Travel Blog

Depressing. The final post of my travels. Here goes...

We decided quite early on that the only way to travel Australia was by automobile. Couldn’t afford a camper van so instead bought an Australian love wagon known locally as the Holden Commodore. It was a massive V6, 3.8 litre beast and filled with all manner of goodies like a tent, boogie boards, gas cooker, fishing rod, cups, cutlery etc. Since one nights accommodation in Australia worked out about the same price as ten nights in Vietnam, we decided that camping was the only way to go.

Orlando and I aren’t really outdoorsy types. We’re city people and leaving us in the wild is basically a death sentence. This was proven on our first few nights camping when we ventured in to the depths of north east Australia to a place called Cape Tribulation. We arrived after dark and after 20 minutes of struggling to put up the tent, we realised that we were way out of our depth. Luckily, some rather efficient Germans came to our rescue and put it up for us before leaving us to our thing. We were pretty hungry, and I just about managed to get the gas cooker working. We cooked some eggs for about 15 seconds before the flame went out. The next ten minutes were spent trying to relight it. The last thing I remember is Orlando saying “do you smell gas?” before pressing the spark and being engulfed in a massive fireball in the middle of a rainforest. I lost almost all the hair on my right leg in that incident, and my eyelashes still feel a little chargrilled. Orlando escaped unscathed thank the lord. The Germans, who already thought we were uber plebs, must have thought we were complete chumps after hearing the hysterical screams.

Since then, I have had a real phobia of that bastard gas cooker. We also nearly starved on that night because we had loads of raw food and nothing to cook it on. Orlando and I ate the semi-raw eggs that we had kinda-cooked but we were still damn hungry. Orlando reached a new low when he invented a sandwich that I probably wouldn’t eat if I were about to die. Take some bread, add some tomatoes. Finish with tomato ketchup. Bon apetite! That night, I went hungry.

Onwards. The Australian portion of our journey is also where we have become the most shcummy. We have lived extremely rough and scraped the barrel in every respect. After realising that putting up the tent every night was fucking boring, we discovered that sleeping in the car was surprisingly comfortable! We simply put the driving seat and passenger seat fully back, slapped on some insect repellent, lowered the windows and just went to sleep in various car parks, national parks and lay-bys across the country. We liked to describe it as business class. This was quite fine at the start, but after a week or two, the car began to reek. The main reason for the stonk was that the meat that was kept in the cooler had sunk into the ice, and the ice melted. The ham juice soaked into the seats one time after turning a corner too quick and the cooler falling over. We were also warned by numerous authorities and woken at various points during the night by the po po who told us that we weren’t allowed to sleep in a vehicle and got us to move on. Whenever we found ourselves in the sea, we’d often look around and if the coast was clear, rub ourselves down in the largest au naturale bath there is. The best way to describe Orlando and I’s new smell was sweaty meat and may have contributed to our continuing lack of sexy time.

Australian animals are a good laugh. During our trip we avoided running over the stupid roos who jump out of everywhere. I didn’t (couldn’t) however avoid running over a number of 10 foot snakes who were unavoidable after stretching across two lanes of country road. The first time I ran over one it was a bit of a shock and I may or may not have screamed. We reversed back cos Orlando accused me of seeing things, and there it was- the snake just limped back into the bushes and that was that. My favourite animal by far though is the Koala. Did you know that the reason they are so lethargic is because they eat Eucalyptus which is poisonous, so all their energy is spent digesting their food giving them a stoned/sleepy appearance!? My blog is not only amazingly entertaining, but packed with fun facts! They are very soft, cuddly and pretty stupid but all the same, have become my new favourite animal (after Douglas of course).

We’ve done shit load of other stuff. Sailing in the Whitsundays and of course the epic Fraser Island 4-wheel drive camping trip (shout out to team rubbish woooo!). I’ve also had to put up with 3500km of Orlando singing along to almost every song- you’d think that not knowing the lyrics or the tune would be enough to stop him, but instead he just groans along. We went to Nimbin; a hippy town where you can buy all manners of drugs. We bought some hash cookies before going to see that new Disney film Enchanted as we thought it might be quite funny if we were high. Turns out, we got sold duds and had to sit through 2hours of absolute pappety pap. We also saw the Golden Compass which I liked and made me think that if Orlando had a daemon it would most definitely be a koala. We also went to Ramsey Street, Steve Irwin’s zoo, got merked by a number of waves along the coast, saw a turtle giving birth, went to the Bundy rum factory, Blue Mountains in the fog, New Years in Sydney and got hammered in every town along the way.

I must give a big shout out to the various people we have crashed with on the Australia stretch. Reubs, Tim and Dave in Sydney- you guys RULE! The Harrisson family in Melboure, and also Kristen, Charlotte and Chris Shirbin who looked after us good innit. And finally, Theo and co for welcoming us at Christmas. I’d also like to thank the youth hostels of Australia after scamming as much free shit out of you without parting with a single dollar. BAM! I leave you with the following message: Super walls are not cool. Neither are entourages, vampire slayers, zombies, ninjas, pirates and werewolves. Those who pollute their profile with so many apps that my computer starts to cry need to join the idiots on MySpace. It is also not acceptable to access facebook on your mobile. Amen.

EMPLOY ME!!!!


Posted by Will Ryan under the category Travel.
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Konichiwa motherfuckers! Japan was next on the itinerary and it was refreshing to be somewhere so uniquely different from the rest of Asia. Autumn in Japan is the best time to visit when the trees go all manners of yellow, orange and red. The people are lovely, welcoming and incredibly polite. At first I struggled with the constant bowing, and I instinctively raised my hands to my chest and bowed "Thai-style". Once I perfected the legs together, arms by my side bowing, I found myself doing it constantly, often whilst walking backwards. This custom was hard to escape as I found myself subconsciously doing it even weeks after I’d left.

