Korea's 4 Seasons

In case you haven't heard about it; Korea has 4 distinct seasons, it's wonderful.  Perhaps you can detect more than a hint of sarcasm?  Well, this will be understood by my fellow NET readers, but for the rest of you the reason for this is because we here about it a lot from Korean people.  They are really quite proud of the fact, which is not something to be ridiculed as such, in fact I think it is quite nice that they are in touch with the nature of their own country and pride is not necessarily a bad thing all the time.  It is, however, a way of looking at your country's climate that I never thought of. So, although I am not knocking it I don't really understand why they are so proud of their 4 seasons. My country has the same seasons and at the same time of year and I have never met anyone who has pride in it, perhaps we should.

So as we are coming out of Winter and heading into spring, here is my breakdown of the seasons in Korea, starting with Summer.

Summer

Summer is the season in Korea that I dislike the most, contrary to England where it is undoubtedly the best.  In England we get the odd really hot day but generally it is warm rather than hot and affords me the opportunity to get outside enjoying the countryside and playing cricket.  In Korea Summer is stiflingly hot and for the period of about a month or so it becomes almost unbearable to spend any time outside, I just sit at home under the air conditioning wearing only my underwear.  I try to fight the heat by rising early in the morning and running at 6.30am but to no avail, the heat saps all the strength right out of me.  Sleeping also becomes difficult and I have to ignore warnings from many Korean people about fan death (the funny little superstition that if you sleep with the fan on it could lead to your untimely end) and have the fan and the air conditioning on overnight sometimes .

In the middle of summer (mid to late July) there is also the monsoon season, it's hot, humid, and rainy and no clothes can dry on the clothes hangers in our apartments.  If the rain doesn't make you wet, your own sweat will.  I remember leaving a pile of clothes in the washing machine one time for a couple of days over a weekend and because they were so sweaty, when I returned they smelled pretty funky and most stayed that way and I had to chuck them.

I think it is fair to say that even after just a couple of months of summer I am longing for Autumn and Winter.

What to do in Summer
- Stay inside, and if you go outside make sure you make regular stops for air conditioning.  Or, if you must go outside.....
- Go to a valley and enjoy the mountain streams.
- Go to the beach, but you can't in the monsoon season very easily and it can be almost too hot if you find a weather window.
- Go hiking.  While it is initially difficult, you can get some relief from the heat near the tops of the higher mountains, although beware of heat exhaustion.

What not to do in Summer
- Eat sushi and seafood generally.  I have been warned by a few different Korean people that eating sushi in summer can cause the odd stomach upset.
- Wear grey T-shirts.  Even walking for 2 minutes to catch a bus causes unwelcome sweat patches.
- Exercise outside (apart from hiking and swimming).  Going for a run in summer almost feels dangerous, if you do make plenty of water stops.

Autumn

Probably my favourite month as the temperatures are pleasant and the country is probably at its most beautiful with all the different colours of foliage.  The cooler but still fairly mild temperatures make it a good time to be outside and do some exploring.  With plenty of mountains and hiking trails all close to towns and cities, Korea is one of the easiest places in the world for day hikes that can be reached and completed, and which enable you to return home.

The beginning of Autumn also brings the celebration of Chuseok, Korea's Thanksgiving day that has much to do with remembering their close relatives who have passed away.  This can be a bit of a nuisance for the foreign population in Korea, however, because of the extreme amounts of traffic on the roads down to people migrating out of the major cities to go back to their home towns for the holiday.  On the plus side it is a culturally rich time of year, and I myself am right in the thick of it with my Korean family which is sometimes a good thing and that I am honoured to be a part of but also it can be a real test of patience as long hours of family time (with lots of people) is not what I am used to back in England.

What to do in Autumn
- Go outside.  Hike, run a marathon, start an exercise regime, go to the park, have a picnic, even go to the beach (it is often still warm enough, especially in early Autumn).
- Get your camera out.  Trees on the mountains are everywhere and they look beautiful, you never have to go far for a great shot.
- Go on a trip.  Comfortable temperatures mean this is the time to go away for the weekend and visit historic cities, go to Seoul or Busan, or wonder around for the weekend somewhere new.

What not to do in Autumn
- Honestly, I can't think of anything.

Winter


Although freezing cold, and consistently so, I quite enjoy Korean Winter.  I find that it is the time of the year that their food really tastes even better than normal.  I am a real fan of Korean street food, which is absolutely perfect for warming yourself up with; tteokpoggi, odeng, sundae, pajeon, ho duk, and pungopbang all do the trick very nicely.  Korea's normally spicy food seems perfect for the chilly Winters.

Winter back home in England is a bit of a dark and dismal affair.  It is dark by 3 o'clock sometimes and very often cloudy, so getting out and about and being outside doing activities is very difficult.  Korean Winter, on the other hand, is very cold but sunny and dry with more hours of sunlight in the day.  This affords the opportunity for hiking, skiing, and generally being a bit more active outside.  The only drawback is that in my area of the country is rarely snows and this makes for a rather drab, brown, and dead appearance to all of the nature around.  It is therefore not the prettiest month, at least not for me down south.

What to do in Winter
- Go skiing.  It is very affordable but it is very often extremely busy.  If you are already a good skier, the harder slopes are much less busy in places like Muju.
- Eat street food.
- If you are a hardy kind of person, hiking in the Winter to some of the National parks is really beautiful.  But be warned the thick snow and plunging temperatures are not for the faint-hearted or ill-prepared.
- Go on a vacation.  The Winter cold can drag on and a trip to a warm country to break things up is very welcome.

What not to do in Winter
- Go to the coast.  The freezing cold wind makes it feel even colder when you are by the sea.
- Be stuck in the house.  Sometimes people can just hibernate in the Winter, but Winter in Korea also harbours some of the clearest weather with a good deal of sunshine.  Try to find ways to wrap up warm and go outside.

Spring

Is as pleasant, temperature-wise, as Autumn and is also quite pretty with the coming of various spring flowers and the cherry blossom in particular.  The only drawback is spring coincides with the dust brought over from the Gobi desert in China.  It can sometimes become quite unpleasant and as a keen runner and hiker the dust feels like it clogs-up the lungs a little and often spoils the view at the tops of mountains.  You can get an idea of the amount of dust and sand in the air by looking at the build-up on parked cars.

Spring is a good time to visit Korea, outside of the dust storms, because of the many festivals that are running in the Spring months.  These festivals take place all over the country and usually celebrate the particular foods, animals, and general qualities of the area in question.

