Dim Saves the World

Angkor

2007-12-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

OK, so a brief catch-up on the last two weeks...

Phnom Penh was very nice (I thought - Tobe was not so taken). Our hostel was sitting right on the lakeside, and we regularly had little kids paddling up to us in small wooden boats while we sat by the lake eating, offering us tours... The area down by the riverside in town was also really picturesque - and the whole town was just very green, with lots of trees even on the busiest roads.

This was the view from our table while we ate.

I had a few days of solo flying when I went down to Bangkok for my test on Monday - and then had a nightmare getting back. I was able to get from Phnom Penh to Bangkok on a direct bus, but because that was already gone for the day by the time my test was over, I had to get a bus to the border and stay over night, then get a bus to Phnom Penh and stay another night before I could get a bus to Sihanoukville to catch up with Tony. The whole return trip took me four days, with more hours than I care to count spent on buses (certainly the majority of my waking hours).

Another cute puppy - this one was at the guesthouse I stayed at in Arranya Prathet, at the Thai border.

When I finally did catch up with Tony, he had gotten a bad dose of food poisoning, and was pretty much unable to go outside or move around - so after knocking several days off my beach trip to go to Bangkok, I ended up spending most of the rest of it sitting in our room in the shade watching DVDs with him. The best laid plans, and all that...

Our cabin on stilts from Sihanoukville.

Anyway, once Tony was fit to move around again, we headed up to Siem Reap, the town outside Angkor, the home of the famous thousand-year-old ruined temples (our second-to-last day-long bus trip, which is very comforting to know - our last is tomorrow). The town itself is actually quite nice, but unsurprisingly I won't be putting up a lot of pictures of that while there are temples to show off...

This is Ta Keo, which was probably my personal favourite of the temples.

And this is the famous Angkor Wat, viewed from a hot air balloon (!)

And one more, since it's kind of cool - you can see the whole grounds of the temple and the moat around it here.

Cleanshaven and poor. Coincidence? I think not...

2007-11-25T07:04:00.001-08:00

So, after them growing unchecked for about four months, I finally shaved off my sideburns the other day (it's getting sunny, and I figured if they stayed any longer I'd have tan lines when Connie inevitably made me shave them off in Thailand). That said, they weren't looking all that exciting anyway - I don't grow the best facial hair.

Nonetheless, in a Samson-like collapse of fortunes, this coincided almost exactly with the first time in almost three weeks that I was not a millionaire - clearly the gods were punishing me. It may also have had to do with leaving Vietnam, home to possibly the worlds finest currency (both because it's called the Dong, and because 50 Euro is enough to make a body a Dong millionaire).

Anyway, we're in Cambodia now, in Phnom Penh, which is actually quite a nice city. It's much more like Luang Prabang (with it's lots of trees, and general prettiness) than Hanoi or Saigon (with their lots of traffic and ugliness - although there's a lot of bikes here too). Pictures are quite slow to upload here, so I've just got the one, of the border crossing...

Also, this place is just swarming with drugs. This internet cafe is literally 50 metres from our hostel, and we've been here for three days, and I think I've been offered more drugs (of all kinds) walking up and down that stretch than in my entire life before coming to Cambodia. That said, the drug pedallers, as well as most other people, aren't as pushy here as they have been in a lot of other places, and tend to be reasonably willing to take no for an answer (although you have to give that answer to each of their offerings, which can take some time).

My job applications have started to enter a more active phase at the moment as well - I have a telephone interview tomorrow and another on Tuesday, and a written test to sit on Monday. This is going to mean a brief separation for myself and Tony, since I have to head down to Bangkok to sit the test - so I'm going to be all alone in the world for a couple of days starting on Saturday. Tony is silently (and sometimes less silently) thanking the god he doesn't believe in for this reprieve...

Mortality

2007-11-24T08:04:00.000-08:00

I have recently been struck by a strong sense of my travelling mortality. We'll be back in Saigon by tonight, and then on a bus to Cambodia by this time tomorrow. After passing through 12 countries since I left Ireland almost four months ago, I now have only three more left (Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia). In large part, I'm looking forward to getting home - getting back to Connie, back to Cork, back to staying in one place for more than five or six days, and just back to some sense of normality. Still though, there's a lot that I'm going to miss about travelling (by which, clearly, I mean the weather).

