I thought for a change, it would be good to have Tim's voice and his persepective on our travels. This is an email he sent to his friends while we were in Vladivostok, which he kindly gave me permission to post:.....................................................................................
Vic and I have now been travelling for a little over four months now so it's well time for a postcard email. So a moment to catch up -
The sun was warm when departing Melbourne in late March and it is only now that it has started to abate. The drive from Melbourne through to the Adelaide Hills seemed to be the first 'leg' of our journey - a trip that seemed more like a funny long weekend rather than the the first of many weeks of travel. We soon had the car set up into usable space and a good daily routine in place. A simple pace son set in - a relaxed breakfast normally preceded a few hours driving; perhaps a sight or two; lunch; a few more kilometres; then a campsite for the early evening. The dry Adelaide Hills and Barrossa Valley very quickly gave way to vast emptiness and the start of the Oodnadatta Track. Surprisingly the track was in remarkably good condition and more like an unsealed highway.
With the temperature and distance between towns rapidly increasing, I came to further appreciate the shear size of Australia - hours of driving for seemingly minimal distances covered on the map. The highway stretched on from Coober Pedy to Ularu with little else on the road other than road trains and the constant flow of 'grey nomads' towing their caravans. In a moment of inspiration while contemplating the route from Ularu to Alice Springs, I decided to take a northern route around Kings Canyon and Hermannsburg. This appeared fine on the map and I was happy to take the road as it was the dry season. I also thought it was the same route I'd taken on a bus tour years ago when I was in school. The first hint that the road may not have been in top condition were the photographs in the Kings Canyon Roadhouse. The photos showed four wheel drives crossing sections of road with water up to the windscreens. We pushed on though and were soon doing a speedy 20 kilometres per hour through sand riddled potholes and heavily corrugated road. After an hour of frustrating progress and no sign of improvement in the road, I took some pressure out of the car tyres and pressed on. Although the road improved marginally as we progressed, it was still unbearably rough and long. After about 200km of tiring driving I looked in the rear-view mirror to see the roof rack tumble off into the middle of the road. Close inspection showed that the plastic roof mounts had sheered apart. Relieved that it had happened on a deserted dirt track rather than on the highway, Vic and I threw the roof rack and it's contents into the back of the ute and continued on. Later that day, having driven around 600km, I drank water from a campsite which knocked me out in Alice Springs for a few days with a good bout of Gardia.
The drive northwards to Katherine was mundane and very, very long albeit beautiful in it's own way. With a taste of the tropics in Katherine, Vic and I enjoyed the swimming and relaxed feel of Litchfield National Park before pushing on through to Darwin. Our last week in Australia was spent trying to take in the vast spaces of Kakadu, adjust to the humidity of the north, and do our final preparations in Darwin before stepping across to South East Asia.
Dili is the first airport I've flown into where Australian Army Black Hawk helicopters are parked instead of other commercial aircraft. Our small North Air plane looked somewhat out of place. Although not a particularly attractive town, Dili certainly made up for it with character. The locals were undoubtedly friendly and welcoming, glad that you were visiting as a tourist to experience their country. Even the smile and welcome from the immigration officer was genuine and warm - "Welcome to Dili" he said, beaming, in the small dusty arrivals room. Dili seemed to be home to a swarm of international peacekeeping and NGO staff. At the end of our short stay though I couldn't help but wonder what many actually do other than supporting the market for expensive white four wheel drives.
Descending into Indonesia was a mixed experience. Some of the tourist attractions were amazing, but you couldn't help but feel you were being gouged for seeing them. Some locals were incredibly friendly and helpful, yet many others were very quick to be sneering or pointlessly unpleasant. Some food was delicious, at other times it was just plain 'wrong'.
Vic and I crossed the Indonesian island of Flores which took a week of long and exhausting bus trips. The roads were in a perpetual state of being repaired or rebuilt. Furthermore, the entire trans-Flores highway was a constantly snaking nightmare, twisting and turning the whole way without more than a few kilometres of straight road. On the buses (which were probably built soon after the Dutch departed) the local Indonesian music was always played at ear-drum-bursting volume and a haze of cheap cigarette smoke seemed to constantly linger inside. Livestock would either bleat, squeal or cluck from the roof (or in the seat next to you) while you'd fight the owner over how much seat space you should be entitled to in a silent war of angry glares. All of this would be happening, of course, during eight hours of death defying driving with Vic on one side dry reaching again into a plastic shopping bag. The highlight of Flores though was visiting the prehistoric looking Komodo Dragons on Rinca Island. Another highlight of Flores was leaving Flores. Vic and I continued on through the developed Lombok and Bali to Java. With time on our visa rapidly running out, we bailed from Jakarta on our 30th day to Singapore.