What to do in Spring
- Go to a festival.  Towns and cities all over Korea have lots of festivals celebrating what is special about their particular area so are good places to get your culture fix.
- Go hiking (hang on, I think I have said this for every month).  Spring is the month for the blooming of flowers of course, the Royal Azaleas on the mountains can be really pretty.
- Go to a place with Cherry Blossom trees and have a picnic.

Are Korean Parents Getting More Than They Bargained For When They Send Their Children Overseas to Study?

Traveling to other countries can profoundly change a person and when they live in other countries this change can be even more pronounced.  Spending a long time in another part of the world can also cause people to make friends and create new habits that can last a lifetime.

Just consider myself, for example, I am now married to a Korean, I experience reverse culture shock when I go back home to England, and I never eat sandwiches anymore.  It's always a hot meal for lunch and rice for me and I could not do without a rice cooker these days.  

It is now standard practice for wealthy Koreans to send their children away overseas for study.  The USA is the most popular destination, but the UK and Australia are also attracting students, with Australia especially popular for studying English.

By sending their children away to foreign countries to study, Korean parents are hoping for the best education and therefore the best prospects for them in the hope that they get a nice well-paid job at the end of it.  However, their children often come back to Korea with more than just a degree certificate in their hands and I have seen examples of it and learned of many more.

The ultimate nightmare for Korean parents is when their child says that they have fallen in love with someone while they have been in another country, of which there is a varying degree of horror.  I will start with the least troubling and finish with the most - this is according to my wife's family who we carefully questioned on the matter:

- Their daughter is in a relationship with a white man who is not American
- Their daughter is in a relationship with a white man who is American
- Their daughter is in a relationship with a white, mixed race, South East Asian or other ethnicity (not black) man who is not from an English speaking country
- Their son is in a relationship with a white woman who is not American
- Their son is in a relationship with a white woman who is American
- Their son is in a relationship with a white, mixed race, South East Asian or other ethnicity (not black) woman or man who is not from an English speaking country
- Their son or daughter is in a relationship with a black man or woman
- Their son or daughter is in a gay relationship

This needs a little explaining.  It is clear that if there is fierce prejudice in Korea (in fact in many countries) it does regularly fall on black people and gay people the most, so therefore it is no surprise why any relationship involving this and their children is not considered a great thing (with exceptions of course).  I did not include Far East Asian men or women in this because of the difficulty of categorising them.  For instance they might not think a Chinese person or Chinese American would be so bad, but they might think of Japanese as less inviting and Korean American might be the best.  White men are generally not so bad but are still touch and go with many Korean parents as the pure Korean blood thing is important for some, not to mention the problem of the clash of cultures.

There is a difference between the sexes also.  Sons are considered more important generally because of their potential for future income and looking after their parents in old age and for the fact that Korea is still a patriarchal society.  The expected duties of a daughter in-law in Korea are also disrupted if their son marries a non-Korean and especially a Westerner.  How many Western women would run the gauntlet for their Korean in-laws the way a Korean daughter in-law normally does?  Sometimes Korean parents can be turned around to the idea of their daughter marrying a white Western man quite quickly as well because of the positive prejudice of Westerners being quite wealthy, handsome, and sophisticated.

There is another issue, which has to do with the image of Americans in the eyes of a lot of Korean people.  Although Koreans are thankful for the help the US has given them in the past, some are not too enamored with the idea of their son or daughter marrying an American because of the reputation of American soldiers.  This has given many the view that Americans are wild, loud, and rather crass (their words not mine, I promise).

Whereas someone like me, an Englishman, has a rather better reputation as a true gentleman - despite the fact that in reality a trip to England will probably put you in contact with some of the wildest, loudest, vilest human beings around at the moment, particularly if you choose to go out on a Friday or Saturday night).  I on the other hand, fit the charming English stereotype rather well I think and it certainly worked in my favour with my Korean family.  They were often very quick to interject when their friends assumed I was American and proudly say that I was, in actual fact, from England.

These are obviously only opinions based on my Korean family but I have heard many other stories that confirm much of what I say here.  I am certainly no expert on the matter, however, and would welcome any further comments on this.

The only thing worse than saying you have met someone, for a Korean studying overseas, is to say that you are pregnant and even worse still that you are pregnant (or have made someone pregnant) and you are going to keep it.  This is a pretty obvious one, however, and I think it needs no further explanation as this would probably be a nightmare for most parents from any country.

The other thing that Korean students can bring back with them isn't so tangible, but can become just as much of a nuisance to their parents, and that is a change of personality and attitude.  This can be split up into two categories; a positive and a negative change in character, although both are bad from the perspective of the majority of Korean parents:

Positive - Koreans incorporate some Western values during their time studying and start to believe in the rather infectious ideals of individuality and equality.  This erodes some of the Korean core values of respect and group unity.  They now value their own opinion more over their parents and can disagree with them more frequently on a range of issues.  They might even change the path of their career and may even want to live outside of Korea because of the pressures to conform within their society.  This is undoubtedly positive as they have become more world-wise and can identify what is best in their culture and keep it along with their newly acquired ways of thinking.  They also care less about what others think; this can make them happier and more innovative, expanding their horizons and creating opportunities.

Negative - All to often, however, it is some of the negative aspects of Western culture that are brought back home.  Sometimes the need to express oneself as an individual can make one selfish (a common accusation Koreans make of Westerners).  This selfishness can be expressed as a lack of responsibility derived from the university/college atmosphere of drinking and partying.  The less conscientious can embrace merely the licentious part of Western culture and come back with this attitude.  Some come back to Korea expecting a good job, and when they can't get one don't do anything at all, not accepting work they see as beneath them and just sponging off their parents.

I could add arrogance to the negative aspect of going abroad to study or travel, and my wife constantly grumbles about this when she sees some Korean people who have studied abroad or traveled extensively.  Status being highly valued in Korean culture, travel and studying in other countries is something a person can drop into conversation to elevate themselves and some people do just that.  We all know the 'I've been there' people from back home but some Koreans do take this to new levels of conceit.  This goes not only for the people who have been overseas themselves but their relatives also.  My wife and I bought a scarf as a souvenir, while we were traveling in Europe, for my wife's grandmother and she ended up telling everyone in her apartment building about her well-traveled granddaughter's gift from Rome.  There is nothing wrong with this kind of pride in your family but when it turns into a game of 'my family is better than yours', which it so often does, it is not exactly perfect conditions for people to thrive in community happiness.

