Vietnam, the Fun Stuff

Well, let’s get down to it shall we.  No more philosophy, no more mantras and no more hippie imaginings.  Where is the fun at and how do I get it?  Well the good news is that it is there, the bad news is that it can be hard to find if you are time poor.  And frankly, this is the majority of the travelling public.  But stuff the majority; I’m for the 10 percenters.  People piss me off with their “I have only 3 weeks to travel 3 countries” mentality. 

For me, the fun was definitely in the north of the country.  But before I could access it, I had one touristy thing I had to do.  I had to have a custom suit made in Hoi An!  With some 600 tailors rammed into one town, what better place to do it?  Armed with an open timeframe and a few pictures I set out to find a tailor to make me a “high end” suit.  With a few recommendations I settled upon a tailor called BeBe.  Personally my choice of shop was based on word of mouth reputation and the head tailor’s polite yet definite approach in telling me which part of my ideas were rubbish.  The experience was something very different for me and to be honest I quite enjoyed it.  I had a total of four fittings to get my creations bang on and that is where the difference was for me in terms of quality of outcome.  Impressed with the whole caper, I also had a vest, fitted shirt, pants, shoes and dress for my girlfriend Emily made. 

 

Hoi An by night time.  It kind of reminds me of an Asian Dubrovnik.

Lanterns light the streets.  $9 for the hand painted ones...

While I enjoyed the experience and was pleased with the outcome, I was chomping at the bit to leave Hoi An.  This feeling could be attributed to a lack of much else to do in the city other than shop and eat.  Hoi An is a well known tourist spot and not only amongst the backpacking crowd.  It is well frequented by the more affluent older crowd who throw money around without much regard.  They most definitely perpetuate some bad habits amongst the locals. 

So as soon as I could, I was out and hiring a motorbike to ride to Hue.  Taking the bike over the Hai Van pass, which was made famous by the TV show Top Gear, I was expecting a mind altering experience.  This pass is apparently rated as one of the most famous passes in the world to drive.  I am at a loss as to why however?  It is nice, but it is nothing more spectacular than so much other coastline around the world.  Must be an expectation thing on my behalf…  But eh, nothing really lost.

From Hue, I returned the bike and looked to the sights for inspiration.  My choices were museums, ruins, old palaces yada yada.  Hmm, not my speed.  Maybe if I was still a “Lonely Planet traveller” but that fad passed me by a long time ago.  I heard a whisper of a caving area around the little inland town of Phong Nha.  Apparently here there existed the world’s largest cave, Son Doong.  Most of the jungle surrounding the area was reported too thick and remote to have been explored until the more recent times of foreign interest.  “Sounds interesting me thinks”.  And so with some leads to chase I hit the town and managed to hop aboard a tourist bus to Phong Nha the following night.  Arriving into town that night I had no idea of the area but when I woke, I knew my choice had been a cracker! 

 

Phong Nha I can tell you now was my greatest adventure in Vietnam.  The area is smack bang in the middle of thick jungle covered karst mountains, the kind you visualise when thinking of Vietnam.  Water buffalo roam the streets while a blue limestone coloured river flows calmly by.  There is a little but established tourist route allowing you to see some of the caves readily accessible to those who only have a day or two to spend.  I on the other hand knew that this might well be the place for me to blow my entire trip.  And so I set out to find out how best to do this. 

 

The river through town

More rivers and karst mountains on the local tourist loop.  River eventuate from the ground and as soon as they appear they are gone again.  It is very cool.

At my hostel, I met another intrepid traveller, a Canadian guy called Chris who was keen to do much the same as myself.  So with some local assistance we set out to one of the only guiding companies in town.  We wanted a guide, we wanted some kit and we wanted to get deep into the jungle.  Well as luck would have it, this was on offer albeit in a highly rag tag manner.  I think it was the lack of information on what we were signing up for and the thrown together nature of the trip that had both myself and Chris excited.  All we knew was we were in for 3 days of jungle time, hammering through caves, swimming across rivers, climbing mountains and all with the promise of not another sole being around.  Wicked! 

Come the morning of the tour, we were given two bags.  One small vinyl bag to carry with us during the day and house all the kit we could afford to get wet, the other a smaller dry bag to house our one set of dry clothes.  We were offered boots, a helmet, headlamp and life vest.  That was all.  Unfortunately my feet were too big for all of the boots they could muster and so I used my own. 

It was a 75km drive to the minority village from which we would pick up two porters and start our trek.  The weather was terrible, cold and wet but we were keen to do something a little less ordinary.  The area here was fully restricted to the public and visitors required a pass attained from the government check-in station along the way.  Shortly after arriving at our start point, we shouldered our gear and were off.  For those of you who have ever walked through red soil mud, you will know how hard that is.  This was our life for the next 3 days.  We were slip sliding up and down mountains, bouncing off some frankly stupid sharp rocks, swimming rivers with all our kit on, hanging off vines and all in the cold, cold rain.  We walked through waterfalls, swam through mountains, explored caves with nothing but our head lamps.  It was sooo cool.  Now I am not going to make out that the workload was stupendous, because it wasn’t.  We were left wishing for more, we wanted to really earn each nights rest.  But what lacked in this regard was made up for by the experience.

 

The trek was full of good humour and some ridiculous sayings.  At one point I managed to help our guide into the water on one of our cave swims with a little kick in the back while he hesitated at the temperature of the waters.  Chris kindly reminded me that you should never mess with the guide at this point especially since we had just signed the most ridiculous waiver to get onto this trip.  Apparently the company could either deliberately or not cause harm, serious injury and or death to either of us haha.   What a waiver! 

