juliet

It occurred to me recently that I never wrote anything here about my cargo-freighter-based return from Australia, and that perhaps I should rectify this.

( turns out the world is very big )

[0] Container ships have a single accommodation block, usually of about 6 floors, at or towards the back, with all the people-space in it and the bridge perched on the top.

I am in a hostel in Philadelphia, & catching up posting a few already-written things. It is *weird as hell* to be here -- I was last here (in this hostel, not just in Philly) almost exactly 10 years ago, after the whole door-to-door-sales disaster. (I lasted 3 days before I quit & came here instead.) Walking into the front room was peculiar; the shock of recognition I got on walking into the dorm was far, far more so. (I was quite emotionally erratic at the time, for various reasons, and I was never entirely happy with how I made the decision I eventually made to go back home again; so, hm. I will see this as an opportunity to process that!) Off on the next ship tomorrow; due into Tilbury on Saturday week, I think. Gosh. Anyway! Various things about the USA, in list form

Things I like about San Franciso:

• The Haight. (Spotted on this occasion: a chap offering free high-fives; someone else being towed along the street on a skateboard by his bull terrier; an advert for a monthly peace demonstration -- just peace generally -- with cookies, signs, and humor (sic) available.)
• The Goodwill shop on the Haight (this time: one top and one dress th at is the Correct sort of several-blues, $11 all in). The other second-hand shop I bought stuff in last time I was in SF (a decade ago now, slightly alarmingly) is still there as well.
• $1.50 bus fares.
• Friendly people generally.
• More specifically, friendly people I actually know! (hello to Simon and Skud)

Things I like about Amtrak long-distance trains (Superliner or something, I think they're called):

• Lots of legroom.
• Proper legrests.
• Surprisingly good veggie pasta in the dining car.
• The observation car.
• Being double-decker! (I know lots of countries have double-decker trains. I still get unreasonably excited about them.)
• The women's washroom on the lower level. Lack of showers, but the washroom was big enough to have a reasonably proper wash. No lock though, possibly as it's intended I think for doing, I dunno, makeup or something (there is no men's washroom; all the toilets are unisex), and it has a couple of seats in and so forth. It also has electricity, and is thus a good place to sit and recharge your laptop, except that people keep trying to come in and getting confused.

Sad lack of powerpoints, though (the second train I was on, Chicago-Washington, had more of them in the observation car). The shorter-distance train, Washington-New York, had powerpoints at each seat. Much better.

Things I noticed from the train window:

• Colorado has lots of mountains (some still snow-covered even in June) and canyons and so forth, and is terribly pretty.
• This is however made a little less true by the fact that it is apparently the Done Thing among certain sorts of white-water rafters to moon the train as it passes. And there are a lot of white-water rafters along the Colorado River (or whatever the hell it's called). And all of them would do much better to keep their trousers on.
• Iowa and West Virginia look like places where one should grow many things. Unfortunately too much of it is monoculture, grumble grumble.
• Lots of houses (mostly those very American-looking wooden ones -- clapboard, is that the stuff?) and people's backyards and so forth. This is one of the things I really like about train travel, and always have been, ever since I was little and first took the train up to Victoria, peering at all the back gardens and backs of terraces along the way.

Other random notes:

• Do not assume that you can find a hostel bed in Washington DC when you show up. Furthermore, do not decide to walk to Hostel A (only 10 blocks or so...) rather than phoning first in order to discover this.
• However! It is possible, starting from Union Station, to dump one's bags in the left-luggage; walk past the Capitol, Senate, Library of Congress etc (all helpfully in the same place), up the National Mall and to the Washington Monument, and then north to the White House; get the metro back to the station, and rescue one's luggage; all within 1h45. I'd have had time to grab some food as well if there hadn't been a problem with the metro (later turned out to be a fairly serious train crash) necessitating an extra 15 min of walking.
• Washington DC in June is really very warm, and the Mall lacks any shade.
• The Lower East Side of New York has lots of lovely tiny garden-park things, and is in general a really interesting place to wander round. I like NY a lot.
• NY also has friendly people (hello to Mike!), and a really rather good vegan restaurant on 6th & Ave A (Lower East Side again), called Caravan of Dreams.