I have always thought it a shame that what is found so appealing about Western culture is regularly the worst aspects of it.  Other cultures seem blinkered to the good stuff and assimilate only the licentiousness, partying, fast-food, the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism and big business, and celebrity worship.

My Korean students, co-workers, and other acquaintances regularly stereotype Westerners as selfish, unhealthy, arrogant, concerned only with money, rude to elders, fat, and love to get drunk at the weekend.  I regularly take exception to this but funnily enough some Koreans who have traveled to these countries often come back home with at least one or two of these factors imprinted on their lives.

Fortunately, though, some come back with the best of Western culture and the values of the enlightenment branded onto their personality.  Freedom of expression, human rights, equality, originality, imagination, debate, moral philosophy, and individuality.  All these are values that we ourselves under-appreciate but this is the good stuff and worth exporting to the world and it is also worth other cultures following our lead on these issues.

I believe (at least I hope) that these principles are infectious and that Far Easterners that study in the West do in fact bring them back to their countries, this would be great news for people in this part of the world even if their governments and parents don't quite know it yet.

Awesome Japan!

I have never been one for giving people advice, mostly because I hate receiving it myself unless I ask for it.  Advice is often given by self-interested people who want you to think and do what they want you to do and really don't want what is best for you.  If people wish to give me advice without me asking for it, I am always wary and on many occasions I suspect their motives.  All that being said, I strongly advise that (if you can afford to do so) you should visit Japan at least once in your life.

I had visited Japan once before but just for a visa run to Osaka so I could not really look around very much and didn't make it out of the city.  This time I started out in Osaka, just like before, but quickly moved on to a small city in the Minami Alps called Kofu, where my aim was to hike up Japan's second highest mountain, Kitadake.

My original intention was to climb the highest mountain, Mt Fuji, but I had heard many stories of what an uninspiring hike Mount Fuji was, especially in the peak season, which I was in.  The trouble is that the hike is a zigzag up the mountain, usually in a line behind many many tourists, this is what I had researched and been told about anyway.  I didn't really fancy that, despite the promise of a beautiful sunrise.  Kitadake looked a more interesting hike and looked like it had a great view of Mt Fuji at the top, so I chose this.  My mind wasn't made up, however, until a couple of seconds before I was asked where I wanted to go by the clerk in  Abenobashi bus station in Osaka.

After an overnight bus journey, I arrived in Kofu and fortunately about 2 minutes later a woman approached me asking if I was going to Hirogawa (the main trail head for Kitadake) and brought me to the bus which was just about to leave, perfect.  2 hours on the bus through the mountains and I realised I made the right call.  The mountain landscape was much more beautiful and more vast than I had imagined.  These mountains were over 1000 metres higher than anything in Korea and it made for some spectacular scenery.

Luckily for me, Hirogawa had a very well organised visitors centre with good facilities, which was just as well as I needed to charge my camera.  I had to wait an hour, because of this, before starting on the trail (what a disaster it would have been if there were no plug sockets and I had no power for my camera).

The heat during the day in Osaka and Kofu was almost unbearable, up at over 35 degrees but the start of the trail was already at over 1500 metres, which made the temperature about ten degrees lower and was very comfortable for hiking in shorts and T-shirt.  There had been stories of people in Korea getting into some trouble hiking in the summer heat, but there were no worries of that sort here.  My wife had been concerned about the heat, but after the sun went down that was to be the last of my problems, as even with plenty of clothing it was going to be freezing near the top.

One of the great things about hiking Kitadake and not Mount Fuji, is that the people I met on the mountain were just normal Japanese people out for a nice couple of days hike and there were not that many of them.  There were enough, however, for regular breaks and chats and, surprisingly, most of them spoke very good English.  Unlike Korea, though, I found that I had to start conversations.  I was finding out that Japanese people were generally a little less interested in me as a foreigner than in Korea and also a little less confident in coming up to speak to me.  Just like most Korean people, they were perfectly nice and kind when we did speak and I appreciated that they spoke English well as I knew only about 3 or 4 words and phrases in Japanese.  One thing that did stand out as different from Korea, were the greatly improved manners of the Japanese.  People made way for me on tighter sections of the trail and always said thank you when I did the same.  This seems a common courtesy but these are rare events indeed on a mountain in Korea.

I was in a place where few tourists go, and this was confirmed by the Japanese people who I met, who mentioned that most Japanese didn't even know about the mountain we were on, they just knew about Mt Fuji.  I knew immediately I was in the right place for me as when I have traveled to famous places, popular with tourists, they have always been a bit of a disappointment to me.  That is not to say that these places are not worth seeing, but the general atmosphere around them can become a little oppressive and depressing for me.  The big tourist attractions are often where you find the people who are not interested in anything but the contents of your wallet and what you can do for them.  You can be ripped-off, begged at, stuck in queues, and drowned out in the crowd; in short the experience becomes less personal and the culture of the country is a watered-down commercialised side of it.  It never seems genuine.  Give me the second highest mountain over the highest or a town over a big city any day to experience the truest side of a country's culture.  Then, what I find, is that I almost always like the people I meet and I become fascinated by the differences between us rather than irritated by them.  People want to speak with you because they want to know something about you (genuine curiosity), in this regard Japan was a world apart from my last vacation in Indonesia and has made me think that in the future a further exploration of the Far East is a better option than South East Asia.  South East Asia appears to be affected detrimentally by excess tourism and genuine experiences are becoming harder to come by.  That being said there are still many natural wonders and cultures in these areas that I want to see, but I get the feeling I will have to put up with a lot of crap for it.

Anyway, after a long hard slog up the mountain and the altitude and all the travelling taking it's toll, I finally made it to the top, but the real beauty was to come at sunset and then sunrise the following morning when the clouds cleared completely and left breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and the rest of the Minami Alps.  It was picture perfect Japan, and couldn't be more iconic of the 'land of the rising sun'.  Standing at the top in the morning looking out I didn't want to leave.  Tops of mountains are almost spiritual places for me but this was quite special, it was nature at its most spectacular and it was my moment in pure silence with no crowds to spoil it.

