevated enough to not flood, but over half of the city was at least ankle deep. We found some streets that were knee deep, with houses set lower than the road!

Here is the front door of a nice restaurant where we had dinner - water to the door!

The next few days were spent relaxing in the hotel, and ducking out for a look around the city when the rain slowed. We found a yummy Italian place run by an authentic Italian guy called Vince. We dined there a few times, as it had great food and was very hospitable.

A Dong? Toolman might have chuckled at this sign.

Here is a little kitty the Princess met at another shop in town. Meep! Hope its not on the menu..

Thankfully, the storm continued heading north, and after a few days most of the rain had passed over us. The markets reopened as the rains receded, but we decided to head on to the next town: Hoi An.

Timely update - from India

2007-12-04T03:15:00.001-08:00

Hello avid readers!

I know that we are well behind in our blogging - there are lots of posts in the pipelines, but since Thailand we have traveled thru Laos, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and are now in India.

The sneakyer among you may already know that you can look at our pictures by clickiong on any in the blog, or going to this link and clicking on the word you are interested in:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8086033@N04/tags

In a few weeks we will make it to England, and will be visiting Toolmans Nana, then on to visit Marksy in London. Toolman is hoping that Santa is going to buy him a new Macbook laptop, so we will both be online for some Skype chats and or videoconferences.

If you have broadband, all else you need is a webcamera with a microphone built in it. Download a copy of Skype from http://www.skype.com, and set up an account. Then all you have to do is add Toolman to your use list. His username on Skype is:

thet00lman

Note that the "00" are zeros, not Oh's ! We will be online most of NZs xmas morning (london xmas eve) and maybe again the next day. If you want to talk to us during xmas, you better get it set up. We'll make traditional phone calls to those of you backward enough not to have broadband yet ...

Toolman + Princess

Vietnam: Ninh Binh

2007-12-01T03:40:00.000-08:00

We arrived back in Hanoi after our trip to Halong Bay, and stayed overnight before heading south to our next destination. Vietnam is long and thin, making our itinerary easy: south!

We decided to buy a prepaid book of minibus tickets all the way from Hanoi to Saigon/HCMC. Its a great system: you buy a book with tickets which allow you for ride to each town in between Hanoi and Saigon, and you can travel each stage on any day you like. This means you can stay in any location for as long as you like, and then just book to leave (24 hours notice) to get to the next stop.

Our first stop was Ninh Binh, a couple of hours south of Hanoi. We arrived early evening and found a hotel. As we came down for dinner, we bumped into the Dutchies. They were also traveling the same direction, and had picked the same hotel.

As we had dinner together, we discussed going for a scooter drive together the next day to visit a Primate Rehabilitation Center. For desert, the hotel owners introduced us to a Ninh Binh specialty known as "special water". It turned out to be a rice vodka similar to lao lao vodka - very strong!

The next morning, we hired some scooters and headed out of the city, dodging trucks, buses and other large vehicles. Note the interesting angle of the wing mirror in the picture above.

Soon enough we were cruising in the country, which was mainly farmlands.

Most of the Vietnamese ladies wear hats, gloves and face masks, to keep their skin as light as possible. Its funny how us whiteys want a tan, whereas they want to be as pale as possible.

The scenery was more karst landscape, similar to Laos and Halong bay. Still very intersting formations to look at.

Here we are taking photos of each other - camera nerds! Marloes used to be a postie, so she was driving for team Dutchie.

We headed to Cuc Phuong National Park , the home of the Primate Rehabilitation Center

We had a quick look in the visitor center, showing details of the park and its fauna and animal life. Look at that cute Loris, giving puppy-dog eyes from behind bars!

The Dutchies smiling as they enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Our first stop was a cave where prehistoric bones had been found. That caveman hairstyle on Toolman looks prehistoric, and Princess looks scared!

Looking down as we head up the steep stairs to the entrance.