We arrived in Shiminoseki, Japan by (freight) boat. It was a long 36 hours of sickening sea on a frigate which could have taken 500 people yet only had about 20. This meant that the cinema, restaurant, karaoke room, gym, jacuzzi, ping-pong room, tv room etc were ours for the taking. Met a Swiss builder who quite quickly became a stalking psycho (shit I hope he doesn’t read this- he’ll kill me- literally) and finally met my ping pong nemesis (a geriatric, Japanese table tennis teacher), but I reckon he only beat me cos the bats were a little hollow, and I felt sea sick and the room was at a slight angle and the sun was in my eyes etc.

Hiroshima was our next port of call which of course was the site of the first ever atomic bomb to be used in warfare. They have some eerie yet strangely beautiful memorials and remnants including the A-bomb dome which stands as a reminder of the devastation that can be caused by nuclear war. It is jaw-dropping to be walking around in a city that was once flattened by something that the world had never before seen and fingers crossed, will never see again. Hydrogen bombs currently exist that are over 100 times more powerful than the Atomic bomb dropped in 1945 and Japan is quite rightly a country that is at the forefront for non-proliferation. It is quite frightening that countries still possess such weapons and the museums highlight the dangers of their continuing existence and development.

In Kobe, one of my former flat mates Ryo and his family took great care of us. It was here where I experienced my first Japanese toilet. Now I know that my fascination with toilets has become borderline weird, or perhaps even obsessive, but fuck it- this shit isn’t normal. When you open the door, the toilet seat springs open. You sit down on a preheated toilet seat where you begin your business. Good start. Once you are done, countless, unintuitive Japanese symbols confront you. Uh oh! If you press the right one, a jet of warm water shocks you to attention. The next button to find is the water off button. I nearly had to call Ryo’s dad to the bathroom as I could not get the damn thing to stop, and if I stood up it was gonna get messy. Eventually I worked it out (I think it was the yellow one followed by the pink one), and a new probe thingy popped out which could only be described as an arse hair dryer. After 15 minutes, I emerged from the ordeal feeling violated and thinking that in the future, I’d stick to toilet roll.

We also stayed with Kazuto, an Edinburgh footballing legend, who introduced us to one of the strangest customs we have experienced on this trip... the Japanese Onsen or public baths. An Onsen is basically a large spa where you get to relax in large hot/ freezing cold pools, saunas and steam rooms. Sounds pretty normal right? Well, it is, until you realise that you're stark naked with about 100 other guys. Orlando and I rolled with it and got to know each other on a whole new level. The best area was the electric pool which pumps little bolts of electricity through the water making every muscle in your body twitch! Since the Onsen, Orlando and I have been unable to look each other directly in the eye. haha.

We visited Osaka which was a large, modern Japanese city where we met a cat in a graveyard which I nicknamed Orlando cos it was ginger and a little needy. Kyoto is far more how you’d picture Japan. We hunted for and eventually came across some Geishas and forced them to take some pictures with us. We also visited some delightful Zen Gardens and temples on a bike in order to satisfy our huge cultural appetite! We then traveled by Shinkansen (bullet train) to mount Fuji where we made a fool out of ourselves by claiming that we’d be climbing it the next morning only to find out that it was off season, covered in snow and that we'd probably die.

In Tokyo, we continued our gypsy-like seeking of free accommodation by staying with Orlando's Third cousin, 8 times removed (or something like that). Rachel and Hendrik endured us for about 5 days and took great care of us (muchos gracius guys!). The first night, we crashed a leaving do where we got hammered on Sake before hitting up a Karaoke bar. Karaoke in Japan is a big deal, where you lounge in a huge room surrounded by more booze and then get to pick from about a million songs before a microphone is thrust in your face. The Japs are very serious Karaokeers and will sing ballads in perfect tune and expect people to politely sit and listen. When you visit with a load of Europeans, some South Americans and one Japanese local, it goes a bit crazy and everyone just belts out a few lines whenever they can be pissed. Orlando (being an idiot) decided that our song would be "It Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" by Snoop Dogg et al, which starts with the lyrics "this is DJ Eazy Dick, on the station that slaps you across your fat ass, with a fat dick". After our rendition was cut short, the Japanese guy in the room made his excuses and promptly left. We also had an appalling go at "Killing me Softly", but singing with Orlando is like singing with a howling dog so someone saved us by pressing the "skip" button about 1/4 of the way through. What follows is a rendition of Stevie Wonder which I promised Hendrik (the vocal leader) that I wouldn't post. Couldn't resist...

Since Tokyoers are probably the hardest working people on earth (appalling suicide rates), when it comes to the weekend, they go a little crazy. We visited Yoyogi Park in Harajuku which feels like a dream. Firstly, the goth contingent is startling and they like to dress in crazy Victorian costumes with a twist of devil (the bastards even get upset when you dare picturise them). Next minute, you find yourself in an area where there is an American Pink Cadillac with 30 grown men dressed as Danny from Grease dancing for hours on end to various Elvis hits. Next you have an alley which is lined with wannabe pop stars who dance and sing their hearts out to anyone that'll listen. You turn a corner and there is a petting zoo where numerous terrified animals are force fed carrots by little clumsy Japanese toddlers. Animals are abused elsewhere by enforcing them to wear humiliating and degrading costumes. Someone call the RSPCA.

On our final night, we got horridly hammered again. On the train, we met the jokesest HeShe I've ever seen with full on stubble, a deep yet soft voice and who looked much like the main witch from that film "The Witches". We asked it for directions then backed off slowly. That night, we got pissed, had an argument, had a dance, fell asleep on the train, woke up in the burbs, pushed our way through the early morning rush hour, stumbled through the door at 7am, went to sleep, woke up far too late, wrote some postcards before nearly missing the old plane. Phew!

