Ian Hamriding's blog

21/04/2009 - Home

Passport2

The flight from Washington to London Heathrow was long but uneventfull. I arrived early in the morning and hired a car, then drove to Manchester. I was exhausted when i arrived at my Mum's house, and after a cheery greeting promptly fell asleep in the bedroom upstairs. The next few days were spent with the family. We had a second xmas meal, since i wasnt around for the one on xmas day, which was delicious.

When i flew home a few days later,  the plane passed over the Alps which were draped in snow, reminding me of the ski season i had missed whilst away.  Bloody Easyjet have stopped flying to Basel from the UK, so i had to fly to Geneva and catch a 3 hour train to Basel. Thanks for that.

So how is it to be back ?  Well it wasnt such a shock. Ive been travelling around the developed world since Australia. Its not like ive just stepped out of the jungle. But you do get used to a way of life when you travel. Your life possesions are wrapped up in a rucksack. 3 dirty t-shirts, 3 pairs of shoes, 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of shorts, fleece, 3 pairs of socks and underwear, a few books and a wallet. Aside from a few travel aids and an mp3 player - thats it. Youre constantly on the move, beating the hotel checkout times and jumping on the next bus, train or plane. Constantly gathering information about your next destination, speaking to other travellers. Watching your possessions, guarding against those who try to trick or mislead you. Sleeping rough on airport or pub floors or the back seat of long-haul buses, or not sleeping at all from day to day. Always walking - through exotic market places, across mountain ranges, through dusty canyons, along mung beaches, through town centres, temple courtyards and country borders. 

For the last couple of months i was beginning to tire of the lifestyle and was looking forward to being back, but now im here all i can think of is the wealth of experience i have garnered over the last half year abroad. The many great people i have met, the many outstanding vistas i have witnessed, the cultures, the food, the weather, the ways of life. I have experienced many acts of kindness and, in my experience, some of the happiest people i have met have come from some of the poorest countries on earth, which goes to show that true happiness is not found in an xbox or an iphone. I have discovered that true happiness can be found through a sense that we are on a journey of our own making, and what can be possible if only one has the courage to make it so.

Finally i'd just like to say thank you to the people who have been following my adventures around the world. It was comforting to know my friends and colleagues were willing me on, even though so far away.

31/03/2009 - Washington

I fly back to the UK tomorrow afternoon.  Ive spent the last few days of my trip in Washington DC. I caught the bus here from New York for $20. It took 4.5 hours.

On the first day, i did a lot of wandering around. I visited the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, then meandered down in the direction of Capitol Hill. From here, I walked to the Reflecting Pool, which is where the famous protest rally for jobs and freedom took place in 1963, and where Martin Luther King gave his 'I have a dream' speech.  Walking towards Capitol Hill, i spent some time observing the Washington monument, which is a gargantuan white obelisk, and walking through the Korean, Vietnam and WW2 memorial parks.

In the afternoon i visited some of the Smithsonian Institute museums, which were excellent and free to enter. The natural history museum in particular was amazing and very well presented.

Day 2 i visited the Aviation Museum which featured an extensive selection of aircraft, from the very first attempts at flight by the Wright Brothers, through the 2 world wars, to early jet planes, to commercial jets, space exploration,  modern spy planes and drones. Some of the exhibits included the Apollo XI spacecraft that was used for the first moon landing, a Mescherschmitt ME 109 from the Second World War, a Phantom F4 flight simulator that rotated fully upside down if you so directed it, and one of the Wright Brothers first experimental planes.

Later in the evening i took a bus to Georgetown - the old and historic quarter of this city.

30/03/2009 - New York

I decided i had waited long enough to see Melanie. It had been more than 5 months since we had been together. So i rang her and gave her a flight ticket to New York and 1 week to prepare for the trip. I arrived in the city a day earlier than her and quickly found a hostel in Upper West Manhatten. I have been wearing roughly the same set of clothes for the last half year so i decided it was time to buy some new kit. I made my way to 32nd street, near Broadway and made some choice purchases from Macy's department store. In the afternoon i had lunch in a charming delicatessen, and was in bed for 9pm. 14 hours later i was woken up by the hostel cleaning staff - a clear sign of jetlag, or exhaustion, and had to hurry to meet Mel at JFK.

