Nice excerpt from Eric Schmidt’s interview at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando here on what the internet will look like in five years.

The key Excerpts for me are:

• There will be more Chinese content than English
• Assuming the phone manufacturers get it right, more people will be accessing by a mobile rather than PC

But for me the most important comment is:

• Most people’s information will be gotten from other information as opposed to traditional information sources. People will listen to other people more than anyone else.

Those in PR that aren’t working to build advocates for their brands outside of the traditional media now, will be well behind the eight ball if Eric’s forecast becomes reality and I tend to think he won’t be wrong.

Image by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jelles/

In my time working in PR I have been both an agency guy, as I am again now, and also a client, when I worked at Microsoft.

I learnt a hell of a lot during my time inhouse about managing agencies and made a hell of a lot of mistakes. To the wonderful teams I worked with at The Red Consultancy, Three Monkeys, Weber Shandwick UK and Inferno sorry for those mistakes. However I would like to think I learnt along the way and was better at it by the end than I was at the start.

For those managing agencies at the moment, or for those planning on heading in there in the near future, my colleague George F Snell III (isn’t that a brilliant name!), has compiled a list of ten ways you can be a better client.

Read the full list at the link above, but my favourite ones are:

Be polite.

Snarling never gets the job done.  So imagine what happens when you decide not to send terse emails, leave rude voicemails or scold people at meetings?  You get a better and stronger relationship.

Not even Houdini could read minds.

Your PR team can’t deliver the results you expect if you haven’t articulated them.  Be direct.  Tell them what your expectations are and then put it in writing.  When everyone is on the same page there are no surprises.

Micromanaging = bad relationships.

Do you really need to read every single media pitch?  Do you want to be cc’ed on every email among the team?  When everyone can focus on their duties – the job generally gets done better.

Reading through the list though I think there are a few more that could be added.

The client can be wrong

As the client you will not always be right. You may insist on a strategy that doesn’t work out, perhaps even against the better judgement of your agency. If this does happen admit your mistake and work on how the situation can be rectified. A client is not infallible and should not pretend to be.

Clients do not have to be smarter than your agency

Don’t assume you always need to know all the answers. Even when you think you know the answer ask the advice of your team – their response may be a better solution or lead to a better collaborative outcome.

Don’t hold grudges

When mistakes are made on the agency side, address them, put in places measures to limit potential for reoccurrence and then move on.

Big up your agency internally and CC them

Ensure that the people internally recognise the good work your agency does. This will not take the limelight away from you, it will simply reinforce the great work you are responsible for and will ensure your team feels valued.

Any other additions you can think of adding to the list?

TweetEffect is a tool that I came across today, when trying to analyse what it is that is working from a client’s Twitter feed and what isn’t.

Being an egotist, I of course had to put my results in and was fascinated at what I saw. Generally there was small movements up and down, but there was a few posts that really seemed to shift my users numbers drastically.

The two posts that added most followers was a tweet that referenced social media, and the Black eyed Peas. Whilst Black eyed Peas are no doubt incredibly popular, I bet it was the social media words that made pricked people’s and perhaps more likely a few bots’ attention.

The other post that drove a lot of uplift was one I where I added to the #medievalbumperstickers meme that was going on last week. Though the dramatic drop off a few tweets later suggests this may be that Tiwtter was doing something funky?

What was the most damaging? Mentioning HotHouse’s new digital PR man @ScottRhodie…

Obviously all of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but interesting regardless.

US web users reject behavioural advertising | Media | guardian.co.uk .

An Interesting post above from Guardian’s PDA blog on the public’s reaction to behavioural targetting online.

Most interesting section for me:

Some 66% do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests. Meanwhile, 69% think that there should be a law that gives people the right to know everything a website knows about them, a survey by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, revealed.

Plenty of Asian specific social media in stats in this presentation complied by Ian Stewart, an ex MTV staffer and present Friendster employee in Singapore.

For me this is a real treat! So often stats are US or at best US and European focussed. Great to have some Asian specific numbers for a change.

The most important stats for me:

• 40% (660 million) of all net users are in Asia, but only 16.5% of Asia is online
• The average number of friends on social networks is 107
• On average those in Asia belong to 4 social networks
• On average have 87 IM buddies and 96 numbers in their phone

Monday night marked the launch of The Apprentice Australia, which I watched and enjoyed thoroughly. Though according to Mumbrella, disappointingly for Nine, only 691,999 other people joined me.

One Tim’s post there was a lot of discussion about why this failed. Some people thought the show was on too late, others that The Apprentice concept was tired and more than a few who thought that Mark Bouris was simply not up to the task. None of this was an issue for me. The late-ish slot works for me, I like The Apprentice series (having been a big fan in the UK) and I thought Mark was fine. Though what I thought was lacking was the PR!

I am a fairly big consumer of media, being a PR guy, but the show hardly touched me. This was completely the opposite in the UK at series launch. The Apprentice was absolutely everywhere! Profiles of the contestants appeared in the papers, the radio stations talked about it, the morning current affairs programs cut to scenes of it, celebs were asked their opinion, last year’s contestants gave their insights. There appeared to be little of that here, which is disappointing.

Of course in the UK the show was on BBC, so benefited from the power of its news and influence network. However, Nine, its affiliated online partner ninemsn and magazine stable ACP for all the poor decisions they have made over the last decade are still a media powerhouse.

Maybe I am getting this wrong, I was moving last weekend so didn’t consume the same amount of weekend media that I normally do, but a quick straw poll of some of my friends suggests the same. The PR simply didn’t register.

As momentum around the show heats up perhaps it will all change? I hope so, I really enjoy The Apprentice series and want others to talk with about it.

hat tip Kris Hoet, my ex colleague from Microsoft in Europe.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomhide/

Waking up and seeing the sky a burnt orange colour is a rather scary prospect.

Due to work being stupid busy this week, and needing to be in at the crack of dawn I didn’t take the time to grab my camera and take some shots, but thankfully plenty of others did. Some are below.

Luna Park by http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomhide/

Beach dust storm by http://www.flickr.com/photos/africadunc/

Looking out by http://www.flickr.com/photos/sketchesbymez/

Lots more Sydney dust storm images can be found in this Flickr Gallery.

As my colleague Ian Rumsby put it on his post about the storm:

10,000 miles away, at the very moment Sydney was waking up, the world’s leaders were waving fond farewells in New York at the close of a relatively fruitless effort by the UN to get the climate change agenda back on track. It was difficult to miss the poignancy of the news from New York whilst eating cornflakes in the middle of an orange mist.

And to think there are still global warning deniers.

The latest Did You Know is out. I have posted on previous versions on this blog before, and once again the video is compelling viewing. The stats, as with most of these things, are quite North American focussed, but appear to be well researched.

Hat tip – Stephen Davies

I have been super slack updating this of late, but rest assured there are a few posts in draft format that will be up soon.

But in the absence of a proper post I thought I would share some of the interesting things I have been reading over the last week.

HabitatUK return to Twitter on Digital Tip

It was in June that HabitatUK learnt the power of social media when they jumped on Twitter and used trending topic hashtags (the most tasteless was the Iran Election) to push signups to their marketing database and furniture discounts . As the blogger who broke the news, and then watched it break all records on Social Media Today, I am very relieved to see them back on Twitter. The case has been used as a benchmark of the cynical use of hashtag spam, been written up on countless posts, news stories and talked about on Twitter. Even though HabitatUK apologised through me via another blog post, and then promptly blamed their intern as the cause of the hashtag spam, they didn’t respond back on Twitter. Until now.

Where Gen Y Leads, Others Follow on Millennial Marketing

A new book,  featured yesterday in USA Today,  says Millennials have significantly impacted retailer practices in technology and merchandising. Titled ’Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens, and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail’, they call Gen Y “the taste-makers, influencers, and most enthusiastic buyers of today,” who will become “the mature, high-income purchasers of the future.”  The authors conducted surveys and focus groups, interviewed hundreds of Gen Yers, spoke with retail executives and spent lots of time in malls.

Building Rome in less than a day with Photosynth on Geek in Disguise

The University of Washington has built a Photosynth of Rome using 150,000 photos from Flickr and it’s mighty impressive. It took them 21 hours for Rome using Flickr and Photosynth and they’ve also been busy with Dubrovnik and Venice. Check out Dubrovnik below and you’ll see that the resulting synth really is quite amazing. They’re literally reconstructing entire cities from images harvested from the web.

Wispa Gold Gives Advertising Space To Its Fans on PSFK

To celebrate the return of Wispa Gold and say thank you to fans of the chocolate bar, Cadbury is offering up £2 million worth of advertising space for fans to potentially have their  personal messages displayed on the brand’s billboards throughout the UK and Ireland. Fans need to log in to Wispa Gold Messages and submit their message along with an explanation of why it is special to them. A panel of Wispa Gold fans will select certain ‘gold’ messages which deserve the limelight, and those messages will be displayed on the billboards. If participants need help in designing their message, a panel of Wispa helpers is on hand.