Marloes inspects the entrance to the cave where lots of prehistoric finds have been discovered. Archeologists excavated the cave in 1966 and found human graves, and tools made from stone, bone and shells. These were found to date back around 7,500 years!

The cave had lots of small offshoots to explore in. Toolman ventured into lots of them, but the camera flash couldn't really do them justice. After a good explore, we headed back to our bikes.

We scooted through the park to the next stop ...

... the Primate Rehabilitation Center!

Both the NZ and Dutch embassy contributed to the upkeep for this facility. NZ vs Holland: 1 all..

They house lots of primates from around Vietnam. From the centres website:

Other than the captively bred primates, all of the animals at the EPRC are victims of poaching and the illegal animal trade. The animals are confiscated in cooperation with Vietnam’s forest protection authorities all over the country. Staff members often have to travel 1000 to 2000 km to pick up confiscated primates in remote areas in central or south Vietnam.

Of particular interest to us were the gibbons; our experiences from Thailand make us very fond of them.

How can you not find him cute?

After meeting the primates, we left the park and went cruising around the country seeing the sights.

Look at the grin on that guy! The 2 wheeled engine towing an improvised trailer is a common sight This trailer looks well built, unlike many others.

After a hard days scootering, we headed back to the hotel for the evening. the next day, The Dutchies continued south but we decided to stay and see some more sights.

That morning, we scootered out to Tam Coc (three caves), to go on a paddle cruise. The tour to the three caves is on small paddleboats operated by local women, as seen behind Princess here.

We jumped into a boat and headed out.

Somehow, we ended up with grandma, who must have been in her 70s! She was amazingly strong and fit, and had no problem navigating us along the waterways.

The river runs through some amazing scenery.

More karst landscape with lots of cliffs, overhangs and caves.

Up close, you can see how water, wind and time have eaten away at the limestone.

This is the entrance to one of the 3 caves.

We paddled downstream though all 3 caves, all cut by the flow of water.

As we floated down, there were locals paddling alongside trying to sell us the usual tourist snacks: Pringles, Coke and Oreo cookies.

It just seemed wrong to have an old grandma paddle us around, so Toolman took over on the way back.

Get back to rowing, big beard!

As we look back, there are lots of other tourists on the same route.

We also visited a nearby temple down this road, whose name we can't remember.

Outside they were laying both rice and grass out to dry in the sun - a common sight around the countryside of Vietnam. You can see it through the entrance arch.

Here is Princess with our guide, who we assumed was some kind of monk with the temple. He insisted on holding her hand for the picture.

Our guide showed us through the temple housing various deities, adorned with incense and ribbons. The temples' inscriptions look Chinese, not Vietnamese.

Toolman demonstrating what he thinks of the temple!

The bell tower on the right looked cool, so we had to climb up.

Princess showing her view of the temple. One of our guides' responsibilities was to ring the bell daily - preferably not when we are up there, as it was huge!

After an afternoon scootering around, we headed back and prepared to again travel south to our next destination: Hue.

Vietnam: Halong Bay

2007-11-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

We booked a 3 day cruise through Halong bay from our hotel in Hanoi. We packed our small travel bags, and stored the rest of the baggage at the hotel (yes it was locked up safe).

We were picked up in a minivan, which whipped around collecting more travellers, before leaving Hanoi. During our 2 hour ride to the coastline of Halong Bay, our guide (nicknamed Tiger) introduced herself and explained the itinerary for the coming days.

The pier was crowded with hundreds of boats - both fishing and tourist boats. We boarded our Chinese Junk (pictured above) and headed out on the water.

The group we toured with are all in their 20s, from UK, Canada and Holland. Tiger is the lady in red to the right of Princess.

This bay has 1969 islands, and many are small and steep.

Halong Bay is part of the same formation of Karst rock that we saw in Laos - stunning!

We cruised through an area surrounded by cliffs that enclosed a floating village. The local inhabitants spend nearly all their life on water here, and have a long history of expert fishing.

The village has everything they need: a school, a shop, and a few other necessities.

Can you see the fish?

