Yearly Archives: 2014

1 Year on the Road – Kit Review

How much of your original kit are you still carrying?

Most of it, which shows that the careful thought and lots of research we did largely paid off.

What was the first thing you bought on the road?

A fleece hoodie in our first country, Riga. I knew it would be cold, and having grown up in the north of England I thought of myself as pretty hardy, but my word Riga in March was bitter. Two shirts, a jumper, gloves and a windproof jacket just weren’t enough, so we bought a hoodie and a fleece-lined beanie hat to cover my ears.

What was the first thing you ditched?

After almost a year, Julie ditched her camera bag in favour of a smaller waterproof pack. She found the camera bag was bulky in her hand luggage, and made her back ache when carried all day on its own.

With hindsight, what would you have left at home?

The tripod. I’ve used it all but a handful of times, and while it’s definitely the right bit of kit for those times, honestly, a table-top-sized one would have served just as well without the bulk and weight.

.. and what do you wish you’d brought with you?

We’ve found it easy to buy the odd thing we’ve needed, and there’s not been much besides the usual consumables (toothpaste, shower gel, sun cream, etc).

What piece of kit do you find you use the most?

We use most if not all of our clothes and kit on a regular basis, with the fortunate exception of our medical packs, but the most regularly reached for kit would be our iPads.

As I mused in our 12 month summary, and discussed with fellow travellers we’ve met on the road, the prevalence of mobile internet connected devices makes backpacking so much easier. Some posit that they mute the spirit of discovery and adventure as it’s too easy to research destinations before going. For us, finding somewhere to stay in an unfamiliar town when tourist visas are too short really helps our planning and means we can visit more places, and they’re invaluable for backing up our photos too.

A special mention also goes to the excellent Skross multi travel adaptor. It’s pricey, but with the separate dual USB charger that fits most Asian sockets, it’s meant we can charge both iPads and Julie’s camera at the same time.

.. and what piece of kit do you find you use the least?

In terms of what I thought would be more useful than it has actually been, I’d say my penknife. I remember using it all the time when I went camping as a young lad. I used it so often it had a designated pocket in my trousers so it was always at hand. For some reason I thought it would be as handy on this trip, but like the tripod I’ve only used it a handful of times. However, it’s one of those things that for its size and utility, I wouldn’t be without.

Have you had to replace anything?

Tragically, my Tilley Hat of Trekking suffered a critical injury while taking a shower in Vietnam. But, because of Tilley’s guarantee and amazing customer service, they arranged for a replacement to be sent to us in Thailand. I have a brand-new Tilley Hat of Trekking! (it’s an Organic Airflow in Khaki/Olive if you’re curious).

Julie bought a new pair of jeans, and I’m on to my second pair of Scarpa hiking shoes, both of which her parents delivered when they arrived to meet us in Beijing.

Finally, do you have any kit-related advice for travellers about to embark on a long period of travel?

The best bit of advice from our experience is that you don’t need as much clothing as you think you will (extra hoodie notwithstanding). I originally brought 6 t-shirts and I probably wear 3 of them regularly. It’s handy to have more because it means we don’t need to do our laundry as often, but it does mean we have more to carry. Trying to choose items that you can layer up or down is helpful too.

Basically try to pack as light as you can, you’ve got to carry it.

Chasing cherry blossom in Japan

Too hot…

We arrived in Nagoya, in the centre of the southern coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and although there were a few flowers left we were about a week too late.

This cherry tree lined path near Nagoya Castle must have looked stunning in full bloom

There were a few late blooming trees like this well placed one near the main tower of Nagoya Castle

Too cold…

Our next destination was Takayama in the mountains north of Nagoya. Aha we thought, a higher altitude might mean later blossoming, and indeed it did except that this time we were too early!

It had been very cold in Takayama for the week preceding our visit and the flowers hadn’t quite woken up although they were tantalisingly close

Just right…

From Takayama we travelled north-west to Kanazawa on the northern coast of Honshu. We were expecting the situation here to be similar to Nagoya but as the train moved down from the mountains we started to notice cherry trees in full bloom and hope started to grow. At last our timing was good, we spent a couple of hours wandering through the Kenroku-en garden admiring the many trees.

Beautiful, almost sculptural cherry tree in Kanazawa Castle Park

Cherry trees lining a stream in Kenrokuen Garden

Blossom close up

Singapore Round Up

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We only spent a week or so in Singapore, and our stay was ostensibly to recuperate, catch up on administration (blog writing and photo backups), before heading to Japan than it was to check out the sights.

That said, we found we could only sit inside for so long in a new country before we felt the urge to be out exploring, and here’s the short list of what we found, followed by our Round Up..