Malaysia: Social Media and Facebook numbers on Laurel Papworth

Malaysian Internet users like Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster. They’re also connecting via Twitter, LindedIn and Plaxo, and eBlogger. They use resources such as Slideshare, iTunes, Flickr, and YouTube.  Nine of the Top 20 websites in Malaysia are social networking sites, and the top 6 sites are Yahoo!, Facebook, Google.com.my, YouTube, Google.com, and Blogger.

Aircel outdoor advertising stunt

UPDATE

Drew in the comment box below has alerted me to the fact that I have linked this advertisement to Aircell, The US broadband provider, rather than Aircel, the Indian mobile provider. I have updated the post below.

ORIGINAL POST WITH EDITS

Aircell, an American airline broadband provider, Aircel, an Indian mobile company, has created quite a storm of late with a clever advertising and PR stunt in Mumbai India.

Working with Indian outdoor agency Primesite, Aircel booked an outdoor media billboard in Mumbai at a spot notorious for flooding. The advertisement featured a dingy attached by rope to the sign accompanied by the Aircel logo and the copy ‘In case of emergency cut rope’.

Once installed the clever people involved in the campaign sat back and waited until the rains started falling. Sure enough in the middle of the monsoon season the site flooded and flooded quickly. So quickly in fact that people were stranded at the location and the only way to get themselves to safety was to cut the rope on the bill board and paddle to safety in the Aircel boat.

A nice story isn’t it. You can view a photo essay of the stunt on this dedicated spot of the Aircel website. Like me you may notice that a few of the gentlemen saved were wearing Aircel t-shirts, and that the people don’t look that stranded, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I am not entirely sure how this ties back to broadband in the air, but it has me and This stunt has me and many others blogging about them, has built brand awareness through the media coverage it generated and no doubt would have been a hell of a lot of fun to be involved in. For those reasons I reckon it is a clever campaign.

My suggestion on extending it – auction off the boat on eBay and donate the funds to monsoon victims.

Hat tip to Lexy Klain for bringing this to my awareness.

Global Working Hours

Having worked overseas, one of the questions I often get asked is where do you work harder, in The UK or Australia? The opinion if it is a Brit asking is that Aussie’s are lazing on the beach most of the time and if it is an Aussie asking, they are convinced that those lazy Brits are too busy making tea to be doing real work.

Being the diplomatic bloke that I am, I typically respond that I have met Brits and Aussies that work stupidly long hours and that likewise there are plenty on both continents that seem to do very little work at all.

Now thanks to The Organisation for Economic Co-operation I have the answer.

Even though there is only an hour in it I will be sure to give it to those lazy Brits. Though the new question now, is how the Koreans found the time to respond to this survey?

via Steve Clayton – one of those Lazy Brits…

Energy Australia ad

This ad didn’t make me go to the Energy Australia Website, but it did make me laugh.

Seen at Kings Cross train station in Sydney.

Just heard via Julian Cole on Twitter that Beached Whale, the hugely popular Youtube video featuring a beached Kiwi accented whale and a friendly seagull is to be made into an 11 part series with new characters. It will be shown first online and then aired on ABC1 and ABC2.

Read the full details about the Beached Whale series on the ABC blog.

If you’re not familiar with the video watch it below. If you are familiar with it – watch it again anyways – you know you want to.

Choice bro.

Last week I was invited to present at the 4th Annual PR and New Media Summit in Melbourne, on the topic of the ‘New skill sets of the communications pro in the new media environment’. The event was put on by Glen Frost, of Frocomm and was attended by approximately 100 communications professionals primarily from the government and the not for profit sector.

As Trevor Young, one of the other speakers has highlighted on his blog, the biggest concern facing most attendees was fear of potential negative comments if they opened their brands/organisations up to social media. As such, the majority of conversations between myself (and the other speakers I spoke to) and the delegates revolved around ways to convince the boss that the old methods of broadcasting to audiences in a one way dialogue were quickly becoming less effective, and that for organisations to remain relevant they needed to engage in two way conversations between themselves and their audiences.

The conference was a fantastic welcome back for me into the Australian PR market. Beyond speaking with and meeting the delegates the event was a fantastic chance to meet in person, Trevor Young and David Park of Park Young, Liza Boston of Cracked Pepper, Leslie Nassar of Fake Steven Conroy fame, Paul Colgan from The Punch, Bronwen from Norg Media, Ross Monaghan from Deakin University, Sarah Stokely from Keep Left PR, Kate Kendall from Marketing Magazine, Steven Noble from Forrester and catch up with my old mate and ex colleague Graham White from Howorth Communications.

Below is a link to the slides I presented. For further information or my notes, don’t hesitate to get in contact via the comment section.

The video above is not short, it is 20 minutes, it also not that new either, having been delivered in 2006, but it is well worth watching. The speaker, Sir Ken Robinson is a leading thinker on realising the potential of creativity and the importance of innovation. The talk is incredibly funny verging on a comedy routine at times. The premise is that the current schooling system that trains children for the working world is an inadequate tool for preparing children to face the unknown challenges and opportunities that will happen into the future.

I liked the presentation and particularly related to the example he gives on why people are often discouraged from studying arts subjects like music. One of my favourite subjects at school was drama, but I was discouraged from continuing it beyond year 7 as it was unlikely I would ever find work as an actor. I’m not an actor today – even if I had pursued the subject it is highly unlikely I would have wanted to be an actor. But having a job that calls on me to present to and influence people constantly I often wonder how the skills I would have gained from further study in this area would have benefited.

Anyways enough about me – watch the video, it is entertaining. Hat tip Steve Clayton.

Pre and post moustache shave

One of my things is that whenever I am on holiday I grow a moustache. Today I shaved off my latest and most successful ‘tache – pre and post shots above. The ‘tache was four months in the making – not having shaved it since I left work on the 3 April this year. Like the all the other ‘taches there was some ceremony in the cutting off. I always take a photo, use a new razor blade and ensure Elizabeth is close by to kiss my shaven lip when it is done.

I used to grow the ‘tache for a bit of fun, but over time it has grown to mean more than a silly laugh. It acts as a physical reminder that I am not currently working. It reminds me to make the most of the time I have off and to do something that will sustain or enrich my life, because I will be back at work soon enough and won’t have the luxury of completely free time.

The trip Elizabeth and I recently concluded was the second travelling sabbatical I have taken during my professional career (the first being the trip I took with Elizabeth on our way to London that involved six months travel in South America) and I would be very surprised if it is the last.

But for now I am ready to return to the workforce. I feel refreshed, enthusiastic about the work I will be doing and have a head full of the type of ideas that simply don’t come in a hour long brainstorm (at least not to me). It is for these reasons that I encourage anybody that feels they are not sure where to take their career next, feel exhausted and jaded with work or have lost the work life balance battle to take some time off and go travelling. My career has not at all suffered from my time off.

So that is that. Tomorrow I will wake with an alarm, shower and iron a shirt and commute to the office. I want to thank all the loyal readers who have left comments and sent me kind messages about the stories and photos we have shared during our travels. The content on here will shift back to more of my professional thoughts and opinions now. For those who prefer the pretty pictures I still plan to post regularly, but I won’t be offended if you drop me from your RSS readers or unsubscribe from the email alerts.

Like my moustache, I will be curtailing my travelling desires for now, but the good thing is they will always come back.

Tuk tuk riding in Bangkok

GUEST POST – ELIZABETH DAWSON

After a simply marvellous month in China our final stop was to completely shift the scenery and pace with two weeks in Thailand.

Strangely for two Australians neither of us had ever been to Thailand before with brief stopovers in Bangkok airport on long haul flights our only contact with the place. Well, we are pleased to report this time we managed to get out of said airport to take a look around!

Basing ourselves in the Phra Nakhon area at the lovely, friendly Niras Bankoc hostel we were able to strike out on foot to visit all the key sites from the gorgeous Grand Palace and assorted wats, paying our respects to both the diminutive Emerald Buddha and the enormous Reclining Buddha on our way.

The Reclining Buddha upclose

Of course no backpacker trip to Bangkok is complete without doing a few laps of the infamous Khao San Road which seems to have the highest concentration of gap-year travellers in the world sucking back buckets of Sangsom and chucking back Changs like their lives depend on it.  Obviously I never did such things when I was their age…

Most afternoons we needed to retreat from the heat with a siesta at the hostel or in the massive shopping malls of Siam Square (or it seemed in taxis trying to negotiate the jammed Bangkok traffic).

By night we were spoilt for choice, one evening taking in some muay-thai /Thai boxing bouts at Ratchadamnoen stadium. Behind the cage in the cheap seats we still had a great view of the furious flurries of kicks and punches of the bare-foot boxers and enjoy the all the sound and spectacle of the crowd taking bets and cheering on their man.

Muy Thai action in Bangkok

The next evening after fishing out the cleanest and smartest duds from our backpacks (easier said than done at this late stage) we thought we might turn beer-o-clock into cocktail hour for once with a visit to the swanky Vertigo Bar at the Banyan Tree hotel. The 360 degree sunset view of Bangkok from this roof-top perch on the 61^st floor of the hotel is simply breathtaking.