We drank rice wine on the first night and complained about how much we all hated accountants.  The following night with the rice wine all gone, the request went out for some stories to be told around the camp fire.  Chris knew what was coming as a grin set across my face.  “Alright boys, what do you want to hear?  How about midget bull fighting in Colombia?”  I think that story was a little too foreign to the little jungle men, they appeared more in disbelief than anything.  So I revised, re-evaluated and told them some spearfishing stories instead.  That was more the treat.  Jungle men like hunting!  Later we all rounded the night out with some karaoke around the fire, stone cold sober….  The Vietnamese guys were at an advantage because they sing for everything.  They sing while they work, while they walk and I’m sure while they shower.  So belting out a few tunes was natural to them.  When Chris and I were asked to sing a song together, we came up with a blank.  With frozen and lethargic brains, my only suggestion was “do you know the Barbra Streisand song by Duck Sauce?”  And there we went, “Ooowwwoo wooo ooo wooo ooo wooo ooo, Barbra Streisand!”.  Bouncing our hands above our heads from side to side, our retardation was a great hit and the tune stuck in everyone’s head.  We killed it. 

On the last day I had it in my mind to race our porters back to the village from which we had begun our trek.  I had heard that despite their large backpacks, they were absolute machines through the jungle and so this I felt I needed to see.  We left for home before them as they were still busy packing  up the camp.  Along the way we explored a cave off the path though and I felt this gave us equal standing.  Walking through the fields after an invigorating river crossing I got distracted by the many water buffalo.  Taking a prompt from the movie Crocodile Dundee, I thought I’d test the hand gesture he used to subdue a water buffalo that was blocking his path.  Walking towards the buffalo I started with the gesture and then the noise.  Immediately the buffalo stopped eating the wad of grass it was so previously engrossed with and stared directly at me.  Its head slowly lowered, gaze still fixed as its brow started to cross.  Yep, one definitely pissed off buffalo.  As it trained its stare on me, the front foot stomped and the others began to plead for me to stop, please stop.  It was a big buffalo and there was nowhere to run, stopping probably was a good idea.  Just to make sure that the previous buffalo wasn’t broken or anything, I tried my skills on another two…  Definitely not broken, they bloody hate that move!

With my focus restored I saw the two jungle men taking a more direct path to the village than us.  As I gauged our relative distances I saw one of the guys start to put a burst on.  “Oh it’s on like Donkey Kong” I thought and hoisting my bag high on my shoulders I started legging it for the entry point to the village.  This is the one time I was thankful for having long legs in Vietnam.  Standing at the start of the village I performed a somewhat over exaggerated and prolonged victory dance just to be a bit of a dick.  Booyeah!  The rest is history. 

And this is how we begun...

 

 

 Our first nights camp, complete with jungle men and a fire.  

This is the exit of the cave we traversed to out first nights camp.  We camped at the entrance of this cave under the shelter of an overhang.

One of the many caves.  Dramatic and epic in one.

One of the many waterfalls along the way we trekked through.

More caves!

 

This is the entrance to the cave near where we camped for our second night.

It was so wet in these areas there was some cool flora to be found.  Plus the spiders...

One hillbilly and his adventuring partner just about to swim through a cave.

Duk our guide swimming through a cave exercising his unique paddling style.  Backwards, legs raised and using his arms in a circular paddling motion.

The following day, freezing our butts off me and Chris got food poisoning which prolonged our stay in Phong Nha.  All better, our next stop was Catba Island.

Catba Island is the island central to Halong Bay, possibly the most famous tourist attraction in Vietnam.  Both Chris and I headed for the less touristed area of Lan Ha Bay to the south.  Here we met up and set about searching for yet another adventure.  This time the theme was nautical, kayaking the many karst limestone islands over the course of three days was our plan.  But again the difficulties of Vietnam set in.  Finding a guide was impossible, lies were blatantly told to try and force us into going with the easier options.  My favourite was “You can’t camp overnight on the beaches because during winter the high tides are at night and the beaches totally disappear”.  I do believe the expression on my face was one of “are you seriously f@king going with that as your final answer?”  Being a boat fairing guy, this is a great bit of bullsh!t if I ever heard it.  The end result was “so we recommend it be better to stay in our bungalows”.  “I’ll give you bungalows” was my thought shaking a mentally clenched fist!  Luckily we heard of an Australian bloke hiring a boat off his own back for a private climbing expedition.  The guy, called Brad, was happy for anyone to come along and split the cost of hiring the boat.  Brad had kayaks, climbing gear and the like.  The trip was cheap and meeting the others who had all signed up, they were cool.  And so it was.

Aboard the boat we had our choice of activities.  I was made aware of a sport I had never heard of before called deep water soloing.  You basically climb a cliff face that juts out over the water, jumping off into the water when you feel you have gone high enough.  Pretty cool!  My lack of shoes for the climb though was an issue as I already knew how unforgiving the limestone is to climb.  So I had to let this one go and satisfy myself with some kayaking.  Lan Ha Bay is a beautiful area but unfortunately it was almost totally devoid of life and utterly ridden with garbage.  The waters were so cluttered I actually didn’t opt to swim the whole trip.  I did however go to Monkey Island with a few others where the Dutch guy on the trip, Derick, almost managed to get mauled by a territorial monkey after he gestured with his arm for the monkey to come and sit on it.  The angry as hell monkey then ran to the top of an adjacent abandoned building and tried to find someone to throw a loose piece of corrugated iron at.  Even monkeys can be jerks.

