Alicante & Valencia, Spain: Suitcase and Car Troubles

To be honest, this is going to be a short one. It was my final stop on my Spring Festival holiday and I was joined by Karl, who had been on many adventures with me down the years.

We mainly chose these destinations as the cheapest flights we could get out of the UK at the time were to the south of Spain. With a quick check of the football fixtures, we were able to get to two football games over the weekend. With the exception of the fixtures, we left without much of a plan.

First stop was Alicante. The last time I had seen Karl was when we visited North Korea and I really didn't expect our next trip together to be to the seaside town full of British retirees.

The flight seemed no different than any other I had taken in my 29 years. I checked-in, handed over my checked luggage, made my way through security and immigration before boarding the plane. Karl and I weren't sitting near each other due to it being a short-haul cheap airline, so once on board, I put my earphones in and fell asleep. Once in the air, Karl tracked me down and asked if everything was alright with my case. I mean why wouldn't it be? The problem was that the airline had more cases than they had accounted for and were trying to track down the owners of the cases before departing. My name was announced on the tannoy and I was asked to identify my luggage, it's just that I missed all the drama as I was asleep. 

It turns out that as I hadn't claimed my luggage they had taken it off the aircraft. This was the second time in only a few weeks that my case hadn't arrived at my destination. I have never experienced such a balls up. How did they have extra cases? Why didn't they look up my seat number when looking for me? Why did they take my case off the plane when I'm sat on the bastard thing? 

Don't fly Ryanair.

In Alicante, we spent the day enjoying the sunshine. Karl's first idea was to head down the beach and dip our toes in the water. I wasn't too keen on this as I only had one pair of socks to my name and would have preferred not to have gotten them sandy, but life is for living, I suppose.

Afterwards, we headed up to the Castell de la Santa Bàrbara.

In the evening we made our way over to Elche to take in the first game of the weekend. Despite being a second division game there was still a good crowd of almost 10,000. The game finished 2-0 prevailing over the visitors, Extremadura UD. 

The following day we drove to Valencia. We parked up, dropped our bags off at the AirBnB, and sank beers as we made our way to the famous home stadium of Valencia CF, the Mestalla. 

It's a magnificent stadium which is so steep that it makes finding your seat fairly nerve-wracking.

In truth, the game wasn't the best. An eventless 0-0 draw, but a positive feeling can still be gained from the experience. 

We spent the rest of our time exploring the city and local bars.

When it was time to leave Valencia we encountered a problem. The trip was going far too well for Karl and I. Usually our trips are filled with mishaps which are often down to our own thoughtless behaviour. So far, we'd only had to contend with a missing case which arrived 24 hours late. Our latest problem was that the battery on the car was dead. We tried to call the SOS number for the rental company, but there was no answer. With a tight schedule and flights to catch there was little else we could do but bump start the car. Down the narrow back streets, Karl and I pushed the VW Golf. When we got it rolling Karl jumped in and I was left with the arduous task of getting up to an adequate speed. Karl lifted the clutch and we had power. Unfortunately, I didn't. That was the most exercise I'd done in about 2 months and was exhausted. 

And that was that. Austria, Macedonia, England and Spain all finished in a few weeks. I have a few days in Beijing to relax before starting work again, but those days will be filled with laundry, fighting jet-lag, and teacher training, so probably not all that relaxing.

Only 154 days until the summer holidays...

Indonesia: Yogyakarta & Mount Bromo

Straight from Singapore we stationed in Yogyakarta, a city known for its variety of scenery from mountains to sand dunes to dense jungles. Unfortunately the weather wasn't too kind to us during our stay so we really had to narrow down our scheduled activities.

Our first stop was Indonesia's most visited tourist destination, Borobudur Temple. I'm not the biggest fan of temples, so I made sure to only visit one on this journey and this was it. 

We took the bus there which was an experience in itself. I mean, I say that as a tourist I suppose it wasn't as fun for the locals who were hauling huge sacks of vegetables bought from the market on and off the bus every other stop. I could have helped, but I didn't want to break the fourth wall.

Upon entry they explained that as this is a respected holy place that the outfits Eunju and I were sporting were too provocative showing too much leg. I say if you've got it flaunt it. Alas, I caved to their demands and donned a sarong type garment.

