auckland at last!

Things with Marilyn started ok. We were slightly worried that we would find it hard to make friends while living with someone so much older than us but the people here are so friendly that making friends has been no problem at all.

Unfortunately, Marilyn seems to be suffering from some sort of post-menopausal aversion to heat and insists on having all her windows open all the time, taking cold showers and not letting us put a heater on. It is winter here and quite cold especially in the morning and Jayne and I were spending most of our time in bed trying to oust eachother from the small electric blanket we were so generously provided with.

There were so many rules with Marilyn that I would inevitably forget. The sort of rules that old ladies seem to make up out of the blue to annoy people. Here are a selection of Marilyn’s rules:

Wash out all your tin cans before you throw them away.

Don’t unplug the phone charger to put your Ipod speakers in for even a minute because the phone cuts out (no Marilyn this occurs because you don’t put the phone back on the charger and also because you associate losing the call via pressing the wrong button with battery failure).

If you put the heater on open all the windows (???????????)

Make sure the blinds twist upwards not downwards.

Things came to a head with Marilyn after Jayne and I came back from an extremely entertaining Friday night. I left the kitchen door open while I remonstrated with the tirelessly inefficient folks at HSBC Bank. I unfortunately woke Marilyn up and the next day she as good as asked us to leave as “our lifestyles didn’t match”.

Fortunately enough this played into our hands as we managed to find somewhere really quickly with some really nice young people for less rent – so all is well that ends well I suppose.

Jayne and I have both had colds which has affected our hearing. We are occasionally like an old couple who’ve ended up at a rock concert. A typical recent conversation went like this:

Scene: Grungy K Road – home of Adult shops, massage parlours and gay bars.

James: Look that shop sells nipple clamps.

Jayne: What??? Nickle Lamps.

James: NO NIPPLE CLAMPS>

Jayne: Wicker Amps??

James: NIIIIIPPPLLLLE CLAMPS!!

Jayne: Wicked Lamps

To finish this horribly long and poorly written blog entry I must mention the work we have procured. I have been doing spreadsheet stuff for Chubb Security and Vector (an electricity infrastructure company) and have currently become obsessed with budgets. Did you know that when Jayne and I both work full time we will be able to afford either 380.16 beers a month, 16.42 pairs of boots a month or 110.22 CDs a month.

Jayne has been working in a café with a lazy harridan. Fortunately she has now left and is working for a recruitment agency as their hostess. On a much better note than this though Jayne has done extremely well in her job search and has been offered two excellent speech therapy jobs. She chose the one with the company car (beat that NHSers) and will start mid-July. The managing director of the firm she worked for invited us over for Sunday lunch. Pip (for that is the ladies name) lives in a house on an Eastern Peninsula and has the most incredible view of the water and all of Aucklands islands. Her family were really nice and hopefully Jayne will really enjoy working there and maybe learn a lot about setting up her own practice in the future.

Final point I promise, if anyone is still reading. I have been attempting to network my way into a media career (so I can get on my journalism course and become the next A A Gill/Greg Palast (think Michelin starred restaurants populated by the extremely corrupt situated in the Gaza Strip)). This was always a fruitless exercise for me in Blighty, partly because networking isn’t my greatest of skills. In New Zealand though things are a completely different kettle of fish. Two nights ago me and Jayne were having a cocktail and just happened to sit next to the CEO of TV New Zealand and his wife, who is one of NZs leading journalists, I told them what my plans were and they immediately invited me round to their house, tonight, to discuss my career. How cool is that!

Right I am finally buggering off. Hope everyone is well and good.

Lots of love

Jayne and James xxx

Sydney

Me and James in Sydney

I think this ladies head has been photoshopped onto a different blouse - I can't think of any legitimate reason why.

James

So Hue Hue Hue... do you think you are! Do you think you are...

Events have taken a surreal turn in the charming city of Hue. Last night an electric storm lit the sky with its veiny white fingers. Today, as I stepped out of my hotel the first thing that came to my attention was a charred Vietnamese hat left on the ground - owners whereabouts unkown.

I have provided a picture of a slightly dull looking lady sporting a Vietnamese hat to bring colour to this otherwise troubling story.

This is not all though. The people of Hue have a strange fascination with the Kangaroo. The following conversations have occurred.