Downtown Sightseeing

The majestic St Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore. On our way out we got chatting to a Singaporean woman called Rebecca who was there to volunteer at the church. She said a little prayer for us and more than filled our itinerary of things to see in Singapore!

After St Andrew’s, we headed towards the marina and the birthplace of the modern day Singapore. Sir Stamford Raffles landed just north of the present Marina Bay in 1819 and established a trading post for the East India Trading Company with the permission of the Johor Sultanate. Today, Singapore is the fourth largest financial centre, and has the third highest per-capita income in the world.

Sir Stamford Raffles, looking pretty pleased with how it turned out

South-west of the marina is South Bridge Road, an otherwise nondescript road except that it has 3 different religious places of worship or reverence along it: Jamae Mosque (Chulia Mosque), Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple, and the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum.

Jamae Mosque, the subdued one

Sri Mariamman Temple, the brightly, over the top-ly embellished one

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum, the one that stands out as taller and wider than the rest of the street

My favourite of the street, the recently completed Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, so named because on the 4th floor there’s a golden throne in a golden room displaying a piece of bone purported to be the Buddha’s tooth. It’s so small and surrounded by such grandeur that it’s difficult to see. Fortunately there are screens showing close-up photos and multi-lingual descriptions.

Singapore at Night

Synonymous with Singapore is Marina Bay, and its skyline is dominated by one of the most distinctive and iconic buildings in the world – the Marina Bay Sands hotel.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore

The ground floors are given over to high-end shops, there’s a 200k square-foot arts and science museum, an exposition and conference centre, a casino and six towers of hotel that lean together in pairs, topped with a spaceship cum boat that is the hotel’s park and infinity swimming pool. We weren’t staying in the hotel, which means we’d have to pay $80 SGD (about £38) to visit the SkyPark, but we were happy to just wander through the vast atrium underneath, on our way back to the MTR from the stunning Gardens by the Bay.

Gardens by the Bay, Singapore Marina

Gardens by the Bay looks simultaneously familiar and other-worldly – the giant SuperTree structures stretch their angular, bare-metal branches skyward like TV antennae, which made me think they’re entirely artificial. However, their trunks are covered in diverse species of plants, kind of like a giant, vertical conservatory.

Each SuperTree is a living conservatory of plants – Gardens by the Bay, Singapore Marina

While the SuperTrees do indeed look super during the day, I think they look even more superer at night, and there’s also a free light show several times every night that is set to music!

One sight that Singapore insists you visit is their mascot, the Merlion, a mermaid lion statue that continuously spouts water into Marina Bay.

The Merlion

Singapore Art Museum

We do enjoy art museums, and the Singapore Art Museum (or SAM as it affectionately calls itself) is set in a beautiful building that houses a wonderfully varied collection of modern art.

Of all the exhibits, we especially liked the nuts and bolts repurposed to look like sea creatures; the delicate miniature landscapes made from retractable pencil leads; the interactive sound installation of sun-baked clay pots powered by the same clay in jars; and the piece entitled “pulling at grass to make it grow” – a powerful reflection on the pressure to educate children sooner and with more testing. All of these were part of the Unearthed exhibition.

Some of our favourite artwork at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). From top-right: Sea creatures made from nuts, bolts, screws and thimbles – “Landscape Portraits: A beautiful place nearby” by Donna Ong; Landscapes made from pencil lead – “Terra Firma” by Frayn Yong; A family playing with the earthen clay pots sound installation – “Sound of the Earth” by Chen Sai Hua Kuan; and the thought-provoking green threads pulled and woven – “Pulling At Grass To Make It Grow” by Jennifer Ng

TreeTop Walk in MacRitchie Reservoir Park

Singapore, like Hong Kong, has many public parks and green spaces. The nearest to us also included a free TreeTop Walk which we liked the sound of..

On the suspension bridge that is the TreeTop Walk in MacRitchie Reservoir Park

While we didn’t see any wildlife from the TreeTop suspension bridge, we did see plenty from the ground..

Wildlife at the MacRitchie Reservoir Park: Close encounters with the Macaque monkeys and Monitor Lizards. We saw lots of butterflies and Sun Skinks too

What photo takes you right back to Singapore?

Us with the Merlion

Summarise Singapore in three words.

Spotless – even if we hadn’t just arrived from the messy, bustling Bangladesh, Singapore is the cleanest city we’ve visited so far. If it were an animal, it would be a show dog at Crufts
Familiar – The cars drive on the correct side of the road, and they’re well behaved (courteous even), the roads have traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and, gosh, pavements!
Muticultural – I must confess to not knowing much about Singapore before we arrived. In the taxi from our arrival flight to our apartment I asked what the main language was and our driver said there are 4: English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil. This diversity, together with its growth from imports and exports influences everything from clothing to cuisine

You really know you’re in Singapore when…

You find yourself overwhelmed and unable to choose what to eat at one of the many Hawker food markets. Singapore is an Asian melting pot of deliciousness with local variations and concoctions too many to sample. We tried our best though!