Here is Princess enjoying the front deck, as we head to one of the big caves of the islands.

This is the walk up to Hang Sung Sot Grotto - the Cave of the Surprises.

Looking up, we can see the lookout where we exit out of the cave later on.

This is Tiger giving us the background on the cave, which was discovered by the French in 1901.

It is huge and has been lit with color, giving an amazing ambiance.

The karst limestone has lots of formations, shaped from the water flows and drips.

This picture is oddly reminiscent of the computer game Doom.

Thats not a camera flash, its the blue 'mood' lighting.

This is the crowning glory of the grotto - the complex is named after it! This surprise novelty shaped rock is the source of innumerable giggles.

The attempted Timfoolery was marginally successful.

We headed out the other end of the cave onto the lookout. What a view!

One of those Junks is our one. Standing at this lookout, we were talking to a Dutch couple, Robert and Marloes, hereafter known as the Dutchies. Robert was trying to get a picture, but the camera didn't want to work properly.

Toolman offered to take a photo and email it to them - here is the result. We chatted about Holland over an icecream and drink, then wandered back to the boat. Our next cruise took us to a beach with a lookout. We could either climb up for a great view, or just go for a swim...

It was far too nice a beach to miss swimming, so everyone ended up goofing around on the beach for a couple of hours. Back on the junk after our swim, the staff were serving up a great cooked meal.

Dinner was followed with drinking, relaxing and socialising. Throughout the evening, a few other tour boats visited us, so we met a few other groups touring around. One particularly amusing group included 2 American guys who were pretending they were Canadian while they travelled Vietnam (to avoid the inevitable US bashing).

We spent most the night drinking, and hanging out with our new friends the Dutchies, and A swiss guy called Etienne.

We were Gansta as! Eventually we all retired to our small twin room with ensuite for some deserved rest. Unfortunately the walls were paper thin, and some weird noises kept us awake longer then we'd have liked..

The next morning a couple of the lads, including Toolman, went for a swim by jumping off the roof of the junk.

Nothing like a swim to help those fuzzy mornings.

After a nice breakfast, we switched to a smaller boat to go and kayak.

The rental kayak shop was floating of course. We got in 2 person kayaks, and cruised around a group of islands nearby.

The water was flat, the weather was great, and there were lots of alcoves and tunnels to explore.

Our destination on the kayak tour was Monkey island. There is a timid monkey that lives on this small island, and some lucky visitors get to see him. Unfortunately we must have scared him off, as no one saw the monkey. Still, it was great to paddle about and see the islands up close.

After paddling back, we were pretty exhausted. We boarded the boat, and it took us on to Cat Ba island where we had a hotel room arranged as part of the tour.

Cat Ba island is one of the largest islands in Halong bay. We checked in to our rooms, then had a well deserved lunch, shower and rest.

Our plan for the later afternoon was a guided walk through the hills of the island.

This is our guide for the afternoon, Joe. He is a 70 year old with so much energy and stamina it was embarrassing for us unfit 20-somethings. He is still perfecting his English, and writes down all the improvements he picks up from talking with us.

Karst limesone produces many caves, and so we explored a few as we walked.

Though not as impressive (or surprising) as the earlier cave, it was still interesting to walk through.

We all follow the trail up to the peak. Joe lead the trail, and was lightning quick heading up!

As we get to the top, we gather our breath and gather to admire the view..

Stunning! This photo doesn't fully capture the depth and number of islands that cascade into the distance.

Princess and the Dutchies lead Toolman back down the trail.

The trail was quite slippery with gravel and pine needles - there were a few slips and dirty butts by the end of the descent.

On the way down, Toolman spotted this brightly colored bug.

We arrived back at our accommodation for an evening on Cat Ba island just in time for an amazing sunset.

Our hotel was part of the islands' "Miami style" esplanade lined with hotels, bars and convenience stores for the foreigners. We had a couple of drinks before crashing out and sleeping off all that exercise.