Well, there goes my Japan summary. I finish my post with a challenge: Anyone who can find a song with more inappropriate lyrics than "It Ain't No Fun" wins a mystery prize. Read the lyrics here as they are fucking hilarious you cunt faced chumps. Until next time bitches, this is DJ Willy G giving a shout out to all my area code hoes all around the globe yo! Syo-nara bastards.
Posted by Will Ryan under the category Travel.
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Hey Zeus! I have been a bad blogger. Too much having fun and doing shit. I am actually now in Australia with the simple people, and since I last posted, much has occurred including the hectic Japan (coming soon!). This bastard internet is costing me an arm and a leg so gotta be quick. Up-and-at-them.

The great thing about China is that you can pretty much just buy shit. Take our one day trip through Qing'Dao for example. We were walking about this beautiful German colonial town when we reached a pier where some old man was selling tortoises. 1pound! Fucking bargain. And that included a plastic home for him. We walked around with him all day and he seemed somewhat unimpressed by everything we showed him. I nicknamed him Orlando (in fact i nickname most the animal friends we have encountered Orlando) because they often share traits. Orlando was similar to Orlando the Human due to the fact that he was a little slow, constantly chewing on something, liked the colour green and was not a great swimmer. After a day of sight seeing, we had to release him cos we had a boat to Japan to catch and Orlando said that he didn't like the Japanese and their fishermen were evil cunts. Oh, that reminds me; just as we were standing on the beach ready to release Orlando back to the wild, a man who was fishing started waving frantically at us. It turns out that Orlando was a land tortoise, and dropping him into the sea would have meant certain death! eeek.

Shanghai was a little disappointing- vaguely futuristic, massive, spread out, lacking culture, somewhat ugly etc. I'll sum it up with snippets. Bartered so hard with a lady that she accused me of being Korean. Crazy street stalls selling all manners of sex toys and sex-related drugs. An under-the-river Willy Wonker-alike flashing "tourist tunnel" which was Balls with a capital B. Crippling ourselves for a day and a half after drinking too much. A sex museum. Having a hard time reading Dickens' Hard Times. What I did like however was the spontaneous dancing that would occur in the streets. You'd find some old dude dressed up in his finest and he'd be dancing on his own. If he was lucky, an old woman may start dancing with him. Sweet.

We hadn't yet encountered pandas and thought that we couldn't leave China without. After a grueling 2hr local bus ride through Shanghai traffic, we arrived to find out we were too late and the zoo was already closed. I was all ready to hulk-out until we realised a way to bypass the security and pretty much enjoy a private night tour of the zoo. We woke up numerous exotic animals by flashing our cameras at them and making mooo/eeeee oooorrrr/squaarrrkk etc noises. When we arrived at the panda enclosure they were sleeping so we did extra flashes and banged on the glass. The lazy bastards wouldn't awaken so we took a picture of its arse and left. When we eventually found legitimate Pandas in Beijing, they were like drunk, fat, lazy, clumsy, drugged bears and spent the whole time sitting down back to camera stuffing their faces with bamboo. They were sweet though :)

Beijing was brillyeent! Big shout out to the big dog pitbull Rebecca McAndrew and her China-loving crew who took good care of us. They live like kings with maids and a plate drying machine. I celebrated my 23rd Birthday (fuck I'm getting old) with Trip (that's a human name) at a Japanese restaurant (in China) followed by shenanigans at other drinking establishments. MyBDay present was one of the best massages I've ever had. Watching TV, eating food while some woman does stuff to my feet- thanks Rubes. Went to the classics such as Tiananmen Square and the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao. We didn't get to see uncle Ho in Vietnam cos he was being touched up in Russia so I was very excited to get a dose of dead, communist leaders. Rumours have it that the Mao-soleum actually holds a wax-work cos the pickler didn't know what he was doing and left the original Mao mangled. What we saw was what looked like Mao with jaundice and my skeptical self was slightly underwhelmed.

The Great Wall of China... absolutely incredible (and I'm not easily impressed). Moreover, so many people had spoken so highly of it that I was dead certain it was going to be tripe. Not the case. We pretty much had the wall to ourselves- walked for 5hrs and encountered two Aussies and one hawker (who sold us some cool postcards). The wall winds over hills right into the horizon, is derelict and run down with beautiful watchtowers dotted every 100 metres or so. I leave you with an image of one of the most impressive things I have seen on this great expedition. Brrrrrrrraaaapp!
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories Travel and China
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Our voyage continues into the main body of China. We started in Xi'an where we saw the impressive Terracotta Warriors. About two thousand years ago, over 8000 stone soldiers were buried in battle formation to help Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi rule an empire in his afterlife (baloney if you ask me). For some reason, this was forgotten about(!), then rediscovered by a farmer about 20 years ago whilst digging a well. They are now slowly being excavated, each solider individually sculpted to look different. Very cool. That's enough history for now.

On our exit from Xi'an we couldn't get the normal 'white tourist' class, so had to settle in the 'hard seat' section for the 24hr journey. The first thing we see is some Chinese woman using the carriage sink to chop fruit and veg and a fat, topless chinaman lying across 4 seats snoring. There were also hundreds of other Chinese doing equally inappropriate shit. Sensing that this class wasn't for us, we went searching for an upgrade. We gambled the wrong direction which meant a 2km round trip through the pandemonium with Orlando's 3 tonne bag. I could sense people thinking "who are these royal-looking cunts" especially after waking up a number of people for the second time by slapping them in the face with my bag. On the journey, we also met a computer science-looking American guy who was obviously in China for the easy pootang. He produced my favourite quote of the trip: "Being in the East and white is what I imagine it to be like being a hot blond in the west". Despite Orlando and I agreeing, we are an exception to this rule, accumulating a big fat zero between us :(
Went to a beautiful town called Fenghuang which was only marred by an army of Chinese tourists in boats wearing really bright orange life jackets. 30 adults, 1metre deep water- all non swimmers? You avin a laff!? Went on a bike ride to discover rural China only to find a coal mine and a power station. To pass the time on that little excursion I enjoyed pelting Orlando with various fruits and berries that were conveniently growing by the road side. Also spent many hours working out how to escape the town using google translator as my proxy. The Chinese-English translations were constantly littered with the word "pakistan" which confused the hell out of me; the Chinese recipients of my English messages often gave me funny looks or burst out into hysterics.