Arrived in San Francisco this morning. We came under the Golden Gate Bridge just after 4am -- which I did get up for, and it was all very exciting. We came right past Fisherman's Wharf, as well, and I could see Grace Cathedral all lit up on the hill as we came into the bay. Docked just before 6am, had a nice chat to a very friendly, helpful Customs & Immigration Official, and was on US soil by 7am. I then hiked about 2 miles to the nearest BART station, which may have been an error (my knees hurt now), but after 24 days of no exercise at all, it felt good at the time.

Other things that are good: the TRULY ENORMOUS vegan burrito I had for breakfast (black beans and tofu!); free interwebs and squashy sofas at the youth hostel; being in contact with people again.

I am bloody knackered though (didn't sleep much at all last night, and haven't been sleeping well for a while now, possibly due to lack of exercise) and hanging on in there for another couple of hrs until I can legitimately go to sleep.

The ship was an interesting experience, about which I may write more anon. The diet (they're not really set up for vegans or even vegetarians; I ate a lot of boiled potatoes, although the cook was kind enough to cook veg separately most days for myself and the other veggie passenger) & lack of exercise I found really fairly tough. Being out of contact for so long was quite good in some ways (can't keep hitting F5... and I certainly found it a slightly stressful shock to get back online today and have an inbox full of 90% crap to deal with); and not good in others (no way of contacting people I actually want to talk to!). And of course it did the thing I wanted it to: I got from point A (Australia) to point B (the US) successfully, if slowly.

More excitingly, I saw DOLPHINS in Mexico & then on our way up the coast. And flying fish nearer the equator! I also came to the conclusion that the Pacific is really very, very large indeed.

It might be nearly dinnertime. I am going to make lentil bolognaise. I am looking forward to this quite a lot.

I am in Adelaide, on the ship. Which was due to leave 0700 today (this involved an 0600 Customs visit[0]), then 1100 today, and now 1300 or later. I am getting a little antsy; it's a bit neither-one-thing-nor-the-other, waiting to have left but not actually being gone.

I have just spent ten minutes trying to write things about one or more of:
- Australia in general
- the last fortnight in particular
- people I care about
- the waiting-room feeling of being sat on the ship, here but not quite
- the feeling of having a brain overstuffed with Things that I can't quite get a handle on right now
- [a whole bunch of complicated emotional stuff about going and leaving and people that I can't even manage to write clearly about in this kind of non-specific summary form]

and yes, have basically failed to be able to say anything that is not one or both of trite or uninformative (or something else equally unhelpful), so I am going to give up for now.

ION: my cabin is enormous (sitting room, bedroom, bathroom), my window looks forward towards the bow, and I've been watching big cranes loading containers since I boarded yesterday. I am right up top just below the bridge (which apparently I can visit whenever I like as long as I keep out of the way etc). Have met the Captain & Chief Engineer (both v friendly chaps), and a couple of the crew - I'm the only passenger until we reach Auckland on Saturday night.

Due into Oakland (SF) on the 16th, at present. It should be an interesting 3 wks; I am hoping that my belief in my immunity to seasickness proves to be correct!

[0] They asked me more questions than I'm used to getting from passport control - were you on a work visa, when did you get here, were you also working in Mongolia/Vietnam/etc (after looking at my Extensive Visa Collection), why are you boarding at Adelaide when you've been living in Sydney - and then had to hunt through their bag of passport stamps to find the right one. "We don't have to do this much - I've only ever stamped 4 regular passengers out!" one of them said.

Finally finished uploading my London-Australia photos.

(The new ones start here.)

This afternoon I have mostly been putting things into boxes, which is a traumatic process. The boxes (two teachests & Cepheus-the-bike) go tomorrow morning. I have the FEAR that I will end up with random extra bags to carry onto the boat when I realise on Sunday that I forgot to pack $important_thing (which will doubtless also be *heavy*).