The next morning we boarded our junk-boat and slowly cruised Halong bay for the morning, before heading back to the mainland and pier to board our bus back to Hanoi.

Vietnam: Mui Ne

2007-11-14T23:00:00.000-08:00

We left Dalat in the morning and boarded our bus to Mui Ne beach. We wound back down to the coast following a different road from the way we arrived, and it was slightly less scary then the route up.

We are used to South East Asian driving: big things (e.g. bus) have absolute right of way. Which side of the road do you think that is supposed to be? Answer: any side the driver wants.

The best strategy is not to watch the road, it saves lots of stress and worry. Headphones on, and focus on the music!

We passed through a number of small towns as the humidity slowly climbed back up.

Once off the highlands we followed the coast south, eventually arriving in Mui Ne. This area is famous for its beach, and huge sand dunes.

After finding accommodation, we spent some time relaxing. Our room was very nice, with a DVD player and an huge supply of DVD's to keep us entertained!

The power kept cutting out though, making for frustrating viewing at times. At least our room had a supply of candles. Toolman needed to take some time out to trim his mega beard - It was getting very bushy.

On our way to the beach, we met this English Bulldog.

Princess tried to lure him into her handbag, but he didn't quite fit...

Mmmm the beach was very nice.

The sand was quite steep - the water got to neck level within a few meters of the shore. The water was deliciously warm though.

There are lots of nice bars and cafes along the beach.

This is us relaxing in one of them.

Tims' MacGyver mullet doesn't match his newly trimmed beard!

Toolman spotted a few interesting cars. This Army Jeep..

and this Russian Gangster tank for rent!

The back seat has its own fridge and other luxury stuff - Very pimpski.

We also saw the Vietnamese Coracle boats up close. They are an outboard motor short of a bumper boat.

This is the last beach we expected to see in Asia, so we lapped it up as much as possible.

We ended up spending a few days relaxing on the beach, playing pool, and enjoying the sun, before heading further south to Saigon/ Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC).

Vietnam: Hanoi

2007-11-10T05:39:00.000-08:00

So we crossed the bridge and arrived in the Lao Cai Provence border town. It was still early morning and we wanted to get to Hanoi, so we followed the river and walked towards the train station.

As we walked into the city, Toolman inspected the tiny city map in our (Vietnamese) Lonely Planet. It wasn't a precise map, so trying to locate the train station was tricky. We wandered around a few back streets, and Toolman ended up buying a bottle of Coke off a street vendor to get some quality direction advice.

We lucked into a well timed train; it was leaving just after lunch and had space in a comfortable 4 berth cabin. We had a nice lunch at a restaurant across from the train station where Toolman entertained the waiters with his huge headphones as we ate.

We gathered a few snacks from local vendors and boarded our train headed for Hanoi.

As it ended up, we shared the cabin with an Australian couple for the 5 hour train ride south. The landscape was amazing, with rice paddies and other amazing fauna lining the banks of the Red River, (China: Yuan river, Vietnam: Hong Song Cai) as we followed its banks.

We arrived in Hanoi early evening, and headed for the accommodation we had booked back in Kunming. There are lots of stories about Hanoi like taxi drivers who take you to a different hotel then you ask for. The substitute hotel will magically inherit your booked hotel name, and will proceed to overcharge you for all the extras they can.

Thankfully we got delivered to our booked hotel, and it turned out that the Norways, who we met in Beijing over 1000km away, were staying in the same hotel - coincidence! The city has a definite French influence, and our accommodation was great.

The young hotel clerk guy had borrowed an iPhone from a friend, which had just been released. It was the genuine article and Toolman had a good play - his first play with Apples latest gadget. It was a great surprise to see the phone in Vietnam, not least because it is so expensive!

The next day we walked around to get a good look at the city. Hanoi has scooters and motorbikes in droves - its a relentless stream of bikes. There is only one way to cross the road: walk at a fixed pace and make eye contact with oncoming bikes. They will go either side of you, like you are swimming through a school of fish.