Anyway, to lighten the tone somewhat, this is an extract from the rules in our hostel - it starts off with all the normal things about checkout times, and then rapidly progresses to much more exciting prohibitions (and then falls off again at number five...):

Needless to say, rule number four has totally been cramping Tony's style...

And finally, a random note about more heroic battle against addiction... It's been more than six weeks since the last time that I had a fizzy drink (and two weeks to the last time before that) - which anyone who was familiar with my levels of consumption during term time last year will realise is nothing less than a small miracle. Foreign climes do strange things to a man...

Exfoliating

2007-11-22T00:52:00.001-08:00

At least, I think that's the word for it - scraping off layers of skin. Apparently therapeutic. I can vouch, after several enjoyable days on the beach, that the best way to do it is by being thrown 12 feet over broken shells by a ten-foot high wave. I can practically feel my wrinkles disappearing (or whatever else it is that's supposed to happen).

So once again, it's been a while since I've posted. Although in my defence, I refer you back to the fact that I'm on holiday, and don't need any defence. Also, internet has been a little patchy here, and (believe it or not), I've been doing quite a bit of work for the last few days. Some of the work I did for CEOL over the last few years is going to be a contributed chapter in a new book by the group's director, and I'm furiously editing everything at the moment. Soon will be v. famous published author (not really, but I read the other Bridget Jones book today - v. funny).

Our accommodation is quite nice (no Presidential palace, but hey...), and located right on the beach. Or room is about ten feet from the swimming pool, and about twenty feet from the sea, so there's been lots of swimming. The weather hasn't been quite what we had hoped for (mostly overcast since we got here), but it's still been very warm, so we can't complain too much.

Tobe struggles with the challenges of our new environs...

The only thing we've really done that hasn't been a variant on sitting around or eating since we got to Mui Ne (i.e. the beach) was to head up to the Fairy Spring at the edge of town. There's a river there flowing down from the sand dunes, and the base of it almost all the way up is made of soft sand and clay, so you can walk about two kilometres up the river in the water, to a very pretty waterfall. I didn't bring my camera when we went, but I'll see about stealing some pictures from Tobe and putting them up.

We'll be heading back to Saigon on Sunday, and then leaving Vietnam on Monday to head into Cambodia. Apparently the genocide trials of the Khmer Rouge are just starting in Phnom Penh, which is our first stop, so this might be an interesting time to be there...

Further bulletins as events warrant.

The most amazing hotel ever!

2007-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

(For anyone who's wondering, we successfully braved crocodile infested water to swim our way to Ho Chi Minh/Saigon. Honest.)

But more importantly, we're now staying in the most amazing hotel ever in Saigon. Have a look at what we're getting, for $5 per night each, and wish that you were in South East Asia:

This is my bedroom. It's massive, and has its own en suite with a shower and bath. The bed is also really comfortable.

This is the lounge for our floor - and since there's only a few of the other rooms occupied at the moment, we practically have it to ourselves. It also sports a bar and free pool table.

And possibly the best of all, this is the view from my window. Pretty sweet.

And just in case I never get around to putting up any other pictures of Ha Long Bay (which would be a shame), here's one to keep you going:

Alas, like all the other pictures I took, it fails dismally to capture how amazing that place looked - and I think the haze affected the pictures a lot more than it affected my view. But still - imagine dozens of islands like these rising right out of the clear blue sea, and you might get some idea.

I really hope that at least a few people have actually read this far and believed the stuff about the hotel... some people will believe any madness about far away places. And in my experience, most Irish people will believe anything at all if it fuels their jealousy of someone in a hotter country than them - which, in spite of being in a rather humbler hotel, I still am.

Those pictures, in case anyone is wondering, are from our bit of touristing today, the Presidential palace in Saigon.

The crocodile train

2007-11-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

And of course, I was right about the laziness. Pictures later, maybe. Right now, just a note to say that it turns out that the train is (probably) running notwithstanding the floodwaters and the 5,000 escaped crocodiles.

So if I don't post again for a while, you should definitely assume that something exciting happened. And not just that I'm a lazy git.

Ping...

2007-11-13T06:14:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling lazy at the moment, so just a short update (I plan to put up pictures tomorrow, but considering how some of my blogging plans have gone lately, I figure I should play it safe).

