Em and Si's Excellent Adventure

Our, and many of our fellow passenger’s, excitement at arriving at Sydney prompted a round of applause as we ground to a halt at Sydney International Airport; although the applause may also have been for the fact that we had had an excellent flight with the very good Singapore Airlines. The applauding of a flight had never happened to us before and has happened only once since: after our flight to Vanuatu. However, we would put those applause down to the exceptionally large amount of free alcohol that Air Vanuatu handed out during the flight. Or to the fact that after consuming large amounts of free beer, wine and spirits people were relieved to be landing with the prospect of emptying booze filled bladders once inside the terminal; there had been only one toilet on the plane and one very large queue.

Upon entering the airport terminal we knew we’d arrived in Sydney when we were greeted by an Irishman, almost knocked unconscious by a falling surfboard and then asked to clean our muddy shoes. With sparkling shoes in hand we eagerly headed to our 3 ½ star Travelodge hotel which we had managed to book cheaply in Singapore. It must be noted at this point that Emma, unsurprisingly, has been the main organiser during the trip and booked numerous places for us to stay. However, there have been general trends relating to her chosen accommodation in that they were required to fit into one of three categories for them to be deemed acceptable: 1) Demonstrates a certain level of building site activity so that the occupant can be woken up promptly to the sound of drills or hammers (Aurangabad & Dehli)
2) Located either above or next to a nightclub so that the guest can enjoy a somewhat muffled dancefloor experience from the comfort of their own bed (Penang & Auckland)
3) Crammed with enough bugs to have the guest running around with a torch/lamp at 2:22am attempting to kill mosquitoes/cockroaches (everywhere else)
Thus it was with the utmost smugness, on my part, that we rolled in to our cheap and classy establishment. Although, Emma would not agree to carry me around Sydney on her shoulders in order to parade her great accommodation booking boyfriend.

And so to the fantastic city of Sydney.

It was really good to be back and to us it is the best place that we’ve ever lived. Emma stayed there in 2003 for 4 months working as a waitress and I was there for 5 months working as a touch-typist for the Government (it is amazing how fast one can type with two fingers when they’re skint and need a job). Thus we’d both been eager to return and share our previous experiences with each other. Emma was to show me the great places to eat, drink red wine and shop. I was to show Em the cheapest places for pool, beer and the Hungry Jacks Burger joint where you can offer the workers as much money as you want and they still won’t sell you their Hungry Jack caps.

Day 1: After arriving at our hotel and marvelling at the view from our 18th floor room (which included the Campbell St. eyesore which once housed me during my time in Sydney and for some reason has managed to evade demolition) we headed off excitedly to see some of the sights. First stop being Blackbird café at Darling harbour, for dinner, where we gleefully munched on pizza and demanded some money back when our wobbly table sent wine over my trousers. And then of course to the Opera house and Circular Quay where it sunk in that we were actually in Sydney and no we weren’t dreaming.

Day 2: We awoke to a beautiful blue sky with not a cloud to be seen. “Is it really winter here?” asks the ginger as he reluctantly slaps on his factor 30 sun cream. Then it was off to Circular Quay via the Botanical gardens, complete with comedy white birds and flying foxes, and to the Opera house. At which point we randomly bumped into two fellow UEA medics, Bhav & Randeep, who were also spending a few days in Sydney having spent a few weeks in India. Where despite being Hindi speakers they too were ripped off on numerous occasions. Not just us then.

After a coffee and a catch up in the Rocks Café, where Emma once graced the tables as waitress extraordinaire, we bid them farewell and hopped on a ferry and cruised past the Opera house on our way to Manly. A very pleasant afternoon was then spent strolling along to Shelley beach, picnicking on turkish bread sandwiches from the deli, supping a cold schooner of Tooheys over a game of ping pong. Then headed back on the ferrycat with some hot chocolate from the bald man. Who I discovered wasn’t some bald bloke selling hot chocolate but was actually a shop called ‘Chocolate from the bald man’. Very nice chocolate. Em didn’t speak for about an hour afterwards and just sat with a glazed look in her eyes. (It wasn’t the same eating one of the little pots of melted chocolate without you Becks!)