Overnight I sat and drank with all aboard before organising my own private boat ride to an island beach where I camped under the stars with a raging fire.  One thing that did really impress me about the waters was the bioluminescence.  Any disturbance to the water resulted in quite a strong residual glow that had me intrigued. 

The following day six of us set off to find a swim through cave that took you to the inside of one of the islands and a secluded lagoon.  Finding the cave with little problem we set out to kayak through.  The tide was running out and this made padding and more importantly steering against it very hard.  But first seeing in the pitch black of the cave, which ended up being much longer than we anticipated, was our primary concern.  Remembering that I had a head lamp on me from my previous night’s camping this problem was solved.  Now just to get through.  With the water shallowing and our kayaks being bashed into every bit of cave wall with increasing vigour we decided the best way through was to walk, dragging our gear.  Unfortunately only two of us had shoes and the cave floor was nothing but sharp oysters.  Luckily we had a girl on the trip called Grace from Coffs Harbour.  Grace was one standard unit, there is no real other way of saying it.  Grabbing two kayaks at a time she squat her legs and began to drive us forward.  Man handling (or should I say women handling) us through the cave we popped out the other side and into the lagoon.  It was the only place where we actually saw corals and some sign of fish.  As we paddled around, the Dutch guy Derrick's, spurred on by Chris, decided to eat the head off a little live bait fish.   Not too sure what was going on there but random seemed to be Derrick's thing.

After taking the place in we returned back to the boat the way we came, bouncing off every rock, wall, oyster etc. on the way out of the cave.  We had just enough time for a few people to do some climbing before the boat departed.  My favourite climbing moment was when Grace, not an avid climber at all, attempted a 30m rope climb up a nearby cliff.  Putting her head down she powered up the wall ignoring her boyfriend’s calls to take in the view and look down.  At the top, she made the mistake of finally listening.  This is when the cry came out “oh f@ck, how do I get down!”  Hilarious, she was up there locked onto a rock and terrified of heights.  What a unit.

 

The foreshore at Catba

 The actual foreshore at Catba

 The actual foreshore at Catba. 

Heading out of the port for our boating adventure.  It is a busy affair on the water with many a fish farm, squid boat and various service vessels.

 There are even floating supermarkets.

 In the kayaks however it is a more relaxed affair.  I feel like I am making ground on mastering the selfie...

The sport of deep water soloing

 One jerk monkey holding a piece of corrugated steel.

 This was my own private island for a night.  Transport, fire and tent.  Check.

 The view from my cove.  Complete with an island full of backpackers just around the corner....

 Proof that we made it into the secluded little island cove.

In the end we all returned to Catba Island and I booked a bus to Hanoi for the next day.  I travelled with Elisa, a Brazilian girl from the boat trip back to Hanoi and we spent a pretty cool Christmas together drinking and wandering the streets soaking up a very Vietnamese occasion.  Two days later I was on a plane for Sydney my trip ended and the start of a new year to come. 

Finally, I guess I need to summarise my thoughts on Vietnam.  In all honesty, a month was more than enough time for me to see what I needed to see.  I know not to arrive into a place with expectations but I did and Vietnam didn’t come close to fulfilling them.  The country is very touristic and you meet many a traveller totally over the scheming, scamming and false sincerity of many of the locals.  But all this is for a buck.  I really don’t believe any of them are bad people at all and I know that if you have the time to spend, they are actually very nice.  Unfortunately if you are travelling through the country however, often most of your local contact is brief as you need to meet people to help you go where you need and do what you like to do.  The country is also very agricultural, with much of its natural beauty being ripped up for farm land, rubber plantations, timber lopping etc.  And to add to this, the scourge of most developing nations is ever present: plastics and other pollution.  It is such a shame really.  I doubt you will find me ever returning to Vietnam but at least now I have a new experience and I am educated in the ways of the country. 

                        

Vietnam, a Month of Respite…

Well, for those following the story, work over the past year has been a less than joyous affair. For those of you new to the story, work over the past year has been a less than joyous affair… The soap opera office politics and poor conduct of management has me more and more jaded with the engineering world. It seems less and less plausible to find a satisfying job these days without ridiculous deadlines, constant technical, political, financial and efficiency based scrutiny. It all amounts to a high stress undertaking when all I want is a job to facilitate my life rather than dominate it.  And this is where we kick off.

 

It was a few hours into the day and my boss sends out an email letting me know that there has been a management directive dictating all staff reduce their leave balances before the end of the year. I am told I have two hours to make up my mind on how I wish to do this. I have some 17 days owing to me and two months in which I can arrange to take it… My initial reaction was “what a bunch of dicks, they could have at least given me more notice!” So in an act of defiance I decided to ignore the request not to lump my leave into one block and I suggest a month’s leave in December. Expecting a rejection, I am surprised when it is granted. Not as surprised as my technical director though who later tries to revoke this approval. But before he does, I am locked and loaded with airfares into the south of Vietnam departing from the north nothing short of a month later. Time doesn’t favour those who hesitate. With my plans implemented, revoking my leave now becomes a task too hard for management to tackle.