In Yangshuo, we learnt how to cook some stuff and hired an Electric motorbike to visit various things. I also discovered that if Orlando is irritating me, I can deter him by wearing my nut necklace or spraying him with my milk/beer-filled water gun. Brilliant. Another piece of Orlando news: yesterday, he managed to confuse a waitress to the point where she brought him three meals. During the meal, there was a large piece of crab meat that had somehow managed to find itself nestled above his eye brow. Extraordinary.


Have been really missing my Premiership football lately as well as other western media. This crisis has been solved over the last 10 days after visiting Macau and Hong Kong (currently watching Man Utd Blackburn). The games are on at really inconvenient times: last night, was up till 4am watching Liverpool Fulham which killed this morning. Champions League is even worse. Onwards. Macau is really sick. Portuguese colonial architecture alongside the Las Vegas of the East. Construction is on an unprecedented scale and will rival Vegas within a few years. Just like Vegas, you get free drinks when you're gambling which always reminds me of Bouce. Two years ago, we found ourselves in Vegas where free drinks only come when you're on the tables (where you blow a minimum of a fiver a minute). When Bouce joined a table and got offered a free drink he replied "I'll have two rum and cokes, and Will- what are you having?". Classic.



Hong Kong has been really fun as well but everything is way over our budget so we've pretty much adopted a look and don't touch policy. This is fine cos the landscape and skyscrapers are very impressive. We're staying in a place called Chung King mansions which is a massive 16-story block, packed to the rafters with Africans, Pakistanis and Indians- it's very similar to New Jack City. It's dirty, stinks of curry and easy to get a sexy massage and we're breaking the bank to even stay there!

Oh yeah, before I forget, my lovely sister Alice has been busy in the last few days. After purchasing a house in the Hamptons about 4 days ago, she announced yesterday that she was getting engaged which has made me very happy! She is marrying Mr Kirk Miller who is an American. On the positive side, he is very British at heart, an excellent footballer and owns a passport :P George and I agree that he is a quality guy and gets the Ryan family seal of approval (and more). When I get back to London in mid-January I plan to chill for a few days before visiting Edinburgh (to visit the various fans I have up there) and then I'm off to New York for a while. I suppose after that I should consider employment... No promises though! I hate exclamation marks! Bye!


Posted by Will Ryan under the categories China and Travel
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Our adventures continue in China and started on somewhat of a low point. I saw Luba take our Lonely Planet to the bathroom obviously for some toilet reading. However, I didn't understand the concept of toilet reading when all you have available is a squatter (think hole in the floor) but I let it fly. Two minutes later I hear commotion in the bathroom, followed by Lubes returning from the loo with a guilty look on his face. Without being too crude, cap'n clutz had managed to drop our vital guide (in a land where few speak English) into his own faeces (crap). Normally, this would be fine cos we'd just buy another one, except Lonely Planets aren't sold in China. In fact, they are often confiscated at the border since it recognizes Taiwan as an independent country (a major faux pas). Therefore, Rubes spent the next hour hacking at the book with some pocket scissors removing the offending pages, meanwhile I no longer touch the book without gloves on and the China history section is a no go.

The second low point was our first meal. English menus are usually unavailable so you just point and hope for the best. When we did our best charades impression to work out what we'd just eaten, it turned out to be pigs tail (very chewy, curly, cavity of fat running down the middle- it's obvious in hindsight). mmmm. The toilets in that restaurant also made me gag- to be honest, most the toilets in China have made me gag (worse than India!). One toilet which i recently encountered on a backroad in the badlands of Tibet was fully open plan with three squatters. As I entered, I nearly chundered, the smell was even having an effect on my eye sight, but when I saw a middle aged Chinese man taking a full frontal shit, that was my signal to leave. Bring on Japanese toilets I say- I heard they ain't bad. I realise that the opening to this post has mostly concerned shit, so I'll try to up the brow...


One thing you notice quite quickly in China is the tight grip held by the government on the people. From day one, I was shocked by the blatant propaganda spewing from the television channels (the state ones ironically known as CCTV1, 2, 3 etc). Lines emanating from box are unrelentless and are of the tone: "China has made great improvements over the last 5 years in the areas of Science and Technology all thanks to the Communist party based on Marxism with Chinese characteristics"- this mindless babble bombards you constantly. We have recently made the discovery that "Chinese characteristics" roughly translates to capitalism but anyway. The internet is censored, albeit poorly (see my other post) and some areas of the country have a severe lack of freedom- Tibet being the worst. The people are unable to talk negatively about the government as they believe informants are on every corner. They are not able to talk about the Dalai Lama (the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people); a prominent monastery is currently closed after the current Dalai Lama met with George Bush and travel throughout the region is highly restrictive to say the least. Those who break the law in these respects are sent to jail. One good thing is that the Tibetans are highly aware of the oppression they are under (grumblings are quite apparent), whereas it seems that many of those in the rest of China have never known any different therefore do not question it. Disappointingly, the Tibetans don't seem at boiling point (Burma-style), as if they have rolled over to the Chinese government after so many years of mal-treatment.

Forgetting the negatives... TIBET! Wow. I love it. The people here are really, really, really nice. For example, I just got back from a gym which had an attached Dojo of sorts. I was just doing my own thing before some karate-looking people came up to me and asked me if I wanted to try Taikwando. I was like sure, so they kitted me up with boxing gloves, shin pads, a sword etc. After embarrassing myself in front of about 15 people (my flexibility is atrocious as already proven when I tried Yoga in India), they invited me to their dinner table, plastered me with beer and then challenged me to a game of Counter Strike 3. Tibetans are very welcoming, not driven by money and will go out of their way to help you which is really refreshing.