I must say that I really warmed to it. It was so liberating to be in something that I felt comfortable wearing. The slit enabled me to reveal a bit of upper thigh which really enticed the lads. After a few minutes I was sold, just call me Brendie Izzard.

The rain held off just long enough to explore the temple and enjoy the view of the thick vegetation surround this sightseeing hot spot.

We stayed at a hostel called Hati Hati, which was themed on the mantra "don't worry, be happy". It was hard to adopt this belief as there was an Islamic Mosque directly across the street, not that uncommon in Indonesia. The location is perfect for someone who wants to attend the mosque, but a little inconvenient for someone who wants to sleep in. The formal prayers started around 6am at sunrise and were repeated 5 times a day. Just after the Maghrib prayer at sundown we headed for the bar street. 

The next morning we checked the forecast and had a sunshine window of opportunity. We hopped on a scooter and made way for Curug Pulosari. It's off the beaten track and because of the recent downpours we had this secluded waterfall all to ourselves. It was peaceful and beautiful.

Yogyakarta is unique within Indonesia in that is has been given the status of "Special Administrative Region" meaning that it is the only region in Indonesia to be ruled by a monarchy. It was awarded this due to their contribution in aiding the survival of the Indonesian Republic. So, in our remaining time in the city we meandered around the palaces, where the Sultan of Yogyakarta still resides. It was pretty underwhelming. It seemed less of a palace and more of a bus station. It was so underwhelming in fact that I didn't even take a single picture of it. 

We made our way over to the Water Palace, a place where the sultan would relax, taking in a puppet show along the way. I'm not sure what I was expecting with the puppet show, but it was far from interesting. There's a reason why it's traditional entertainment because if it was any good it'd be on Netflix.

Eunju is the one on the left

And that drew to a close our time in Yogyakarta. We just had a short flight over to Surabaya where we were scheduled to take a sunrise tour of Mount Bromo, one of Indonesia's largest active volcanoes. 

We were picked up at midnight and travelled to the mountain. Arriving at around 4am we had an hour and a half to kill until sunrise. Previous to our tour we had been enjoying temperatures of 30°C+, but at the top of the volcano it was down to 11°C. Sure, it was chilly, but some people had dressed as it they were heading for the arctic. Hats, scarves, gloves, and jackets were all on sale, but I wasn't prepared to buy a scarf on holiday in Indonesia. And anyway, I'd just been tolerating Siberian winds in Beijing, light drizzle and a minor chill were nothing to us.

The time passed slowly. Minutes felt like hours. The drizzled worsened and there was a thick mist that was impossible to see through. If someone had said to me, 'would you like to watch the sunrise from the comfort of your warm bedroom?' I probably wouldn't bother waking up for it. 'Would you travel 3-4 hours, climb a mountain in the rain to see bugger all?' Yes, mate. Well up for that. 'And would you like to share that experience with 2,000 other people?' Even better. 

Officially at 5:33am, according to my phone the sunrise had happened and I saw none of it. It was that moment I realised I had wasted my time and money. 

Just as we were heading down the treacherous mountain roads, the clouds parted and we got to see our post sunrise. The sun shone through the clouds over the mist covering the mountains. It was spectacular. 

Further down the mountain we stopped on the Sea of Sand to take some more pictures. We drove over the volcanic sands with a feeling of astonishment. 

We climbed to the peak of the volcano to get a glance of the smoke emitting from it and drew in a big lungful of smelly sulphur dioxide. Either that or the previous nights Indonesian food was making a second occurrence. You could feel the warmth from it too which was welcomed. 

Back to Surabaya we had some time to kill before our early evening flight. We relaxed for a few hours while it rained outside. Our hostel was only 30 minutes from the airport, so we were packed and were left waiting for a taxi, the trouble was that we couldn't get one. After a long painstaking wait, we were on our way when we immediately hit traffic. The rain was coming down harder and flooded the roads 30cm high. I'd never seen rain quite like it. This intensified the traffic. There is nothing more stressful than being in traffic on the way to the airport (well, there are, but for the sake of this story there aren't). The minutes passed like seconds as we sat hopelessly. It eventually took us almost 3 hours to reach the airport and therefore we missed our flight to Bali.