This is a statue of Lý Thái Tổ, an important Emperor for the Vietnamese people.

Across the road from the statue is Hoan Kiem lake, in the centre of Hanoi.

The lake has a mythical turtle within. From Wikipedia:

According to the legend, emperor Le Loi handed a magic sword called Heaven's Will which brought him victory in his revolt against the Chinese Ming Dynasty back to the Golden Turtle God (Kim Qui) in the lake and hence gave it its present name (the lake was formerly known as "Luc Thuy" meaning "Green Water"). The Tortoise Tower (Thap Rua) standing on a small island near the center of lake is linked to the legend.

Toolman looking stylish as we admire the view over the lake.

As it was quite hot, we had to stop for some Fanny ice-cream. And snigger at the sign...

We went to a few sights in the city as we walked around, including the National Museum of History (above).

We also went to see an art form that Hanoi is famous for: a water puppet show. It was a marvelous show with live music and puppets controlled from below the water. There were a huge cast of animals and people, and they told a few stories, including the legend of the magic sword and the turtle mentioned earlier.

Another important place we visited was Hỏa Lò, aka the "Hanoi Hilton". This prison is infamous as was used by the French colonists in Vietnam for political prisoners, then for P.O.W.s during the Vietnam war.

On show is a brutal mix of French and Vietnamese prison tools, such as this guillotine.

Princess inspects the demonstration of how prisoners were shackled.

Up close, we see the uncomfortable reality of being stuck in one position during incarceration.

On show was some gear from a US P.O.W. who survived and went on to become a US senator and presidential candidate: John McCain. This is his flight suit and parachute, and they also had some more mundane items of his, such as his deck of cards and a box of matches.

On display were some of the drains used to escaping by some political prisoners.

These bars were slowly cut, and escapees actually made it through the gap Toolmans' hand is in!

The relentless stream of bikes continues as we headed back towards the hotel.

Every corner has huddled groups people smoking tobacco (yes, really) in water pipes. In order to be social, Toolman had to try a little just to be friendly. Toolman learned that: a) Tobacco makes your head spin if you don't normally smoke, and b) tobacco makes you feel sick, especially if you get a "good hit"...

Our hotel was able to book us on tours, so we decided to take a cruise on Halong bay for a couple of days. Stay tuned!

Back to South China

2007-11-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

When we arrived in Beijing, we left our passports at the Vietnamese embassy for a couple of days to get entry visas. Thankfully, that went smoothly and we got our passports back before we needed to leave Beijing. We decided to fly back to Kunming in south China again, and planned to go to Lijian, a rural village in southern China.

While looking at bus options to get to Lijian, we realised that it was 15+ hours each way on the bus and we only had a few days spare in China. Instead, we decided to relax in Kunming for a few days before continuing south to Vietnam. Our flight landed in the evening, so we found a reasonably priced hotel room with a free ride from Kunming airport.

The hotel ended up having a sleazy bar in on the first floor, a card gambling table in our room, sleazy items in the bathroom cabinet and the stench of cigarettes. It was reasonably clean and habitable (and paid for...), so we stayed the night.

The next day we set about organising bus tickets to Vietnam and different accommodation. We found less sleazy accommodation, although it was very basic - a bed and a shower room, no extras!

After booking out tickets, we met a little boy who had no legs. He was dragging himself down the street on a skateboard with his hands and begging. He was very thin, malnourished and a truly sad sight. We had to buy him some food!

We walked about looking at the shops and markets, eyeing the weird variety of produce and other goods on offer. This shop had lots of cool machine parts and buttons obviously stripped from old installations.

Who knows what this once controlled, but surely Toolman could make something cool with it!

Our trip out of Kunming was a sleeper bus that travelled to the Vietnamese border. Another nightbus, this time with winding roads and varying road surfaces down to gravel in parts. Fire up the iPods and try to relax and sleep, its going to be rough. At least there was no smoking on the bus.