 

And so I am off! I arrive in Ho Chi Minh City on the last day of November. The place is a sprawl of motor scooters, the occasional car and truck. The streets are crowded with people tending their shop fronts, setting up impromptu stalls and laying down many a make shift alfresco street food affair. The tourist quarter is especially busy with people trying to sell many a ware to the cashed up tourist crowd. Everyone wants your attention on these streets and the interest is only skin deep.  The discussions lasts up until the point you are asked to buy something and you manage to get the message across that you are not interested. Then neither are they and off they go, usually only a few meters, to start the whole ordeal again with the next person. It is a tiresome affair and very impersonal. It is also something that will plague your trip throughout Vietnam especially if you take no real time to settle into a spot.

 

Ho Chi Minh City is a great place to meet fellow travellers on the street. Hostels are in the most part replaced by hotels or guest houses which are mini hostels without the usual communal areas to meet and mingle. So it is at the street food cafes/stalls where you meet many a person. Meeting over a bowl of Pho or a cheap beer is a nice place to start. But the city was not for me. Like most cities of its kind, it is just crowded and busy and I find it hard to seek the adventure I like in these kind of places. So with considerable haste, I booked a sleeper bus to the smaller country town of Dalat.

 

Soon I realise that Vietnam is not set up for a 6 foot 3 inch bloke such as myself. The sleeper buses are not something you really want to tackle if you are over about 5 foot 5 inches. It is like trying to fit your fist into your mouth, it may happen but the outcome is not going to be pleasant.…

 

With the possibility of having another four people beside you, the back of the bus is your best bet for space....

 

Dalat is a nice enough place but in my opinion not anything too special. It is a big agricultural hub and the locals are famous for their flowers. I spent a few days here assessing my travel options, talking to others and making plans. It was here I had the unfortunate experience of trying dog meet. Something I personally do not agree with. Despite the moral objections, the taste was pretty ordinary. Dog is a very gamey meat with a very distinct flavour and aroma. I can pick it a mile away these days. The good news is however that there is always plenty of other options and with many a street food stall about the place. It is no little secret that the Vietnamese eat like horses, you will not believe your eyes at how much a 50kg Vietnamese person will pack away! So rest assured, there is food around, it is plentiful and also quite tasty.

 

I work hard to make these photos look pretty.

 

Taking the advice of a number of travellers I arranged a motorbike tour that would have me travel from Dalat to Hoi An via the back country of Vietnam. I met with a local Easy Rider guide by the name of Vu who I later chose to be my guide for this 5 day trip. My instructions were clear, “I don’t want the normal pre-chewed tourism that most of Vietnam runs on, I want something a little different”. That is how I told it and that is how it was to be. Taking Vu’s advice I opted to travel on the back of his motorbike instead of hiring my own simply so that I could communicate with him on the open road as we passed through the country. This turned out to be a very good move indeed.

 

The tour was such a breath of fresh air in what I considered to be a very scripted travel scene. The extra-long trip allowed me plenty of time to bond with Vu and become quite good mates. He explained to me so many aspects of Vietnamese life that I would have never learnt otherwise. We started the tour by visiting his uncle, a farmer on the outskirts of Dalat. We dropped in for an impromptu lunch and in one of my overzealous story renditions I fell through his couch while sitting on it…. Eap! But it seemed not to be an issue and when I later quizzed Vu about the whole visit he told me his uncles only comment was that he was disappointed I didn’t finish the litre of rocket fuel they call rice wine with him! Did I mention these guys really like to drink!

 

And so we travelled. The back country of Vietnam is to me far more interesting than the tourist strip along the coast. You will meet many of the 52 minority tribes which also call Vietnam home. In these places, a price is often the price, irrespective of you being foreign or not. People are happy to see you because they are interested in you and your stories. If you take the time and you stop to chat you will find yourself invited to celebrations, into people’s houses for tea and more. And with someone to translate and explain the customs, this is a great introduction to Vietnam.

 

The scenery in the highlands is also very nice but still dominated by farm lands and litter. Our first nights stop was in the commonly visited spot of Lak Lake. It was early the following morning that I decided to head out for a scout of the town. I often found that if you were up early enough you could find people doing their everyday duties without the need to chase down a foreigner for a sale. I found myself soon enough wandering down the main road. The streets are lined with locals sitting atop little plastic chairs socially having their early morning coffee or tea. As I look up down the road I see a giant bull elephant, full length tusks and all striding towards me with a handler atop. The elephant is so tall that the handler is constantly having to duck and weave under the power lines zig zagging above the road. As I stand there mouth open looking at this elephant swaying towards me I notice that despite the goings on everyone on the street are staring at me, including the elephant handler! Apparently the tall foreigner is more of a spectacle haha! With my camera in my bag I decide to leave it there and commit this moment to memory. Pretty cool.

 

And so we travel. Over the next few days I drink many a rice wine with many a local. I hear their stories and am impressed on their depth of though on many a topic. In particular the universal need for a person to be happy and what is necessary for this to be achieved. The patriotism of the locals is impressive as too is their social responsibility and sense of community. It is definitely something I wish western societies had much more of. Our adventures range from meeting bird hunters to war veterans, snake handlers to farmers, mafia men to jungle people. It was very cool. In the end, the best outcome of the trip by far was the friend I made in Vu. We spent many an hour talking, joking, messing around. People often commented upon how well we got along and when it finally came time to part ways in Hoi An, a tear was almost shed. There is a Buddhist mantra on the three elements to a happy life that is widely practised throughout Vietnam. I would like to share Vu’s take on this:

 

A person needs three key elements to be truly happy. These are: Firstly, someone to love. Secondly, something you love doing. Thirdly, something to hope for. Short and sweet.  Now you will not find me burning incense, parading around in Thai fishing pants and growing unnecessary facial hair.  Despite my heritage, I am not getting all hippie and spiritual on you all.  Relax :)           

 

 

The road tripping duo.