My first, second and third impressions of Hanoi were all of the traffic. If I remember correctly, there are 5 million people in Hanoi, and 3 million motorbikes, and the roads are just madly jammed. Crossing a road like at home by waiting for a gap in the traffic (or waiting for traffic lights to help you) is a hopeless strategy - probably the best advice I've been given is to just close your eyes and walk slowly. A sea of motorbikes flows around you like a liquid, but you don't seem to get hit (probably because they'd do more damage to their own vehicle than a car would, and also risk a domino-like topple of all the following traffic).

I haven't been too crazy about Hanoi city itself, but we've spent the last three days on a tour to Ha Long Bay, which is very possibly the most beautiful place I have ever seen. More about that, and various pictures that hopeless fail to capture it, will follow...

The interesting news at the moment is that, thanks to a spot of bad weather further South in Vietnam, the rail network is apparently temporarily closed - and seeing as we're meant to be getting a train to Ho Chi Minh City (a.k.a. Saigon) tomorrow night, that might end up throwing off our travel plans just a tad... Further bulletins as events warrant.

In Hanoi

2007-11-08T08:07:00.000-08:00

We got to Hanoi today, and I have to admit that it's sort of nice to be back in a place that I had heard of before I set out on my travels...

The journey here was far from pleasant (twenty-four hours on a bus), although not as bad as I had built it up to be in my head. The night was the worst part - it was practically impossible to sleep. After I woke up this morning, it was a lot more comfortable. I whiled away most of my waking hours on the trip reading Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones 2, in fact - v. enjoyable) and desperately trying to filter out the obnoxiously loud Laos pop music playing in the background...

But anyway, before I go off exploring another new city (we didn't see much of Hanoi after we arrived tonight), here are a few choice pictures of the last one...

This little Andrex puppy lived just outside our guesthouse - he seemed like a good cure for the over-running of this blog by cats (although, like so many animals, he was a lot less cute at close range).

I really hope the bright white Fila socks aren't part of this guys official military uniform...

The main tourist sight we saw in Vientiane (possibly the only one, really) was their faux Arc de Triumphe (I don't speaky the French, so I don't care if that's spelt wrong). Apparently they built it in the 60s with concrete that they were given by America to make an airport. Way to stick it to the man...

Anyway, pictures of Hanoi will follow when I start taking them.

Oh, and a landmark is about to be hit - I have exactly four photos left on my camera memory card before I have to delete some for the first time on my travels...

And while I'm at it...

2007-11-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

Since I seem to be in the blogging mood at the moment (and I must admit that it's becoming clear that that is by no means a constant), I thought I'd throw up another post.

We had dinner in an amazing restaurant last night, right at the end of our street. The food was nothing to shout about, but it the location was really impressive - it was placed right on this lake:

Like with most of my pictures, I'm not sure if it really captures the scene, but it was a pretty impressive place to eat. This is the view from the bridge we had to walk over to get to it:

And, since I haven't been posting up my old pictures for a while, here's a random one from the archives:

We spent our first four days in Mongolia with a sort of package tour, staying in different ger camps every night (we covered about 1,000 km over the four days), and then spent our last two days in Ulan Bator. This picture is from when we were on our way back to Ulan Bator after our tour, and stopped for lunch beside a lake. We were sitting eating our picnic, and suddenly some company showed up... I think I counted about 150 horses in the herd.

All things Laos

2007-11-02T03:26:00.000-07:00

Well, as ever, it's been too long since my last post... the internet here is a tad slow, and I do like to have pretty pictures for my blog, so it's taken a while to find the time. Also, the "w" on this keyboard is very stiff, and I'm too lazy to proof read - so if words look funny, that may be why...

Anyway, we're now in Laos (silent 's'), having hastily added it back to our agenda last week. We're in the North at the moment, in a city called Luang Prabang (which is apparently the tourist capital), and we'll be heading to Vientiane (the actual capital) on Sunday before resuming our previous schedule and heading to Hanoi in Vietnam.

We got here on a 28-hour (shudder) bus journey from Kunming. I thought it wasn't gonna be too bad when I heard there were beds on the bus, but these turned out to be the most cramped beds I've ever seen - there were 34 beds in the space of a normal 53 seated bus with two aisles. The beds were so thin you couldn't curl up, and had so little headspace you couldn't sit up straight (and even less for, because I had a top bunk at the side where the roof curled in).

Luxury travel... ish.