Tibet's landscape is really breathtaking with vast mountain ranges enclosing you from all sides. Huge monasteries cast a shadow over every city and traditional cultures are something that the Tibetans are not going to lose any time soon e.g. month long pilgrimages over hundreds of miles where the partakers must crawl. The highlight of this region was definitely our 5 day trip to Mt Everest (locally called Mt Qomolangma) base camp. Words can't describe how it feels to be so close to one of the natural wonders of the world. A video might be more appropriate...


The worst thing about the images, is that it makes Everest look quite small... when you're next to it, it's fucking gargantuan! Altitude was a major problem aswell cos at 5300metres your body ain't happy- the brain starts to swell which can give you a mecca headache and nausea. This meant oxygen canisters and various medication were a must but I'm happy to report that Orlando, although going a new shade of white, survived the trek. We also met the oldest man to ever have climbed Everest (69) who was just about to try again at the age of 75... don't want to sound morbid but I reckon body bags should be at the ready. Qomolangma dudes!
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories Travel and China
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Orlando doesn't read my blog. This suits me just fine as it gives me licence to continually rip the piss out of him in front of a load of people (or maybe just my mum- I'm not really sure). He tells me he reads it, but here's the test: ORLANDO YOU LAZY, WHITE CLUTZ: MAKE 1 COMMENT ON THIS ENTRY I DAREZ YA! No comment? Didn't think so you pansy bitch. P.S. no-one tell him of this entry, else he'll be able to pretend that he has always been reading.

Anywayz, onto Vietnam. Let's start with Hanoi. The capital is full of cool streets where you can buy anything: there is a hat street, counterfeit money street, herb street and probably a green Irish hat street for all I know. Beer (Bia Hoi = fresh beer) is also good as it is brewed and then drunk on the same day- guys just sit out on the street at all times of day getting pissed which is much my style... not Orlando however who likes more colourful drinks such as Bloody Marys. Bloody idiot.

The coolest thing about Hanoi however was the Water Puppet show. What happens when you combine puppets with water I hear you ask? Well, an extravaganza that's what! On a serious note though, it was as shit as those damn Indian dancers, although this time we couldn't really escape. The worst thing was that the first scene was actually quite good with pyrotechnics and shit. I was thinking that the intro couldn't be topped... and I was right! I think the people in the audience must have thought I was a little odd because it made me so damn sleepy that my head kept drooping back before being snapped back straight when I realised suddenly that I was drifting off. Orlando didn't hesitate to sleep through 90% of the show including the little fireworks show at the end- dopey mofe. Unlike Orlando, I am unable to snap people when they know I'm snapping them cos I find it awkward, however, I would have loved to have taken a picture of the audience behind me who looked equally depressed/sleepy/too old to even know where they were. 1hour later, the audience were released back to the streets in an Orlando-like trance. I like this paragraph- it's littered with Orlando insults but also littered with the word 'cool'. Is cool even cool anymore?

Sapa in the North was really incredible with local tribes, huge cloud-covered mountains, and an eclectic variety of meats (dogs, black cats etc). We spent one night in a local village and decided to be independent by hiring a motorcycle to make the 2hour trip. It couldn't have been less independent when a local village man had to rescue us after finding Orlando and I in a deep ditch, covered in mud, and trapped under our own motorcycle with gasoline leaking onto us. Now, you may assume that it was Lubes who got us into this polava but I'm ashamed to say it was me. The bike couldn't handle the steep ascent, and it was a mud path which was wet and had been torn to shreds by large trucks before us, and the brakes weren't too hot, and it was hard to drop gears, and bags were heavy and fat-ass Lubes was sitting on the back etc etc...

That night in the village was quite fun with Lubes exercising his usual communication prowess with the locals. It gets fucking cold at night and I really needed the toilet. The cold is just an excuse actually. The truth is that their toilet was Australian Dunny style (end of the 'garden' stylee) crossed with an Indian squatter which, combined with a rickety bamboo bridge, severe lack of lighting, killer mosquitoes (anti malarials finished), pigs, yaks and other wild creatures, made me quite frankly too scared of even attempting it. It reminds me of when I was young and had a bad dream which rendered me too scared to venture from my covers to reach the safety of my parents bedroom. Pathetic!

Vietnamese roads: Crossing a Vietnamese road is somewhat precarious. There aren't really any crossing points, even on 3 lane, dual carriageways. The technique reminds me of that old game "Froggit" on the hard setting (nb. for those who don't know/remember, Froggit involved getting your frog across a road avoiding the various cars and trucks). To survive the ordeal, you must walk in a straight line at a constant pace, and basically, the vehicles should pretty much avoid you (in theory). There are times when you find two fairly hefty trucks whizzing simultaneously past your nose and arse but it's all part of the fun.

Other shit we did includes: Buying billions of suits in Hoi An (for my exec job that I'm coming home to), wedding cake for Orlando's B'day, Booze Cruise and snorkeling in Nah Trang, Scuba Luba (Orlando is just as graceful in the underground world as he is above), Cu chi tunnels- a vast underground network of tunnels developed during the Vietnam War, accidental gay bar (didn't know 'til it was too late), War Remnants Museum which included some really disturbing images and a dead, pickled baby, beating Orlando at every game we played (including paper scissor stone which I beat him at nearly everytime- I even beat him 15metres under water), Vietnamese gyms with cats, children and everyone glued to the national geographic channel, massive monsoon rains while at a Saigon waterpark, a romantic mud bath and finally a thermal spa. Vietnam was da shit yo! Hollaaaaa!!! :)
Posted by Will Ryan under the category Travel.
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Ofcourse, the first thing you (or maybe just I) do when you find an internet cafe in China is to search for "Tiananmen Square".