 

Some of the many obstacles you will face on the roads.

After a big feed, there is nothing better than a hammock break.  Pity about the driving instructor there with his pupils getting drunk and rowdy all while in class!

 

The reason I didn't eat fish in Vietnam.  Aquaculture galore.  And what do they feed the fish that live under their floating houses???

Mmmm pot belly pig...  Come here little fella...

Feeding the elephant at the elephant parking lot.  This one was getting treatment for an eye issue.

Swimming.  Shame about the garbage.

I don't think you can find anything greener than tea country.

View from the road.  The back country was by far the nicest.

And when I said "Vu, hold my camera, there is something I need to do"

Muscle Up 4th of July

Well as luck would have it, upon our return from the campervan of fun tour we found ourselves staring down the barrel of the 4^th of July.  With my many years of American television in toe, I was expecting a day of over-exaggerated Americana, fireworks, chest bumping and booze.  So to prep for this momentous event Toni and I thought we should go all out.  We needed a checklist:

• Muscle Car
• Fireworks
• Americana
• Alcohol

And so it began.  The plan was to hire a muscle car, drive to Nevada for fireworks (because apparently this is where the big stuff lives) and dress for the occasion.  So it was off to the internet.  It took a little but eventually I managed to hire an “Adrenaline Series” V8 muscle car through Budget Rentals.  Now this could have been a GT Mustang, Chevy Comaro or a Dodge Challenger, no guarantees.  I was really hoping for the Dodge Challenger but!  As luck would have it again, when I went to pick the car up from the Oakland Airport there in front of me sat a beautiful gloss black Dodge Challenger.  It was the only one in the lot and my only goal was to get that car!  Luckily the two ladies behind the counter were receptive to a bit of Australian charm.  They switched the booking on the car and gave it to me!  Hazah!  As a precautionary measure I had purchased the full suite of insurances because the US has some pretty serious liability issues.  I think the comment made to me by one of the rental ladies was “you can write this car off and it won’t cost you a dime.  Just turn it off and walk away.  Now go have some fun!”  What a thing to say to me of all people.  But they didn’t know that and neither did they need to.  And so my love affair with American muscle cars began. 

I waited all of a couple of minutes until I was just out of sight of the rental place before I put the hammer down.  The 5.8L Hemi V8 sure enough didn’t disappoint!  First stop, the American Apparel clothing store for some sweat American threads and head bands.  This day had to include head bands. 

 Note the name of the school across the road from Toni's place.

So we had an afternoon to hoon before setting off the next morning for Lake Tahoe and Nevada.  And hoon we did.  That poor car was either set to idle or hammer time.  I was loving life.  I was also thankful for the distinct lack of po-po (American slang for police).

The next morning was an early start.  We packed the car with provisions and set out on making Lake Tahoe in half the usual time.   As we approached we discovered that every other man and his ridiculously large SUV had fated the same plan.  Result: wall to wall traffic.  At a pace unsuited to a hood full of Hemi grunt we arrived at Lake Tahoe only to find the most disappointing of scenes.  The 4^th of July is just a nice family day out!  No drunken chest bumping, no gun shooting, no high fives, not even a dose of Americana enough to kill a horse.  I had been gyped!  I was expecting an American version of our Australia day but bigger, with drunken louts running amuck in paddocks trying to run their mates over with their utes etc, etc.  Obviously with an American slant to the whole affair.  But alas no.  Well stuff these guys, I was going to do my own version of what I thought should fit the bill.  So it was to the car, foot to the floor and off to Nevada.

Relinquishing the reigns!

Well after a fair drive and a few stops to ask locals for directions to the nearest fireworks stall we came up empty.  The promised ample abundance of deadly deadly fun time explosives was proving ever elusive.  So taking a punt and tracking the bulk of the people we went to the centre of downtown Reno for a try.  Here I found a market place full of happy people.  This seemed like a good place to find fireworks...  But still no.  Getting jacked with the situation I thought I would ask that group of police over there since after all fireworks are legal and they know the area better than anyone.  I approached the policeman with the most impressive moustache for no other reason than he had the coolest moustache.  After asking them if they could give me a hand and explaining I was from Australia and keen to celebrate the 4^th of July, I hit them up on where to find fireworks.  The guy with the moustache immediately looked at his partner and the group gave me a kind of puzzled stare.  Hmmm, I thought.  “Son, fireworks are illegal in Nevada” said the moustached officer.  I retorted with a “you have gotta be kidding me!  Everyone has told me to go to Nevada for the good stuff.  I have just traveled 6 hours!”  After a little discussion and learning the ins and outs of the laws I was told that unfortunately I had been sold a dud.  Thanking the officers and with clear disappointment on my face I was set to move off when the moustached officer came at me with something remarkable.  He said “Unfortunately fireworks aren’t legal in Nevada....but if you did want to get some, I would recommend going...”  and then he gave me the name of a place!  What a bloody legend!  So with this address seared into my memory I quickly headed back to the car and hit it into the GPS.  Ahhh! Another 1.5 hours away!  But it was a guaranteed spot for fireworks...  Unfortunately we had wasted so much time getting to this point, another 3 hours to the trip was just too much.  So we canned it all and headed for home.