I was contemplating spending another night camping but reasoned that with the amount of time I had spent travelling and the lack of a good night's sleep, I could do with checking into a hotel.  This idea also could give me time to explore Kofu and see the cultural side of Japan as well as its splendid natural side.  Once I got down to the bottom of the mountain it was clear that this was a good plan as I crashed in the bus, it was impossible to keep my eyes open.  Once I checked into the hotel I then proceeded to sleep for 13 hours and very soundly.

I had one-day to have a look around Kofu, and I confess, I thought this more than enough as it looked like a sleepy little city.  To my surprise, however there was plenty to see; Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, castles, and other interesting little curiosities, everything was in fact fascinating.  It was incredibly hot, though, and wondering around all day in 35+ degrees heat did take its toll and perhaps this was another reason why I saw so few people all day.

Japan has interesting differences to Korea.  One thinks of Japan as a place at the height of technology, all lights, flashy new inventions, and computers, the most modern place on earth.  What a pleasant shock it was to find that outside of the big cities this is somewhat of a misleading interpretation.  Japan had an old charm to it, the way that Europe has with its history and fine buildings.  In Korea, everything is new and super-modern and it is the computer capital of the world with the fastest internet connection of any country, professional computer game players getting TV time and earning six-figure salaries, and people are constantly playing with their tablet touch phones when you are on the bus or subway.  Japan felt more traditional and more in touch and more comfortable and settled with its culture and history.  Japan felt like the  English gentleman of the Far East, with good manners and a love of its own history.  Korea, perhaps mainly because of the Japanese, does not feel nearly at ease with itself and has a strong desire to prove their worthiness to themselves and others as a strong and beautiful country on the world stage.  This is not surprising and is not really a criticism but it makes for a country that is not so comfortable in its own skin and a tad insecure.

For these reasons Japan was at the same time more welcoming than Korea and yet more foreign.  I felt as if they cared not one bit that visitors would find their culture or their language was difficult to crack, indeed they appeared to revel in the difficulty.  They weren't going to accommodate for foreigners, we would have to figure it all out for ourselves; it was their country and they didn't need to tell us about it or big it up, they just let it speak for itself.  Like their culture or not, it felt like they didn't care, they were just going to carry on as normal.  This made Japan feel a very genuine place to travel to me, they were not unfriendly but did not go out of their way to help me or highlight me.  I was different to them, but importantly I didn't feel it.  It was because of the fact they were less interested in me, because I was not paraded as different and in need of special help that I felt more relaxed and welcome.  In Korea there is nothing like a well-placed 'Hi, how are you?' among a crowd of people to make you feel a million miles away from home, some cynical people will say that deep-down that this is the whole point of someone saying something like that.  I think it is a mixture of friendliness, curiosity, and an unconscious urge to single you out as different, the ratio of each varies from person to person.

For these reasons Japan keeps a traditional and cultural charm which Korea lacks and means if any of you wish to travel to the Far East and you want to choose one place to go, Japan is your best bet.  On the surface, the culture is richer, the mountains are higher, the scenery is more spectacular, the architecture is older and more beautiful, and their are amusing differences aplenty.  I actually can't think of a more interesting place I have traveled to and I would love to spend more time there in the future.

It sounds like I am being a little harsh on poor old Korea.  I have a connection with Korea now that will always make it my second home.  To me I will always be interested in how they are getting on and wishing them well.  They are my second team in world sport and affairs behind England and I have a strange urge to see them defeat Japan at every opportunity, but have to admit to not being overly devastated when they do lose.  Japan might be the more appealing place to travel, but I am glad I chose to live in Korea and not just for the practical reasons of being able to save more money and the fact my lovely wife is Korean.  Korea has had a bizarre ability to make everyday life so convenient and easy while at the same time throwing up all sorts of challenges that can catch you completely off-guard.  The Korean way of being quite forward, unplanned, and interested in me has thrust me into some of the most awkward situations of my life.  These are the kind of situations that, at the time, you are dying to get away from but in hindsight are not only memorable and funny but truly educational.  Maybe I am wrong, but I can't help but feel that this would not happen in Japan quite so much because of how they seemed not to force you into participating in their culture.  I have delved deeper into the culture of the Far East by coming to Korea than I thought possible.  Whatever bad things I might say about aspects of Korean culture, the people are mostly great and my job and my students; well, perhaps I was just lucky, but I could not have wished for better.  I can't complain too much, Korea has treated me very well.

Sometimes you need a good push to get involved and Korea gives you plenty of those.  The people of Korea have a very unique character that can make you go from the extremes of love and hate.  Uncomfortable it maybe and a good moan I like to have sometimes, it does however, make life jolly interesting.

Vacation Nightmare in Indonesia - Part 3

I headed to the north part of Bali with a view to escaping the noise, dirt, and hawkers to a black sand beach area with the promise of a possible dolphin watching trip.  The journey through the Bali started off by going through all the dirty and polluted areas but once we got into the forests in the central mountains the views started to become rather beautiful and I was treated to seeing a huge number of monkeys on the side of the road.  The monkeys were sitting on the road, playing around on the barriers and swinging through the trees, producing quite a unique experience.  The mountains were also a lot cooler making the journey far more pleasant than the first part of the trip.

I was heading to a place called Lovina beach, when I got there I checked into some accomodation and was amazed by what I got, a massive room with two beds for about 5 pounds a night.  I thought it was too good to be true and it turned out that it was.  Such a big place was easily accessed by a number of creatures, the most troublesome being the mosquitos, and I was hammered by them the first night.  More welcome guests were the Geckos.  They were the biggest I had ever seen and very colourful, fascinating little animals.  The problem with them, however, is that when I woke up in the morning I could see piles of their excrement all over the floor and sometimes on my bed.  The main problem with the room, though, were the beds, they had horrible mattresses that were uncomfortable and made me extremely hot.  The combination of an uncomfortable bed, a hot room, piles of poo, and mosquitoes made my two nights there far less pleasant than I had hoped.

I also discovered after booking the room that the trips to see the dolphins were all cancelled due to rough seas and my hotel was miles away from anywhere, the staff offered to give me a lift to the main part of town, but it was expensive.  This is what I discovered all over Bali; accomodation was cheap but transport wasn't especially taxis.  Something I knew all too well about a few days before, as I had to take a taxi from my first hostel to another over the other side of town. 