Test packing of the rucksack reveals a) things fit!, and b) luggage is about 50% books & other paper, & 50% clothes. I may end up either abandoning, or posting home, books at San Francisco[0].

[0] The last time I was in San Francisco was when I was 21 and spent the Easter vac driving round the SW of the States (bless Oxford & its 6 wk vacations, even if the 8 wk terms are actually designed to generate insanity and overwork). As I didn't have to *carry* anything anywhere, due to having a car, I ended up buying enough books that I had to buy a bag to carry them home in. And then I forgot that I also had a bottle of vodka in the bag, which obviously broke on its way through baggage handling. Thus all my Arnistead Maupin books are slightly crinkled and vodka-ish.

A thing I forgot to mention before: I stopped off at Chester Forest Camp on my way to Pemberton -- it's a protest camp on a site where they're due to start logging in the New Year. It's an absolutely beautiful area, pristine forest (which, y'know, you can't get *back* once you've chopped it down), and the extent of the logging that's going on all around there is pretty shocking. I saw the banners up as I rode past them, hence stopping to say hello & talk about direct action & compost toilets :) Another piece about the support camp at Karridale.

Currently I am in Adelaide, staying with Pat (the sister of a friend of my Mum's), who is v nice. There is discussion of winery-visiting at the weekend... The two days on the train back from Perth were fine -- I had a double seat to myself, & had a nice chat with a lawyer from Sydney over dinner. Plus we were all serenaded in the dining-car last night by one of the other passengers who was a musician & had brought his guitar with him. Quite bluesy stuff, not at all bad. I am kind of fed up with sleeping on the floor, though, even if it *is* more comfortable than the seats.

Melbourne on Monday, then Tasmania at the end of next week! And it is getting alarmingly close to Xmas although I find this very hard to get to grips with as it is *sunny* out. Does. Not. Compute.

Right, I finally have all the photos up to Phnom Penh (well, all the ones that I intend to put up) online. Hurrah. Of course, since then I have another 3 weeks' worth which I haven't even looked at, but no matter.

I also now have both of the two essentials for functioning in modern society: a bank account and a mobile.

And I went along to the pub down the road from the hostel, because they had some bands on, thinking to have a beer and listen to some music and head home again. Except I fell into conversation at the bar with a nice chap called Wesley, and then he bought me some beer, and then I bought him some beer, and somehow it was 2am and we'd spent the evening discussing things many and various, including the spirituality of Central Australia, Aboriginal beliefs, the difference between pubs in the UK and in Australia, urban planning, casinos, and race relations. So that was good fun.

The hostel I'm in - My Place - is also v nice. Friendly people, nice kitchen, free breakfast inc pancakes provided (cook them yourself, so not everyone copes particularly well with this...)

Tomorrow I am off to Melbourne, where I am staying with my cousin Carol who I have not seen since she & Mike emigrated some years ago! And Cepheus my lovely bike is there, ready for me to put him back together and then ride to the nearest bike shop to buy a h*lm*t, bah humbug.

Also excitingly, I have reached Australia! I arrived in Darwin at about 0430 local time this morning, having been confirmed in my deep hatred of planes. (Cheapass flight = about half an inch of knee room if I sat bolt upright in the distinctly uncomfortable seat. Plus whilst I'm not claustrophobic, I do not like small enclosed spaces, and seats on cheap flights are pretty small and enclosed, never mind the plane itself. Given the option between experiencing that flight again, and experiencing the Horrendous Siam Reap Bus Journey again, I'd be inclined to go for the bus journey.)

However, I got off the shuttle bus at the same place as some sensible people who had pre-booked and thus had hostel staff there to open the place up for them. And me, as a bonus. So have now slept, had breakfast, slept some more, had lunch, and had a look at the SEA. Also I may have seen a bat, or at least a large flying thing that had the sort of wing-edges that bats have, this morning just before sunrise.