Slightly unnerving Vietnamese waiter: Do you know of the kangaroo.

Me: Yes - from Australia.

Waiter (leaning towards me conspiratorially): Yes they are very big - their young they raise in pouches. Do you have a pouch?

Me: No. (I amusingly unzip my pocket) I have a pocket though.

Waiter (guffawing): yes but that is for your baby wallet. Did you know they box - man and kangaroo - thats what the Australians do. And I also saw on Discovery channel that some kangaroos can fly!

Me (incredulously): no... they're far too big. Do you mean flying squirrels?

Waiter: No, Kangaroos - 300kg it weighed and it could fly.


The next Kangaroo exchange occurred with a cyclo driver on the way to the Citadel (imagine oriental ruins of the like I have described many a time before).

Cyclo driver: Do you have a coin with the kangaroo on it?

Me: No - an australian coin you mean. No sorry.

Cyclo: Are you sure... my baby collects coins (my baby collects coins?! what?). This is a very good coin.

A short pause occurs while he is silent. He pipes up again as we pass a blonde girl of indeterminate origin. He waves at her to get her attention and points at me.

Cyclo (to blonde girl while pointing at me): Look, Kangaroo. You Kangaroo too.

Cyclo (to me): You like that Kangaroo (winks).

And finally in a tour office.

Tour salesman: Do yu know the Missy Roo cafe? They sell take-away salads and fruit shakes.

Me: No.

Salesman (looking slightly crestfallen): Oh a shame... do you see my Kangaroo (points to inflatable Kangaroo of the variety carried by Aussie sports fans worldwide).

Me: Yes its very nice.

Salesman: Yes it is isnt it. The cafe they gave it to me as a present - such a lovely Kangaroo - in exchange I promote their restaurant.

Me: They pay you in Kangaroos...

The salesman just goes a little dewy-eyed and stares with longing (lust?) at his Kangaroo.

All very strange. I really haven't imagined this!

Take care

James and Jayne xxxx

Angkor Wat , Cambodia and Vietnam pictures...

More pics for you to have to a squiz at....
http://picasaweb.google.com/hidinginyourcupboard/CambodiaAndVietnam

Apocalypse Nam

I write from the charming city of Hue (pronounced Hweh - like the policeman in 'Allo 'Allo). Very French, pleasantly quietish, too many shoe shops. Oh and too many hat shops also.

If Cambodia is the country of the ubiquitous pyjama Vietnam is plagued by the erroneously worn surgical mask. I presume they are to stop people taking in traffic fumes, but they seem to be worn everywhere. I think they may be paranoid about germs - I personally would spend more time cleaning the toilets than wearing a face mask.

Hmmm some sort of order please. Saigon first - more aptly described as Missed Saigon as we spent our entire time failing to get our plane tickets changed and then it rained and rained and rained. So despite going out for some drinks we spent most of the time watching old Bond movies.

In the small amount of time we did have to walk around the following observations were made. People buy nodding pigs or horses for their car rather than dogs and secondly that Vietnamese food is insane.

Completely insane.

So far we have eaten shrimp vinegar fondue (the most complicated eating process I have ever come across. Douse rice pancake in cocounut water, lay it on plate, cook prawns in vinegar, take them out of boiling vinegar with miniscule chopsticks, place on paper with fish sauce, unripe banana, pineapple, lettuce, mint and then wrap into an elegant origami style cylinder - all in the space of about thirty seconds before your pancake sticks to the plate), fiddled with rice and pork mush wrapped and steamed in banana leaves and been physically threatened with vodka marinated with cobra or more pleasantly sea horse.

There is a French influence in Vietnam stemming from their occupation of the country between 1850 approx and the Vietnamese War. Fresh bgauettes are widely available as is dark rich coffee. The coffee is actually a little disappointing - a bit too sweet. They also eat a lot of pate which is very odd for this corner of the world.

From Saigon to Nha Trang. Nha Trang is simply a beach resort, nothing of any note except some good bars and too many gap year students talking to me about how many days they have been on the sauce for. This makes me feel a little over the hill as I struggle to go out two nights in a row at the moment. Time for me slippers, pyjamas and face mask possibly.