Elizabeth at Vertigo Bar

Taking a tip from our hostel we then popped into the fairly underwhelming Suan Lum Night Bazaar for a kind of pesce-pedicure. We just sank our tootsies into a tank of little fish and they took it from there nibbling off all the dead skin. They had their work cut out for them with our feral feet but they did a damn fine job in the 20 minutes we let them run riot.

After all that serenity we thought it was time to seek out some seediness and peruse the lurid attractions of Patong and Soi Cowboy in Sukhumivit and see for ourselves the remarkable skill sets with which the ladies working in this area are blessed. Not places I will be going back to in a hurry but part of the Bangkok experience I guess.

Soi Cowboy, Bangkok

So that is our guide to spending four days in Bangkok. From Bangkok we headed south to the Gulf of Thailand coast islands of Koh Tao and Koh Samui for some lazy beach time and to dive deep below the waves. Once I manage to drag myself off the beach there will be a separate post for that.

All our Thailand images can be seen here.

Chinese flag

China is changing! And you don’t need to have been there more than once to know that. The presence of construction sites everywhere, the freshness of the metro systems in major cities and the fact our 2007 guidebook had a hard time keeping up with the new streets, buildings and ever increasing prices are all clear evidence. Everywhere you get a sense of vigour and purpose, of reinvention and creation and of a people incredibly excited that the great China dragon has arrived on the world scene and more importantly that the world is paying attention and looking to China. In my opinion the next 20-30 years belong to China. I just hope in some way I can grab onto one of the dragon’s scales and be taken along for the ride.

Elizabeth and I spent a month travelling in China, long enough only to see a fraction of what this vast land and enormous body of people have to show. It was an amazing experience; one that has left in us a determination to attempt to learn some Mandarin and to return soon. As with the other countries we have visited on this trip I have compiled a list of ten observations gleaned from the visit. As I always say, these observations are my own and may be wildly inaccurate, were obtained not speaking the language and have been made after visiting a fraction of the country for a short period of time. I welcome all comments and responses to this list and where appropriate am happy to make amendments or corrections.

So let’s begin:

1. Rapid pace of change – As I noted in the intro, China is changing and reinventing itself at an enormous rate of knots. There are construction sites everywhere. Today major cities exist where less than a decade ago stood sleepy villages, malls where only a few years ago vendors gathered at small market stands and highways everywhere are replacing dirt tracks. Of course you knew this, but one could not make a list of observations and not have this listed in the number 1 spot. From the people I spoke to I get the sense that this change is an incredible sense of pride, and who can blame them. Of course like with all emerging economies the flipside of all these changes is the risk of creating homogenised cities and towns and the loss of of traditional values in the race for modernisation.
2. Excessive sharing of saliva - as noted in the first point China is rapidly changing, but this does not mean that it is reshaping itself into a western country with all the western ways. Chinese customs and habits will no doubt remain a novelty and mystery to westerners for many years to come. The one that stood out most for me was spitting. The Chinese it seems are terribly afflicted by phlegm, so much so that they need to almost continually hock at it and spit it out regardless of their location. Spitting at a restaurant, whilst waiting in a crowded queue, whilst admiring a beautiful view or on the carpeted floor of a train are all fair game. Apparently in in the wake of SARS and in the lead up to the Olympics there was a big drive by the authorities to encourage the end of this practice though seems they have their work cut out for them. Quite disgusting for us, though I am sure the behaviour we exhibit, whilst perfectly normal in our society, is equally abhorrent to them.
3. Active old folk – forget the concept of retirement homes and wheel chairs, China’s old people act as though they are preparing for the 2012 Olympics. During the morning and evening hours parks, alleyways and quiet streets are besieged by old people stretching and hitting their muscles, practicing Tai Chi, using exercise equipment or even performing dance routines in groups of 50 or more. In the rural areas it is not unusual to see a senior cit hauling the huge piles of wood on their backs or toting laden carrying poles  to sell their wares in the villages.
   

   Elderly Naxi woman with laden carrying pole

4. Online and media censorship – being a fairly voracious consumer of the internet and online media, dealing with ye olde great firewall of china was a challenge to say the least. We were in China over the auspicious 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square masacre; Hotmail, BBC, Flickr, Twitter and likely many other other sites were blocked during this period. That is of course in addition to the sites that are constantly blocked like Youtube, Blogger, Wikipedia and WordPress.com (which hosts this blog). There are ways around it (as this post helpfully outlines) but this censorship and the absence of free media are highly questionable and in my opinion should be addressed if China wants to be truly recognised as a free world power.
5. Self awareness – perhaps it is due to the size of the population, or the legacy of a socialist society, but the Chinese appeared to be less focussed on the self/standing out. Joining in and being part of a larger group appears to still be the norm in the places we visited - it was amazing to see teenagers join middle aged and elderly people to dance in the parks without a hint of self-consciousness or need to look ‘cool’.
6. Friendliness – everywhere we visited people greeted us with friendliness, excused our language shortcomings and made allowances for our enormous level of  ignorance. I fear the reception the Chinese receive in Australia, or for that matter most western countries, is rather different.
7. Road rules – China is the nation where car ownership is growing fastest in the world (check and reference stat). Highways are springing up everywhere and the automobile seems to be the ultimate symbol of success. However, road rules haven’t kept adapted to this change. Overtaking on blind corners, driving on the wrong side of the road, or completely ignoring traffic lights and road signs are the norm. As more and more Chinese cars appear on the roads this will surely have to change if road tolls are not to rise exponentially.
8. Local tourism – tourism is big business in China and by far and away the biggest segment appears to be local tourism. As China’s middle class has grown so to has their desire to visit and appreciate their vast nation. Tourist locations like Lijiang, The Great Wall and the Yangshuo to name a few are inundated daily by tourist buses packed to the rafters with souvenir buying, SLR camera toting locals keen to have their photos taken in front of the sites and lap up the vast attractions of their country.
   

   Lugu Lake - a top Chinese tourist hotspot

9. Food – it is impossible to compile a list of observations about China and not mention the food. Not that this was unexpected, but the Chinese food available in western countries in many ways couldn’t be more different to the food available in China. Chilli and spices feature heavily making many dishes impossibly spicy (especially in Sichuan) for our western tongues. The etiquette also takes a little bit of getting your head around. It is good manners to leave food uneaten, so as to show the generosity of the host and not only is leaving an enormous mess over the table cloth and table ok it is thought strange if you do not.
   

   Sichuan hotpot - painfully spicy

10. No nappies – nappies (or diapers for any American readers out there) appear to be non existent in China. Instead children are dressed in crotchless trousers to make for an easy evacuation. I never quite worked out how the parents knew when the time was ripe for said evacuation, but what I did work out was how to move quickly out of the way when I saw a child, being carried in front delicately, like a cocked and loaded weapon, to the toilet.

With this post we have finished our China section of the trip. With my new job and China’s proximity to Australia I sincerely hope it will not be long before I am back.

For those interested all of our China images can be seen here.

Yulong River from Dragon Bridge

The pictures in this post I believe speak for themselves. For me they capture the quintessential image of China made familiar from ink drawings and Willow pattern china plates. They were taken in Guangxi province near the town of Yangshuo. They are images that were stolen between torrential monsoonal downpours, along small dirt tracks and on the river and whilst not wiping the sweat from my forehead.

Yangshuo was our last main stop in China. The end of a one month journey that had taken us across the country and afforded experiences not soon to be forgotten. It had been a place I had been looking forward to throughout our time in China, but unfortunately like that film all your mates have seen, loved and built up in your mind; Yangshuo for me was a bit of a let down.

One traveller we met midway through our time in China described Yangshuo as the most beautiful place she has ever visited. Online blogs proclaimed its charming backstreets and our Lonely Planet 2007 China edition described it as an place where people come for a few days, but stay for a week or more. However, the reality I found in mid 2009 was none of these. The place is now filled with tourist tat, annoyingly persistent hawkers and is the only place we experienced in China where people have actively tried to deceive us, or rip us off. All a bit of a disappointment; however, thankfully as the images show the surrounding country-side is still spectacular.

All up we spent three days and nights in Yangshuo. The first day was spent acclimatising to 35-40 Celcius temperatures and 85%+ humidity, not an easy task when you have spent the last three years or so living in London. The other two days were spent on or along the surrounding rivers riding bikes or bamboo rafting down the river marvelling at the magnificent limestone rock formations that rise skyward from the ground everywhere around the town.

The peaks are incredibly beautiful, especially when the fog rolls in around the towering peaks, but sadly for me in my mind it had been it was hyped up all a little too much. If you are reading this and planning to visit Yangshuo perhaps this post will help set your expectations low – you never know you might be pleasantly surprised when you arrive.