The change going from China to Laos has been striking. Although it's not as warm now as when we arrived a few days ago (it's rained quite a bit the last two days), we're definitely in a noticeably more tropical climate, and the landscapes we passed through on the way here were very jungly. We were up at a temple on top of a hill in the middle of the city today, and it was incredible the number of trees that we could see, even right in the centre.

Luang Prabang, from above.

We went on a day trip on Tuesday, to go elephant riding and kayaking -which was quite a lot of fun... There's not really too much to say about that other than the pictures:

Two minutes later, I was sitting on that bench. I was a little disappointed that there was a bench, but what the heck...

The elephant park also afforded leaf-crunching opportunities like only the jungle can...

While we were kayaking, we got to stop off at this waterfall. I'm not sure if this photo fully captures it or if it's partly my memory adding to it, but it was one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. And we got to swim around in it for a while too... This is the stuff of dreams - or at least, highly romanticised notions of holidaying in tropical climates.

Another black cat, some pictures of Kunming, and new Travel Plans

2007-10-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

Just since it seems to be becoming something of a motif for this blog... This particular specimen is on a mural in our hostel in Kunming, the alluringly named Hump.

Isn't he cool?

And also, since I know that some of you would complain about me not seeing enough of the city if I didn't prove that I had, here are a few picture of Kunming:

Very densely packed fish ponds seem to be all the rage in China. Tony tells me that the fish looked better in the one we saw in Beijing - I can't really tell...

This archway is in the square just outside our hostel.

We've also made some new travel plans. For anyone who didn't carefully study the map I put up a few months back (shame on you), we had originally been planning on going from China to Vietnam, Cambodia and then Laos. Unfortunately, it looked like we were going to have some difficulty getting into Laos from Cambodia (visa issues), so in the end we decided to just skip that and spend more time in Vietnam and Cambodia.

However, it turned out that Marco was actually going from here to Laos when he left, and he said it was pretty easy to get a visa in the office in Kunming. So now, we're going to be going to Laos next (our first stop is a city called Luang Prabang - I think - in the north), and then on to Vietnam and Cambodia afterwards.

Amazingly, by the time I next post on my blog, I might actually be able to read it again... I'm quite looking forward to getting away from the internet limitations in China.

Kunming

2007-10-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

Things have been pretty quiet for our first few days in Kunming (as I suspect they will be for the remaining few). I've spent most of my time hanging around the hostel, either playing pool and foosball with Tony and Marco (a guy we met in Beijing, and again here) or filling out more job applications. They're slowly stealing my soul...

Marco... in the process of beating me at pool

In spite of its relative boringness, though, Kunming has played host to our most adventurous culinary outing so far - this is a selection from the menu. The picture isn't great - the flash almost obscured the offering of pig brain, but I think you should still be able to see some of the other delightful options...

(Don't worry - I didn't actually have the pig brain.)

Propaganda, leaf-crunching and postcards

2007-10-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

The internet in Shanghai isn't as cheap or as fast as I'd like, so for the time being I've decided to give up on putting up my old photos - just a few random bits from today instead.

We spent this morning hunting down (it was a bit out of the way) and looking around the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Museum. It was exactly what it sounds like - a collection of Chinese propaganda posters, mostly from the Mao era. It was quite an interesting collection.

Lots of this sort of thing...
I don't read Chinese, but I suspect the caption reads "the leader is good, the leader is great...".

That said (with no offense to the many people I know who are keen on their history), probably the more interesting activity of the morning was the leaf crunching we got to do in the area around the museum - some of the finest dried out leaves I've ever encountered.

And finally, for anyone who'd like to receive a postcard from me, you'd make it a lot easier if you'd give me your address - this goes especially for all the Cork people who've moved house since I left, but I'll probably send just about anyone whose address I get a postcard (unless I really don't like you...).

Shanghai - in the present tense, for once

2007-10-18T06:38:00.001-07:00

In spite of further resolutions to the contrary, I have once again left my blog untended for quite a while. This is partly because I'm lazy and enjoying my holiday (I make no apologies) and partly because I lost my camera cable, so I haven't been able to get pictures off it for a while. I have a shiny new card reader now, so all is well in the world once again.

The notable news of the hour is that we won't be going on from Shanghai (where we now are) to Hong Kong as previously planned - partly because it's very expensive, and partly because of annoying transport issues getting from there to Vietnam. Instead, we're going to be going to a place called Kunming, which is vaguely on the way to the Vietnamese border.