On the way home, Toni took us on a little diversion to find a place for us to better run the Challenger through its paces...  She had found a spot on the GPS called Bear Flats or something like that.  Sounded like a flat area to have some fun.  Wrong.  Heading up the mountain road past the hillbillies and their gun shooting of stumps we ended up at the top of a mountain where the road turned from paved to paved and narrow and finally to dirt.  Ah well the GPS said we could get out by driving foreward and so we did.  On the odd occasion I may have been a little heavy on the gas around the odd bend and down the occasional straight.  This was quickly countered by Toni screaming at me and the odd punch thrown.  Later she told me that mean she was having fun!  Women!?!? 

So some 17 miles of dirt track rallying and we popped out onto a paved road.  The car was filthy but rearing for more.  So more we gave it.  Now, I feel I have to share a bit of a back storey here.  Certain people who privilege from my choice to keep them anonymous have been giving me grief about not changing my Facebook profile since I started on Facebook some 6 years ago.  My counter to this was that I liked the photo I had and I would not change it for anything less than awesome.  What would be more awesome than me burning out in an American muscle car on the 4^th of July in America?

Insert cheesy grin...

The setup to this moment was quite funny actually.  Toni was fed up with looking for a place to give the car some so she started partitioning to just do it on the windy mountain road we were on.  The one with the odd car coming past.  I was reluctant but soon gave in.  Pulled over on the shoulder of the road I had Toni stand in front of the car on the other side of the road armed with my camera.  Putting all the Challenger muscle down we made sweet photographic history and we were doing a bang up job of it until a car rounded the bend on the other side of the road.  Now a few things I should mention.  Toni was on the other side of the road too.  The road had about one foot of shoulder.  Toni was in bright red high heels and I had just made a heap more smoke than realised.  Result...None could see a thing and Toni knew she had to get onto my side of the road.  Running around like a high heeled chicken with its head freshly off she blindly ran through the smoke in the general direction of the car using tiny little high speed steps as any lady does running in high heels.  Somewhere amongst the smoke was a car travelling at some decent speed.  Finding the car Toni quickly jumped in but I couldn’t hoof it anywhere because I still couldn’t see a thing!  As the smoke cleared I looked to the other side of the road to see the other car stopped and a bloke just shaking his head.  I gave a grin and then legged it with all 5.8L of Hemi pounding the ground.  Good times.

In a random turn of events we found a roadside fireworks stand on the way home and bought some fireworks of the smaller variety.  By the end of the day it was too late and it had been too long for us to go out and let them rip.  We were pooped!

The next day Toni was off to work and I was off to see the large elephant seals of Anos Nevo at a bazillion miles an hour.  Eh, they were cool, but getting there in the car was cooler.  This was my last day of hooning and I was loving it.  Later that afternoon I returned the car, shed a tear and moved on. 

These guys are hilarious when they move up and down the beach.  Like 3 tonne caterpillars.

The last set of events worth noting from the US was the house party that had been in the making before my arrival.  The details of the party were vague at the least but I was told it would be a hippy event to remember.  And that it was...  and that it was...

Glory shot.  Merica!

The Hills of San Francisco

Well after enjoying the random offerings to be had in the city, Toni and I thought it a good idea to see some of the massive nature surrounding San Fran.  Hooked up with a Jucy camper van we set out to do this.  Our first stop on the road was the Napa Valley just an hour outside of SF.  Here we visited one of my fellow South American travelers Emily.  The Napa region is known as a wine region and is a place for the well to do.  Here I got to eat my first American cheese burger, which I must say was way better than I had thought, indulge in a number of local brews (my favourite being the white Belgian wheat beer called Blue Moon) and whoop ass on the local dart boards. 

Robin Hood of the darts world!

But it was really Yosemite and Big Sur National Parks that we had come to see.  People had been hyping them since I arrived in the US and I was getting carried away in the enthusiasm.  Toni, peaking out about the potential cues at the campground entrances of Yosemite had me wake up at 3am in the morning after a night of beer drinking to start the 6 hour drive from Napa to Yosemite.  I was more than enthused to say the least.  So that I had nothing to complain about she threw out a token offering to drive if I was too tired to do so.  When I saw one eye deviated from the other, I knew it was all me.  Thanks T.

So six hours and one extended discussion at a rangers station about the ways and means to make a safe fire we arrived at the gates of Yosemite National Park.  Low and behold, a camp ground was easy to find.  You need to book way in advance to camp within Yosemite Valley, but outside it is easy to get impromptu places as long as it isn´t the weekend.  So we spent our first day deliriously exploring the Yosemite Valley area.  The scenery was gorgeous but dry.  It was somehow reminiscent of Switzerland with the large granite formations.  There was a heap of hype about bears and such getting into your cars and ripping them apart in search of food.  Hence every camper was provided with instructions to keep their cars clear of food and to store everything edible in bear boxes (big steel lockers bolted to the ground).  To hammer home the point, many a photo was shown of cars that had been peeled open by bears.  And I mean peeled.  They had a wicked system going; basically they started at the top corner of your door window and peeled the window and metal back until they could fit in your car.  Then they tore that sh!t up!  But apparently if you came across a bear it would basically hoof it.  These were black bears, not the big bad assed grizzlies.  On the other hand the warnings for mountain lions were more interesting.  They read something like this:

WARNING:  In the unlikely event that you confront a mountain lion DO NOT break eye contact.  Make yourself look big and be very loud (The very loud bit is for non-American residents.  Americans just be yourselves...).  If you are with others, join your bodies together to look collectively larger (if your name is Andrew Couse, you are huge enough).  If you have children with you, pick them up off the ground and put them on your shoulders.  Do NOT bend down.  Do NOT run.  If the mountain lion approaches you, throw rocks and swing sticks.  Do NOT bend down.  If it attacks you, FIGHT BACK! 