Some other pictures from our visit below. For all of our China images go here:

Moody skies along the Yulong River

Me at the Li River

Waiting for next bamboo raft passenger

Yulong River scarecrow

Our last week or so has been spent in China’s Yunnan province, a place consisting of mountains, villages and numerous Chinese ethnic minority groups. We made Lijiang, with its cobbled streets, fresh water streams, red lanterns and hordes of local tourists our base for exploring the more remote parts of the region and stayed at the wonderful Panba Guesthouse. We had a fascinating time in Yunnan and met some interesting folk and some real characters. Let me introduce you to a few:

Lijiang weaver

This fellow, whose name I didn’t catch, spends his days working the loom to make scarves that sit piled and neatly folded against one side of his ramshackle little shop located in a narrow street of Lijiang old town. With a cigarette constantly hanging from his lip, his wife and kid looking on from somewhere out the back and a steady stream of mates dropping by to play cards we figured he had it pretty sorted. His scarves were well funky and we couldn’t avoid weighing down our packs with a few samples to bring home.

Dr Ho

Dr Ho is a Chinese doctor who is world renowned for his healing powers. We met him in the tiny village Baisha, a bike ride outside of Lijiang. Western universities have certified that his therapies have had success in healing cancers like leukaemia and prostate cancer. He requires only the payment you can provide.

He called us in from the street, as he apparently does with all visitors to the town, to give us some tea and show us the press coverage that he has achieved, which is pretty impressive. NY Times articles, mentions in guide books Michael Palin has filmed him, but most impressive he has met Andrew Daddo!

Mosu woman

We met this lady as she skippered and directed our little row boat to the Liwubi Dao island of Lugu Hu (Lugu Lake). The two blokes you can see below were also on the boat, but, given they were all Mosu, there was no doubt given she was in charge.

The Mosu people, an ethnic minority that live around Lugu Lake, are believed to be the last society on the planet to live under matriarchal rule. The rules governing the matriarchal society mean that the local people never marry, but instead remain living in their maternal family homes and take many lovers throughout their life.

From around the age of 13, Mosu girls enter adulthood and are given their own room in the family home. Within this room they invite men back to share the night, but when the morning comes the blokes return to their mother’s home to help run the household and look after the children of their sisters. Likewise their own children are not their responsibility, but rather are looked after by their girlfriend’s brothers.
In addition to calling the shots when it comes to the hanky panky, Mosu homes are passed down the maternal line and all the big family decisions are approved by the family chief matriarch.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Mosu go here

Tommy

Tommy pictured here with Elizabeth is an enormous Danish gent we met whilst hiking the spectacular Tiger Leaping Gorge. Along with his travel buddy Meriem from France we spent the middle night of our Tiger Leaping Gorge trek at the basic, but blissfully empty Five Fingers guesthouse. An absolute hoot he had us laughing away our sore legs and altitude sickness throughout the night and into the next morning.

The Tiger Leaping Gorge where we met Tommy is one of the world’s deepest gorges and is home to a series of fast flowing rapids. The hike took about a day and a half through some sometimes incredibly steep and rocky terrain. The elevation made the going all the more hot and hard going – if our puffing and panting is anything to go on we need to renew our gym memberships ASAP upon our Sydney return.

Mr Altitude

Talking of elevation, after Tiger Leaping Gorge we headed north to the town of Shangri-la (also known as Zhongdian). At 3,200 metres above sea level, Elizabeth became well acquainted with our old friend Mr Altitude who loves to turn up with liberal doses of throbbing headaches and blurry vision. A visit to a Chinese medicine pharmacy with accompanying charades soon found a way to send him on his way.

Once acclimatised we were able to take in the sights of the principally Tibetan town including a turn on the extraordinary prayer wheel (the largest in China) and chow down a yak burger or two.

Where next?

I am writing this post sitting in the airport at Kunming after a night travelling from Lijiang by sleeper bus. Once our delayed flight finally boards we will be on our way to the picturesque towns of Guilin and Yangshuo to ride bikes around rice fields, watch boats gliding along the river and plenty else.

All of our China images can be seen here

Not only am I boring you, loyal readers, with my travel stories but as of last week select posts from this blog are appearing on the Lonely Planet website. Massively stoked!

My content is being syndicated as part of Lonely Planet’s new BlogSherpa programme that displays relevant blog posts against its own editorial content.

The BlogSherpa programme works by marrying the tags I add to my posts with similiar content on the Lonely Planet website. For instance posts that I have tagged with Kyrgyzstan appear on the Kyrgyzstan page. See below.

When people click through onto one of the links they are served my original post reproduced within the Lonely Planet environment. See below:

The interesting thing is, which you can see in the image, is that there are Google AdSense ads served alongside the post. In exchange for my content Lonely Planet passes all the revenue made from these ads directly onto me.

So far I have made the princely sum of $1.73 from people clicking on the ads. Not exactly the kind of earnings that will see me driving around in a Porsche anytime soon, but interesting none the less.

Kudos to Lonely Planet for recognising the value in partnering and working with bloggers to enhance its own content.

GUEST POST – Elizabeth Dawson

The famous portrait

After a few weeks trooping along the Silk Road, taking in small towns and villages and enjoying the great outdoors, it was high time us champagne-swilling, urban PR-types headed to our true spiritual home – the big smoke – and when it comes to big smokes these days they don’t come much bigger than Beijing.

(Beijing is in fact quite literally a big smoke – according to our pre-Olympics Lonely Planet guide, health experts say that breathing in the air of Beijing is the equivalent of smoking 70 cigarettes a day).

Staying in great hostel in the buzzy Nan Luo Gu Xiang hutong area we were right in the thick of all the fantastic bars, restaurants and shops that we were slightly craving. No street snack or other taste sensation was safe with a rolling feast of bubbling chilli chicken hot pots, Peking Duck pancakes, oodles of noodles, delicious dumplings and lashings of ice cold Tsingtao just some of the treats for the taking.

Nan Luo Gu Xiang Hutong

Our first day of sightseeing Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City was fairly laid back compared to the epic bicycle tour escorted by the wonderful US ex-pat Christine who we met back in Kyrgyzstan. A Chinese resident for the past four or so years, Christine whisked us through the hutongs, around the lakes, right up to the Olympic site, across the city to the fabby 798 Art District before dropping back down to cruise past the retail and expat/embassy enclaves of Sanlitun. The persistent rain saw us don jaunty red ponchos for much of this journey which served us well in highlighting the inexperienced western cyclist in the midst of the Beijing traffic (those nifty bike lanes even on the ring road were also a boon it has to be said).

The Bird’s Nest and drowned rats

By night we joined the fun and the masses milling around Hou Hai. As we wandered around the lakes, it seemed there was a bar, restaurant, shop or other diversion there for everyday of the year. Everyone of every age and inclination seemed to be out and about enjoying the scene. From the young locals sipping beers and enjoying the (sometimes rather cheesy live music) in the bars, teenagers flirting and playing shuttle cock, families cooking dinner outside their homes to the senior citizens gossiping and stretching it out with some evening calisthenics.

Hou Hai at night

One of the highlights was our first encounter with the Chinese penchant for engaging in lively outdoor mass participation dancing. Obviously standing on the sidelines is not an option and we were dragged into a bit of the old ‘right, left, turn around and go, go, go’ action soon enough! Check out a video of Matthew go, go going here.

With just three full days in Beijing city we felt we had just started to scratch the surface and were very sad to leave. It was made all the more fun hanging out with Christine– our translator, navigator, restaurant expert and all round guardian angel. We will be back.

Some more pics from Beijing:

Elizabeth with the wonderful Christine

Temple of Heaven, Beijing

Forbidden City, Beijing

Bell Tower at night, Beijing

All of our China images can be seen here.

Old and new Kashgar

Kashgar, in the far west of China in the Xingjiang province was our first stop in China after crossing the Torugart Pass from Kyrgyzstan. The place was roughly 200km or so from Naryn in Kyrgyzstan, but in many ways we felt a million miles away.

Since the days of the Silk Road, Kashgar has been a market town where people of all different ethnicities, nationalities and religious persuasions came to buy and sell goods. Its massive Sunday livestock market is still today one of the biggest around. We unfortunately missed it by a day due the border being closed for the Dragon Boat Festival.

Located in an oasis and surrounded by furnace like desert regions, Kashgar is a strategic crossroad on the Silk Road and has from time in memoriam been the site of cultural conflict and cooperation. Today the local Muslim Uighur people (who look nothing like the typical image most westerners have of the Chinese – see below) live side by side with Han Chinese who are arriving en-masse from the more eastern provinces and a whole host of other minority groups.

It is easy to see that Kashgar is undergoing great change. Large sections of the old town are being levelled to make way for high-rise apartment buildings. But you can’t help but feel Kashgar has always adapted according to who was in charge at the time, or what goods have been available to sell. Sure there are more cars, mobile phone sellers and high-rise apartment blocks now, but as the picture above shows there is still plenty of the traditional Kashgar. Amongst the shiny new fast food stores are the sights and smells of the street side food vendors offering everything from smoky shish kebabs, pastries, watermelon and all manner of curious cuisine. Donkeys and scooters jostle for space on the old town alleys and there is no doubt that the hammering of copper bowls still drowns out the tinny music blaring obnoxiously from teenagers mobile phones.

As Lonely planet aptly says, “Kashgar was globalised before globalised was grammatical.” And the evolution continues.

We spent out our time in Kashgar soaking up the sun and walking around the bazaars and markets of the old and new town. Below are some of the pictures from our visit.