What one item should you definitely pack when going to Singapore?

Your smart casuals. This is a city built on big business, and it takes its leisure time with the same professionally serious vigour – everyone is dressed to impress, always!

Bangladesh Round Up

What photo takes you right back to Bangladesh?

Being mobbed for photographs in Natore’s rajbari. For the Bangladeshi tourists, we were often the main attraction!

Summarise Bangladesh in three words.

Staring – as there aren’t many foreign tourists, being white made us the center of attention. It’s not rudeness, they’re just very, very curious!
Chaotic – Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and the traffic – both motorised and human – is like we found in India, but turned up to 11. There’s just so much going on, all the time that it quickly and unrelentingly overwhelms the senses
Varied – more so than we were expecting, Bangladesh has an amazingly varied array of attractions: countryside, wildlife, buildings, mosques, and Hindu temples to name a few

You really know you’re in Bangladesh when…

You’ll be sitting in a restaurant and everyone will position themselves so they can watch you eat, including the waiting staff who’ll often just lean on a nearby table. It can feel like feeding time at the zoo!

What one item should you definitely pack when going to Bangladesh?

Binoculars. There’s a surprising amount of wildlife in Bangladesh and there were quite a few occasions, especially in the Sundarbans National Park and Srimongol’s Lowacherra National Park when we wished we’d had a pair with us.

Tips for visiting Bangladesh

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We’ve found Bangladesh to be an incredibly rewarding destination. Its sights are varied and its people are friendly, however it can also be challenging and tiring, and there are some parts of the culture which it’s good to know about in advance. Here’s our list of top tips to get the most out of a trip to Bangladesh.

Clothing

For women, wear long trousers (or skirt) and a loose fitting top with sleeves (3/4 length is OK). You’ll get looked at anyway and not wearing tight or revealing clothes will make that a little less uncomfortable. You could even buy yourself some local clothes. Unless you’re visiting a mosque, wearing a headscarf is not necessary – not all Bangladeshi women wear them although most do. For men, long trousers and a shirt or T-shirt is fine. Only little boys wear shorts…

Culturally appropriate clothing

Eating

Eating is usually done without cutlery although most restaurants will give you a fork and/or spoon. If you want to try the local way (we highly recommend it!), make sure to only use your right hand as the left hand is considered unclean (its use is in the bathroom). It’s OK to use both hands to tear off a piece of bread but don’t put anything into your mouth with your left hand. An excellent consequence of eating with the hands is that a washbasin is almost always available, and if not someone will be able to help by pouring water from a jug over your hands.

Drinking

We don’t usually drink mineral water as we object to paying for water and dislike the amount of plastic waste from all the bottles. In other countries we’ve boiled water or refilled our bottles from filtered water in the place we were staying. We boiled some water in Dhaka and although it didn’t make us ill it tasted really bad so we were pushed towards mineral water for our stay. Most hotels provided a large bottle in the room although it’s a good idea to check that it is sealed as some hotels refill bottles from the tap.

Offering and Receiving

When giving or receiving anything (money, bill, shopping, gift…) use your right hand (similar reason to above). We found this one needed quite a bit of concentration, especially when trying to take whatever we’d bought from the vendor and pay at the same time!

Be friendly

You won’t have much choice about talking to people – Bangladeshis are incredibly open and friendly. Be patient with people, everyone wants to say hello, and we found that shopkeepers were rarely trying to sell us something, often they just wanted a short chat and a photo of us with them. It’s really easy to take photos of locals too, if the market vendors aren’t calling out for you to take their photo then just waving your camera and smiling is generally enough to get their agreement.

Invited into a shoe shop for a chat in Khulna

Say yes sometimes

We had some great experiences by agreeing to accompany locals places when usually we might have been a bit more reserved. Hasan, a student we met in Dhaka, spent a day and a half showing us around and wasn’t afraid to just walk into places we’d normally just try to peer into if we knew they were there at all (craftsmen’s workshops, schools, onboard a docked ferry to name a few!). We met Khoken and Nilu at a tea stand and got chatting, afterwards they invited us to their home where we met their children, ate homemade sweets and got photographed many, many times as well as having a good chat.