Delightful...  So do I carry rocks to throw at these things or do I only pick the ones up at waist height to prevent me bending down?  Little vague on that one...  I might have added a few captions for added affect....  Guess which ones....

Bears bust´n cars.  How about them apples  

In the end however all we saw were deer that thought they were dogs tending to follow people and just mooch about, prairie dogs that peeped and darted around the plains and the odd squirrel.  Every time I saw a squirrel I lost my sh!t to the disinterest of Toni who had seen “a million and one” squirrels before.  Well neh, they were new to me and damn they could smash it about those trees! 

Giant Sequoias.  Pretty big.

Yosemite Valley.  Spectacular indeed and a nice place to do some fly fishing.

A crazy red thing.  Oooo artsie...

The Jucy rocket ship.  It turned a few heads.

Days two and three of our time in Yosemite were spent in the highlands.  These were less populated with tourists and allowed for some more remote trekking and a greater array of wildlife encounters.  This was more my thing.  Come dusk and dawn, travelling on the roads was precarious as we nearly hit a number of deer.  And the remoteness of it meant that we were bathing in mountain streams fed from snow melts.  Quite refreshing! On our first trek into the highlands Toni didn´t believe me that there was actually snow on the large mountains.  She hit me with a whole heap of pseudo science as to why snow could not possibly exist at this time of year.  A snow ball to the face changed her perceptions quick smart haha!  Yeyeah! 

Snow Toni, snow.

Mountain topping.  This is like 3,500m up.

And a random hunting cabin.  Up in the snow Toni, the snow.

Each evening we would head out to the plains and watch the wildlife as it moved from the wooded areas to the grasslands to graze.  But there were no bears to be seen.  Maybe I should have brought that picnic basket... 

Its a tradition now days.  This is atop Lambert´s Dome

One cheeky squirrel

One of the many mountain lakes.  Cold as heck!

I love these little guys.  Hazah for prairie dogs!

Naaaw, baby prairie dogs.

A cold place to bathe!

The storm clouds that rolled over the plains at this time of year were dramatic!

On the fourth day we decided to up anchor and head for Big Sur.  This is a national park on the coast just south of SF.  People had told us it was “the most beautiful place on earth”, “God´s country” etc, etc.  And so this had to be explored!  Driving through some pretty varying countryside we made our way back to the coast.  This is where it really hit home that Americans have an innate knack of over hyping things.  Yosemite was nice but not world beating by any means.  Big Sur however was nothing much on my radar at all.  It is really a clear water river (nothing too huge) that runs to the ocean surrounded by heaps of Americans in big RV´s.  The coast line is windswept with a number of treks to be done but none really to write home about for the seasoned trekker/traveller.  I was happy to hear people’s enthusiasm for the area, but I could not bring myself to mirror it.  Again I have to reiterate however how friendly and outgoing Americans are.  People were offering us firewood if we needed it, food if we wanted it and I even had an offer of accommodation!

Big Sur coastline....

One of the cool things we did manage to do in the area though was see the large sea otters which hang out in the floating sea weed beds along the coast line.  They are willey little critters though that tend to be pretty hard to photograph without a telephoto lens.  One of the little buggers had me stalking the heck out of him climbing headlands and rocky outcrops to no avail.  They are smart!  Road runner smart!  And pretty cool too, breaking molluscs on their bellies with the use of a smashing stone.  There were also sea lions about.  We spotted our first one in a cove from atop a cliff.  At the bottom end of this cove was a swimming beach so I thought it a good idea to swim out and say hello to the little guy we had previously seen.  Two things....  the water in this part of the world is ridiculously cold!  My man bits were hating me and the overall burn to the submerged portions of my body was insane!  Secondly, getting to the seal was hard!  They hammer it around the sea weed beds with ease, I don´t.  That stuff is thick and spiny yo!  So when I saw the sea lion poke his head out at a distance from me I tried my best to get his interest and attract him.  Waiting for him to reappear after submerging my body started to shut down from the cold.  Just as I turned to head back in I heard something pop up behind me and breathe.  Damn!  That sea lion was a little bigger than I expected!  I headed for him but at the sight of this he shot back down again and I wasn´t going to stick around and become a dudecicle, so I headed in.  Toni sat on the beach all the while.  What a girl!  

Look for the otter head!

In search of a sea lion.

After two nights in Big Sur we were happy to move on.  We followed the promise of good coffee chains north back to SF.  Along the way we passed through Santa Cruz which seemed to be a pretty cool little place full of trendy cafes, shops and the like.  It also had a place just north where you could go and see elephant seals!  Unfortunately we missed the closing time for this little adventure to the disappointment of Toni.  Back in SF we finally handed the keys for the van back to the RV hire place, paid our excess mile charges (1000 miles in total, 300 over our quota) and headed back for the commune, oh I mean Co-Op.  Yay hippies!  This began the time for the hatching of our next set of plans haha!        

   

San Francisco – A Tale of a Different Kind of City

I have to admit, I had very little in terms of preconceived notions for San Francisco.  I guess my previous lack of desire to visit the US had made my brain lazy in thinking about these sorts of things.  Not knowing what to expect though helped me observe the place for how it presented itself.  And boy did it present itself! 

