The Wild West Part VI -- Road Trip

Navigating by GPS is great, but realistically you have no real idea of the big picture. I could plot a course to the Million Dollar Bar in downtown Jackson just fine with my GPS, but I could not plot a 4 day road trip across the prairie to Chicago that would take in the places where we wanted to stop off and visit along the way without that old style thing... the map. I love maps, I really do. I love to see where I am and where other interesting places are that I have never visited. I also like to see where I have visited in the past as that brings back some very happy memories so have bought some big area maps for home and have started to push little pins into them marking where we have been! I know, pretty anal. Whatever. So I bought some road maps and along with Google Maps started plotting our way back to Chicago. Total distance approximately 1500 miles with stops and side tracks along the way; 4 days and 3 nights; how long in each side visit....

See. People still do do back of the envelope!

It took us to some fun places too. The further east we drove, the more cars, people and towns we encountered. The stretch across Minnesota was fairly busy. It could have been the 4th July driving weekend I suppose but that bit wasn't as enjoyable as the earlier bits. For accommodation I chose wherever I could to stay at places on the Missouri River, trying to keep a Lewis and Clarke theme if I could. It didn't work after the Little Big Horn excursion as that area is almost totally devoid of towns, the nearest being a tiny town called Hardin where things closed down at 8.30 pm which came as something of a shock when we were looking for dinner. It turned out just fine in the end though but it did make us consider that we should probably look to do things earlier in the evening for the next couple of days.



We chose Wisconsin Dells because of its proximity to Chicago (less than 3 hours on our final day) and because we wanted to try some cheese! However if you want to know what we enjoyed the most on our road trip, in no particular order they are:

The Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. Viv bought a can when we came back to Penang!

The sight of Viv cleaning dead bugs off the windscreen and the amount of hand soap used afterwards

The really beautiful locations

The huge country... and of course the hat.

The ever changing roads

Most of all the company

The Wild West Part V -- Custer's Last Stand

I have tracked this part fairly relentlessly with the Track My Tour app which you can follow here if you like.... Whoops. I quickly took a look at that blog and realized I missed out a whole chunk that I thought I'd mentioned which was our visit to the Little Big Horn Battlefield. Lots of bits about the prairie (which admittedly is very, very big) but nothing about that. My bad.

The location is SE Montana and nearly 7 hours drive from Jackson so we had a great drive mainly through prairies and small towns like Cody, named after Buffalo Bill which is your ultimate one horse town. Really enjoyable. I think we went through two iPlayer stories and maybe a podcast or so. This did mean that we got there late, around 4 pm, but as it is just about the lightest time of the year and pretty far north, it wouldn't get dark until well past 10 pm. It was also a beautiful clear evening.

The visitor place is interesting and gave a nice background. We sat through the video but more interestingly a native Indian ranger's talk on the events with her perspective. Both sides in fact.

I didn't know what to expect really but as we'd driven 7 hours across prairie without seeing too many people, I had started to get an idea what it may have been like 150 years ago... no roads, no towns, just prairie. No telephone or radios, just wireless but without the wires which helped not at all. So with no communications means, hindsight would say that the objective of the punitive expedition was almost certainly doomed to failure. Obviously, the actual events were unexpected but ...

1851 Treaty of Laramie that set the Sioux lands

The lands set aside for the Indians (Sioux, but this is a collective for a number of smaller tribes as well) was massive and realistically there were not very many of them in total, so a huge parcel of land. On one side, the Indians did not like being encumbered in any way and on the other settlers kept encroaching from the east. Most notably when gold was discovered in Deadwood (modern day South Dakota) which is in the Black Hills, a sacred place for the Indians. So both together made for a fraught time and it was realistically the continual and increasing encroachment which pushed things over the edge.

So many books have been written about the subject by so many different people with different perspectives that I won't add my two pennyworth, but here is Wikipedia's take on things. From what I saw and heard and subsequently read, it does seem to have been a series of errors, misunderstandings and simple cock ups combined with a lot of bad luck, rather like the Battle of Isandlwana in the South African Zulu wars and with a very similar aftermath: ultimate destruction for the victors.