Market trader making noodles in Kashgar

Uighur men near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar

Watermelon trader in Kashgar

Kebab vendors

Elizabeth eating watermelon streetside

All of our China images can be seen here.

Elizabeth and the yurt

So,Elizabeth has fulfilled one of her childhood ambitions of sleeping in a yurt. What is a yurt you ask? Why it is that funny looking shelter in the picture above. Traditionally the nomadic Kyrgyz people would live in these and move them to high ground in the summers and back down to the warmer valleys in the winter. Nowadays though it is typically only the shepherds who use them during summer as they tend their flocks on the jailoos (alpine grass plains).

The yurt is covered by sheep’s felt on the outside and decorated with shyrdak (felt) rugs on the inside. Complete with a fire, for burning sheep dung (don’t worry when burnt it is fully dried and not smelly), soft mats for sleeping on and a skylight to let in the light, it was a cosy little place for us to spend the night – it had to be, it was bloody freezing outside!

Over our stay we went horse riding and hiking around the hills up around the patches of remaining snow clinging on into summer. It was great to get a glimpse into family life up in the mountains – definitely a no frills way to live. We made a video and got some photos which hopefully paint a picture better than I can with words.

Our hosts Mr and Mrs Bobby

The yurt and our guard dog at dusk

I took this photo shortly before we retired for the night. The temperature was rapidly dropping, but the little fire burining dried sheep dung inside the yurt ensured we were cosy as we drifted off to sleep.

Elizabeth horse riding near the snow capped peaks of Sarala-Saz Jailoo

Horses on the Sarala-Saz Jailoo

The day following this shot all the foals were speperated from their mothers so that the mares could be milked to make kymys , a local low alcoholic drink. Like home brew in Aus, each household has their own take on it and everybody thinks their’s is best, so you have to try a few.

Mr Bobby's wife

Having been chased out of Kochkor as a result of my heavy internet using habits (long story), we are now back in Bishkek as we wait out the Chinese Dragon Boat festival and the reopening of the Torugart Pass. The next post, assuming all goes well, should be from western China!

View all our Kyrgyzstan images taken to date here .

Altyn Arashan Valley

A couple of days ago we hiked out of the alpine town of Karakol to Altyn Arashan, joined by Christine from the US who we met in town (and who gave us some awesome travel tips for China where she has been living for the last four years – thanks Christine!).

Given the elevation of the valley is 3,000 metres we were a little out of breath at the end of the hike, but the views the whole way were well worth it, as was the presence of hot springs at the top to ease those post-hike aching muscles! We spent the night in a home stay mountain lodge – definitely on the chilly side after sundown. After two and a half years living in the bright lights of London it was awesome to see a night sky carpeted with stars.

The place is beautiful and we were incredibly lucky to get such sunny, clear weather. Pics and video below:

Sunset in the Altyn Arashan Valley

Hiking in the Altyn Arashan Valley

Horses in the Altyn Arashan Valley

To view all our Kyrgyzstan images go here.

GUEST POST – BY ELIZABETH DAWSON

Our first stop across the border into Kyrgyzstan was a town called Osh. Nice place, worth a visit, only it was at least a ten hour drive north across two mountain ranges to our next stop – the capital city Bishkek.

We had sorted out our shared taxi through our hostel and we were all set for an early morning start. A quick dinner the night before in the standard local chaykana seemed the way to go – cheap and tasty. Alas, said dinner was less than gratefully received by Matthew’s digestive system and a rough night of technicolour yawns left us both fairly unsettled and Matthew still tres queasy come the morning. 

Still, the show must go on and into the car we got, ready for a full day on the road. Unfortunately the turn of the ignition was all the emetic that Matthew needed and within seconds of the car leaving the kerb the poor love’s stomach gave it up all over again (thankfully a plastic bag was on hand!). The driver and our fellow passenger were obviously intrigued at the speedy onset of travel sickness given we had barely moved a hundred metres.

We pressed on however and we were soon out in the lush, green landscape of the Kyrgyzstan side of the Fergana Valley. Snow capped peaks far off in the distance framed the view.

Our friendly driver rifled through his eclectic selection of cassette tapes to set the soundtrack for our road trip. He had a clear favourite that was played at least nine times over the course of the journey. Top highlights included 70s/ 80s classics such as Abracadabra, Woman in Love, a selection of Abba and aptly summing up our level of conversation with our road trip buddies – Words (Don’t Come Easy).

As well as mixing driving with DJ-ing the lovely man was always only to happy to stop for us to take photos and even pulled over to pick wild mulberries from the side of the road.

Our journey took us past a mirror-like turquoise lake reflecting the craggy wildflower covered mountains and alongside the Naryn River cut off by a series of massive Soviet dams.  Fresh mountain honey stands, trout sellers, grazing horses and scatterings of yurts were just some of the other sights to be seen from the window of the car as we climbed the twisty road.

Those distant snow capped peaks we saw at the beginning of the day got closer and closer until we were up at 3,184mt driving past glaciers surrounded by thick snow that buried car wrecks and huts. A 2.6km dark, dripping tunnel spat us out onto the other side of the mountain before we began our descent towards Bishkek.

We made it to the bottom of the mountain as dusk fell, the scenery now a strong contrast to the remote, rugged landscape of the past few hours. The long straight road towards the city was lined by factories, markets, houses and all the buzzing life that makes up a metropolis.

Eleven hours after leaving Osh we made it to our destination.  The road to Bishkek was also a road to recovery for Matthew who after a shaky start was in much better shape by the end of it all.

I am writing this post in the town of Karakol on the shores of Lake Issy-Köl from where we will be doing some hikes expect some pics soon.

Uzbek police officer in Samarkand – you are rarely far from one of these fellows anywhere in Uzbekistan

So in the tradition of the recent Turkey post, here are some of my top observations from our time in Uzbekistan. It should be said loudly and clearly that these observations should be taken with quite a few grains of salt. I don’t speak Uzbek or Russian, which no doubt would have altered the experience considerably. I also only spent two weeks in the country and I have only visited a handful of places.

That being said, we have enjoyed our time here in Uzbekistan immensely. We were nervous to say the least about the police presence and were expecting to be stopped regularly for passport checks and to be quizzed about our travels – though this only happened once and was a painless experience. We were also a bit wary of the cash situation with a dearth of ATMs and the subsequent need to carry wads of USD to exchange for bricks of Uzbek sum, but again this all seemed to be relatively painless. The ancient monuments and cities in Uzbekistan, as my previous post has highlighted, are spectacular and the people so friendly and accommodating. We even got an unexpected dose of Uzbek hospitality on our last night in the country in the city of Andijon where we were pulled off the street to join a massive wedding reception.

So without further ado let me observe:

1. Police – as per the caption under the image at the top of this post, you can’t help but notice the police in Uzbekistan. It would be fascinating to know the ratio of police to civilians  – they are everywhere.
2. Money – you certainly need to be cashed up in Uzbekistan – more in the literal sense than the figurative. You see, the biggest Uzbek note is roughly worth 60 cents, carrying the relatively small amount of $100 US was a unique challenge.
   

   Elizabeth with the equivalent of $100 US dollars

3. Food – carbs and fat aren’t hard to come by that’s for sure. Uzbeks are very proud of their national dish plov, an oily fired rice topped with poor cuts of meat, meat fat and tripe combined with strips of carrot and perhaps raisons – it tastes as good as it sounds. That being said we hardy starved and they must have some of the prettiest bread in the world.
4. Outdoor relaxation – not unique to Uzbekistan of course, but they certainly do have lounging al fresco sorted what with the cushy tapchans (tea beds), hidden leafy green courtyards and seemingly never ending pots of choy (tea).
5. Decoration – be it interior, exterior or personal decoration, Uzbekistan knows how to so it with colour, detail and splendour.
   

   Beautiful interior decoration at Mubinjon’s in Bukhara

6. Tashkent Metro – the Tashkent Metro stations are staggeringly beautiful. Each has its own look, from cathedral like arches, cosmonaut inspired space scenes or ballrooms with chandeliers – words cannot describe. Unfortunately for me, they were also designed to serve as nuclear bomb shelters, so taking photos is strictly forbidden.
7. Korea – in addition to large ethnic Korean communities across the country, Uzbekistan has a strong trading relationship with Korea. Uzbekistan sells uranium to Korea, the two countries are  both testing for oil and Korea has large Daewoo manufacturing plants based in the country (as evidenced by the extraordinary predominance of Damas, Nexias and little Matizes on the road)
8. ‘AYGEN Styled in Italy’ plastic bag – this random bag is absolutely everywhere in Uzbekistan and when I say everywhere I mean every second shop and every single stall owner at the bazaars were handing them out. I assume it was meant to say agency, but somebody stuffed up along the way and they sold the mistakes onto a large plastic bag distributor in Uzbekistan.  (PS – it seems these babies are also flourishing in Kyrgystan along with, randomly for our UK readers and Australian readers respectively Morrisons and Sportgirl bags)

   

   This shot was taken in Samarkand, but could have been anywhere that bags were being handed out

9. Hand on heart – accompanied by a gentle tilt of the head, this simple gesture of placing one’s right hand on on one’s heart is commonly used by Uzbeks to show thanks, acknowledge a compliment or in greeting. We even found ourselves doing it  – using it to express our feelings where our language failed us.
10. Grangos – when in South America we were on the Gringo Trail – gringo being the term used there to identify westerner tourists. But here, amongst hordes of empty nester travellers from Europe it felt at times like we were on the ‘Grango’ Trail.