I made sure I got a reputable company that used a meter but this still didn't help me.  I was informed previously that the taxi drivers in Bali have no idea where anything is (one would have thought knowing your way around is a essential trait of a taxi driver), so I made sure I printed two maps with an address and telephone number.  I got in the taxi, told him the hostel name, which he didn't know.  I then showed him a map, which he worryingly squinted at moving it towards his eyes and then further away trying to focus (one would have thought good eye-sight is another essential trait of a taxi driver).  I told him it was near a Toyota garage on one of the main roads through Bali and he seemed to know it and we were on our way.  When we got near the vicinity of the place he was confused and asked me if it was the first or the second Toyota garage.  I showed him the map again, he pulled the car over, squinted again at the map and said that maybe it was further up.  I had an instinct that we had gone too far and told him to go back.  We passed the first Toyota garage again (there was no second) and he still didn't know where the hostel was.  He pulled over and looked at the map again and said he couldn't see well, so I asked him whether he had glasses, to which he responded with a eureka moment and pulled out a pair from the glove compartment, my blood was beginning to boil.  He then asked me, 'Do you know the area?'  To which I replied, 'strangely, no, I am not from Bali and I'm not a taxi driver.'  He then asked me to call the hostel, but I had no phone for Indonesia.  He then tried to use his phone, which was out of credit and didn't work.  I was starting to lose it with the guy as the meter ticked steadily higher, I sensed that he was not deliberately trying to swindle me, he was just incompetent.  I decided to take over all navigation issues completely and eventually we found the place, no thanks to my useless taxi driver.

With the knowledge of the uslessness of the taxi drivers and the expense of them fresh in my mind I decided to walk the 6 or 7 kilometres into town.  This was fine, but was hot, dusty, and dirty.  I eventually found my way to the beach front and the volcanic black sand made for a uniquely beautiful scene.  As I was enjoying the view I was approached by a woman who started a friendly conversation, asking me where I was from and why I was here.  Upon hearing that I was on vacation from South Korea she said that her daughter knew all the words to loads of Korean K-Pop songs, and generally she seemed a nice lady.  Unfortunately though, she was just another hawker.  She showed me to her merchandise and this time I was a little interested as she had done a particularly good job at buttering me up.  I lost interest as soon as she quoted her prices though, which she was reluctant to do and wanted to hear what I wanted to pay.  She wanted about 20 pounds for a head scarf, but the price soon dropped to 5 pounds.  At this point she lost me, as her original charm turned to pushiness.  By the time I had decided that I couldn't really justify spending much money anyway the price had dropped to just 1 pound, one-twentieth of the original asking price and she was chasing me down the street. 

With nothing else to do, I decided to head back to Java early and wait for a few days in Surabaya for my flight and not spend any more money.  After another horrible bus journey, which this time I dressed in warmer clothes for, only to find that they didn't use the air-conditioning this time and was unbearably hot for the whole trip, I arrived in the middle of the night in Surabaya.  Fortunately, I found an honest taxi driver, this was somewhat miraculous as I have learned that when money is involved in anything in Indonesia finding one is akin to finding an honest man in parliarment.  The taxi driver did have some difficulty finding the hostel though, but found it eventually. 

The hostel was great and served up a hearty breakfast as well as the accomodation for just 6 pounds a night.  I met some interesting people at the hostel, which included a very nice American couple doing a around the world trip as part of their honeymoon and a rock climbling, perpetual traveller, who had already been travelling for 3 years and was not planning on stopping any time soon.

I had been really hot for days starting with the uncomfortably hot hotel in Lovina beach and Surabaya was no better.  Their was a gym not far away (apparently) so I decided to walk there and do a workout as I had some time to kill.  What I didn't realise was all those itches I had on my body that I thought were from mosquito bites from Lovina were actually the beginnings of heat rash.  After I had walked two kilometres to the gym and done a workout I discovered, to my horror in the shower mirror, that I had raised red blotches all over my body.  All the dust, dirt, heat, and sweating had blocked my pores causing the rash.  I spent the next two days inside the hostel having cold showers every hour or so and drying myself by standing naked in front of a fan.  Going outside in the oppressive heat was out of the question.

Finally, it was time to go home and I wondered whether anything else was going to go wrong, I really did just want to be home to Korea and see my wife, but Indonesia had one more nasty surprise up its sleeve.

I arrived extremely early for my flight as I was so keen to leave, but they didn't start checking in until about an hour before, much to my annoyance.  When I got to the check in desk, the man checking in got in some confusion about my Korean visa.  On my visa is has a part that says, 'Final entry date.'  This is 3 months after I applied for the visa in England and is the last date I can enter the country for the FIRST time, the visa itself, however, is a one year visa, which it clearly states.  So confused with this and not willing to take my word for it, he called his supervisor.  She didn't believe me either and started making a bit of a fuss about it. 

What I couldn't understand it that I could enter Korea as a tourist even if my visa was out of date, but they wouldn't accept this either.  Numerous calls to Airasia officials in Kuala Lumpur and 45 minutes later they were saying that I could not board the flight.  I was having a serious panic at this point, as the stubborn and ignorant woman was explaining to me that I would have to apply for another Korean visa from Indonesia and apply for an extension of my Indonesia tourist visa also.  I also had to be back to work the next week as well of being truly sick of Indonesia. 

10 minutes to go until the flight was supposed to leave and I was in a back room of the airport pleading my case with this dumbass woman, who I increasingly felt was also being dishonest with me.  She then categorically stated that I would not be getting on the flight, to which I shouted and screamed in massive frustration.  Showing her my Korean alien card made no difference, as she said the date on it could be almost anything, and not necessarily the validity of it, as she couldn't read Korean.

I was now slumped in front of customs 5 minutes after the flight was supposed to leave and holding my head in my hands, this was a nightmare.  In the depths of despair, however, I was thrown a life-line.  The flight was being held up for a Korean woman and her daughter, who was half-Korean and half-Indonesian, because of problems with their baggage.  Her daughter spoke perfect English and Indonesian.  I explained my situation to them and they explained the alien card and the visa to the horrible Airasia woman, who then brought all of us to a backroom again to make more phone calls.  It was impossible for her to be dishonest about the situation now as I had Indonesian speakers with me, and with a quick phone call and more help from the Korean mother and daughter, I was back on the flight.

It was now 25 minutes after the scheduled flight time so we ran through customs and to the departure gate and hastily boarded the airplane.  I thanked the two of them again and again, and I think they were quite amused with what a state I was in, I just wanted to be out of Indonesia and I was so relieved to be on the flight.  They would later inform me that if I had offered the Airasia woman some money she probably would have let me on the flight.  They said, 'This is Indonesia!'