The land area firstly is huge and the numbers of participants on either side were relatively few. In total some 8,000 Indians and on the US Army side, no more than 5,000 soldiers and cavalry split into two columns. The intent was to approach the Indians from two sides and deal with them that way. In practice, as soon as they split up there was no chance of subsequent coordination of any attack. Each column would have to deal with things as they came up all alone. The main body of soldiers didn't show up until 2-3 days later by which time it was all far too late and the Indians had long gone.

The tree line in the distance is the river where all the Indian tribes were encamped. Skirmishers went down from this vantage and were rapidly chased back. Surprise that had been total was now irredeemably lost.

The ridge line along which the battle was fought

Rolling ground with many gullies where Indian braves could hide and ridges from which they could shoot

History has portrayed Custer as many things ranging from doomed super hero to brainless buffoon but he was a long time serving soldier who had reached General rank in the civil war and was intent on carrying out his orders; so probably somewhere in between. It was the combination of no intelligence (as in news of what was going on), massive distances and lack of determination by support troop commanders combined with his own over eagerness and pure bad luck running into the entire Indian population on the banks of the Little Big Horn river that did it. By the time he and his men had advanced into what turned out to be the main battlefield area, it was too late to retire. Particularly after they killed their horses to provide cover.

Last stand hill

I remember history classes from my early school days, in the early 1960's, when people could remember the empire. Teachers would say that the British never lost the final battle even though they lost many along the way. Same goes for here. Even though this battle realistically was nothing more than a minor skirmish, in terms of significance it was massive. Just as at Isandlwana, news of the disaster awoke an anger and determination to finish the war and smash the Indians totally. As the president at the time was Grant, the Civil War generalissimo, there was no way that this would turn out other than badly for the Indians and so it proved.

However what cannot be gainsaid is that all those that participated in the battle were doing it for what they deemed right reasons and for the most part fought and died bravely. This memorial I think does remember that very well indeed.

In writing this, just thinking that whenever history books are written, what people remember most are the times when things go wrong. Like here. The Battle of the Little Big Horn is one of the main high points in the history of the Wild West, at least as taught to British school children like me at the time. I cannot remember a single subsequent battle that took place that went the other way. Same as in the South African conflict that I mentioned earlier. Everyone remembers Isandlwana as a total fiasco and annihilation of a British army at the hands of the Zulus and the ensuing encounter at Rorke's Drift which in reality had zero effect on the war but was an amazingly fortunate encounter that caught the public eye. Nobody remembers the rest of the war, the battles nor even the treaty that ended it. Just the fiasco. Curious that.

The Wild West Part II -- Jackson

The town is called Jackson NOT Jackson Hole. Jackson Hole is the entire valley in which Jackson is situated at the southern end, with Yellowstone National Park in the north. The Hole was in fact first 'discovered' by western fur trappers, actually one Mr. Jackson after which ... you get the idea.

The 'Hole'

When you look back at history from say a couple of hundred years perspective and get past the old history book notion that history was just a series of unconnected dates, you do realize that they are not and it all goes back to Napoleon.

Why does that guy keep sticking his nose in everywhere? Years ago I was reading a PG Wodehouse book where a not very deep conversation between a couple of airhead drones touched on old Boney whereupon one of the savants came up with the glorious comment... "whatever did that poor fish do other than getting hammered at Waterloo?" Quite a bit actually including this. Tangentially this time though.

So... the French Revolution in 1789 brought forth many changes, one of which was almost endless war with practically everyone in Europe until said occasion in 1815. Wars are expensive so by the time Boney took over and completed his looting of the countries nearest to him, Switzerland and Italy, he realized that the loot so acquired was nowhere near enough so he cast around looking for any other family silver that wasn't cutting it whereupon one of his aides named Junot came in with yet another horrendous report from Haiti. The revolution there was going really well but for the wrong people; the freed slaves. They had been fighting against the revolutionary government in France who was acting in a very non revolutionary manner ever since the Revolution began. Despite Junot's genocidal tactics, whenever the French looked the other way, something bad happened that usually included French soldiers getting massacred in hideous ways. In short it was a total mess. Now Boney, had a strategic desire to create a major port in New Orleans and use Haiti as a stepping stone to upseat the British in all their Caribbean locations but that required time, effort, money and resources .... none of which Boney had to hand. Just this bloody European war. But the American colonists were friends of theirs, weren't they? And that feller Franklin something was ambassador. He was always droning on about this or that. But it did offer a neat way out. Sell him (well the Americans) the huge Louisiana territory and raise some cash which Boney really did need and could put to use at once. That other strategic thing was a nice thought but really he had to take care of business at home first. And of course, you never go broke by taking the money.