Day 3: Yet again we awoke to clear blue skies. Perfect. We decided to head over to Darling Harbour and have the famous (to the Greig Girls anyway) Sweetcorn fritters from Café 22. They tasted as good as Emma had claimed them to be and as with most café’s in Sydney they make coffee’s to die for. After a very filling breakfast we walked the short distance to the Sydney Fish Market. Hundreds of different fish and shellfish displayed on ice filled counters; who needs to pay $15 to go to Sydney Aquarium when we could see them here! But with very filled bellies there was no room for any fresh calamari and chips, maybe next time. The market is very near to where Emma used to live in Pyrmont. In comparison to my ramshackled, overfilled, cockroach ridden terraced house the ‘Palladium’ was 5*. Luckily she couldn’t show me the swimming pool, gym or her old rented penthouse apartment all for a similar price to mine as we didn’t have a swipe card to enter the building.

Not sure quite how but according to Em (Becks and Mum you will back me up here) a trip to Darling harbour wouldn’t be complete without singing ‘Monorail, monorail, monorail, monorail’ as the monorail passes you overhead. Remember that Simpson’s episode? So after a quick rendition we headed to the main drag of George street and headed through China town to find a Sushi train restaurant that I’d had been too.

Emma takes over the task of typing: After tramping round for half an hour with claims of ‘its just round the next corner’ and ‘I’m sure its round here somewhere’ we settled for a smoothie and set off for Glebe. Here Simon managed to get a $8 haircut and visit second hand book and record shops; I can never understand wandering aimlessly round shops in which you have no indention of buying anything. Anyway we did discover a 1.3L bottle of Hardy’s Shiraz for only $9. A bargain I am sure you will all agree (if only Waitrose sold them Mr Kerr) so we went to one of the many BYO café’s for a quick snack before the evening entertainment we had both been looking forward to for 2 months; a trip to the Opera House to see Barber of Seville, part of Simons birthday present! Running late as ever we were marching back to our room for a quick shower and change when we bumped into two more friends form UEA; Kevin and Caroline. A quick hello and ‘isn’t this a small world’ followed with an arrangement to meet up the following night for some drinks.

The opera was fantastic. There is nothing quite like arriving at the Sydney Opera house in your glad rags with a ticket for the Opera. Despite seats with a slightly restricted view it was an experience not be to missed. Well done me for being organised and booking it months in advance; at least someone is organised. We walked home to our own rendition of ‘Figaro’ planning when we could next return to Sydney, we both love it.

Day 4: Today, I hate to tell you, the skies were a perfect Sydney blue again so we decided to do the Coogee to Bondi walk. This is a super 2 hour walk along the rugged east coast with waves crashing and lots of surfers and surfing to watch. By this time we had earn’t our steak sandwich on the beachfront and after some shopping for bikini’s (I had lost mine after leaving it on the roof of our car in Malaysia), rash vests (to prevent further snorkelling sunburn in Vanuatu) and t-shirts (a boy can never have too many apparently) we were rather tired and ready for a snooze. A quick 40 winks rejuvenation and we were back out to meet up with fellow medics Chrissy and Kev for some cheap beers in the backpacker pubs of Sydney. Scruffy Murphy’s, Three wise monkeys, the shark bar….fantastically bad places with cheap watered down beer. Great stuff!!

Day 5: Our last day; how could the time have passed so quickly? We had a few bits to buy for Vanuatu and obviously had to visit the Opera House one last time. The day passed far too quickly and it was sunset before we managed to walk over the harbour bridge for great views of the opera house and botanical gardens. A final meal, yet more pizza at the Australian, was followed by a beer to toast Sydney farewell from a rooftop bar sitting above the Rocks area.