It took me a good hour to calm down on the flight, as my blood pressure must have been soaring through the roof.  I began reflecting on what had been a terrible vacation, relaxing it certainly wasn't but I did experience some real culture both at the volunteer camp and in general.  One of the things to realise about experiencing a different culture, however, as I have learned in Korea, is that you are not always going to like it.  Indonesia's culture, I had discovered, was not to my liking at all.  I had been educated but now I was happy to be escaping my nightmare vacation in Indonesia.

Vacation Nightmare in Indonesia Part 2

I had left the conservation centre, and to their credit they did make sure that I was safely booked into a hostel in Malang.  I now had to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of the trip.  I had two weeks without much of a plan, except for one place that I wanted to go and that was Mt Bromo, which was part of a string of volcanoes not far from Malang. 

Before visiting Mt Bromo, I decided to explore Malang city with a couple of fellow Westerners from the hostel I was staying at, one from Germany and the other from Switzerland.  The place was pretty grim and was also a place I didn't fancy walking around very much at night.  During the day, all day, it was incredibly busy.  Mototrbikes were everywhere and the noise pollution and the actual pollution, along with the general filth of the place and the heat made the general atmosphere oppressive and uncomfortable. 

The one plus point about the place was that it was extremely cheap and a person could easily have breakfast, lunch, and dinner for about 2 or 3 pounds a day.  All you had to do was stand your ground when the locals would, not so subtly, try and rip you off.  At dinner in one restaurant, I was handed a menu that had prices on and ordered from it.  When it came to pay, the cashier tried to charge us five times what it said on the menu.  When I pointed at the menu he pointed at the most expensive dish on the menu and said that we ordered five of these.  In possibly the worst attempt at a swindle ever, I explained to him that there were only three of us and that there were only three plates on the table, and even if we had ordered what he said we did the total he calculated was still too expensive.  I gave him the look of a professional tight-arse and I think he realised that I was not going to budge and agreed to the amount I wanted to pay.  This wasn't a one-off, every single time a monetary transaction was made there was confusion over the bill.  They either charged too much, didn't have any change, gave the wrong change, or didn't know how much to charge.  Believe me when I write this, it was EVERY TIME I paid without fail.  After one day I had had enough but I still had two more weeks of this.

It is an interesting state of affairs when upon doing a little sightseeing around a city you simply can't bring yourself to take any pictures, this was the situation in Malang.  Most of it was so disgusting and horrible I couldn't bring myself to take the camera out of the bag.  I wished I had taken pictures of the animal market we visited just so it could help to explain the absolute horror of the place.  Animals of almost every kind were packed into small cages to be sold as pets or meat.  All of the animals were miserable and visibly suffering, and some even looked diseased and on the brink of death.  The animals included; many kinds of tropical birds, bats, owls, insects, dogs, cats, lizards, snakes, goats, several kinds of rodents, and the odd monkey.  The scene was distressing, I just couldn't take a picture of it, I didn't want to appear like an interested tourist.

Everywhere you went you could see a cage at someone's front door with a beautiful tropical bird in it.  So beautiful a creature in a tiny cage, I was dumbfounded as to what the owners got out of it.  Why did they keep animals like this, why not just let them go?  Did it make such a big difference to their lives?

Even in such a dire and seemingly poor city, there were the usual signs of big business; KFC, McDonalds, numerous car garages and shopping malls.  But walk a block or two in any direction and you could see the city slums not too far away and usually sitting beside the river.  You could normally smell them before you saw them, and I shudder to think just what was flushed into the river everyday.  Despite what inevitably ended up in the river, you could still see people washing themselves and their clothes in it.  What a way to live, and a real eye-opener of just how fortunate we all are.  No wonder everyone was trying to rip me off if they had to go home to that everyday.

















Above: A slum area of Malang, quite a flattering picture, but I can assure you it wasn't good.
Another little bonus about Malang was that the hostel I stayed at was great, cheap, and with a nice breakfast every morning.  I also managed to arrange a trip to Mt Bromo with some others from the hostel, which inevitably there was some confusion about paying for, but all in all the trip was probably the only success story of the whole trip to Indonesia.  Mt Bromo was amazing and I was incredibly lucky on the day, as it was the wet season and had rained a lot on previous days.  The views of the volcanoes were extraordinary and we ended the trip with a visit to a waterfall near the volcanoes about an hour away, which was incredible, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie and my pictures didn't do it justice.  Another huge bonus of the trip is that the volcano was not busy with tourists and no one at all was at the waterfall, it felt like an untouched wonder of the world, just what I was looking for.

The area around Mt Bromo was so vast it was truly awe-inspiring and the climb up to one of the craters was made harder by the fact it was standing at about 3000 metres, just high enough to feel the effects of the altitude.

At the base of two of the volcanoes was a hindu temple, quite possibly one of the most precarious of buildings, as Mt Semeru, the highest and most active of the volcanoes, erupted volcanic ash regularly.  This could be seen as the steps up to the crater were dug out shortly before we arrived a few weeks earlier after they had been buried in 6 feet of ash.


There were hawkers present as usual, but they couldn't spoil anything for me and I was fit enough not to require a donkey ride or anything.  However, we were running late and on the way back we decided to catch a lift with some of the scooter riders who were offering their services, for a price, back to our driver, who was waiting for us lower down.

To fit in the trip to Mt Bromo in the best possible weather we had to leave the hostel at 1am.  Because of this we were shattered when we had finished looking around the volcanoes but I was determined to still go to the waterfall as I was told it was so beautiful.  Sure enough, even after about an hour hiking along a stream through the jungle, it didn't disappoint.

 The whole trip was awesome, it was a combination of an alien-like world at the top where the volcanoes were, harsh jungle, and beautiful scenery.  I had made the right decision to leave the conservation centre and I still had the wonders of Bali to come, as this was next on my list of places to visit.  Bali, however, was to prove a huge disappointment.