Next we travel east to Kyrgyzstan where we expect to be hiking hills and around lakes, riding horses and fulfilling a lifelong dream of Elizabeth’s to sleep in a yurt.

We are now inKyrgyzstan and uploading images where and when we can, though connections tend to be slow.

For all our Uzbekistan images go here.

The amazing Registan in Samarkand is a complex of medrasses (Islamic academy/seminary) and a large mosque

When we flew into Tashkent from Istanbul a little bleary eyed at 4am we were already a tad hot under the collar. From what we had heard of the Uzbek immigration/customs process we thought it was going to be complicated to say the least and we had a connecting flight to catch at 7am. Every piece of cash on us was accounted for on our forms along with a full declaration of our ‘radio communication devices’ (our mobile phones) and ‘printed matter and data carriers’ (books and our laptop).  When we were first met by people in white coats and face masks  wielding thermometers for the inevitable Swine flu screening we crossed our fingers that we were really cool customers underneath our sweaty, stressy exteriors.

We passed through the health and customs check in flying colours and we made it to the domestic airport in super early time for our next flight to Urgench. Mission accomplished!

Having thought it would be a bit of an earnest backpacker scene we have been surprised to find rather it is THE hotspot for hordes of French empty-nesters on tour. Who knew? We were clearly wasting our time researching  on the internet when we could have just given my sister’s French parents-in-law a quick call for all the top tips!

So all the talk of it being  being a hard place to get into and around is obviously greatly unfounded. People couldn’t be friendlier or more accommodating and we always seem to find someone who can speak some English. Language here is a diverse concept – the official language is Uzbek but most people also speak Russian along with some of the other ethnic tongues of Tajik or Karakalpak. Elizabeth is swotting up on the Cyrillic alphabet so we can at least make out some of the Russian signs on marshrutkas (little public minibuses) etc.

The Uzbekistan we have seen so far is a mix of the old and the Soviet, jammed up against each other. Ancient Muslim mosques, medrasses and mausoleums are here in amazing glory, restored to reflect the grandeur they once exhibited in antiquity. Apparently some historians and bleeding heart Lonely Planet authors have taken offence at this preferring to leave the structures as they were. Not me though. The big ticket items (like the Registan above) are stunning. In my mind providing ongoing maintenance to reflect how the original creators had intended a structure to be is in no way a bad thing. But each to their own I guess.

So far we have visited the ancient khanate (kingdom) capitals of Khiva, once a bustling slave trading centre, Bukhara and the ancient and the legendary Samarkand, where I am writing this post. All have had their charming old town centres and Soviet built new towns. We have spent most of our time in the old towns, but next up is Tashkent where by all reports there is oodles of Soviet architecture to enjoy. Now enormous Soviet style, concrete heavy, monuments aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for me they are heaven. I am very much looking forward  to getting up early and photographing these without too many people around.

There is more to tell you, but I might save some of that until we are in Kyrgyzstan. Enjoy some images until then – I will post more on Flickr, once I find a fast internet connection.

NOTE – I am not sure when this post will appear on my blog. WordPress appears to be blocked here, along with a few other things.

Islam-Hoja Minaret, Khiva Uzbek women in Khiva. We only wish the woman on the left had flashed us her full set of gold teeth – quite the thing here

Sunset over the West Gate in Khiva

The beautiful Kalta Minor Minaret.

Apparently this minaret was started with the intention that it would be well over 100 metres tall. The khan who commissioned it, Mohammad Amin Khan,  died before it was finished. The tradition was that the tower was credited to the ruler who finished it. Not wanting his dad discredited with the tower the new khan, Amin Khan’s son, halted construction so that it retained his dad’s name. Nice.

Elizabeth researching transport connections on a tapchan (tea bed) in Khiva

Cleaning time at Guri Amir Masusoleum in Samarkand

Korean lady at the Bukhara bazaar.

After a lengthy interaction that involved a lot of miscommunication due to language difficulties we purchased some tasty noodles from this lady. We have learnt to seek out the Koreans, locals here following a large forced migration after the second world war, who sell items that do not consist solely of meat and carbohydrate.

I think she enjoyed the experience, they don’t get too many westerners in the bazaars.

 Atatürk

Well people, the masthead at the top of this page needs changing as today is our last day in Turkey. We fly for Uzbekistan tonight and then will be travelling overland for the next few months through Central Asia and China.

Turkey has been an amazing and fascinating. It is my first visit to the country, Elizabeth’s second (she was here exactly 11 years ago). Whenever she mentioned this fact to the locals they would, without fail, respond with ‘a hell of a lot has changed in the last ten years’, and Elizabeth agreed. The days of westerners travelling around like a colonialist inspecting a far flung outpost of the empire are over. Turkey is no longer cheap – a beer at a bar is roughly $5 AUD or £2.50 – and there is a large middle class of domestic tourists that drive shiny new cars and surf the net on their iPhones. Of course beyond making a bigger dent in our budget than expected this is not at all bad thing.

It is impossible to sum up such a vast country in a short blog post, so instead I thought I would list the ten things, in no particular order, that stood out for me:

1. Atatürk – the father Turk may have died in 1938, but he is still omnipresent. There are statues of him it seems in every town square, every main street seems to be named after him and his photo adorns the walls of every establishment be they large/small, touristic/official or otherwise.
2. The special relationship – the Turks seem to really respect that Australians will travel to the other side of the world to honour and respect the men who fought in a battle in World War I. They consider the relationship with Australia a very important one and I expect will become more regular tourists of Australia in the coming years.
3. Rising middle class – as I mentioned above there is a real sense of prosperity in this country and a middle class that Elizabeth didn’t remember from last time.
4. Bus services – the complimentary drinks and snack services on the Turkish coaches would put many airlines to shame – and I am not talking about one of those nasty budget airlines.
5. Half finished buildings – there seems to be a hell of a lot of people in Turkey that can build concrete slabs many stories into the sky. Though there appears many less people who can build walls, doors and windows. This may be the result of ye olde credit crunch?
6. Turkish music – In the Turkish top 20 there appeared to be not one Western song. The entire chart was made up of what I assume are local Turkish artists. Not that they are ignorant to Western music – they just seem to like their own better.
7. Seasonal tourism – the coastal towns in the south of the country appear to survive solely on the tourist dollar. Given we were visiting these places before ‘the season’ many were completely empty. Some of the smarter tourism operators we spoke to advised they were working on ways to attract tourists through winter via walking tours and the like.
8. European Union – It seems EU entry is still a way off for Turkey, but none of the people we spoke to were too concerned about that and figured that Turkey was doing just fine on its own.
9. Smoking – every man and most women smoke it seems. And unlike Europe, US and Aus there is not yet a ban on smoking indoors. Funny how quickly one forgets how nasty cigarette smoke is. Apparently the restaurant smoking ban is due to hit in July which will be a shock to the system.
10. History – there is just so much history packed into this one country. There are so many historic sites that they have only excavated about 30% of them – there is just not the resource to do it all.

Turkey in short has been amazing, but our next stop, Uzbekistan, calls. I don’t think it will be as easy as tourist-friendly Turkey. They are a little more wary of outsiders there and they are much less likely to speak English, which will no doubt pose a bit of a problem given we speak absolutely no Russian or Uzbek. As such we requested the lovely lady who has been helping us with our visas to write out a passage in Russian for us to give to the immigration officials when we land:

Пожалуйста могли бы Вы оформить нас побыстрее у нас утренний рейс в Ургенч в 07.00. Мы боимся не успеть на него.

We hope it informs him of the fact that we have a connecting flight to catch and that we need to move quickly to catch it. Though it could just as easily say that we think Uzbekistan is a sham nation and that we intend to wipe our asses on their national flag. Wish us luck!!!!

See all our Turkey images here.

Elizabeth enjoying her last swim before Thailand

Sorry for the dearth of updates, but posts repeating the fact that yet another day has been spent lounging around, drinking Efes Pilsener and going for the occasional dip in the Med was not likely to go down well. Especially for our London based readers. Though take heart in the fact, as the above image’s caption states, that we will be largely landlocked until we arrive in Thailand in July.

Kaş, and Olympos were our last two seaside stops. In Kaş, a nice little seaside town populated with the type of shops not out of place in Noosa, we took in a spot of sea kayaking over sunken ruins and amongst ancient Christian monasteries.

   Sea kayaking near Kaş

In Olympos, less Noosa more Nimbin, we stayed in a treehouse and spent two days lazing around and lying on the beach. Not much else to do there really, though Elizabeth managed to locate some ruins. Me convinced that the Olympos version of the  Lycian tomb was going to look no different than the other 13 or so she had dragged me to decided to remain prone. The tomb picture is below – worth the hike up the hill? “Another Efes please, the little lady is going for a walk, but I am staying right here.”