Darwin is (you will be amazed to hear) very hot. But there's a nice breeze, and it's less humid than Singapore, and it's now 3 weeks or so since I got to Vietnam and started thinking it was hot, so I'm a bit more acclimatised. This translates into "I still find it incredibly hot and would rather it wasn't, but I don't actually start seeing spots and feeling sick and have to sit down on a regular basis".

My second day in Singapore was also splendid - euphuistica is an fantastic Singapore-guide as well as excellent company. We went up and down the river on a bum-boat, had a little wander round the quay, went to the very good Asian Cultural Museum, and then had afternoon tea at the Fullerton Hotel. Terribly decadent but very very nice - they just keep bringing you scones and sandwiches and little chocolate thingumajigs and more tea! Also there's a chap playing the piano.

I even made it to the post office - special mention here to bluedevi's UK Autumn Care Package, which showered me with dried leaves as soon as I opened it :) (Sadly the leaves had to stay in Singapore as Australia is very pernickety about such things, and quite reasonably so.)

I am now trying to sort out the whole Alice Springs/Uluru thing. I wanted to do a tour with these people, but it looks like getting a bus from Alice Springs to Yulara (the place near Uluru where there are places to stay) independently is between "difficult" and "impossible" - everyone just does tours. (And my time is v limited which makes life more difficult.) These people look like they're going to be the best bet.

I've spent the last couple of days on trains getting from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur (which is where I am now). Unfortunately the free Museum of National History that used to be here has closed down, so I pottered around town a bit (they have a lot of mosques and buildings whose architecture is mosque-like) and then came back to the hotel to have a nap, knit a bit, and wash my clothes. It's very glamorous, this travelling business. Further wanderings around town this evening to locate a restaurant led to the sighting of numerous cockroaches roaming the streets. I think the only thing I wish to say about this is "ewwwww".

I did like Penang, though - it felt bizarrely like a UK seaside village, without looking really anything like it. I don't recall hearing seagulls, but it did feel like I should be hearing them. Maybe it was the light. I got the ferry back across the bay (it's 25p to get from Butterworth to Penang but free to go back the other way) at sunset, which was absolutely beautiful behind the hills at the back of Georgetown.

Then I spent an exciting 3 hours sat in the station, due to the 2 hr delay in the train arriving. After we all piled on, the lights went out and stayed out for the next hour while the carriage was repeatedly shunted out of the platform, backwards and forwards a lot in alarming jerks, and then back into the platform. I think we eventually left just after midnight, over 3 hours late, and were nearly 4 hours late in to KL this morning. On the upside, this meant that the projected (and very unfriendly) arrival time of 05:20 was instead 09:10 which is significantly easier when one is looking for a hotel room.

Singapore tomorrow - looking forward to meeting up with euphistica & jhaelan! Though my train doesn't leave till 14:00 (hopefully...) so I intend to spend the morning seeking out the Very Tall Tower that they have here. Possibly this is the same one that I saw this evening all lit up with lovely pink sparkly fairy lights.

A thought that occurred to me earlier: despite the fact that many of the countries I've been in recently have very hot weather, open gutters, and erratic sewage systems, I haven't noticed anything particularly smelling bad. This in contrast with India, where pretty much everywhere the streets smell bad (rotting rubbish in the gutter, basically). I don't know if SEAsia is better at street cleaning (maybe this is the function of the cockroaches?) or if there's a different attitude to dropping rubbish - the streets certainly look cleaner as well as smelling cleaner. (Here, I think there's a 500RM fine for dropping litter, but I have no idea whether it's enforced - I think we have similar fines in the UK but I see more litter around than I do here.)

The other very obvious thing about Malaysia is the presence of 3 quite distinct cultural and ethnic groups - Chinese, Indian, and Malay - but I haven't been here for long enough nor paid enough attention to comment any further. My understanding is that these days things are calm but socially speaking the various groups don't overlap much. Multiple-language signs are common - and lots of ads, signs, etc are in English.

Finally, more photos from Russia and Mongolia.