Originally, all i got was a load of gobbledegook Chinese characters, which I thought might be some sort of crazy restriction message from the Chinese government. After translating it, I saw that this was just the standard 404 error: not found or currently unavailable. This made me think it was some kind of DNS filtering (which would have been my first guess anyway as it seems most simple to implement). However, on trying some other sites, I realised that the page would sometimes flash up before disappearing with that same error message. The partially downloaded page could be reached through the cache so I thought that something must be interrupting the connection at the packet level.

After a bit of research (very hard to research about the Chinese firewall from behind the Chinese firewall) I found out that this is exactly what does happen. Reset packets are sent to both client and server which terminates the page download [see Ignoring the 'Great Firewall of China']. Some sites are banned outright at the DNS stage but otherwise it is a fairly forceful and primitive way of achieving internet censorship (hopefully the Chinese government doesn't read my blog: lonely planet tells me that 27 executions occur every day (including us foreigners!)). I suppose I can't suggest a better method, since intelligent search of 1.3 billion people's traffic without introducing horrid latency would require a google-scale amount of processing power! That being said, the Great Firewall of China is more penetrable than you'd imagine, especially at busy times of the day (I'd imagine) ;) .

I would be (temporarily) fine without wikipedia and other anti-Chinese sites, but when they outright ban the bbc site and its subsidiaries (including BBC football), they must be ‘avin a laff!?! Therefore, I shall be proxying most my internet content while I'm in China, and if the authorities sniff anything, hopefully I'll be out the cafe by the time they arrive (the internet cafe man being hung instead eeek ).

A posting about my time in Vietnam coming soon... Zaijian!
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories China and Travel and Computing
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Hookers

Whores aren't really my bag. At first, I thought they were just nice girls who liked a good game of pool. Naive? Probably. Something became a bit fishy when I realised that these girls were far too good at pool (better than Orlando even, although my clumsy 10 stone dog is better than Orlando so that isn't really an informative comparison but anywayz). There is always one girl that gets attached in the vain hope of some cash dollar (I'd like to think it will be atleast 40 years before I start paying for sex! haha). I won't tell you about the Pnomn Penh lady of the night, however, the Sinhoukville girl was funny yet tragic.

It was a real story of romance: we met at the beach bar, drunk a bucket of booze, had a little dance then went skinny dipping (with about 30 other people btw). The evening turned somewhat sour when she started crying, claiming that her life was so miserable (being a whore and all). That led me to a minor depression. I reckon I could get that commissioned for a TV movie or something. I need to work on the ending. I even have an idea for the main lady... can anyone guess? yyyyyyam gnon. While I think of it, add 'skinny dipping' to my list of hated words- sounds like an aussie throwback.

Oh, while I'm writing about prostitutes, let me explain Orlando's interaction with them. The first time was in a Pnomn Penh club called "The Heart of Darkness". Orlando was pissed on Margarita's or whatever other girly drink had taken his fancy that night (he is allergic to beer as some of you may know). I wish I had a picture cos it was the funniest site ever. He had this *OLD* run down Cambodian shlag midget grinding up and down his leg like it was a poll, and Orlando was so drunk that he was just standing there like an inanimate object. In the end, I helped Orlando shake her off like she was Will Kirk(Jones)'s horny poodle. On the skinny dipping night, Orlando missed the action after passing out on the beach (whilst probably drinking a Sex on the Beach).

Octopussy

It's funny: one minute I'm watching James Bond's Octopussy in the beach town of Sinhoukville (cos it was all filmed in Rajasthan, India), and the next day I'm eating Octopus from some dodgy floating restaurant in the southern town of Kampot. What wasn't funny is that I was up all night in a mank bathroom swimming in an array of tentacles and bile (add 'bile' to my top ten list of hated words). Orlando ofcourse slept through this whole ordeal. The next morning, the local witch doctor turns up, and in my weakened state I am unable to resist him scratching tiger balm into various spots (later wounds) on my collar bone and back with a metal blade. Did this make me feel any better? Why yeees! Put that in your pipe and smoke it modern medicine. It may have simply been a distractive technique however, where the pain of the grazes made me forget about the pain in my stomach, but what the hell's wrong with that?

Other shit

Not wanting to dampen the mood too much, I won't talk too much about the attrocities that occurred in Cambodia all so recently (late 70's right up until about '96). Under Pol Pot, an estimated 3 million were killed over just a few years (a third of the population). The stories from the elder English speaking Cambodians are really heart breaking and the country is littered with hints of its violent past. The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and the S-21 prison in Pnomn Penh are very disturbing and something I will not forget.

In the north of the country, Siem Reap was a good laugh and we visited the temples of Angkor which I would not give justice to if I tried to describe them in words. On the animal front, we have been chased by a pack of dogs, I nearly got bitten by a fat labrador, and an angry pig had a go at me when I tried to say hello to one of its piglets. We also visited the seaside town of Kep and the Bokor hill station where there is a huge abandoned hotel and a waterfall. At the waterfall, Orlando managed to slip on a rock and currently has huge scratches down his back and arms (what a plonker- I like that word). We are also finding it hard to sit down after the longest, bumpiest pick-up truck ride ever! It feels like I've been raped by an elephant. I'll leave you on that beautiful piece of imagery... Vietnam here we come. Peace.
Posted by Will Ryan under the category Travel.
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Very lazy recently with the old blog. So long in fact that I have somewhat forgotten what we did. Cochin- definitely went there. Something about tea fields in Munnar, 80s rave jackets, bathing some baby elephants or summet, trekking in a national park, night safaris, a cool steam railway, the silk flower museum (as crap as it sounds) and an Indian theme park (crapper than it sounds). I also ate a curry which made me cry a little.