We needed to book another flight, but the airport staff were far from helpful. We got online and our options were limited. We had to settle for one of the morning 2 days later. When I attempted to book these flights my credit card wouldn't work, so I had the joy of talking to their customer service department. By the time we had our flights booked all the restaurants had closed. I was truly pissed off. Over some dry KFC Eunju looked at me and said "smile". You'd have to be a mentalist or a Mormon to smile in that situation. I calmly replied "tomorrow".

This meant we had a day and a bit in Surabaya. Let me tell you, there isn't much to do there. The options were to take a tour of a cigarette factory or look around the zoo, which is most famous for their terrible treatment and conditions for the animals. You know you're in for a long wait if the city you're in is mostly known for cancer sticks and animal cruelty.

We made our morning flight to Bali and I smiled at Eunju.

A shout-out goes to Eunju as she had to tolerate a significant period with a miserable bastard. 

A Content Man is One that Enjoys the Scenery Along a Detour

OK, the title's a bit corny but still relevant.

Detour stop number two on my journey to South Korea, and this time it’s to explore the wonderful city of Sydney and meet up with the travelling duo, Ed and Amy. They departed England in September and although I hadn’t planned on seeing them over the year that followed it was great to see their well-travelled, beautiful faces.

I arrived in Sydney in early December, and like most cities that abide by the Christian calendar, it was pleasantly festooned with merry decorations. This was odd for me for two reasons; 1) it appeared that Sydney really made an effort with their decorations, they had a serious budget that I’ve never really experienced back home in England. My home town of Bedford make an effort each year which normally involve hanging flashing lights and tinsel from lampposts around the town but nothing major. And 2) I had never experienced a scorching December before, during my stay in Sydney temperatures rocketed to mid-thirties which was nice but seemed odd when standing beside a Christmas tree and carollers. Winter in England has its benefits and drawbacks; one inch of snow brings the country to a stand-still, it also brings the hours of moaning about the weather (which we’re renown for), but an Australian will never know of the joy of watching someone struggle to walk on an icy pavement and then fall over. One of life’s simple pleasures.

My first few days were troubled with jet-lag, being extraordinarily tired but not being able to sleep and then waking at 5am. Rather than waste that time trying and failing to fall back asleep I took that opportunity to walk around my surroundings. I was centrally located in Woolloomooloo (great name, I know), so my first stroll took me to Circular Quay where you can get a great view of the harbour, the stunning Opera House, and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The views were even more incredible as the sun was rising, and no one else was around making unnecessary noise, being that it was about 5:30am.

As the tourist that I am, I visited many of the surrounding tourist hot-spots. The Royal Botanic Gardens were located very closely to where I was staying so it would have been rude no to walk through them. The Gardens were OK, I was expecting more if I’m honest. These were supposedly famous gardens but to me they were just gardens. A bit of greenery and a few shrubs, a florist may have valued them higher but for me I think the space could be utilised better if all the trees were dug up and football pitches were laid in their place. With more access to decent facilities, and further involvement the Australian national team could become a genuine force.

Darling Harbour is a fun place to visit, there’s always street performers, street artists, and a great view from the many bars that have a daily happy hour. Within the Darling Harbour area is the wildlife park and the aquarium; again it would have been rude to have gone to Australia and not seen a kangaroo and/or a koala so a visit was necessary. The wildlife park was great, more than 80% of the plants, mammals, reptiles, and frogs are unique to Australia and cannot be found anywhere else on earth. Seeing the iconic animals for the first time was very interesting, seeing creatures that I’d only seen on the internet; kangaroos, koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils, platypus, echidnas, and so many different types of snakes, spiders, and other creepy-crawlies. The trip to the aquarium was a disappointment by comparison. Don’t get me wrong, it was still pretty cool to see the sharks, manatees, stingrays, and jelly fish but there was nothing unique to Australia. I felt like I could have seen the sea life at almost any large aquarium in the world.

That's a picture of a koala sitting in a tree like it's an arm chair, and a picture of a kangaroo scratching his arse.