We arrived at the border early morning, around 8am. The border crossing is across a large bridge so we joined the queue through the control building. In addition to travellers like us, there was a lot of local trade being pushed in both directions. It was slow getting through the lines as everyone needed passports and paperwork sorted, and they were scanning baggage for prohibited items.

We saw multiple travelers having their China Lonely Planet book confiscated. Apparently the fact the book represents Tawain as independant makes it illegal for export. Curiously, we had no problems bringing them in. Toolman suspects that the Chinese border town has a bookshop that does a good trade in second hand Lonely Planet books...

We walked across the bridge with an assortment of tourists and locals, many pushing goods back and forth between the 2 border towns. Across the bridge we arrived in Lau Cai, Vietnam.

Good morning Vietnam!.......

China: Beijing - Great Wall and the Ming Tomb

2007-10-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

No trip to China would be complete without a visit to The Great Wall of China. There are many tourbus operators driving the 80km from Beijing to the wall and back.

All of them combine multiple sights to visit as a package. Great, except we heard stories of visits to high pressure showrooms with staff practiced in the hard-sell - remember the story the Norways told us of their tea purchase? The Lonely Planet mentioned that this tactic is ubiquitous, and suggested going for the more reputable operators.

Their stops are merely soft sell vists...

Our hotel offered a reasonable package that we took. We were picked up early and zipped around central Beijing picking up the other tourists. Then it was on to our first destination; the Ming Tombs, about an hour north. Our group arrived to a crisp and cool mid morning to look about. Note the tortoise, housed in the pavillion behind.

This is called Shengong Shengde Stele Pavilion housing the huge carved tortoise. He is the size of a small car!

Following the tradition, Princess rubs his head to bring her some good luck. The stone head is polished on top!

As we walk along, our guide explains to the group about various features of the site.

The site is actually 7km paved road called Shen dao (the Spirit Way). We are nearing the tomb at the top of the road, set on a shallow incline. This three-arched gate near the top is known as the Dragon and Phoenix Gate.

We continue up to the ghost gate; by stepping through this we enter the graveyard, which is linked to the spiritual realm. When we come back down we must pass back through the gate to ensure we leave the spirits inside the graveyard.

We stand at the bottom of the tomb, which sits at the top of the incline. This shot makes it look smaller then it actually is.

Princess leads the way as we headed through the gate in the curved wall; ahead is the tomb, which was once open.

Looking at the sealed tomb up close. The Phillipino guy above and his wife, were part of our group. Princess was taller then both of them! (you can check in the group shot above)

We climbed up the steps to the top of the wall, which curves back to the hillside and tomb behind.

The view back down the road from the top of the wall is great.

At the center of the arced wall is this shrine. This stone is one of the (very) few named tombs on the site.

The incline of the surrounding area gives a grand view of a large area. After a good look at the shrine and view at the top, we headed back through the ghost gate and to our bus.

The next stop was an enamel vase factory and showroom tour, with a meal afterwards.

We were guided through the construction steps. After a raw copper pot is turned, copper strips are soldered on the outside.

The whole pot is slowly built up with layers of enamel paint. The workers apply hundreds of coats of paint of the required color, slowly thickening the pot and filling each section.

After all the sections are thick with enamel paint, the item is fused in a kiln to harden the enamel and copper pot.

Each item is then filed, sanded with various abrasives then buffed smooth. You can see a pot spinning on the polishing lathe above. Once all buffed, the product is lacquer sprayed and ready for sale.

We were given a complimentary lunch served above the showroom adjoining the factory. The meal was huge and had a great variety of tasty stuff. We are going to need some energy later...

We looked around the large showroom for about an hour. There were lots of eager salespeople, but no one too overbearing. There were lots of beautiful items, but we as we were travelling light we had no room to carry trinkets.

We headed on to the Great Wall, specifically the Badaling section.

The bus dropped us in a parking lot at the bottom of a valley that the wall cuts across. This guard building is at the bottom of the valley and is part of the wall.

The wall traverses some very steep hills like this, and stretches off into the distance.