In the meantime, Shanghai is absolutely incredible. I only just realised looking through my pictures the sheer volume of cool stuff that I've seen. This city is not as big on the old fashioned as Beijing (or almost anywhere else for that matter), but the modern stuff is very impressive. Here, for your perusing delight, are a selection of my better pictures:

An impressive view from the Bund at night.

I can't remember what this building is called (not sure I ever knew) - but Tony tells me they designed it to stand out. The pinkness, tall-and-pointy-ness (you can't really see that in this picture, but it goes on up for a while) and the bright flags all suggest they succeeded...

In many ways, this is Shanghai at it's best - skyscrapers all over the place, but still plenty of nice little scenes in between (as well as some of the skyscrapers being quite cool).

I'll put up more pictures soon (hopefully - no promises), but right now the internet place I'm in is closing, so I'm off.

Exploring the Great Firewall of China, and Jobhunting

2007-10-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that what I've been told is true... I can't read my blog in China. Or anybody elses (on blogger at least - I'm still exploring for others). Among other websites that seem mysteriously uncooperative today are the article on wikipedia about democracy, and the philosoph website (I can't explain that one). I'm told that the internet censorship here has been collectively dubbed the "Great Firewall of China".

All this, of course, is by way of saying that I have now arrived in Beijing, after a rather longer blogging hiatus than I had originally envisaged. News about how I got here along with photos will hopefully follow. The good news is that, as you can see, in spite of not being allowed to read my blog here, I am able to post to it - and I just might get back in the habit of doing that.

In a truly unfortunate development, it turns out that most of the jobs that I was contemplating hunting for after getting home in January and starting next September actually have application deadlines in the next few weeks (one of them is less than two weeks away). This means that I'm going to have to apply for pretty much all of these jobs while I'm still adventure travelling in China... To those people who told me that bringing my laptop away on holiday with me would be a bad idea, I say ha...

Anyway, this means that I'm going to be spending rather more time on the internet in the next few days an weeks than I might have hoped, so I'll probably post up here a good bit more to break up the monotony of writing millions of covering letters... Anyone who has good tips on CV presentation is welcome to get in touch (although tips posted in comments, I probably won't be able to see until it's too late).

Blogging Hiatus

2007-08-31T01:53:00.000-07:00

In case anyone is wondering, my blogging of my exploits will be on temporary hiatus for a few days (deliberately this time, rather than just me being lazy). Unfortunately, the cable on my laptop charger has broken, so I am now inhabiting a world without free internet access for a little while. This also means that I can't get my pictures off my camera, which is holding up all my retroblogging.

I'll (hopefully) have a new charger when I get to Russia, and then I'll probably throw up some more pictures - although I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have there.

In the meantime, you might find something interesting on Tony's blog of this trip, which he's just started at rusherandaiser.blogspot.com.

Dim.

Retroblog 7 - Budapest

2007-08-28T12:06:00.001-07:00

OK, so Krakow made me very lazy and I haven't posted for about a week - so now I have to go back to retroblogging...

Budapest was definitely the most architecturally impressive city we've been to - and it started with a good impression on our first night.

Unfortunately, we weren't really in a mood to appreciate it, since we had gone to the wrong hostel, and ended up trekking around the city for a few hours and being horribly ripped off by a taxi driver...

I came across another black cat.

There will definitely be a magic* bean in it for the first linguistically erudite individual to translate this cartoon, which was on the wall of our first hostel.

Tiernan happened across one of his classmates in Budapest - so it only seemed right to go drinking...

And then Shane arrived, as promised (or actually, a little earlier than promised, thanks to the Aer Lingus strike).

Hero's Square... we had some disagreement as to whether it's more or less impressive than the Brandenburg Gate. I say less, but it's still quite cool.

Some historical kingly type.

When it started raining, we took shelter under an impressive-looking arch.

Shane, with a ringwraith.

We ended up getting a little wet.

While I was wandering around the city, I came across this... imposing.

I also met an evil clown.

*Magical powers of bean may be dubious.

Budapest, and pining

2007-08-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

It's been pretty overcast most of the time since we got to Budapest on Saturday, which was quite a change from the roasting heat we had in Turkey, Serbia and Bosnia. There was torrential rain and thunderstorms yesterday and some of the night before (we got caught in it yesterday and completely drenched), but fortunately that seems to have cleared the skies, and the sun is back at last...