And then to Vanuatu where the last recorded eating of a human being occurred in 1969. Some say it still happens….or am I thinking of Wales?

Missing you all. E & S XXX

After an 8 hour bus ride which had involved two stops for passport control and a potentially expensive attempt at not declaring a bottle of vodka we arrived in a wet and humid Singapore. We had been organised enough to book ourselves some accommodation and were pleased to discover that the hostel we were staying at was excellent. We were also pleased to meet our Singapore tour guide, Daniel William Wallace, who was undertaking the second half of his elective having spent the first half in Northern India. The difference between India and Singapore is pretty extreme in that you head from chaotic dirt filled madness to a world of precise commercial calmness.

Thus we spent the next two days idly touring the limited sites of Singapore without having to once look at a guide book or read a map. Thus we could use all our mental capacity in preventing ourselves from becoming soaken from the constant Singapore rain. The best way to achieve dryness being to move stealthy from mall to mall; not a difficult feat in a city which would be more aptly named Singamall. Or indeed Singapour given the amount of rain we had to endure. However, after about 5 minutes we felt malled-out and so we turned to our tour guide for some more interesting activities. Luckily he had much experience in guiding and was able to dredge up some activities, other than shopping, for us to enjoy:

1) Lugeing:

We spent our final afternoon on Sentosa island which is a short monorail, or more expensive cable-car ride, from Singapore. It is mall free and acts as a Scarboroughesque amusements arcade, without the gambling of course; this is after all Singapore the cleanest of clean cut cities. You can spend your hours there playing crazy golf, heading up the Carlsberg tower to look back upon the malls of Singapore, laze upon a man made beach looking back at the huge cargo ships carrying various mall goods or luge. The luge involves climbing onto a piece of plastic on wheels, pulling the handles back to go and pulling them further back to stop. In Singapore you are given a helmet and a full safety talk before being allowed to trundle to the next safety check. After which you are free to whiz down the hillside track as quickly as possible with the winner taking all. At the end you get your picture taken and are then encouraged to slow down by large sponge safety barriers and a bored looking luge attendant. However, an alternative ending to your journey is to pretend you’ve lost control of your luge buggy and to crash into the safety barriers, thereby, sending them flying and an angry looking luge attendant scurrying. Full credit to Dan for not even attempting to be subtle and sending them flying with a head on collision. Great stuff!!

2) Chilli-Crab:

Thanks to some insider information we learned that as part of the Singapore food festival we could lay our impoverished student hands on some free chilli-crabs. And so we collected our free food vouchers from the tourist information and headed to Chinatown. Once there we found a respectable looking chilli crab merchant, ordered the bare minimum to accompany our crab (i.e. a drink and boiled rice) and sat back in anticipation. We were then presented with a huge plate of crabs submersed in chilli sauce and a pair of chop sticks. Now for those of you who have used chopsticks before we would like to point out that attempting to eat fully shelled crabs, even with a claw crusher, covered in thick red sauce is somewhat challenging. Unless of course you’re one of the two Chinese guys sitting opposite us; which enables you to gracefully eat a whole plate of crab whilst remaining spotless. It also enables you to sit and laugh at 3 hungry westerners struggling to eat chilli crabs and looking like a bunch of 3 year olds in a ketchup factory.

3) Museum & Outdoor Cinema:

The national museum of Singapore provided us with some interesting mall relief as we wandered through its many rooms of interesting exhibits. They provided us with insights into the food of Singapore (no mention of chilli crabs though), the lifestyles of the different ethnic groups, the history of Singapore cinema and most interestingly a stone banquet in which all the food had been carved from different rocks. The banquet was so realistic that our tour guide had admitted to almost trying to steal a sandwich until he realised at the last minute that it would have broken a tooth or two. Interestingly there was also a BBC party taking place but despite being licence fee payers we were refused entry. Maybe if I had pointed out that my father was the star of one of their most popular afternoon programmes, namely Diagnosis Murder, we may have been permitted to have supped champagne with the big wigs: maybe next time.