Look how steep the banister is - far greater then 45 degrees here!

We made our way up, which is hard going. As we pass this old man, Princess hears him farting from exertion - eeeeeew...

Princess catches her breath as we admire the view from the top.

Along this ridge, you can see some of the many guard houses.

Here is the interior, long since unoccupied.

This is one of the larger guard houses along the wall.

We had to stop and admire the scenery:

What a stunning valley!

Amazing to see it extend off in both directions. It also splits in forks in parts, and is actually a network of walls.

We walked along for over a kilometer before dipping back down to the valley floor.

More steep stairs lead back down to the valley floor.

Looking back up the wall we just climbed down. We had to find our own way back up the valley to the carpark which was a little confusing, but we eventually found it.

In the carpark, Princess noticed something. Can you guess what caught her attention?

Guess who is having a ride...

Princess and the two-hump camel. After a lap or two around the carpark, Princess dismounts and we headed off to find our tour operator.

Back on the bus, we head for Beijing. But on the way back, there are a few more sales opportunities!

First, we visit a "Health" clinic and get a free 5 minute foot wash and rub performed by a troupe of practiced youth. This was very welcome after all the climbing steep stairs. The initial relaxation was followed by 15 minutes of pressure selling of all sorts of health balms and pills.

In true cheapskate mode, we spent 15 minutes politely but firmly asserting that we didn't need any of these kinds of things, but thanks for the gratis footrub...

Our final stop at a shop called "Mr Tea" should immediately set off alarm bells for those who read our story on The Norways, but it was OK. It was hard sell, not extortion. Well, it was courteousy and smiles serving samples, then the hard sell.

Toolman was wise enough to take a photo before the hard sell started. We adopted cheapskate mode again, and managed to avoid buying anything. Our host above got quite snarky when it became apparent that no one in the group wanted to buy anything!

The tour to all these places was a great day out, and the sales tactics came with nice perks - really worth it. Its like listening to an investment seminar just because it has nice food at the end - and in our case a foot rub!

Stay tuned for our travels back south towards Vietnam.

China: Beijing Ancient Observatory

2007-10-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

We visited the Beijing Ancient Observatory after our look around the Forbidden City. This observatory was built in 1442 during the Ming Dynasty, and is one of the oldest observatories in the world, predating the telescope.

Toolman poses by one of the guard lions.

Princess shows another guard lion.

Toolman plays the fool with a dragon claw, which is part of an Amillary Sphere in the ground level courtyard.

Princess shows her jazz hands as we look around the museum.

This is an old compass.

The bulk of the actual observatory hardware is atop a 15 meter tall brick platform.

This is the view from the top.

The various instruments on top.

This is a large quadrant, for measuring angle in the sky.

This is another Amillary Sphere, showing the celestial sphere and its orientation.

After such a long day, we headed back to our hotel for some well deserved rest.

China: Beijing - Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City

2007-10-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

An important place to visit for us was Tian'anmen Square, a large public square in the middle of Beijing. It is the site of the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall aka the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.

The square is also infamous for a series of illegal political protests staged here in 1989, where many citizens were killed by the brutal crackdown of the military. It is the site of a famous photo with a single protestor in defiance, standing in front of a row of advancing tanks.

We walked down from our accomodation to the the South Gate.

The South Gate sits at the the southern edge of the square, and is formerly the front gate of the Imperial City.

This is the original entrance gate, part of the wall that surrounded the ancient city. Only sections and ruins of the wall remain, but this gate is well preserved.

This imperial guard lion also sits by the gate. We were able to visit inside the south gate.

After paying a small fee, we climbed the stairs into the main room in the archery bulding on top of the gate. The color scheme inside and out matches!

The archery building is now a museum, with photos and details the history of Beijing: the rulers, the Forbidden City, the surrounding wall etc.

Princess poses outside on top of the gate. The detail and color is amazing and intricate.

From the gate, you look over the square straight to Chairman Maos' Mausoleum. Below, you can see the constant stream of visitors coming out.