To get to Bali I had to suffer a 15 hour bus trip along some of the worst roads imaginable and with drivers worse than those even in South Korea (hard to believe, but true).  I had already been introduced to the horrors of driving in Indonesia when I was in the frontseat on the drive to Mt Bromo the day previous.  It was best just to close your eyes and try and forget about what was going on in front of you on the road, so I tried to get some sleep on the bus.  Unfortunately, the Indonesians had other ideas.  Immediately upon entering the bus I was greeted with thunderous and terrible music blasted out over the speakers.  After half an hour they switched this off to play something on the TV, 'great' I thought, thinking that it might be a western movie as they appeared popular in Indonesia.  It wasn't, but they did play the loudest, most obnoxious, irritating, and unfunny Indonesian comedy, which at regular intervals included a high-pitched squeal of a laugh by one of its main characters.  Impossible to sleep through.  It seemed as if there was a plan to keep everyone awake until a particular time and then everyone would sleep at the same time.  I wouldn't put this past them, as it was quite clear by the noise pumped out through the speakers in the towns and villages that everyone had to wake up at 4 in the morning to pray, regardless of if they were Muslim or wanted to or not.  To make things worse I had worn minimal clothing anticipating a hot and sticky bus trip, however the bus driver turned the air conditioning on full blast the whole journey.  Even for someone like me, who is always hot, it was like travelling in a fridge.  The poor German girl next to me was curled up with about 4 layers on and was still cold.  My seat was also broken and wouldn't stay in its upright position but constantly slid back into the fully reclined position.  15 hours of sitting like this did nothing for my back, which was shot to pieces by the end.

On arrival in Bali, we were immediately pestered by taxi drivers with 5 or 6 of them shouting prices at us upon leaving the bus.  After 15 hours of freezing cold and an uncomfortable seat I was really not in the mood for this.  I did eventually decide on a driver at a reasonable price and finally got to our hostel and had the usual confusion paying at the end.  The hostel was great, with very clean and comfortable dorms and I went to sleep immediately and woke later in the afternoon looking forward to a stroll along the beach.

I was told directions to the beach, 10 minutes away so I thought I'd watch the sunset and relax.  I found my way to the beach, but relaxing and beautiful it wasn't.  There was trash everywhere, it was dirty and disgusting (better beaches could be found anywhere in England).  In fact this was not just confined to the beach, the whole island was dirty, smelly and disgusting.  I didn't want to stay in this area for very long, but before I left I went on a trip to see some monkeys and go to a famous hindu temple by the sea.  The temple was nothing special, but for some strange reason lots of Indonesian people wanted to take photos with me.  One girl even went cheek to cheek with me, resting her chin on my shoulder and hugging me posing for a photo, just as well my wife wasn't there, she might have punched her in the face.  I must have had 7 or 8 requests for photos, it was as if I reminded them of a movie star or something.  The excursion to the monkey forest was much more enjoyable, however, as the monkeys were charming and surprisingly well behaved, as I did hear some horror stories of them stealing people's sunglasses and cameras but they were very nice with me.

There was another thing really bothering me about Bali, Hawkers.  They were everywhere trying to sell you all sorts of exactly the same naff things.  I moved out of the nice hostel and relocated to another part of the island to see if matters would improve.  They didn't.  It was just as dirty over the other side of the island, but at least I found a nice beach front.  I took a stroll along it for a few kilometres one day, I could see many more expensive hotels just set back from the beach with a lot of beach-side restaurants.  It was all quite pleasant and peaceful but for the constant annoyance from the hawkers.  'Foot massage, sir?' 'Pedicure, sir?' 'Snorkelling?' 'Kite?' 'T-shirt?' 'Radio-controlled car?' 'Sunglasses?' 'Pirate kite?'  The list of things went on and on, I couldn't walk for two minutes without being pestered by someone.  It was all cheap tat too, nothing worth buying and if I did want to buy something I had to go through all of the hassle of bartering them down from a stupidly over-inflated price because of the fact I had white skin.  I just couldn't be bothered with it.  Sometimes people would come along and seem like they wanted just a friendly conversation with me, asking some questions about where I was from and why I came to Bali.  This happened on many occasions and I gave all of them the benefit of the doubt that they were just being curious and friendly, so had a conversation with them.  Every single one of them used the friendliness to try and blackmail me into buying some of their rubbish, however, which was very depressing after a while.  I had gotten used to Korean people coming up to me and talking, but they do it with genuine interest in you and a desire to be friendly and welcoming.  This was something I took for granted living in Korea and now because of my experiences talking with Indonesian people I have much more time and affection for people that do take an interest in me in Korea and I make sure I chat with them a little more and show a little patience.

I noticed a couple getting married on the beach, with some traditional Indonesian style dancing going on to celebrate it, which I suppose was quite nice.  I think they were a British couple, I didn't hear them speak but they just looked British.  The groom was a normal looking guy and quite slim, his bride would not have looked out of place lying on the beach with a colony of elephant seals I was watching on the TV a couple of hours beforehand, she was huge.  I Felt sorry for the guy, terrible place to get married and with a whale of a wife.  Though it made me feel better about myself and my miserable vacation.

Bali was such a disappointment, I had even lost enthusiasm to do anything at all.  I had planned on doing a dive or two there, but reasoned that it would probably be as disappointing as everything else was and decided to save my money.  I needed to get out of the busy, smelly streets and get away from the hawkers and go somewhere peaceful so I headed north, which was also on my way back to Java, where I needed to go to get my flight back home.  Things, however, continued to take a turn for the worse.

Final part next week.

My Vacation Nightmare in Indonesia Part 1

When you think of popular holiday destinations in Asia, the most popular these days seems to be in parts of South-East Asia; Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Bali, and maybe India also.  In the two years that I had been living in Korea teaching previously, I had only visited Japan outside of Korea. It was harder to get away in those days as I had no vacation time from my private school.  So this time around with the opportunity to travel during my vacation from school, I wanted to sample some of South East Asia.  I decided on going to Indonesia, but my experience has left me in doubt on whether I should travel to any other countries in this region again, as I left with a profound dislike of the place.

I am not an average traveler, I don't like to relax; I don't like beaches, sipping on cocktails, and lazing around by the pool.  I like exercise, adventure, nature, and culture.  In the past I had completed two fantastic volunteer trips in Nicaragua in Central America and Fiji, which were amazing,  and not wishing to be too cliche, almost life-changing experiences.  Having fond memories of these two experiences I decided to volunteer again, this time in Java, Indonesia.  My job was to help educate visitors and to help maintain a conservation centre in the foothills of mountains outside of a city called Malang.  I was to live in a local village in pretty basic conditions, which I had no problem with because I had done it all before.  It all sounded quite idyllic and was a real chance to get up close and personal with genuine Javanese people, and was a world away from any tourism.  Even before I had left for Indonesia, I could sense that I may have some problems.