Yet another Lycian tomb… 

From the coast we travelled north to Cappadocia, the land of fairy tale chimneys and cave houses.

Love Valley – couldn’t work out why the valley got its name…

In Cappadocia we saw church after church carved into the rock and also visited Derinkuyu, an enormous city carved underground around the 7th century AD for the purpose of defending the town’s people from attack by invaders.

Elizabeth in the narrow passages of Derinkuyu, some 65 metres underground

As I write this post I am sitting on a bus travelling to Turkey’s capital Ankara where we will change buses to return to Istanbul. In Istanbul we will change our money to US dollars, stash our money in various pockets of our bags (ATMs are apparently very thin on the ground across Uzbekistan, so we need to carry all the cash we will need there with us) and prepare to deal with rather strict customs officials at the Uzbek border in Tashkent.

Until then enjoy some more photos from the last week or so:

Cave houses in Cappadocia

Rock church fresco that proves, if anybody doubted it, that red heads are indeed the ones closest to God

Love the iconic VW bug, but need somewhere to house all your hippy belongings? Then the bugombi is just the thing!

Video of kids dancing in the streets in Goreme

All our Turkey images can be found here.

 Ölüdeniz

I think the picture above fairly accurately sums up the last four amazing days that we have spent in Fethiye – it has been a like a holiday from the holiday.

Whilst here we have taken the foot of the accelerator a little, have gone to bed early and woken without an alarm, eaten amazing home cooked meals from our guest house and spent our days roaming the countryside or along the coast in search of remote beaches and deserted villages. We enjoyed our first swim of 2009 (bloody cold, but oh so good) and counted down the clock each day until the call to prayer rang out at five marking what we deemed an appropriate time to have a beer. We contemplated taking a cruise for a couple of days along the coast to Olympos, but were enjoying doing our own thing and the friendly atmosphere at our pension so much we gave it a miss.

That is all I am going to write, this is my last night of the holiday from the holiday and sitting in front of a computer on a holiday is simply not the done thing. I will let the photos and videos tell the story instead.

 Every day at 5.00 we cracked open a beer in front of these two fishing boats and watched them bob back and forward

Elizabeth enjoying her first swim of the season at Ölüdeniz

After an eight kilometre walk over hills and through the bush we reached the village of Kayaköy, which consists of about 2000 deserted buildings. The inhabitants left after WWI and the war of independence. At the time it was deserted there was a large swap of Ottoman Christians from Greece, replaced by Muslim Greeks.

The scene above was what greeted us after a long 1.5 hour dolmuş (mini-bus) ride from Fethiye. It was a bloody steep walk down and we were slightly concerned that the next bus back wasn’t for another six hours. But that beach sure was enticing given the heat, so we bid the dolmuş farewell and scrambled down through the bush.

This was what greeted us at the bottom. Though it was quite annoying that we had to share the beach with a whole two other people…

See you at our next stop in Caş. All the shots from Fethiye can be seen here.

Those of you who get this via email may need to go to http://matthewgain.com to view the video content.

Bodrum is a beautiful seaside town, home to warm weather, picturesque white homes and when summer rolls around sun burnt drunken package deal tourists.  We have missed the start of the season, but one definitely gets the feeling that this place is gearing up for an onslaught of alcohol fuelled mayhem . But when this happens we will be long gone – we leave for Fethiye tomorrow where we are hoping to hop on a yacht for a couple of days sailing the Aegean.

A nice spot to break our journey around the coast to enjoy the sun and the sea  (though haven’t managed a swim yet – wasn’t quite warm enough). It also afforded some nice scenery to take pictures of.

View from our window with the hills in the background

Bodrum Marina 

Halikarnas

Halikarnas is a clubbers’ institution since the 1970s and can hold 5,000 people. Top international DJs perform over the summer and apparently it has a class IV laser – whatever that means. Thankfully it was closed when we were in Bodrum as it was just down the road from our hostel and if the sound checks were anything to go by causes quite a stir – quite disagreeable really…

Castle of St Peter was built in 1402 and was originally a castle for the Crusades. It was in operation right up to the end of WWI

She was offering us the map she was holding, but was happy to get her photo taken – check that pose!

Nothing like an overnight bus to get you ready for the day ahead!

You see we arrived in Selçuk today at 7.00 am having spent the last 8 hours on a bus. Quite a nice bus, but still a bus and definitely not as good as the Argentinean buses that makes sleeping a dream. So stumbling in to the Australia New Zealand Pension (everything in Turkey in any way connected to tourism seems to tag Australia and New Zealand onto its name somehow) and being greeted with a broad Aussie-tinged Turkish accent telling us “rack off upstairs, there is a room free now, you guys must be buggered. Breaky is anytime before 10.00 am,” was pure bliss.

Having slept off the bus blues and brunched we took a stroll out to Ephesus, 3kms out of the town and which according to the book is the best preserved classical city in the east Mediterranean. The place is a pretty amazing site where the ruins have been put back together, at least in a fashion, to recreate the feeling of what the town would have looked like.

The place was a regional capital during Roman times and was home to stars you might remember from the bible, such as St Peter, The Blessed Mother Mary and St John the Baptist.

Now Elizabeth loves a ruin and could look at them all day long, in fact this was her second trip to Ephesus having visited ten years ago. Apparently the last trip involved a crayon and paper so she could take scratchings of the Roman and Greek scripts. Thankfully none of that happened this time. Upon exiting I suggested that after recent trips to Rome and the multiple sites at Istanbul that perhaps we had learnt all we needed to about Roman sites for the time being. Elizabeth reluctantly agreed.

As such we are headed to the coast tomorrow to Bodrum. Home to British mayhem in the summer, but apparently also some lovely beaches and some dive spots. So until then enjoy the pics below or view the full collection here. Also you can view our first attempt at video here (Youtube doesn’t seem to work in Turkey).

Applauding an amazing show at The Odeum Ephesus

The library at Ephesus

Ephesus High Street

Our current location can be viewed here.

Australians, and I suspect Kiwis, learn a lot about the WWI landings at Gallipoli in school and in popular culture as kids and later. We learn of the heroism of the Australian soldiers, about the harsh conditions and steep hills the diggers faced and how misguided orders from officers wasted countless lives. But what we don’t learn is the role these battles played in defining the Turkish nation and the enormous sacrifices the Turks made.

The Turkish lost 86,000 soldiers during the battles at Gallipoli, though it is estimated another 250,000 died of injuries as a result of the battles. According to our guide today there was almost no family in Turkey that was not touched by a death as a result of defending the Gallipoli peninsula during the early stages of WWI. It was also the battle that was the making of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), who later went on to become the first president of the newly created Turkish republic and forge a legend like status that persists to this day.

The Gallipoli site is not a place that the Turks use to celebrate their victory, though they are very proud of the fact they successfully defended their land from the Allies. Instead the place is devoted to the loss of all lives and the friendship and respect that has flourished after the war. 

It is a respectful, yet busy place. The site is filled with tour busses shuttling people between the multiple monuments and cemeteries. You see it is compulsory for all Turkish school students to visit the site and learn about the battles that happened there. It is also the site where 5,000 people  will gather next Saturday for dawn services and then other services at Turkish and ANZAC monuments all other the hills surrounding ANZAC Cove.

There is a certain draw for all Australians to Gallipoli. I think it is the closest thing we have to a pilgrimage site. At least that is how it feels to me. The place is so much a part of the Australian nation’s sense of self. I am glad I have made my pilgrimage and can only be forever thankful that unlike those that landed during WWI that I am able to visit distant parts of the world without fear of being shot or blown up.

Lest we forget.

 Large monument showcasing an extract of a speech by Atatürk. It reads:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

 ANZAC Cove where the troops first landed

Lone Pine Cemetery with seating ready for ANZAC Day

The Turkish 57th Regiment memorial

The Turkish 57th Regiment was wiped out in the very early fighting defending the peninsula from the initial invading Australian forces. Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) instructed the soldiers – “I do not order you to attack, I order you to die! In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can take our place.” – to this day there is no 57th Regiment in the Turkish Army out of respect to these soldiers.

Wild rosemary at ANZAC Cove 

See all the images from Gallipoli here.

Apparently 12.5 million people live in Istanbul. Did you know that? I sure as hell didn’t, but according to Wikipedia it is true. So in essence the place is big, bloody big and extends far beyond where we have visited in our three days here.

Where we are staying, where most backpackers stay it seems, is Sultanahmet. It is a quaint enough spot right next to the Sea of Marmara and more importantly in the shadow of the massive and opposing structures Aya Sofia and The Blue Mosque. It is perfect for seeing the old town, but unfortunately is overly populated by spruikers for ‘authentic’ restaurants, carpet sellers and stalls selling shit.

The whole place it seems, is making last minute preparations for ‘the season’. A time when Aussies and Kiwis descend on Istanbul and Turkey more widely for ANZAC ceremonies at Gallipoli.  By arriving at Gallipoli in the next couple of days we should hopefully miss the over enthusiastic patriotism and the hordes. Expect pics from there soon.

So what have we done in Istanbul?