We followed all this with a trip to Mysore which was very beautiful and finally Chennai (or Madras as it used to be known). If you remember anything I say in this blog, remember this: if you ever visit India, give Chennai a Miss. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It was an ugly, sweaty cess pit where we encountered a wanker of a tuk tuk man and saw a whole lot of other ugly bullshit. Although we were left with a sour taste in our mouths, I look back very fondly on India!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Although only there for a few days, I really enjoyed KL. Really friendly people, some immense buildings and shopping centres. I also managed to combine two of my favourite things, drinking and puppies, into one simultaneous activity.
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories Travel and India
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Taj Yourself

You can’t go to India without returning with the picture that has been taken a billion times, so here it is. The symmetry and scale of the thing was pretty damn amazing, but the inside was pretty shit!

Orlando and Communication

Orlando often has monologues with the Indian citizens. For example, today I witnessed a hat seller approach Orlando and say “Hat sir?”. Orlando replied with a one minute “conversation” which included that he only liked straw hats and many other English colloquialisms that went right over his head. Without Orlando even noticing, the man had fled! Not only this, but he takes joy in speaking to every single person we walk past, and when he gets bored, just fobs them off onto me. That being said, my remarkable English politeness and patience came unraveled the other day, when a nice English speaking local who had given us directions the day before reapproached us and started speaking. I interrupted him mid-sentence with my reflex reply “No Thanks”. Urg :S

Ayurvedic Massage

I’m not gonna lie, I love a good massage. Whether it is given to me by the professional thai hands of nong May or some other random woman. However, this massage was different. Firstly, it was a nude massage, which I was fine with. What I was not fine with however was the slippery table I had to lie on (the slipperiness being of unknown origin) and the wondering hands of the masseur who definitely loved me. When it was over, I showered for about an hour but could not remove the sin. Sometimes I cry before I go to sleep and at other times, I have vivid nightmares (probably caused by my anti-malarial medicine but hey!). Orlando, the king of all things slippery, loved it I reckon although he refuses to talk about it. Haha. Only kidding.

Football (Indian Style) and Other Things I Hate

I don’t expect much from a football pitch. After years of playing around Battersea and Wandsworth where left wings were often out of use due to fallen trees/broken bottles/gangs of angry kids on the sideline etc, I have pretty low standards. When Lubes and I came across a group of kids playing in a rural village in Kerala, we thought we’d teach them a lesson. This was the worst surface I have ever played on. I think it was a rice field, but in any case, it was waterlogged, amazingly muddy, very long grass in patches, dangerously rocky in parts, and was surrounded by concrete lined, sharp bottomed shallow waters. I have played beach football in Rio and I found this a bit painful (sensitive feet) but this was a whole new level.

Our victory came at a cost: I am now limping quite heavily from a semi-sprained right ankle. I also slipped quite heavily, my toes being caught on some rice grass before forcing them under my own foot. That has led to a loss of a toe nail, and sprained toe ligaments (I think, I’m no doctor). Not only this, but (if squeamish, don’t read on…) a mosquito bite which was already pretty gruesome has become badly infected and is now about the size of a popodom. This is trying to heal itself, but every time I walk, the cut is stretched and opens again. I have no plasters either (bloody mum) so the cut sticks to my socks revealing a fresh wound every time, which at times is a white colour (Ellie- save me). Orlando has to now cope with my non-stop whining and exaggerated limping.

While I’m ranting, I might as well talk about other things I hate. Mosquitos: me being all nature and that, I wouldn’t hurt a fly, but a mosquito is a different story. I hate them and they hate me. At times, I am tempted to screw the computer shit, and devote my life to destroying the mosquito vermin. I worked out that I could probably kill about half a million in my life time, unless I developed some sort of chemical weapon… mmmm…..

Other things I hate include spray on plasters (worst invention ever- they only made my cut worse) and the words “galore”, “lush”, “puss” and “kookie” (ala Phoebe from Friends).

Houseboat

Our trip so far hasn’t been particularly lavish, so we decided to splash out. Our houseboat cost us £20 per day and was worth every penny. It included a personal chef, a captain and a Benson (butler/general skivvy to my non-London peeps). It was a double decker boat, one floor for the crew, the other for the royalty i.e. Lubes and I. We cruised the Keralan backwaters and drank beer and chai while our chef prepared various snacks and meals. I don’t know why, but to have a number of servants felt so right! I don’t know how I’ve survived my life so far without!? At night, we joined the locals in a village festival where we danced to some hectic Indian hits under severe monsoon rains! Orlando nearly electrocuted himself a number of times after boogying into the precariously wet lighting systems – he was warned twice, but as I have learnt over the last month, Orlando is a bit of a clutz. I have also had to enroll him in etiquette school (taught by yours truly), after a number of embarrassing moments at the dinner table. I believe he resents me for it, but it makes me laugh so I shall continue.

Misc

Other than that, we have spent loads of times on beaches in Goa and the southern tip of India. We rented an automobile which was pretty pimp (kinda like my old 205 but with illegal levels of tinting). We went to a traditional Indian Kathakali dance show where they acted out an assault, a confession and a killing over the space of nearly 2hours. I might sound like a bit of a swine for shitting on culture like I’m about to but: it was fucking boring as hell. We also watched Rush Hour 3 after we felt withdrawal symptoms from western culture; it was meh (meh means meehhh). Namaste.
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories Travel and India
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My sidekick and official photographer of the trip (Mr Gili) has put some arty pictures of sort up at www.flickr.com/orlandogili. I think he'll be keeping this up to date throughout our little trip... Ch ch ch ch ch ch check it out!
Posted by Will Ryan under the category Travel.
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Another epic adventure begins. My final one in fact before I become a respected member of society! Five and a half months: India, KL, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan, Australia and Bangkok. By my side is that friendly scamp who goes by the name of Orlando/Luba/Orluba/Lubie/Lubatron/Lubes. Here goes…

India – Mumbai (Bombay), Udaipur, Jaisalmer and Jaipur

India is instantly hectic. Very humid, horrific driving, horns everywhere, very persistent beggars/children/street sellers/missionaries/rickshaw drivers screaming “hello, how are you?, where you from?”. The village children are very ruthless and combine the word hello with a number of other nouns e.g. “hellobottle?”, “hellochocololate?”, “helloshampoo?”. They couple this with a sweet face and hands out. Luckily I am pretty heartless so can wave them off pretty easy but I think Lubes struggles.