So Boney got the money and the Americans a huge new territory about as big again as what they had already. How they financed it is another fascinating story! The Americans certainly didn't have that kind of ready money. But it was done. And now they also had a huge new tract of land to explore and do something with. I mean they bought it, right? So it must be theirs irrespective of who was actually there right now. Read about the full story here from Wikipedia.

You got a lot for your money back then. 3 cents per acre.

This all took place in 1803 and towards the end of that year, the then US President Thomas Jefferson hosted a couple of roughnecks who had a mad cap idea to head out in canoes and explore the new territory starting in St Louis and then heading north or wherever the Missouri River led to in the end. Presumably the western ocean somewhere. Their names were Lewis and Clarke.

Their story is one of the great pioneering stories and is all the better known by virtue of the fact that they kept sending back reports to GHQ. This must have kept reducing the number in their party over time and it was on just one of these side trips one of the guys (John Colter) took in 1804 was with this just in mind. However he took a wrong turning by mistake (this is all river bound and rivers do look pretty much alike I think, certainly then) and tripped over and into Yellowstone Park, kept on going south and well as they say the rest is history.

You can see how a wrong turn back then would get you to a whole new place

The history books report all of this with such veneration that it almost behooves me to not do that as I can just imagine Lewis & Clarke rushing back to the president gushing with the news that this new area is millions and millions of square miles of virgin land with forests, lakes and rivers and such just waiting for new settlers from the east and elsewhere. To which I presume TJ saying something along the lines of what did you think would be there, if not that? But I am sure he didn't. He congratulated them and gave them comfy sinecures somewhere miles away from both the new lands and also TJ himself in Washington, so there was no chance of them bumping into him and asking how the settlement program was coming along. He would have filed it all away for future generations to figure out just what on earth they do with this enormous new land they had acquired as there were no new settlers to spare from back east just then.

Settlement didn't start until the 1820's but only sporadically as the entire valley was snow bound for seven months a year which wasn't very encouraging with the technologies then available. Think Grizzly Adams and the Revenant movies. Then make it a lot worse. However this also meant that for large parts of the year, there were no Indian tribes around either. In fact across the plains, there were few permanent Indian settlements courtesy of both terrain/weather but also the migratory patterns of the critters that they preyed upon. Given the size of the country and the few numbers of mainly itinerant people around, I find it amazing that anyone could find anybody else. So for many years, there was relative peace. Into the 1850's anyway.

We visited the Little Big Horn Battlefield Monument -- its actually about 7 hours drive away in south eastern Montana -- and in the visitor centre there is a picture of the agreement of 1851 which set aside vast tracts of land for the Indian tribes. The land size was virtually all of South and North Dakota and more than one-third each of Montana and Wyoming. Given that at one of the peak gatherings of several tribes on the eve of the battle itself encompassed some 6 tribes and 8,000 people, this seems to me like a tiny number of people with a huge amount of land.

It was that battle and the events that followed it that spurred greater settlement in the Jackson region but what took Jackson to all new heights was Theodore Roosevelt and the sheriff of  Deadwood, Seth Bullock. They were big friends and TR stayed with the sheriff when he was out west and just loved to roam around Yellowstone to the point that the pair of them decided rather informally that the scenery and location was of such grandeur that it should be protected in virgin state forever. This was before development so the perfect time to do this, and of course miles and miles and miles away from any other development like say Chicago. And no trains. And no roads. So they got together a state wide agreement to set aside the land and then jointly took it to Washington for federal approval. This took place in 1872 and so Yellowstone became the first national park in the US.

Soon after, train tracks were built and tourists started arriving and where should they find to stay but that charming little western town of Jackson.