The city itself is very exciting. It combines a business district with the tall skyscrapers, the busy region of Chinatown, modern buildings, the many bars and restaurants, and the millions of people that pass through it every day and night. I thought it would be quite interesting to find out about the (very short) history of the city, so Ed, Amy, and I decided to take the tour of The Rocks. The tour would explain about how the first European settlers had colonised the area, and the colourful tales that would follow over the next 200 years. The tour was due to start at 18:00 but the tour was late, we waited for a full four minutes before we got impatient and went to the pub. I got the gist of the tour from the leaflet so, I’m good. It was that afternoon that I tried kangaroo steak. Not bad. It tastes very similar to beef steak just a bit chewier.

The evening entertainment in Sydney was always surprising. I had my first experience of crab racing. Yes, crab racing. A race which pitched crabs against one another to race to the edge of a large platform. Despite the premise the atmosphere was very exciting, although the bar was not encouraging gambling you could “buy” a crab and if your crab won you would win a prize, often a beer tab. It was funny to watch so many people get so animated cheering on a crab that had no idea that it was in a race, and would remain motionless for most of the duration of the race. It was a different, fun experience though.

We ventured to The Soda Factory/Bobby’s Boss Dogs, a bar that specialised in gourmet hot dogs, on two separate occasions. The first was to watch a screening of Home Alone (I forget how good that film is sometimes) and the second was to binge eat as many $1 gourmet hot dogs as possible. The dogs were pretty good! The first 3 or 4 were a delight going down then the dogs became a challenge, I think I ended up forcing 6 down and Ed managed 7. We asked the bar tender if there was a record, he said there wasn’t but he said he’d be surprised if someone could manage 4. So I think without really trying Ed managed to set an unofficial record, although not such a great idea when you have a 15 minute waddle home.

Something I haven’t mentioned so far that Sydney is famous for is its stunning beaches. Pretty much the only thing I had planned when I arrived in Australia was to lie on a beach and do nothing. When you work in customer service, like I did, I worked for a bank taking call after call about complaints and charges I couldn’t think of anything better than to lie on the sand, not having to speak to anyone, pure bliss. We mainly went to Bondi Beach, but we did go to Manly Bay on one occasion. The relaxing beach experience was tainted slightly with the risk of getting eaten by a Great White Shark if you decided to venture into the water. I have a friend from England who is petrified of sharks; she has nightmares about them, so scared in fact that she talks about them almost on a daily basis. I always laughed at her fear of sharks, and rightly so considering she lives in Derbyshire, but when you could potentially be less than 30 miles from a shark I had every right to be apprehensive from entering the water. The life guards have measures in place whereby a helicopter will patrol the coast roughly every thirty minutes but even so there were 48 shark attacks in Australia in 2008, that was 1 every week. So forgive me for being slightly afraid of a man eater.

On one of my many walks around the city I decided to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Now I know the bridge is legitimately safe to cross but when a lorry, or bus would cross the bridge the pedestrian footpath would shake, this made me very anxious. But I was already half way across so I persisted. Along the bridge I noticed a couple of padlocks locked to the gridded guard rail. This is a custom that has become very popular across the world, couples will write something soppy on a padlock, lock it to a public fixture, and this will represent their everlasting love. Bollocks if you ask me, and I think this particular padlock summarised it all for me. This relationship lasted all of 2 months, Josh’s ex-girlfriend obviously felt so aggrieved that she had to go back to the padlock and scratch her name off. The padlock remains but their love isn’t quite everlasting. Utter bollocks.

During my time in Sydney I managed to tick a substantial event off the bucket list, a sky dive. It’d been something that I had wanted to do for about 7 or 8 years but every time the opportunity would arise I would bottle it. So I forced myself this time, once I had paid for it I knew I would do it, and where else is going to be better than on the east coast beach of Australia? Looking back on it now it was possibly the best and the worst experience of my life, certainly the scariest. Karl Pilkington once said “you can’t enjoy something until after the event”, and he was so right. When I was in the plane it was scary, when the door opened and I swung my legs out at 15,000 feet it was terrifying, and when I jumped/was pushed my mind was blank. It was only until my feet touched the wonderful, solid ground, and my heart began to beat again that I appreciated how much of a thrill the sky dive was. Having done one it was truly incredible and I’d even recommend it to others who have never done one but it’ll be a long while before I put myself through that again. Here’s the jump in it’s entirety. And yes, I did scream like a little girl all the way down.

Here are some other highlights from my time in Sydney.