Outside the museum there was an outdoor cinema where we spent the evening watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s. We all agreed we enjoyed it but then proceeded to be demented by Moon River for the next week and a half. Having just recalled that I will now be singing it at random times for another two weeks. “My huckleberry friend….”

4) A Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel:

An overpriced, funny pink coloured cocktail, drunk whilst surrounded by multitudes of people drinking the same drink and eating peanuts in a bar with a floor covered in peanut shells. And it didn’t even taste that nice (although Em says she really liked hers but that’s probably because I paid!) Still it just has to be done and no trip to Singapore can be said to be complete without parting with large amounts of money for a Singapore Ming, err sorry Sling. It was great fun, the hotel was pretty damn swish and our tour guide provided an excellent target for peanut shells.

And so we bid farewell to Singapore thankful that we’d had Dan as our guide so that we could avoid mall boredom at all costs. What we weren’t thankful for was the discovery of “The Maximator” a 12.8% Dutch beer that was very cheap and could be purchased from the 24 hour 7/11 opposite the hostel. But that’s another story….

More photos to follow soon. Love Em and Si xxx

Day 1: Penang to Langkawi

Having jetted over from Penang on a two hour hover-ferry-of-sorts we arrived in the duty free haven of Langkawi with great expectations of cheap booze, great beaches and cracking snorkelling.

At the ferry terminal we used our India haggling skills to cause a face off between two rival hire merchants thereby resulting in us hiring a rather fetching 0.6L Daewoo sports car at a very reasonable price. Thus we hit the road with a hairdryeresque roar from our sewing machine on wheels. And then we did what all good couples do when they get into a hire car and head off into the sunset. We had an argument about which way to go!

Our little car:

Once directions were resolved we headed to our beach destination of Pantai Cenang on the other side of the island. After checking in to a rather reasonable room complete with beach view, fridge and television we made the most of the exceptionally cheap beer and stocked the fridge with tiger. We then sat, drank some beer and watched the rain fall onto our nice beach. Whilst Em bemoaned the fact that she still hadn’t had a good tanning session.

That night we went to a traditional Malay drinking establishment: Debbie’s Irish Bar. Which was full of homesick Irish drinking overpriced Guinness. Needless to say we took part in the festivities and felt somewhat worse for wear the next morning.

Day 2: Post Monkey Tensions (PMT)

Our second day on Langakawi continued in the same rainy vain as the first, thus we decided to make the most of our hire car and explore the island.

Our first stop was a place called the seven wells. So named because there are seven natural pools (we only counted 3 though) connected by rock which you could slide down as the channels were very smooth. The lonely planet had made them sound like a natural water theme park. However, it failed to mention the multitude of monkeys which greet tourists as they begin there trek up the 700ish steps to the pools. I decided to be brave and walk straight through the throng of monkeys which didn’t seem too aggressive. Em followed somewhat reluctantly and was faced with the biggest monkey of the lot who must have smelt fear as he began chasing her back down the hill. “Siiiiiiimmmonnnnn!!” echoed. A rather scary experience – Emma adds. Whilst I did what all good boyfriends should do; I stood and laughed (whilst secretly thinking “thank god that big bugger didn’t head for me!”) Needless to say Emma was unimpressed with this ungallant act and then demonstrated PMT for the remainder of the walk.

After the pools we headed to some more beaches, some of which we couldn’t gain access to as they were now privately owned. However, we did make it to a really lovely beach on the far side of the island. Although, by this point it was chucking it down. No tanning to be done today. We then headed back to the ferry terminal for which would be the first of our 3 visits to sort out our ferry and bus tickets back to Kuala Lumpur. Needless to say we became unimpressed with the set-up by the time we had to head there for a third time; you could only buy a ticket one day before the day of travel. However this did mean we could pick up some more cans of 30p Tiger and 6 pound bottles of Bombay (Mumbai?) Sapphire Gin.