Nilu, Julie, Oishi, Andrew, Shish, Khoken

Prepare your answers to the following questions

Most locals don’t speak much English and so conversations usually proceed some way down the following list until they run dry…

How are you? – the standard response we got when we asked the same question was “I’m fine, thank you”
What is your country? – if they weren’t sure how to ask that they would call out country names as guesses, “Canada”, “Australia” and “Germany” all seemed plausible but “China” and “Japan” were just as common?!
What is your purpose/function in Bangladesh? – saying we were tourists always went down well
How are you feeling about Bangladesh? – the only possible answer here is ‘very good, Bangladesh is a very beautiful country’ which fortunately was also the truth most of the time
What is your service/profession? – how you earn your money is a source of interest and denotes your social standing, we came across some very impressive sounding job titles

Lower your accommodation standards

Most places are not set up with the expectations of foreign tourists in mind. Apart from the capital, Dhaka, where there are more options, the swankiest hotel in town will probably be fairly clean and have aircon and hot water, but in other hotels expect grimy bathrooms, hard beds and cold showers. Bringing your own sleeping bag liner is a good idea for any time when you’re not convinced by the cleanliness of the sheets although most times we found the floors and bedding looked OK but the walls had never been touched since the hotel was built. On the positive side rooms are incredibly cheap, a double room with ensuite bathroom in a middling hotel was £10 or less, and even the ‘swanky’ business hotel option was only £20-30.

Our room at the not so salubrious Hotel Hera in Mymensingh

Baksheesh

We already wrote about how difficult we found the whole concept and workings of baksheesh (or tips, or gifts, or bribes…) and I’m not sure that we ever felt comfortable enough with it to be able to offer advice although one useful thing that we read said not to feel pressured into giving if no service had actually been rendered.

Internet access

Finding wi-fi access points was a constant struggle. The only accommodation with wi-fi tended to be the higher end and business hotels, and while these weren’t really expensive it did seem a bit crazy to be paying an extra £10 per night just for internet access. Many of the smaller towns didn’t have that option anyway. Our next favoured option was to find a cafe or restaurant with wi-fi, these were thin on the ground and tended to be more expensive than (and not as tasty as) our usual eateries so we generally nursed a cup of coffee or Sprite for as long as we needed the internet! Failing that, internet cafes do exist but there weren’t many of them and they were small. Suffice to say most of our internet usage in Bangladesh was just keeping up-to-date with emails etc and falling behind with blogging and photo uploads. I suspect that a 3G SIM would be a good option if you had a smartphone with you. Mobile coverage was excellent and data packages looked to be quite cheap.

Checking emails in an internet cafe in Dinajpur

Ride in a rickshaw

Cycle rickshaws are the main form of transport for anyone needing to travel across town in Bangladesh. They’re great fun to ride in, you’re up nice and high so you can see what’s going on but travelling slow enough to take photos. They’re super cheap too with most journeys being less than £0.50. We have a few tips to avoid getting ripped off (in local terms…) but we also tried to remember that these guys have to work really hard for the few pence that we were paying them:

agree the price in advance so there are no unpleasant arguments at the end – drivers often ignored our ‘how much?’ and tried to make us just get in but we were persistent
try to have correct change – a few times drivers wanted to keep the difference as a ‘tip’ (there’s that baksheesh again…)
we once successfully used the guide price in the guidebook – the driver was asking for Tk100, we showed him that the Lonely Planet said Tk10 and he just agreed!

Seeing sights like four people in one rickshaw made us feel slightly better about getting into one with all our bags!

Bring a carrier bag

We heard that plastic bags were forbidden by law, certainly they’re uncommon. Anyone who has seen the mounds of plastic rubbish which can accumulate in developing countries will attest to this being a very good thing. Street food was usually served either on a small plate to eat at the stand and then pay, or in a twist of newspaper to takeaway.

Jalebi served in a small dish on the streets of Dhaka – I guess we need to eat them straightaway then!

Appreciate the art

Bangladesh is home to the kind of professional painters who no longer exist in most of the developed world. Everywhere we went we saw handpainted signs advertising goods and services, everything from the name painted above a shop’s entrance to a whole wall the size of a billboard. The rickshaws are an art form in their own right, they are colourfully decorated with paintings of film stars, birds, animals, even the Taj Mahal.

Handpainted fruit juice advert on a wall in Sonargaon

Bus travel

I could probably write a whole post about this. Taking buses in Bangladesh is something of an extreme sport. It can be extremely scary, bus drivers drive crazy fast, definitely haven’t been on the fuel efficiency course (both acceleration and braking is done hard), they sound the horn often, and seem unconcerned for their own safety or that of their passengers.
As a side note, make sure to insist your luggage goes on the roof, the conductor only wants it to go inside the bus so that he can try to charge you the price of a seat for it.

It’s not just luggage that travels on the bus roof in Bangladesh