The Grand Tetons

150 years later it is still small but still charming and has expanded its ambitions to encompass the Grand Teton National Park in 1929 (huge mountain range) and discovered that for some insane reason, otherwise perfectly rational people had this massive desire to launch themselves off the top of mountains down impossible slopes in winter, by tying sticks to their feet, and in summer, by bike. Same paths, I kid you not.

There are roads now and also traffic jams...

... but not everywhere

Oh yes, and those economists also like it.

The Wild West Part I

Now I cannot remember whether this is Part 1 or whatever for this title but as it chronicles our visit to Wyoming and car trip back to Chicago across the prairies, that's what I will call it. More parts to follow.

I don't know if I've mentioned before in this blog that Viv and I have the notion to visit every one of the 50 states in the USA, so we do and this trip ticked off a lot of new ones for us. But of course that isn't the reason for wanting to do this trip, it's that Viv and I enjoy road trips and the US is so big and so diverse that it makes it really interesting, fun and easy to do. This time... and it really never occurred to me before in this way ... I really do see why the Americans love their driving, their big cars (bikes and trucks too) and not that infrequently do not feel the need to get a passport as their country is both big enough and accessible enough for anyone.

We were in Toronto after our Bermuda trip and whilst not exactly wondering what to do with ourselves, had a couple of notions of things to do whilst we were in North America. My first thought was to circumnavigate the Great Lakes. Lake Ontario is one of them so the start and end point wasn't too far away and as the lakes spread out across the continent, they take in a mass of both US states and Canadian provinces.

The Great Lakes

Then we remembered we'd have to hire a car and cross the international border at least a couple of times, if not more. And we've heard about the increased delays with all the Homeland Security stuff so thought it may be simpler to just stay in one country which meant looking for a flight west somewhere and then onwards. So Plan B (again mine) was to hire a car in Chicago and then drive out to the Rockies... and back. In a week or so. Viv said isn't that quite a distance so I looked on Google Maps and discovered that yes indeed it was a long way. About 3,000 miles there and back actually.

So onto Plan C.

Viv suggested flying out to the Rockies and then hiring a car and drive back. Now this was a better idea and of course the driving distance back would be just about half of Plan B, so much more manageable. And we'd get to spend some time way out west too instead of just driving there and turning right around.

Next question was where? Then I remembered about Jackson Hole which is in Wyoming.

Being a nerd, all I knew about Jackson Hole was that it was the home of the annual Fed jamboree, sort of like a Davos but in the USA. It takes place in August each year. This is what the Kansas City Fed website (the sponsors) say about it:

'The Jackson Hole Economic Symposium is an annual symposium, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City since 1978, and held in Jackson Hole, Wyo., since 1981. Every year, the symposium focuses on an important economic issue that faces world economies. Participants include prominent central bankers and finance ministers, as well as academic luminaries and leading financial market players from around the world.'

Pull the other one, I say. What a load of nonsense. They could do this symposium in Cleveland or Dodge City even if they wanted to stay in Kansas, but by chance selected the most picturesque little town on the edge of the Rockies with plush resorts and 5 star dining everywhere you looked. Does the 7,000 feet high mountain air really clear the boffins' minds or is this just a total bean feast? Yeah, right.

... which of course was great for us as (a) the great and the good would not be there and (b) it sounds like a really spectacular place.

It was.

Booking flights, car, accommodation and tours was of course a breeze but before we left we went for dinner to a friend's house in Toronto and he told us that Jackson Hole was THE Mecca for skiing in North America. We didn't know this but then again he and his family are big skiers so they do know even though they've never visited. He backtracked later that same evening and said that Jackson Hole was A Mecca, rather then THE but still its reputation was pretty darned good.

So much to look forward to then. One thing that was a pain was the flight leaving Toronto to make the connection to Jackson Hole. It was at 6.30 am which meant a ridiculously early start. Why couldn't those important people complain about the ungodly hours? Oh yes, forgot. They use their private jets.

Cool airport!

Bermuda retrospective

Six weeks or thereabouts in Bermuda has gone like a flash. Well not to start with of course. Things never go that way but by about half way things had picked up to the extent that we added an extra two weeks onto our expected stay. Happily it was to see our children who on their own without prompting by us visited Bermuda.