She arrived Wednesday and we had until Sunday to explore the city. Our hotel was in downtown Brooklyn - and very nice it was too, with big bed, plasma TV, expensive snacks, lovely bathroom and shower in particular - such a contrast to my usual digs. I have to say i absolutely love this city. It has so many faces, from the glitzy Times Square, to the cool & hip Greenwich Village, from uptown 5th Avenue, to the tranquil and leafy Central Park. There is a real vibe to the place, an undercurrent of culture and diversity of ethnicity. Its busy, edgy, urgent. The subways screech and clatter under the wheels of chrome carriages, the streets swarm with people and banana yellow cabs, and steam rises from manholes. Everybody doing something, going somewhere, amidst this symmetrical grid of simply vast buildings.

We visited the usual tourist destinations - The Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Ground Zero, Times Square, did some ice skating in Central Park (I havent skated in 20 years but we both did pretty well), and some shopping on 5th Avenue. We also spent an evening watching The James Moody Quartet live at the Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village. They were awesome.

On Saturday afternoon we visited the Metropolitan Museum, located to the east of Central Park on the 'Museum Mile', which was very impressive and had many exhibitions, from ancient Greece to Modern Art. In the modern art hall we saw the famous Damien Hirst tiger shark in formaldehyde exhibit, curiously entitled 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'. The original commission was initiated by Charles Saatchi who agreed to buy Hirst's next work, whatever it was. It cost Hirst 6 thousand pounds for the fish and only 50 thousand pounds in total. Saatchi later sold the piece to Steven Cohen for $8 million.

We had a wonderful time in New York. I would like to return here sometime in the future, maybe even to live for a while. Next stop Washington, for 4 days, then, at last, home.   

23/03/2009 - Las Vegas

Vegas baby...

I loved San Francisco. Beautiful city, nice climate, old charming architecture, heritage, culture.

Las Vegas was interesting - for one night. Once youve seen the excesses which the gambling industry has been able to lavish on its premises, there's not that much else to it. The eiffel tower, sphinx and pyramids in the Nevada desert.. big lights, showgirls, prostitution.

I stayed in a shabby motel downtown @ $30 dollars a night.

On the first night, i enthusiastically exchanged $40 for chips at the Blackjack table, and then lost the lot in the space of 15 minutes. I reflected i could have used the money on much more decent causes so i refrained from gambling for the rest of my stay here - which kind of defeats the purpose of a trip to Vegas really. I spent the rest of the time reading my books and people-watching.. really some fascinating characters, others closer to caricatures.

By the way, in a recent blog post i mentioned how Sylvia Plath committed suicide after finishing writing the Bell Jar. Well did you hear her son just killed himself as well, aged 46 ?  

23/03/2009 - This is why you're fat

It seems my food experience in Hawaii was merely a taste of things to come. Here's some other fabulous examples of American cuisine :

This is why you're fat !

 

check out the archive...

 

Im currently in Las Vegas airport, and ive noticed there are defibrillators on the routes to the gates. I cant imagine why.

19/03/2009 - San Francisco

Arrive in San Francisco late in the evening and catch the shuttle bus into the city. I have, as usual, made no plans in advance for accommodation, so i spend about 30 minutes walking the streets trying to find somewhere to stay. After several attempts at trying to speak to the person on the other end of a security camera, an old Indian woman lets me into her hostel and i arrange to stay for a few nights.

The next day is beautiful. The sky is clear and the air has a clean fresh snap to it, the harbinger of spring. It has been quite a while since i have felt the cold at all and i admit its a nice feeling. I'd forgotten how much i like the seasons. I catch a trolley tram from Market Street to Fisherman's Wharf, which lies to the north east of the city centre, passing some impressive buildings as we go. Alighting at wharf 33, i walk along the promenade. This area is famous for its seafood, crab in particular. I find a rather interesting autograph shop ie. a shop selling items such as photographs signed by famous people. I find a signed photograph of Slash, listed at $175 which i very nearly bought, but finally resisted the temptation. They were also selling an original copy of the Appetite for Destruction album, signed by the whole Guns & Roses band, but that was $2000.

As i make my way towards the Golden Gate bridge, the bay is shrouded in low fog. Quite beautiful. It takes me about 2 hours to walk to the foot of the bridge, through Crissy Fields. There are a number of surfers catching waves as they break on the nearby rocks. I take a break in a local cafe, then head back towards town. I catch one of the famous trolley trams to China town and get a quick meal, before heading home for the evening.

The next day i head back to the port area, because this is where i can catch a boat to the famous Alcatraz Island, the site of the former high security prison. The boat ride takes about 20 minutes. Alcatraz was initially an army fort, which helped to protect the harbour bay entrance, during the Gold Rush era. After a while it became clear that protection was no longer required so the fort was transformed into a military prison. In 1934 the military handed the prison over to the Federal Department of Justice, from which point the prison became a Federal High Security Prison. During this era, during the time of the Great Depression, and of Prohibition, organised crime was at an all time high. Many famous gangsters were incarcerated here including Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Robert "Birdman" Stroud. There were several breakout attempts but no confirmed live escapees.