Day 3: No sunbathing today, again.

We rose to find bright blue skies and no rain clouds in sight. Thus it was with much reluctance that Em clambered back into the hire car to return to the fantastic beach we’d visited in the rain the previous day. When we arrived there she was further denied any tanning time as I persuaded her to come trekking through the sea on sand banks and try out our new snorkels. Unfortunately the water was murky and thus snorkelling was a waste of time. It was still good fun to be 500 metres out to see and only knee deep in water.

Upon returning to the beach Em at last managed to set up camp and begin some serious tanning. However, after 5 minutes the clouds then appeared and it started to rain. She was not amused at my ability to minimise anytime spent on a sunny beach. And so we headed back to our beach hut via the highest point on the island which provided us with some great views of clouds.

Pantai Cenang was a fairly touristy place but with some excellent places to eat and shop. On our third night we enjoyed one of our nicest meals in Malaysia and to give it that authentic feel it was served to us by ladyboys. Thus we experienced the ladyboy double take which has you initially thinking that you have been served your food by a nice Malay lady. “Wait a minute those hands are quite big, those shoulders are quite broad, I think she could have me in a fight, now isn’t that an adams apple; wait a minute I think that may be a man!” Still they made very good waitresses and are probably hired on the basis that they can carry twice as many plates, open bottles with their teeth and sort out any rowdy customers whilst providing a female(ish) guise. The perfect waitress?

Us on the beach outside our beach hut:

Day 4: Bus station nightmares

We had enjoyed our time in Langkawi but had hoped for better weather and better snorkelling. It is well worth a visit but is quite touristy. Thus we much preferred the Perhentian islands with its clear blue skies and crystal clear water. ‘Whose silly idea was it to leave the Perhantian islands anyway?’ Em asks as she is forced to tramp round the whole of Malaysia under the guise that “we may never come back to Malaysia so we should see lots of it”!!

Another ferry took us to the main land where we became stranded in Kuala Perlis as our bus had broken down. Thus we sat for 3 hours and watched half hourly buses bound for Kuala Lumpur come and go unable to board as we had ‘the wrong ticket’ and had to wait for ours to arrive. For once we were organised and had bought our tickets in advance; what a mistake. There must be a bout 5 different tour operators running exactly the same service and we had picked the one which broke down. Luckily we managed to get onto another bus after much badgering of Bus company workers and we headed back to Kuala Lumpur to begin our journey to Singapore.

Sunset at Pantai Cenang:

Enough rambling, hope summer is still sunny for you all back in the UK.

Love Em & Si xxx

Sorry not time to write up what we have been doing but here are a few photos to give you a taster of what life is like here!

Our Baby Doc house where we are staying. The hospital is 10m infront of this building which is all painted in blue and white too. We are in the first one to the left of the picture as you look at it.

Please note the following two photos were taken after we had both done a morning wardround, I had delivered my first baby(!!!), an emergency department afternoon shift (lots of patients with malaria), 2 bloods and 2 abdominal ultrasound scans - I think we deserved a break!

Down the hill from the hospital is a little resort alled Deco which is pricy but lovely every few days for a quick sunbathe, swim and coffee plunger. (And yes that is a ginger sunbathing - a rare site!)

Me out from the swimming pool drying off in the late afternoon sun.

More to come, lots of love.

Em and Si xxx

Dear All,

Sitting proudly at the bottom of the attractiveness scale sits the ginger male. However, there are a few things in this world that do indeed love the ginger male.

Firstly there are Grannies who look upon a ginger bonnet and proclaim “Ooo, I wish I had hair like yours” and “What a lovely hair colour”. The main reason for this love of ginger hair can probably be assigned to cataracts which are well known to distort the colours we see. Thus ginger becomes the ultimate blue rinse!