I spent some time wandering around the city today, and Budapest (or technically Pest - I haven't yet been to Buda, which is the part on the other side of the river) is definitely the most impressive looking city we've been to so far. Unfortunately, my camera is out of batteries, so the pictures will have to wait until I can find new ones...

A few people have been asking me what I miss from home - which seems a little odd, since I've only been away less than three weeks so far. Having said that though, there is one thing that I've started to pine for: curtains.

Apparently the power to control when sunlight can and cannot shine into your room is not as keenly sought after over here as it is at home (although that may just be in the hostels). Pretty much nowhere that we've stayed so far has had curtains which can effectively keep the light out, which has meant waking up at dawn far more often than a nocturnal person like myself would willingly choose to do...

Elevators

2007-08-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

OK, so I've finally got all my retroblogging done, and all my old pictures up... now come the random stories...

This is a picture of the Taipei 101 tower in Taipei, Taiwan, currently* the tallest building in the world. It also boasts the fastest elevator in the world, which can ascend 84 floors in only 37 seconds, less than half a second per floor.

By contrast, the elevator in my charming hostel takes about 54 seconds (I timed) to ascend a mere nine floors - and as if that's not long enough, the light in one of them was broken this morning, so I had to spend a full minute in pitch darkness in a less-than-confidence-inspiring elevator. This doesn't sound like long, but try shutting yourself in a small closet or something for sixty seconds, then imagine it lurching worryingly, and you'll get the idea.

This is what it means for a hostel to have character.

*Sort of. Apparently some building in Dubai is actually taller now, but can't take the record until it's completed...

Retroblog 6 - Mostar

2007-08-20T06:16:00.001-07:00

During our stay in Sarajevo, we took a day trip to Mostar in Hercegovina (although, between sleeping in and planning our bus out there badly, our day trip ended up being about three hours there, and about six hours on a bus and a train).

The view from the bus.

The river in Mostar - and a few people swimming. I was very jealous.

Dramatic (although I'm not sure the picture captured it that well).

Mostar doesn't seem to have been quite as thoroughly repaired as Sarajevo.

But it does have its own signature graffito.

This is the second picture to come out well.

Another building showing signs of having seen better times.

A nice view of Mostar, and the Crooked Brigde (not to be confused with the Old Bridge).

"You brought me all the way here to see this?!"
The Old Bridge, which is apparently the highlight of Mostar...

The view from the Old Bridge.

Random heiroglyphs on the side of a building... go figure.

I wanted to climb this sooooo much...
(It was actually somewhat elevated above the ground, although I notice you can't see that here... just climbing a ladder wouldn't be that challenging.)

Two picture of the same digital clock is not a mistake...

It was 26 degree Celsius at half nine at night!

Back in Sarajevo - and more religiousness.

And still more.

This is another of those 'anyone know what this is?' pictures... Not sure how clearly you can see it through the bars, but if you click on it you can get a full-sized picture.

I think this is my favorite picture I've taken so far. I have only two words...
Manchester IV

Retroblog 5 - Sarajevo

2007-08-20T04:15:00.001-07:00

We left Belgrade on Wednesday (the 15th) to go to Sarajevo...

Obligatory random countryside picture taken from the bus... which we spent nine hours on.

Sarajevo - looking fairly picturesque.

Random quaintness.

The public water fountain - a wonderful invention in ridiculously hot climates.

There were a surprising number of mosques around the town...

The bustling metropolis.

These people were randomly giving away free water... we chose not to complain.

Imposing...

The public chess game in the square was an interesting spectacle...

Although more for the heckles of the crowd than the game itself.

More random religiousness...

The bridges here have seen some hard times...

This may (or may not) be the spot on which a guy called Archie Duke shot an Ostrich because he was hungry way back in 1914...

Apparently this used to be the library - although not for a while by the looks of it...

This particular graffito turned up all over the place. I dubbed it Greebo.

Our "hostel" room was actually the front room of an old lady's flat (she spoke no English, but she brought us blueberries, so we liked her). These two guys were staying in the room next to us.

And just for Beth, a tiny little furball who was skulking around outside our accommodation.

Retroblog 4 - Belgrade

2007-08-19T08:41:00.001-07:00

After our few days chilling out in Istanbul, Tiernan and I set off for Belgrade on the 12th...