Singapore was a welcome change from Indonesia. Trains and buses departed when scheduled, not when full. Footpaths were paved and led somewhere. Taxi drivers didn't honk at you like you were a walking, talking ATM. A few days were spent recharging our batteries - enjoying the great food and appreciating the good service.
With our self imposed schedule ticking away, Vic and I travelled through Malaysia quickly. A short stop at Kuala Lumpur for the sights and another short stop at Penang for the food.
Disembarking the train at the border to Thailand, I was amused by the official looking sign at immigration. As the sign read, it was possible for immigration officers to turn anyone away with long hair, "Jesus shoes" or too much facial hair. In other words, being a hippie was a possible cause of concern for immigration officers. I was amused and thought that the sign must surely be a joke. But at the same time I thought it was odd that such an official looking sign would be placed at an immigration office. In the end, the only two odd hippie-looking travellers on the train were stamped through without being turned back, so I was none the wiser about Thailand's immigration policy towards hippies.
Given two weeks in Thailand, Vic and I spent much of this time in Bangkok having a break from moving about and preparing for China and Russia. This time was broken up with a short jaunt to the north of Thailand to Changmai where we did a cooking course. One valuable lesson learnt on the course was that you don't actually eat all the hard, fibrous vegetables in Tom Yum soup, as I'd been doing with much difficulty.
Another short flight landed us in Hong Kong where, thankfully, we stayed with Vic's friend. The main challenge while in Hong Kong was to secure a visa for Russia. We'd set the ball rolling while in Bangkok, but Hong Kong was going to be the one place in all of Asia where getting a visa may be possible. Although we thought we had the correct paperwork for our Russian visa application we were quickly turned away. Some anxious days were spent waiting for original documents to be couriered to us from Moscow, but luckily, and with much relief, our visas were issued without too much trouble.
We crossed into China on a hot, wet Sunday by ferry from Hong Kong - passing endless development of docks, ship yards and towering bridges. From the developed south east corner of China Vic and I travelled towards Chengdu to see the pandas and then pressed on to Shanghai.
By coincidence we were in Shanghai at the time of a full solar eclipse. Although Shanghai was perhaps not the best place to witness the eclipse (since the sun often can't be seen anyway through the smoggy sky) it was still an incredible and odd experience. The day went from being a dark, overcast day to complete darkness in the space of about two minutes. Complete darkness lasted for about five minutes and then back to complete light within another minute. Apparently this can be seen again in Shanghai in another 3,000 or so years.
From Shanghai Vic and I cut westwards again to see the Terracotta Warriors, then back in to Beijing. After doing the tourist route around Beijing and contemplating whether Mao's pickled body on display was in fact real or just wax (I think he's on loan from Madame Tussuads), we scooted northeast to Harbin and the Russian boarder.
Vic passed through Russian immigration with ease. For some reason I was kept waiting a good 20 minutes or more. My passport was scrutinised but eventually I was stamped into the country with no questions asked. We've now been in Vladivostok for over a week. Most of this time has been spent trying to buy a car, which we seem to have now achieved. The process of trying to buy a car in Russia has been quite interesting, not to mention dodgy. Although there has been no shortage of good Japanese imported cars to choose from, it has been difficult to actually find one that has legal papers. All cars here require certificates of identification but many cars have just been built from car parts. Therefore, these constructed cars have no papers. To make things more interesting, these legal papers can just be purchased on the internet or a car dealer can obtain them. The legality of all this is a little grey so Vic and I had to stick to cars that had actually been imported 'whole' and with papers.
After days of meeting dodgy car dealers under bridges, in black sports cars or at little lockup garages, we finally found a car. We agreed to buy a little old Toyota Town-Ace van which was signed and paid for yesterday and, with some luck, it will get us across Russia. It's now getting a few repairs done so we should be on our way westwards in the next day or two.
Hope all is well back home - I'll send another postcard sometime soon.
Cheers, Tim