Secondly we have mosquitoes. Which on our travels have regularly feasted on the fair skinned vessel of the ginger male.

Finally, and most importantly we come to the bed bug… During a cold and dark night in Penang lay two medical students trying to sleep despite the all night rave going on next door. Whilst beneath the sheets secreted snugly in an ageing mattress (unbeknown to said medical students who were very pleased with their traditional Malaysian styled room) lay a battalion of bed bugs! The sentry spotted him first. Word travelled fast from private up to commander, teeth were sharpened and horns were blown as the cry went out from the massed throng; “We got ourselves a ginger.” They had read of such mythical creatures, some had even seen pictures on the internet, many had dreamed and some had prayed for the coming of a ginger banquet. Whilst the students slept the bed bugs launched their night attack and feasted greedily to the nightclub beat of Malaysian Techno.

Casualties of war: Simon bed bug bites = 200
Emma bed bug bites = A big fat 0!!!

Same bed, same length of time in said bed, same sheets, same mattress on the same night – is there any justice in this world for the ginger male???

The next morning a very itchy and angry Simon demanded free accommodation at said Malaysian hotel which was granted by the very apologetic Chinese owner not wanting to lose his glowing write-up in the Lonely Planet. Financial times were hard with Simon only charging 5p per bed bug bite, the things students do to save 10 pounds.

And now onto Penang itself…

World Music Festival: One of the main reasons for leaving the island paradise of the Perhentian islands was the prospect of an evening of world music. Thus we dressed in our best/cleanest clothes and having learned our lightening lesson from Tamen Negara packed our umbrellas, having seen a few streaks of lightening on the horizon, and headed with much enthusiasm to the botanical gardens on the outskirts of Georgetown (the capital of Penang). We boarded the free bus to the festival at which point it started to rain. “We have our brollies, clever us, we’ll be fine”. However, we were proven to be wrong and regretted not packing our emergency ponchies as the rain started to get heavier and heavier. After 5 minutes of standing outside the festival gates we were soaked to the skin as the rain bounced off the floor with such force that it soaked us from the feet upwards. Luckily we hadn’t bought our tickets and so we were able to flee from the washed out scene. Unfortunately the free buses were only one way and so despite our pleas of “we’ve come to the world music festival by mistake” we had to get an expensive taxi back to bed bug central. After a quick dry we headed for some nice food and a great cup of coffee which warmed away some of our disappointment.

Apart from our world music festival disappointment and the constant itchy reminder of bed bugs we did enjoy our time in Georgetown. It had a very colonial feel to it and was a good place to mooch around. The Eastern oriental hotel, built by the same brothers who built Raffles in Singapore, was a beautiful air conditioned haven which made us want for large pay checks to fund bed bug free luxury travel. The Penang museum was also excellent, with some great exhibits showing traditional Penang life – no bed bug exhibits though - and for anyone visiting we would highly recommend it. On a culinary note having had our best Thai meal in India we now had our best Indian meal in Malaysia at a lovely restaurant called Rice and Spice. On an historical note Emma’s granddad had once lived in Penang, very near to our hostel, and worked in the local hospital. We liken his time to something similar to the last King of Scotland although we are fairly sure that he wasn’t working for any dictators nor was he involved in any bloody coups.

Eastern and Oriental Hotel:

Trishaws in Penang:


We left Penang on the highspeed ferry to Langkawi with hopes of good beaches, great weather and a chance to try out our newly aquired snorkel gear. One final cultural note: whilst on the ferry to Langkawi Emma had the window seat whilst Simon sat next to her in the second of 4 seats. After much dithering of two Islamic ladies, dressed in full traditional black clothing, the husband asked if Emma and I could swap seats so that they wouldn’t have to sit next to Simon. Was the lady unable to sit next to a man due to her cultural/religious beliefs or should she be added as number 4 to things who love ginger males? She may have found being too close to be too much.

Missing you all,

Em and Si xxx