Well we visited the Blue Mosque at sunset

Have seen  Aya Sofia, both inside  (read description of what I am doing here)

and out.

Haggled for and then ate too much Turkish delight from the Spice Bazaar. Despite instructing Elizabeth to flick her blonde hair that has the local men so enthralled, we still paid through the nose.

After gorging ourselves on Turkish Delight we walked across the Galata Bridge, being sure to dodge the fishermen pulling tiny yet plentiful fish from the water below.

Once across the bridge we visited the Galata Tower built in 1348 and then enjoyed a spot of promenading on Istikal Caddesi before a few beers and  a meze dinner at Refik.

Finally today we visited Topkapi Palace which is not nearly done justice in photographsand following a recommendation from Peter Bale visited the Basilica Cistern, an enormous water reservoir under the city. The reservoir was created in 52 AD and was made by pillaging ruined buildings from the BC period.

Tomorrow we leave for Canakkale on a 7.00 am ferry. From there we will visit the ancient site of Troy along with Gallipoli. I am especially looking forward to visiting Gallipoli. Until then check out all our Turley images here.

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Today sadly is my last full day in the UK before I leave to travel home to Sydney, Australia. I am genuinely sad to be leaving London. A short two and a half year stint doesn’t feel long enough to do this city justice, but I am not sure that ten years would. London is an amazing city filled with interesting things to see, people to be inspired by and opportunities that few other places can afford. Yet it is sooo far from family and the life I grew up with. So with many mixed feelings Elizabeth and I will board a plane tomorrow  to start an extended tour home.

We will be back without a doubt, but will it be for an extended stay again? Difficulty to say, life has a habit of spoiling long term plans, but I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if one of my future locals sold warm beer.

In the tradition of my English friend, Alan, who has recently returned to the UK after spending three and a half years living in Sydney, I will list the ten things I will miss about the UK and the ten things I definitely won’t miss.

Like Alan, the miss column was populated much more easily than the won’t miss one.

Miss:

1. Warm beer – almost sacrilegious for an Aussie to say, but I have grown rather partial to an English ale
2. The BBC – worth every single penny of the TV licence charge
3. British creativity – there is a certain braveness and confidence that Brits have in forging ahead with a locally sourced solution that Aussies could learn a lot from
4. Proximity to Europe – a two hour flight from Sydney might land you in Bathurst, which is a nice enough spot, but it is hardly Rome
5. Northern hemisphere – things just make much more sense when you reside in the northern hemisphere, not least Santa’s attire
6. London Underground – people who complain about the tube obviously have no idea how bad public transport is everywhere else
7. Wit – they may not be good looking, they may not be the fittest, but by god English blokes are funny
8. British postcodes – weird I know, but it makes locating something so very easy
9. Twilight – having light until 10.30 pm in Summer is bloody brilliant, worth the darkness in Winter? Not sure, but perhaps
10. Flamin Hot Monster Munch – strange I know, childish without a doubt, but oh so tasty

Won’t miss:

1. Bureaucracy – getting things done in this country can often times be tough, hampered in no small part by cost cutting measures that have meant you deal with people half a world away, rewarded on quick call times rather than providing a customer satisfactory solution
2. A spade is a shovel, or a pick axe isn’t it? – a spade is a spade peoples, be a bit more direct with your communication and you might find people understand what you are after
3. The stiff upper lip – may have meant something in the past, but tends to mean moaning about things without trying to fix them today
4. Victorian plumbing – though in all fairness Australia could benefit from the reduced water wasted with minimal water pressure
5. Summer – it really should last longer than a weekend
6. Daily Mail – a scary, scary newspaper made scarier when you understand the influence and readership it commands
7. No surf – it isn’t much fun for a die hard surfer to be living in a city without a decent break
8. Aussies in London – there are a lot of young Aussies here that seem to have come with no other purpose than to tell the English how shit their weather is and how bad they are at sport – I apologise on behalf of all of them
9. Boozing – British pubs have a siren call that can grab you any night of the week regardless of your other good intentions
10. Misplaced sentimentality – the enormous outpouring of public emotion after the Cutty Sark burnt down or when Woolworths shut its door were really a bit too much – there are much more important things to mourn the passing of

And so with that I will bid you farewell London. Next post will be from Istanbul Turkey.

The image at the top was stolen from Bellyanz1 here.

Hat tip Tom Harrow.

Rome is one of those places you feel like you’ve been even if you have never visited. The city’s landmarks, history and culture pervade our history books, education and our consciousness like few other places.

Rome and the powerful empire that once extended from the city has always  held a certain fascination for me. I remember vividly, borrowing textbooks from the school library that explained the Roman Empire and the battles it fought. I studied ancient history at high school and even took classics subjects at university where I studied ancient Roman texts. In fact, such was my devotion that I may be the only Asterix and Obelix fan that wanted the powerful Romans to overcome those pesky Gauls.

Whilst my passion has been replaced by other things in more recent times, there was still no way that I was going to end my time living in Europe without visiting Roma. And the city didn’t let me down.

It was a flying visit, but we still managed to take in the landmark sites:

The Colosseum – like you didn’t know…

St Peter’s Basilica

The Forum and ancient Rome

The Pantheon

But we also did all those clichéd tourist things you simply have to do when visiting. Like:

  Throwing a coin over your left shoulder at the Trevi Fountain, so that you will visit Rome again

Hanging out at the Spanish steps whilst checking out all the pretty young things

Laughing at the men in their silly pantaloons

  And sneaking a dodgy shot of the Sistine Chapel roof whilst the guard is not looking.

We strolled around Villa Borghese, Trastevere and spent time in the many beautiful piazzas.

And of course we ate handsomely. Enjoying meals at Cul de Sac (the city’s oldest wine bar), Trattoria (thanks Matt Muir), Gusto, Pizza Remo, Obika (there is one of these at Selfridges in London) and had amazing espresso coffee at too many places to mention.

So that was Roma. Our last European city break before embarking on our trip back home. It didn’t hold too many surprises (well beyond the quake), as I said at the start, we all know it too well for it to do that, but that made it no less amazing.

Check out all our photos here.

Ciao ragazzi!

I posted the tweet above a couple of minutes after this week’s Italian earthquake. The quake measured 6.3 on the Richter scale and mainly hit L’Aquila, a town roughly 60 miles north of Rome. Little did I know at that time that time that tragically up to 207 people would die.

The quake brought back memories of the last quake I experienced in Newcastle Australia in 1989 – that was a 5.5 quake and 12 people were killed then.

Pretty scary stuff and hugely thankful that I was affected only in the fact that I was woken up. The next day life in Rome was completely normal by my reckoning except for the news in the media.

Plenty of examples already, but it was amazing to experience first hand how quickly and effectively Twitter spread the news of the quake. Minutes after tweeting the above I was receiving replies with links to Reuters detailing news on the scale. Within ten minutes I was being retweeted by people as a live quake Tweeter. The BBC had contacted me within 20 minutes to conduct an interview. Nothing came of the interview. Not necessarily surprising given the fact, my thankfully calm post quake experience went something like this – ‘I emerged onto the streets to hear no sirens and only see a few people calmly standing around before they returned to bed.’

My thoughts go out to the people that have suffered as a result of this quake. Should you be interested you can donate to The Red Cross at this address.

As soon as I move back to Aus and have enough room to store the yodel pipe I am getting this game. Looks amazing…

We had our farewell party last night at The Metropolitan Hotel. It was a great night that continued on at ours afterwards. A lot of fun, perhaps a little too much fun…

Some pics below. For all the images go to my Flickr page.

Coors has launched a social media campaign in an attempt to work out why those of the fairer sex generally steer clear of the amber nectar.

Gill Edwards, a self confessed beer lover, has been involved with the campaign and has posted some interesting stats about women and their perceptions to beer following a survey that was conducted with 2,000 women:

• A third of women in the UK enjoy drinking beer, but feel uncomfortable and embarrassed to order it outside of music or sporting events.
• 42% of those polled think the industry should change its advertising first and foremost if it’s to make beer more appealing to women
• It’s not a taste issue, as only a quarter (26%) said the taste should be altered.

The campaign website can be found at http://www.bittersweetpartnership.com, though it appears to be fairly light on engagement at this early stage.

My take:

It is a nice platform for engagement and if women provide their thoughts, this could garner some interesting insights and help with product development. The videos, despite their slightly spooky music,  provide compelling stats, though I am not sure they will be the type of thing people will go out of their way to post on their digital real estate – especially given you have to download the videos rather than simply embedding  them. But what is my opinion worth? I’m a bloke and associate beer with hot girls, sport and mates.

Archival footage has been uncovered that shows Hitler was a surfer, a gamer, into his cars, but couldn’t spell. Or is there just a new Downfall mashup?

When Oliver Hirschbiegel was making Der Untergang (Downfall) I am sure he could never have imagined that the most moving scene in his film would be mashed up in so many different ways. I really like this film, but I love the mashups. Some of my favourites below:

Hitler the surfer (warning this contains quite a bit of surf lingo):

Hitler the gamer:

Hitler has his car stolen:

Hitler the gramar Nazi:

Watch more here.