After buying some appropriate footwear from a nearby shop (sandals are not very respectful), we queued up and also filed through the mausoleum to see Mao. They were very strict on what you could take inside, so our stuff was all in lockers - no camera. It was like airport security, and very busy!

Apparently Mao may have been a wax duplicate, but we filed past quickly and not too close so it was hard to judge.

Walking around the square we saw lots of flower arrangement and hedge-work for the 2008 olympics next year.

The Great (hedge) Wall is an impressive feat!

On the north edge of the square is the Forbidden City. The outerwall on this edge has some nice gardens with bright colors.

This is Tian'anmen, (Literally: the Gate of Heavenly Peace) the south gate to the Forbidden City. It lends its name to Tian'anmen square, where we have just been and which it borders.

There are lots of respectful reminders of Chairman Mao!

The guards outside were at attention, and happy to be in a picture. Toolman played the fool ...

This haubiao (ceremonial column) stands outside the gate. It was errected during the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century.

We freely enter under Tian'anmen gate into a courtyard used for ticket sales and tour guide grouping.

Guards were practising their marching drills in the courtyard as we watched and queued for our tickets.

With tickets in hand, we head in to the Meridian Gate (above). Check out the group on the right all wearing red hats - tour groups all wear matching coloured hats, and follow a guide carrying a matching flag.

Toolman poses on the west edge of the courtyard south of the Gate of Supreme Harmony. There are a couple of large courts, and some could (and probably have) hosted some spectacular sized gatherings.

Toolmans stands in front of the Hall of Military Eminence.

Ornate decoration and style common to the Forbidden City and to the south gate we visited earlier.

We walked past this area that has lots of leftover or damaged imperial guard lions.

Toolman wanders back into one of the Gate of Supreme Harmony courtyard.

Princess looks in to one of the many exhibitions. The whole site is a museum, and many buildings are used for exhibiting.

There is an amazing range of interesting items, such as this large ceremonial drum.

There is also plenty of armor and weapons on display from important periods in Chinas' history.

Toolman inspects a lantern designed to be carried in procession.

Princess poses between rooms containing these treasures.

There is plenty of ceramic and bronzeware on display.

There is also plenty of important clothing from Chinese history.

As we exit we note this overside handle; the huge brass pot it is attached to is huge and would take many men to carry.

This throne room is decorated in regal yellow material.

The roof is also magnificently decorated with gold and green.

As we head on to another room, we pass this bronze imperial guard lion, with a baby lion under its paw!

In another room, we find lots of mechanical items, such as this astronomical device.

An old model train, which was a gift to Chinese royalty.

The museum host a vast large collection of over 1000 antique clocks.

Many were gifts from other nations, but plenty are of Chinese origin also.

This clock is supported by golden elephants.

Here we are looking out at the outer gate of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, from the northern end of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Closer to the gate, we inspect the brass guard lions. These ones have balls in their claws.

Looking back over the lions, we see stairs back to the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

The main temple at the center of the Palace of Heavenly Purity.

This is a throne inside one of the many rooms in the temple.

All of the buildings in the Forbidden City follow a common style; ceramic tiled roofs, the same color scheme and architecture.

There are subtle differences and unique adornments, such as these roof statuettes. The quantity indicates the status of the building.

As we head to the northern end, we pass this bronze turtle.

Princess shows the scale of this huge dragon carving as we continue north.

A close up of the dragon - Raaar!

Here at the northern end of the city are two circular temples in the Imperial Garden. This is in contrast to the square style favored in the Forbidden City.

The imperial garden also has a wonderful rock hill with a temple on top.

The rock appears to be natural, with the temple and steps carefully constructed on top.

The gardens are full of trees and plants - many emperors spent time pondering in here.

Princess looks at the waterways to see a school of goldfish swimming about below.

The large number of buildings, each with such detail, is very impressive. Its unfortunate that its no longer a living city; all the ceremony and regality that it once hosted has gone, demoted to being a tourist attraction.

Stay tuned.