17/03/2009 - Last day in Hawaii

Sylvia_plath

Today i wanted to spend a little time exploring the island, so i rent a motorbike and head east through Waimanalo and on to Kailua Bay.  There's a really nice beach here so i spend an hour topping up the tan and reading my new book entitled 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath. Its quite a depressing read actually. Its semi-autobiographical and was published 3 weeks before the author was found dead with her head stuck in her oven. The book is actually centred around a young woman who tries (and fails) to kill herself in a number of different ways. Lovely.

From Kailua i head north and check out the wonderful volcanic scenery, before heading back to Honolulu. I want a few hours to practice surfing. This time i rent a bigger board than usual, standing at 11 feet. This should be a much more stable base and give me a better chance of getting on my feet. It takes me about 40 minutes to find the right wave and get up on the board but the feeling is amazing. It is actually really hard and i was beginning to think i would give up, because you can get demoralised by being thrown off your board by big waves, getting lungfulls of salt water, standing on sharp reefs below and getting tired by the constant paddling you need to do to get offshore. But anyway i did it. And then i did it again, and then again. At the end of the day, I had ridden about 5 waves. Cool as, broo.

16/03/2009 - Food for thought

Ok so we might be on a Polynesian Island but we're definitely in America. On the second day i ordered a chicken salad for lunch and it arrived at the table in the form of two distinct mountains of salad, obscuring ample portions of caramelised chicken breast, and topped with lashings of mayonnaise and marie rose sauce swirls. The waitress kept bringing basket upon basket of bread rolls at no extra cost, the sweetest i have ever tasted.  I could only finish one of the moutains, the other i took home in a doggy bag.  This was the first clue.

The second clue was that there was a section on the menu called a rather fascist sounding 'Weight management selection', where each selection conformed to a calorie count of 590.

Today i bought a sandwich from a supermarket. It took me ages to find something that i thought would be good for me and nutritious but eventually i found a beef sandwich on brown bread. Cant go wrong eh ? When i left the supermarket i began to inspect the ingredients and nutritional information, only to find that the sandwich contained a vast array of chemicals i had never heard of. What surprised me the most was to read the phrase "Product may be coated in.." followed by such delicacies as ferrous sulphate, sugar, and caramel coulouring. What struck me was that it wasnt sufficient to source simple quality ingredients, and serve them in a nice fresh arrangement. The producers were actually adding chemicals to enhance the taste of the basic product. The lovely brown bread was being made sweeter, and imbued with a more appealing, richer caramel colour. The sandwich clearly didnt have enough iron in it as it was, hence the addition of the ferrous sulphate, upon which they could proudly advertise its 'rich in iron' statement. This is blatant manipulation of both the product and the customer. They obviously dont give a shit about nutrition - only that the food tastes absolutely as best as it can by artificial means, so that the customer thinks 'that was nice, i'll have to buy one of those again'. The central tenet of American capitalism, the precedence of economics over society, is clearly at play here. I always wondered why 1 in 3 Americans are clinically obese, and thought it must be due to weak will or something, but now i can see that the common man doesnt have a chance while they are being targetted in this way. The roadsides are lined with vendors selling massively nutritionally irresponsible food products, from ice cream to cheesecake, hamburgers to hotdogs, chips to fried chicken with biscuits. Its just about the money. 

15/03/2009 - Hawaii, baby

Wordup.

Auckland to Hawaii was an 8.5 hour flight. Fairly uneventful and good service from Air New Zealand.

Arrive in Honolulu at 10 pm the previous day due to time differences. Spend an hour in passport control, and another hour on the bus making various hotel drop-offs around the city. I find a cheap hostel and book myself a bunkbed for the night. Its been a long day and i sink into my bed like a buffalo in quicksand.

It was raining hard last night but today its cleared up quite nicely. As some of you will know  I naturally gravitate towards anything related to war history (WW2 in particular) so i catch a bus to Pearl Harbour.  On 7th December 1941, the Japanese empire launched a surprise air attack on the American Naval Fleet based here,  sinking 4 main battleships, damaging 4 more, and sinking or damaging a number of other cruisers, destroyers and other ships. Over 2000 men were killed and over 1000 wounded. It was the action that brought America into the war, allied with England and Russia, against Germany and Japan. Admiral Yamamoto is credited with saying at the time "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." And he was right.