After drinking all the teenagers under the table we undertook an arduous 14 hour bus journey to Hue, our starting point (only in a written sense). The scenery more than made up for the two hours sleep. Rolling green hills sauntering into wide blue bays. The landscape is pockmarked with colourful tombs, seemingly placed randomly, as if families all have their own morbid plots at the end of their garden - Great Uncle Albert's just past the washing line and the plastic climbing frame.

The rules and regulations of my hotel have politely asked me not to bring any radioactive material into my room. I sleep better at night knowing that there is unlikely to be any radioactive material lurking in my hotel - its a common worry. I was surprised that they let me take up my curiously deformed rucksack (its like a bag with cerebal palsy) up to my room as rule five states: no suspiciously bulky items allowed in rooms. Thank god we're not travelling with chubby lothario Russell Grant - he'd have to sleep on the stairs.

Well thats it so far. Hope everyone is well, fine and reading the Dandy.

Lots of love

Jayne and James xxx

A Phnom Penh(y) For Your Thoughts or I Didn't Use a (Phnom) Penh To Write This I Used a Keyboard

Cambodia, glorious land of pyjamas, inappropriate topiary and somehow humorous adverts dsiencouraging child prostitution.

The women here wear pyjamas everywhere (literally pyjamas - they are decorated with whimsical designs of babies sleeping and sheep leaping over fences).

The topiary is ubiquitous and seems to be done to every living plant imaginable - from hedgerows to mighty oaks!

The adverts star a little stick-pervert in a kind of comic strip. Firstly he gets on a plane, secondly he gets a hotel room holding a stick-child's hand and next we see him clinging desperately to the bars of his prison cell with an anguished stick-grimace.

We are now in Phnom Penh - Cambodia's capital city. In short - here is the report:

National Museum: Rough Guide says "take at least 2 hours to explore". Our survey says "take five minutes to walk round three hundred slightly differing statues of the Buddha".

Grand Palace: Rough Guide says "visit the glorious silver pagoda and the Royal Throne". Our survey says "spend a few minutes looking at another statue of the Buddha and then some silver floor tiles".

I am beginning to become the worlds leading enemy of idolatry.

With the sights dissappointing all that was really left to do was go out - and go out we did to the world famous "Heart of Darkness" Bar. Mad dancing with the locals ensued alongside our new Kiwi friend Carly who is heading to London in the opposite direction to us. One guy was wearing a flat cap similar to those worn by Cambodian soldiers during Pol Pot's reign of terror. International opinion (well mine and Jayne's anyway) is split as to whether he was wearing this hat through coincidence (Jayne) or in irony (James). The guide book is again slightly innaccurate when it comes to Phnom Penh's nightlife - claiming that there is an arrogant middle class youth that frequents the late night bars - Cap Guy and his friends proved to be very nice giving me free beer (not laced with rohypnol) and dancing the tango with Jayne and strangely enough myself.

The next day was wisely spent lazing in bed although we did manage to book a tour to the infamous Killing Fields.

The Fields are unsurprisingly an unnerving experience. For a start I thought the mass graves would be much bigger in size. Its horrifically surprising how many bodies can fit into one small hole. The biggest grave contained over 400 bodies all in a space 6m deep, 3m wide and about 6m long. Most people were killed with blunt instruments, children were killed by holding their ankles and flinging them into trees or throwing them in the air and piercing them with a bayonet.

There are many people still alive in Cambodia who were involved with Pol Pot's regime. Many lower ranked people have served jail sentences although Pol Pot never faced a court and died in excile in the late 90s. Its very hard to imagine how these people must feel now - they were after all victims themselves of coercion and brainwashing (soldiers who refused to kill dissenters etc were executed themselves along with their families). I wonder whether they have a detachment to it, live in a state of shock or still believe in their actions. In all it is estimated that about two to three million people were killed and the vast majority of the population is now under the age of 25.

Next door to the Killing Fields site there is a school and the cries of the children float over the graves. Thunder cracks and the clouds draw in and suddenly we find ourselves talking about affable Irishman Ronan Keating as he is performing in Phnom Penh tonight (as if Pol Pot wasn't enough!). The whole scene is fairly bizarre and I find myself making the guide laugh when i tell her I don't like Boyzone.

We are now in Vietnam and although the topiary and pyjama wearing has sprung up again like Rocky in the final rounds, we haven't done anything of note yet. Will fill you in when we do.

Love

James and Jayne