My first inter-rail train...

Tiernan and our bags.

And we're off...

I think the guy with the drinks cart may have come to the wrong platform...

Just when you think you've left civilization behind - a sexy shop.

A playground! Damn, where are Connie and Chris when you need them?

Shiny.

We spent a lot of our first day hanging around in a very large public park in the middle of the old city.

Pretty flowers.

The sentinel.

About two of the hundreds of pictures that I've taken since I left have come out well - this is one of them...

Among the displays in the park was a large collection of old military hardware.

Amazingly, there is a tank in this picture. The camouflage is so good that you really have to look closely...

The inner part of the park was also a fortress in its time - although I think the tower may be a new addition.

Tiernan, probably standing in front of someone historic...

The Serbian parliament.

The park near our hostel.

A strange looking fountain.

I may or may not offer a prize of some description to anyone who can tell me what this is...

This chest of drawers just looked so Dr. Suess, I had to take a picture... they had a whole shop full of weird things like it, but they glared at us when we went in, so I thought it best not to take any pictures in there...

Retroblog 3 - Istanbul

2007-08-19T07:55:00.001-07:00

We had a couple of days to hang around Istanbul after Euros finished up...

Hot. I am a lucky guy... :)
On the way from the Grand Bazaar into town, Connie discovered what happens when you leave poorly wrapped chocolate in your bag in a hot climate. There was only one way to clean up...

About ten seconds after I took this picture, a Turkish shopkeeper took pity on her and brought out some baby wipes from his store.

Beth, with one of the dozens of mangy stray cats to which she took a shine at different times.

Connie and the cat - cute.

Will and the cat/fur scarf - disturbing.

Neill looks happy - this must be after we won the bid.

(Neill will be the Chief Adjudicator at next year's European Championships, and I'll be one of his deputies)

Tony, as the phantom of the opera. This picture actually worked surprisingly well...

Sunset.

The view from the bridge where we ate on our last night in Istanbul

And the bridge itself... not quite as classy...

Beth, Tobe and Con

We split into quite a few different groups going for lunch - obviously, this was the cool one...

The view after sunset, with the mosque lit up.

Retroblog 2 - Euros

2007-08-19T07:54:00.001-07:00

The European Universities Debating Championships ran from the 5th to the 11th of August. I didn't take many pictures during that week, since lots of other people had cameras around - but I did try to get some team pictures:

UCC Philosoph A: Derek and Derek

UCC Philosoph B: Paul and Conor

UCC Philosoph C: Myself and Ross

(UCC Law A refused to stand together for a picture on break night - they shall therefore be forgotten...)

UCC Law B: Danny P and Stephen - the happy picture...

...and the sad picture.

UCC Law C: Eamon and Mark

St Andrews A: Doug and Connie

The post-final show - the swirling dervish. This is a very bad quality picture, but we can take it that blurriness is part of the effect...

Retroblog 1 - Luton

2007-08-19T07:52:00.001-07:00

I don't feel too inclined to try to recreate all the details of the stuff I've already done, but I will be posting some of my photos with random comments...

The journey began in Luton airport, where we spent the night before an early morning flight to Turkey on the 4th - the crowd included myself, Tony, Connie, Jason, Jenni, Rachel, Beth, Ewan and Kirsty (think that's everyone).

Jason and Rachel getting in the mood...

Tobe in Connie's glasses and Rachel's hat. Hot.

The gang.

Jason, pretending to be asleep so he could here what we'd all try to do to him...

The Title

2007-08-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it will occur to some of you to wonder why I've called this blog "Dim Saves the World" when, in truth, he almost certainly does not. By way of explanation, I can only say that someone suggested it to me, and I thought it sounded very catchy...

Superman - non-existent, but still more likely to save the world than me...

It's been suggested to me since that what was said to me originally may have been "Dim Sees the World", which would certainly make more sense - but upon careful reflection, and in the interests of quirkiness, I decided to go with this name.

If the person who actually suggested the title to me (some time over Euros) would care to come forward and clarify the matter, I will be sure to post accordingly...

The Cast

2007-08-19T04:53:00.001-07:00

To continue with the background, a little information on me and my fellow travellers...

MeMy name is Diarmuid (known to all as Dim, out of pity for non-Irish people). I'm from Ireland (born in Galway, raised mostly in Waterford, and lived in Cork the last four years for college). I studied maths and physics in University College Cork, and finished my final exams a few months ago.