Two weeks to go until arrival in Java, everything was looking good and I had even prepared some material for teaching people when I got there.  I had one niggling little doubt in my mind, and this was that I assumed that everyone I would be teaching could speak English, maybe they couldn't?  But I thought to myself that the organisation wouldn't be encouraging English speaking volunteers to go there unless they could use us for something.  I e-mailed the project leader just in case, and he replied that none of the people we were supposed to be educating were going to be able to speak English.  My prepared material went into the shredder, and I began to think, 'how the hell am I going to be able to teach them anything?'  One week to go and now my two day weekends off from volunteer work had turned into Sundays off only.  Disturbing my plans to visit places on the weekend.  No problem I thought, because volunteer working itself was so good before that I didn't require an extra day off, and maybe I would just finish a little early instead.

A day before travelling to Indonesia I had, rather stupidly, arranged to run a marathon in Yeosu, a city near me in South Korea.  It was a very hilly marathon too, which was a real test, but I completed it and felt a little less guilty of taking 3 weeks off exercising in Indonesia.  The only problem was that I was horribly sore for travel the next day.  I had 30 hours of travelling to do until I finally got to my destination, and after the first 7 hour flight while waiting in Malaysia I was noticing how worryingly swollen my ankles were, and I could hardly walk.  This is an extra worry for me as I am slightly paranoid about long haul flights as I have had problems, inherited from my parents, with varicose veins.  This means that my circulation is not as it should be in my lower legs, making me more prone to developing DVT's (Deep Vein Thrombosis).  Swollen ankles can be a warning sign of this, so I basically crossed my fingers and hoped it was down to the marathon the previous day.

Once I finally arrived at the conservation centre, I was ready for bed and hoped for a good long sleep.  At 3.30 in the morning the first of the many unwelcome surprises to come shook me out of my slubber.  Indonesia is mainly a Muslim country, and indeed the most populated one in the world.  I knew this but did not realise what this meant in practice, and nothing was mentioned on the organisation's website.  At an unearthly hour every morning (about 3.30am) there was to be a call to prayer.  This wasn't a private matter, where people would wake up themselves and pray in silence, but the prayer was pumped out of large speakers across every village and usually lasted about an hour.  There really was no sleeping through it, and it went on for so long that it kept me awake once it woke me up.  I was incredibly tired.

Below: This is the village I stayed at in the mountains as seen from the conservation centre.

The internet site of the volunteer organisation that I went with made it sound as though volunteers came in and out all the time and that I would be part of a team of foreign workers at the centre.  On arrival, I ended up being just one of two people from overseas among a myriad of local workers.  Immediately, I noticed that the majority of these workers did literally nothing all day.  They pretty much just sat around all day, and occasionally did a pointless and menial task.  In fact, I noticed this at the airport in Java (Surabaya) as well.  There were 5 people working in a tiny convenience store, all doing nothing, and this was the same for every store, restaurant, and cafe in the airport.  All this made me wonder how busy I was going to be for the next three weeks.

Below:  The spectacular view from our conservation centre of Malang city and the very active and smoking Mt Semeru volcano in the distance.

Day one, and after my unexpected very early morning wake-up call I was due to meet the volunteer supervisor at 9.30.  An hour later and he was still not there.  This would be a sign of things to come as by the end of my stay at the conservation centre I had developed the art of twiddling my thumbs to a whole new level.  The time did, however, afford me a chance to drink lots of the coffee which they produced at the site, with fresh coffee beans roasted each day by the Kitchen staff, who were probably the only people who did anything on the site.  This was the one and only good thing about the place; fresh, strong, and unbelievably good Javanese coffee everyday, and was probably the only reason I could keep my eyes open for the first few days.  When the supervisor did finally arrive, he told us that some school children would be coming the next day, and later in the afternoon he would brief me on what he wanted me to do.  We had a little chat and after ten minutes the morning meeting was over, which at least gave me the chance to change some money and buy some snacks in the city about 45 minutes away.  The only problem was that everytime I needed to go to the city (which was frequently as their promised internet connection at the centre was non-existent), I needed their help to drive me.  As genuine and picturesque our location was, we were up in the mountains and miles away from anywhere, this made for a prison-like feel to where I was staying.

Left: The back of our house.










Below/left: Our kitchen/bike garage.

The next day and the real tribulations began.  A whole school of 12 year olds and we were told they didn't understand a word of English.  My other foreign co-worker and I were told to run a couple of games for them and it became clear that the conservation centre was much more about stupid games than any real education about the environment.  In a day lasting an unimaginable 12 hours of 'work' I took a game for ten minutes and then spent the rest of my time watching helplessly not knowing what on earth was going on as the entire dialogue was in Indonesian.  During the ten minute game it was also noticable that most of the children could in fact speak English, something that our Indonesian supervisors and co-workers failed to mention.  At least we could ask the children what the hell was going on, and we did on many occasions.

The following day was another marathon, this time 14 hours long on a field trip to a local river in the mountains and was more of the same, but at least we could have a chat to the kids, which was nice.  Apparently K-Pop is very popular in Indonesia and many of the girl students were fans of 'Girls Generation' and a few other famous K-Pop groups.  They were interested in us and asked many questions and conversation flowed until they asked me what religion I followed.  When I answered that I don't believe in any god and have no religion, they all fell silent.  I would later learn that in Indonesia a person cannot be registered as an atheist or agnostic and must choose a religion, usually Islam, Hindu, or Christian.  It was, in fact, illegal to be an atheist.  After I returned from Indonesia, a man hit the news worldwide for being beaten and then jailed for posting that he didn't believe in god on his facebook page.  He currently still resides in jail for this 'offense.'

With nothing to do at work and nothing after work either, after a week I had just about enough and decided to leave the programme, it was driving me insane.  The one day of enjoyment was on our Sunday off where we hiked to a spectacular waterfall deep in the jungle, but every other day was like pulling teeth.  I made arrangements to be dropped into Malang, the closest city, and arranged a hostel to stay at.  The only problem was that I had budgeted to stay at the conservation centre for 3 weeks, which was very cheap, but now I had to find accomodation, entertainment, and food on a very tight budget.  There was the other factor of Indonesian dishonesty, disorganisation, and dirtiness to cope with, which was on display wherever I turned my head.  I was now on my own and I would have to watch my back, my wallet, and my health for the next two weeks and see if I could salvage something positive from the trip.

Part 2 next week.