San Fran (SF) is not the sparkling postcard of a city.  It is far from it.  I couldn’t and still can’t believe the number of homeless, crazy and drugged out people that roam the streets of the city.  At one moment in time you could be walking through the cities down town streets past Gucci, Prada, etc and in the space of a block you are in what is termed a micro ghetto.  The crazy people are crazy for sure but also surprisingly polite and keen to verbalise a constructive comment.  My friend Toni who I was visiting can attest to this.  Quite often we would be walking down the road only to have people comment positively on her dress, hair, tattoos or anything other they could visually grab onto.   As for the entertainment value of it all, well that was there for sure. 

On my first lunch in the city I saw a guy clearly spacing on something a little stronger than herbal tea.  He came to the window of the diner where we sat dressed in multi-coloured polka dot black spandex pants, a tee shirt, high top sneakers and all while rocking a big thick blue sweat band across his forehead.  Atop his upper lip was a thick green two piece moustache tattoo.  This bloke was energetic to say the least and inside his brain he was clearly bouncing to some imaginary break dancing beats.  Sitting in front of the diner he prepped a table to eat the KFC he bought from down the street.  Prepping consisted of a whole lot of break dancing separated by hoovering the table clean with his mouth....  Afterwards he played a little hide and seek with his food, danced again, regathered and start eating....  This was no exaggeration the norm in terms of the level of crazy on display.

Atop the crazies, the streets were littered with people begging, talking to themselves, sleeping, dressed in pimp suits, animal skins, wearing tales and so on, so forth.  The locals were quite used to this kind of stuff that nothing really struck them as outrageous anymore.  You could walk around doing almost anything and people would address you with a straight face.  I was not in Kansas anymore!

Even the less obvious conversations could be amazingly entertaining.  One day while walking to down town Berkeley from Toni’s house we overheard a regular looking guy trying to pick up a girl who clearly knew he was punching above his weight.  The conversation went a little like this:  Guy: “You’re a very good looking girl.  I’m looking to only date good looking girls because ugly girls just bring you down.  They are soooo depressing.  You see, this is why I would like to date someone like you.  You’re very good looking”.  Best pick up line ever!  Toni couldn’t control herself from yelling a loud “WTF!”  I just broke down laughing.  Unperturbed, the guy proceeded to ask what the girl was doing later.  I don’t know if this actually worked for him.  I have seen stranger things happen in SF.  One thing is for sure, people really don’t hold back here!

But with all this happening people are super friendly and ridiculously polite.  This was not only evident in SF, but also all around it.  The customer service we found to be amazing.  The constant conversations we had with many a stranger was a joy as there was usually no setup. People would just freely talk to you about anything and everything.

The people dynamic was not only limited to the streets either.  Toni told me she lived in a Co-Op.  I just nodded and pretended I knew what this was but I had no idea.  Now I do....  Basically it is a big share house which in this case was full of hippies.  Out front were the chickens and a forest of edible fruit and veg.  There were apple trees, plum trees, blueberry and raspberry bushes, leafy greens, herbs and so on.  It was actually almost enough to sustain the house.  Did I mention the place was full of hippies though.  About 17 of them in total.  The conversations I had were great.  The most memorable was when I asked one of the guys how his day was.  He replied “it has been a beautiful day” before looking off toward the sun (directly at the sun actually) and reverting to silence for the next 3 minutes.  Best conversation ever!  Bloody hippies.

The Co-Op.

All the house members were friendly enough but damn were they odd.  The blokes lacked the one hormone men need to be men, testosterone, while the women had way too much hair.  I was told by at least one girl there that I balanced the house out.  And it is not because I lack hair....  I think my levels of enthusiasm and emotion were a bit too much for this placid crowd making for some interesting scenarios.

And the craziness kept on coming.  On the 5^th day we stumbled upon a street party to celebrate Juneteenth, an African American freedom celebration day.  We first got a run down on it from the two African American guys who were cutting my hair earlier that morning.  I had been told to ask them to give me some “swagga” with my hair style and they obliged.  Not paying too much attention I came out with a goatee a mirror image of what the guy cutting my hair was supporting....  In hind sight I should have thought that one through....  Eh, what the hell though.  I was hungry and the street party had food so off we went.  At one end of the party was a large stage with an African American reverend preaching some words in a very stereotypical manner.  At the end of his speech he introduced the next band to take the stage.  The lead vocalist was a large African American women and she was supported by three backup singers and a male vocalist on the bass.  The male vocalist started in a deep slow voice carrying on about the female butt.  Next thing we know, the lead singer and back up vocalists are chorusing “You gots ta, gots ta, gots ta do it in the butt!”  Annnnd I didn’t see that one coming!  There were all these old largish women around us wiggling their butts in tune with the song having a great old time to the pleasure of the surrounding men.  I just stood there with my mouth open looking like I had been hit with a wet fish.    

If I was to summarise my whole first week it would seem on paper like not too much happened.  But this is far from the truth.  I was more than entertained by the simple day to day happenings around me as I toured the city sights.  This was nothing like I had really seen before and there was a huge novelty factor.  The food was good although a little large and rich, the coffee was ordinary despite the hype and the people were loud in more ways than one.  I can see how the novelty of it all could wear off though and if it did it would become a little taxing.    

A Zachary's Chicago style pizza.  Heeeuuuuge!

And then there was the GLBT quarter at Castro.  Openly proud.

 One of many other signs.