I decided to go traveling for a while partly because there's always the risk that if you don't go after you leave college, you may suddenly wake up forty years old, realising that you've missed your chance (although I've always had something of an interest in travelling, so I still hold out the hope of making it a lifelong habit) and partly because application forms for postgraduate education in any of the places I would have liked to go were so soul-crushingly lengthy that I genuinely was put off filling them out. Seems like an odd thing to plan my life around, but there you are.

Tiernan (appearing from the 12th to the 29th of August)
Tiernan was somewhat the last minute addition to my adventure. I had originally planned on travelling by myself from the end of the European Championships until meeting up with the others in Moscow, but then it turned out that Tiernan needed someone to travel with for pretty much the same time. As will become apparent, I am not very good at making my own plans - so a pre-planned three week journey taking in a handful of extra countries was too good to refuse.

Like myself and many of my fellow travellers, Tiernan is a student in University College Cork, going into his final year of law. He'll be making his way back to Cork and thence to college at the end of this month.

Shane (appearing from the 21st to the 27th of August)Shane (who, I discovered when I searched for pictures of him online, shares his name with a fat child minor celebrity) is the flash-in-the-pan appearance for the trip, at a mere week. I also know Shane from UCC (he's a med student). Apparently he's working in some manner of 'job' which is preventing him from travelling for any longer...

Connie (appearing from the 1st to the 22nd of September)
Connie (who, depending on the mood she's in when she reads this, may hurt me for my choice of picture) is my girlfriend, and has a bizarre fascination for Russia. A large part of the route my journey is taking (Russia, obviously, but also Mongolia and China) was at Connie's suggestion. I suspect that she would probably cut off her right arm to be staying in Russia with Tony and I and going on the Trans-Siberian, but final year of a Masters in Astrophysics (fun and games) beckons her back to St Andrews...

Laura (appearing from the 1st to the 22nd of September)
Laura looks small and cute, and certainly not like a singularly evil being - although images can be deceiving... Laura is also a student in St Andrews, but lives in New Jersey (which has made acquiring a Russian visa a lot of fun). She'll be heading off in late September to get out of Russia and back to college.

Tony (appearing from the 1st of September to the 9th of January)Tony is the person with whom I'll be doing most of my travelling. He was a UCC student for four years, starting the year before me. He's spent the last year in St Andrews studying for a Masters in International Relations (which he'll get, if he ever writes his damned thesis...), and living mostly in Connie's kitchen - I'm not sure if he cooked for himself at any point in the last twelve months.

We met (like the other UCC people appearing on my travels) through the Philosoph, a debating society in UCC. We've worked on committees together, debated together for UCC (with moderate success), and lived together for a few months. The question remains as to how well that will prepare us for three and a half months with only each other for company, including spending several unbroken days on the train going across Russia...

The Scene

2007-08-19T03:14:00.000-07:00

So, it seems appropriate to begin with a little background for whosoever may stumble upon this blog over the coming days, weeks, months, etc. So lets begin by setting the scene a little...

This blog is being created to keep a (very loose) public record of my travels over the next few months (it's also conceivable I'll keep using it after that, but let's not get ahead of ourselves). Between a lack of internet access that seems likely in a lot of places I go to and the fact that I'm keeping various other records (e-mails, letters, postcards and a journal), I'm not sure how often I'll actually end up posting, but we'll see.

Anyway, to come back to the aforementioned travels... These will take place roughly in three parts - the first being this month, which I'm spending inter-railing around Eastern Europe with Tiernan, the second being most of next month which I'm spending traveling around the Volga basin with Connie, Tony and Laura, and the last being about the three-and-a-half months after that when I'll be traveling across Russia, down through Mongolia and China, and around South East Asia with Tony.

The adventure, admittedly as much by coincidence as by design, is being bookended by two debating tournaments - the European Championships in Turkey in August at the start and the World Championships in Thailand over the new year at the end. I won't actually be competing in either of them, but since there's likely to be swarms of people I know at each of them they seemed like natural stops to add.

This is a rough map of my route:

A shinier interactive version should be accessible here: Travel Map.
There's also some more details on travel dates (which I'll make a vague effort to keep up to date as our plans change) in that map - just click on any of the blue markers to get information on when I'll be there.