There are a number of things to see in Pearl Harbour. Firstly i visit a ww2 american submarine called the USS Bowfin which saw action during the war, destroying a number of japanese vessels at sea. This was very interesting and it must have been hugely claustrophobic to have served in one of these machines, submerged at great depths and being hunted by destroyers from above.

Next i visit the US battleship the Missouri which is 900 feet long and more than 100 feet wide. This ship saw service at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Korean War, and later during the first Gulf War in 1991. She has 9 16 inch guns which could fire 2700 lb armour piercing shells to a distance of 32 km. She also has twenty 5 inch guns that can fire to a distance over over 14 km. Some firepower. This battleship has greater signficance however as she was the venue for the signing of unconditional surrender by the Japanese army, supervised by General MacArthur and various other dignitaries on 2nd September 1945, thus ending the second world war.

I end the day taking a short trip around the Aviation War Museum.

 

 

11/03/2009 - New Zealand - tour of Northern Island

I only have 11 days to explore New Zealand so when i arrive in Auckland, i reckon the best thing to do is to hire a campervan and limit my explorations to just the north island. I believe the southern island has a more spectacular landscape but Ive seen plenty of mountains recently in Nepal, and I have plenty to come back to in Switzerland.

Most of the campervans for rental are quite expensive because a). normally more than 1 person hires a campervan so they can split the cost and b). its high season so the rates are as much as triple the low season rates. Anyway, I find a company willing to rent me an old Nissan estate, complete with camping equipment, for the princely sum of $35/day, which is about the same as a bunk bed in a backpackers hostel.

Before my roadtrip i spend a couple of days in Auckland.  I have to say on balance i find the place pretty unremarkable. Like a few of the cities i have visited so far, it has its own observation tower and a few tall buildings but the city doesnt really have presence like Melbourne or Sydney for example.  One pretty cool feature of the city however is that Eric Clapton is playing at a local venue so i book a ticket to go and see him. When i first started playing guitar, i used to be really into his style of playing and his music, and i had never previously seen the guy in concert. In the flesh, Eric, and his band, were hugely impressive. Simply no mistakes that i could hear, and Eric played so many complex and beautiful solo pieces to absolute perfection. A great show.

The next day i start my roadtrip and head north. My first stop is Paiha in the Bay of Islands. Ive come here because ive heard its a great place to go surfing. I find a local shop and rent a board and wetsuit and spend the afternoon falling off my board and getting drowned by huge waves. Cool man. i was less than stoked.  I park my car next to the shore, cook up some meat and veggies and a cup of tea, and go to sleep to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore.

The next day i drive further north to Mangonui. Here i book a boat trip to go and do some dolphin watching in the bay. We spend about 2 hours looking for dolphins and eventually find some, who were really not interested to make our acquaintance for some reason. After another hour its time to turn back to port but on the way back we find a different pod of dolphins that wanted to play. We spent about 30 minutes with the dolphins, as they ride alongside the boat.

Next I drive to the far northern point, Cape Reinga.  The landscape here is very rugged and the views over the bay are epic. Heading back south I visit 90 mile beach on the west coast and spend an hour jogging up and down the beach.I spend the night in a lay-by.

The next day i head south, all the way back down past Auckland and Hamilton to Rotorua. At the preposterously named Whakarewarewa, I visit the country’s largest geyser, Pohutu, the Prince of Wales’ Feathers geyser, boiling mud pools and silica terraces. I also partake in a tour of traditional carving and weaving schools, watching traditional craftspeople at work.

I drive on to Taupo and stay the night in a very nice and cheap campsite by the lake, where i get the opportunity to stock up on water, recharge my camera battery, and get a shower.  The next morning i press on to the Tongarino National Park, as i want to stretch my legs and walk the Tongarino Crossing, touted as New Zealand's top short walk. When i arrive at the National Park, the weather is fairly atrocious, wet and cold and the wind is blowing up a storm. Ive already posted home most of my moutain kit but i put on 3 t-shirts, 2 pairs of socks and a fleece jacket and brave the weather.  In total, the walk takes me about 3 hours up the moutain, and 2 back down. It was thoroughly exhausting but it was great to get my body running again. It is something i had missed since Nepal.  The same evening i drive back to the same campsite i stayed in the previous evening.

The next day i drive East as i want to visit the Coromandel Peninsula before I leave. This stretch of coast is highly rated for surfing, diving, etc, and is supposed to be rugged and beautiful. Last night i spent the evening at Waihi Beach, which was very nice but quiet. From this point, im going to spend the next couple of days exploring the beaches and towns whilst slowly making my way back to Auckland to catch my next flight to Hawaii.