wrecks in the night

Me and my son Simon,went and spent a few hours at night experimenting with different camera techniques and came up with these pictures,a very appealing subject to photograph,will be back to do some more .

2nd tour of duty,back into Vietnam.

24/2/09.

Debs looking for the bus that left her behind on the ferry.

We caught a coach from Phon Phen to Saigon,i think it took about 3hrs and was quite cheap and luckily it was almost empty so we could move about. We had to cross a river so the girls decided to get off to go to the loo,they said they wish they hadn't!! Deb couldn't get back to the bus before it left the ferry and had to walk a fair distance where the bus parked safely for her.

washing there new bikes!

Chris catching up on some sleep.

We handed our passports over to the girl on the coach and she did all the process for us.

There were some big casino's on the border,i don't know who they were catering for?

We had to get off the bus at the border with our bags,walk through customs then out the door back on to the bus.

On arriving at Saigon the bus drops you off at the tourist strip where all the hotels and restaurants our and you are immediately descended on by hotel touts promising you that there hotel is better and cheaper,we have wised up to this little scam and found somewhere ourselves,right on a busy Tjunction ,a few floors up so you can watch the busy street life below.

little did we know that the go go bar opposite would keep us up all night with the flashing neon lights and loud music!

This was all fun until this guy got upset that he didn't get any money for a massage Alan didn't want! That night i got the shites from the Indian restaurant we had our dinner from,it lasted a couple of days!!

Saigon is good to visit for a short while ,it is literally wired for sensory overload,but after a while you crave to get back into the countryside

This chick posed with my bike helmet,where her thumb is pointing is where our room was!

Tomorrow we would fly into Kuala Lumpur

2nd tour of duty Cambodia

Part 5

Phnom penh 22/2/09

The boat trip from Siam Reap to Phnom Penh took about six hours going across the Tonie Sap tidal lake which has quite a big floating village on it.At the start of the trip there were locals selling water and snacks for the trip if you waited right until the last moment when the boat leaves the dock you can get your snacks reduced right down to about 10% what they were hanging out for 15 min's before!

I sat on top the whole way,awesome.

We did a tour of the silver pagoda and the royal palace.

Chris and Debs got involved with some fitness dancing.

We stayed at the OK hotel,which was catered for western travellers and was'nt to bad,very laid back and did  some good meals. Better than the plate of Tarantula's that was offered to us at the market.

The next day was a sombre one and a real eye opener at the killing fields of the Khmer rouge and a visit to the high school that was converted into a torture prison s-21, i dont want to go into much detail but the memories will stay with me for ever.

Next day we would be catching a bus to Saigon Vietnam.

Part four,2nd tour of duty Cambodia

CAMBODIA.

21/2/09

We landed in Siam Reap,which means Thailand defeated!!,no wonder there were hostilities going on between the two armies at the border!
we found a hotel,that was very ordinary[bathroom flooded] and when we walked down the stairwell we spotted a crocodile farm next door,with hundreds of crocks basking in the sun waiting to be turned into handbags! We changed hotels the next day with one that was cheaper and cleaner!

That afternoon we went and got are 4 day pass for all the temples and went to a temple that people flock to for the sunset over Angkor,we paid for an elephant ride up to top with a real gentle elephant,once at the top the handler let us feed her,showing what leaves were her favorite we spent some time patting and feeding her and she loved the attention she was getting. The sunset was magnificent but it was standing room only! After a great Khmer curry for dinner we woke up the next day for a taxi tour of some of the temples and a visit to Kbal Spean which is a spectacular carved riverbed,set deep in the jungle, Kbal Spean means 'River of a thousand lingas'. It was a bit of a trek up to where it starts but it was well worth the effort to get there,but it was hot!

We did a tour of a few of the temples in the area each one was unique in its own way,but we were getting peed off with traveling around in a taxi,we weren't getting the real feel of the country in a air con cab! So the next day we arranged a tour around with a moterbike cyclo.

We explored some awesome temples including the one used in the Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie,but my favorite was it had a library building that was like an Mediterranean Colosseum how can that be when these two cultures wouldn't have crossed paths? The temples had stunning carvings in the stonework and were mesmerising, it was very hot and we just couldn't drink enough water and eat refreshing pineapples. Each temple was unique and some had very steep stairs to climb to reach the top!

But the most known temple of the lot Angkor Watt was breathtaking with all the stone carved reliefs, we spent a long time here soaking up the atmosphere of a culture long gone.

Tomorrow we are off to Phnom Penh by fast boat

Camping, cold mornings and star trails

12/6/10

Went camping out at Canungra and did some expermenting with my new camera,the nights were cold and the morning freeeeezing! but it soon warm up during the day and had a great time with the family and friends.

Diesel and running from Storms!

After meeting up with Deb and Al on our trusty iron horses we headed for the Lyons road out of Rathdowney to Kyogle,which is a well known bike ride road with fantastic scenery through a lush green valley. We stopped for breaky half way and cooked up some bacon and scramble eggs on my little travel stove and some coffee,it was starting to get hot and we shed the jackets. We then stopped again after a couple hours for coffee and the best lemon meringue pie in a really olde but quaint coffee/store shop.

We rode into Murwimbula with Deb and Al needing some fuel,there was only two pumps,diesel and petrol,well Deb pulled up to the diesel pump and started to fill up,being distracted by a huge crate of ripe mango's that were for sale,then Al filled his bike up as well with the diesel! We chose our mango's and stashed them on the bike and rode away,within a couple of k's Als bike stopped and Deb's bike started playing up like a hairy goat! Al thought it was bad fuel until we smelled it,DIESEL!

Well we had to drain both bikes,nearly 30 litres! and i rode off to get some fresh fuel in a can. We were planning to go home a different road through the mountains but a huge storm was gathering on the mountain so we high tailed it up the main highway to skirt the storm and we made it ,what an adventure!

Part three,2nd tour of duty Lao

Part Three Lao.

As coming into the plain of jars the road out was the oppisite up,up and up again until we reached the turn off to Vieng Vang,we made good time and stopped for lunch,fried sweet potato and coffee.Debbie said she had been asleep on the back of the bike the last hour!!!

Now it was all down hill again until Vieng Vang,once again we were bike heaven the scenery breath takeing. We arrived early afternoon and checked into the same hotel where we left our bags a week earlier,we had a shower and a nap then went for a sunset walk out to one of the caves then came back into town for a great dinner at a place that was not playing the family guy or friends!! We had dinner with Paul 'n' Kat who we met at Phonosaven. The girls again decieded there arses had enough and caught the bus back to Vietianne so after breakfast me and Al set off on the bikes we also had no bags as the girls would carry them.

Once again the scenery was fantastic and we traveled at a great trot, we beat the girls back into Veintianne and manged to secure two rooms in the same hotel as when we left,we took the bikes back to where we had hired them for tomoorrow we fly to Cambodia!