I have never been to such a pungent place with smells good and bad greeting you at every turn. When a country has over 1 billion people and a birth rate that is still so shockingly high it is understandable that it feels like the biggest rat-race on earth with everyone scrambling for air!

Rainy season in India. First purchase, an umbrella. My umbrella is the shittiest, girliest piece of crap on Earth and is not monsoon-proof. I regretted the hastiness of the purchase but it was so cheap compared to other shops that I just gave him the money and walked off without really checking it. I think a small child would find it laughable. Oh well.

Being university graduates, one from a highly respected Scottish institution, the other from a town where my train often had to stop when bricks were hurled at the train (NEWCASTLE), we’re all up for culture and that. Museum this, fort that, boat here, climb this, temple there, read that, learn this. You get the idea. I’m not gonna ever write any specifics about all the things we see because I don’t want to bore you any more than I already am. But just to let you know, we are lapping up the culture like no mans business :P

Transport

Imagine poorly treated poultry being transported in tiny cages across Europe and you get an idea of Indian bus travel (that was perhaps a little exaggerated). The roads are damn bumpy, the bus man has a pimp-my-ride super horn, and you sleep on bunks that are too short to lie straight. The sleeper bit has a certain fish tank claustrophobic feel to it, and to maintain a good temperature without getting wet, you need to continually alter the window’s openness. The mattresses haven’t been changed since the bus was made and I try not to imagine how my particular mattress became so damp. Trains on the other hand are very cool. You get to meet loads of other travelers and loads of Indians who instantly take you under their wing, feeding you all sorts of stuff and chatting about old British rule.

When Animals Turn Bad

I love animals and animals love me. But Orlando has a mortal enemy from every corner of the animal kingdom. Take an innocent cow for example. Just minding its business down a tight alleyway in Jaisalmer when the intrepid explorer (Orlando) creeps up behind it and tries stroking it. The cow/bull definitely was not a fan of this petting and quickly gave Orlando two blows to the stomach with its blunted horns. I watched this from afar but is it wrong that I was just laughing my head off as opposed to leaping to the rescue? Case number 2: the monkeys at the Amber fort in Jaipur. We’re exploring a MASSIVE fort (proper tomb raider shit) that overlooks a lake and town below. We find a platform at the back of the fort where we find a load of monkeys in a tree. Orlando starts recording their antics, all the while I notice a particularly big monkey has ascended onto our level. What proceeded to happen can only be summed up by the following blair witch style video.



Out of shot, I use my spidermanesque ability to avert danger whilst Orlando was borderline considering hurling my new camera at the angry monkey. I think Orlando has bad karma after suggesting just before shooting the film that we should throw some stones to “liven them up”. I’ll keep you updated on what happens when Luba gets introduced to an elephant, tiger and Panda when we reach China. Something crazy is bound to happen.

Bollywood

You can’t walk 2 minutes down the streets of Colaba, Mumbai without being offered a role in a bollywood film. Unfortunately, they were shooting a European night club scene and wanted people to dance for ten hours in the background. Despite our Kevin Bacon inspired moves and the amazing acting skills we acquired at Elliott, we couldn’t handle that so instead decided to see a film at a cool retro theatre in Jaipur. The queue was amazingly long and people were getting really angry which culminated in a bum fight. Actually, it was more of a bum beating as the angry mob turned ugly on a drunk old tramp who tried to push to the front. The cinema is the most famous in Rajasthan with an art deco theme. We watched a film called “Chake dee” which was (to our disappointment) the first film in years which had no singing or dancing! I sensed the crowd weren’t feeling it and after 2.5hrs, lubes and I weren’t either especially when you consider the theme of the film: the Indian women’s hockey team. I can only think of one man that might like that (Fergus Dunn).

Udaipur and Jaisalmer

Amazing fort cities built on hills with all the buildings painted a certain colour. Udaipur was the places where James Bond’s Octopussy was shot, and I can remember clearly 007 taking out a number of Turbanators. Jaisalmer was also beautiful with thin alleys and a very Moroccan vibe to it. Many of the hotels have a medina design and great views on to the desert. From there, we spent two nights and three days on a camel safari. Riding a camel for 6hrs a day is actually quite painful, and my ass is still a bit bruised now. The camels are very nonchalant. They just chew on dry feed and do their job. I thought I had built a good relationship up with mine, as he reluctantly began to allow me to stroke him. The coolest camel was called Jonny Walker and our guide claimed he was the fastest camel in Rajasthan after winning a number of Camel derbies. At night, we slept on sand dunes under the stars which was amazing- I have never seen such a detailed sky before and I impressed some English rahs with my physics banter. I am so cool.

Gems and the Indian Mafia

To cut a long story short, we have come to realize that it is quite rare when an Indian just wants to chill out and be your friend. We meet some blokes who seem pretty minted, and want to take us to the coolest (and only) night club in Jaipur. The place is like an Ibiza superclub with massive capacity. They take us to this private room where we can order any drinks/ food we like (all paid for) whilst we watch people down on the dance floor. Next day, they want to show us around the city, buy us breakfast etc until we eventually end up in a bloody gem shop owned by their uncle who wants us to transport some back to England for him. I lost my patience very quickly (after reading about these scams in the bible) but the situation was a bit hairy so we remained somewhat polite and managed to escape.
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories India and Travel
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