Highlights of course were being with the children but in addition it was all about reminiscing. Would things be like they used? Would there be changes that exponentially change the place? Have things actually moved on, ahead or simply further along? What change to the political environment which when we first left on our travels had just seen an election with a change in government?

So in no particular order, this is what struck me.

1. Bermudaful but...

Well this one is easy. We all knew this but it still gets me that the place is so stunningly beautiful it couldn't really have been manufactured. It has happened thankfully in the typical laid back, somewhat shambolic manner in which Bermuda typically operates. Sounds pretty bad when written like that but for as long as I remember (and that is quite a long way back), there really hasn't been a plan in Bermuda. From an economist's point of view, this isn't ideal but for people living there really it has been a dream. Things meander along for the most part peacefully. People get along more or less and the environment is staggeringly beautiful.

Flatts Inlet

However behind the scenes, maybe under the surface even though it isn't really. Pretty much everything is known within seconds of it happening... often before. In a small place, this is pretty typical as everyone knows everyone else. Viv tells the story of how she was walking along Queen Street in Hamilton when she ran into a couple of old ladies struggling to open a door to a building. She proffered help and was met with "do I know you?" Viv didn't but sort of recognized a family resemblance to a friend so mentioned this and of course it turned out that these two ladies were her aunties and as Viv looks rather like her friend, so the ladies did a momentary double take too. These ladies as it turned out wanted to visit a betting shop but finding it closed decided on a Plan B that included KFC just down the street. Viv said it took an hour to walk the less than 200 yards down the road as these ladies stopped to chat to every other person that happened to walk by. When you are Bermudian and reach a certain age, you know every other person as either a relation, friend or child of a friend. I imagine this is typical in other places with a 60,000 population like Bermuda, but it is also something that makes the island what it is.

A couple of years ago, one of the three Bermuda banks did an IPO (one being sold to HSBC many years earlier and the other involved in transfer of ownership to a private equity firm) meaning that no longer would any Bermuda bank be Bermuda owned. This is important for as a previous CEO of the Bank of Bermuda (sold to HSBC) once famously said to a management meeting "the decisions we take here may not always be in the best interests of the bank... but they will be in the best interests of Bermuda". This has changed with profit motive taking over. Disturbing, for the banks were typically very large employers of Bermudians and just before we arrived in mid-May, this bank laid off 40 staff in one swathe. Most being long time employees. Couched as being an exercise in encouraging early retirement, the reality is simple cost cutting. Something US listed companies do all the time courtesy of their need to report ever improving quarterly financial results. The simplest thing of all to do is lay off staff. I fear that this is not an isolated event but do hope otherwise.

2. Sports

It is that time of the year when the northern hemisphere moves into summer and with that outdoor summer sports. And my goodness there are plenty of them.  Overseas were the US Open (golf), French Open (tennis), World Cup (cricket) and others. I have been riveted to these although I prefer to play rather than watch. Most of all it was tennis at Pomander Gate but increasingly it has become pickle ball too.

Southampton Princess golf course

Tennis at Pomander Gate

So what is pickle ball? It is a construct that appears to me to simply enable older ex-tennis players to play a similar kind of racquet and ball game. The court has the dimensions of a badminton court (without the tramlines) and the net is much lower than on a tennis court. You play with what sounds like a wooden paddle and a large, yellow plastic ball with holes in it. Simple rules that you can grasp on the first try. Simple to learn too as the mechanics of everything are something like table tennis but on a larger scale. Both racquet and ball are light so available for all ages.

Pickle ball at Pomander Gate

The growth has been startling to me. This time last year, the club had two nets that it simply lifted onto a tennis court. One on either side of the net. It was a busy day when 6 people turned up to play and those that were were usually organized by the same two people who had first come across it in Florida where it is very popular. This year, the club has taken over the centre court and whilst leaving the net in place has repainted the remainder of the court so as to create 4 permanent courts, 2 on either side of the net. These days it is typical to have 16+ people come to play... and they play Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings. And Sunday mornings too. It has attracted so many people from outside the club that it created a new pickle ball membership which has proved to be very popular. Far less so with the tennis players who sadly for the club actually don't play that much. Certainly when pickle ball is taking place, it is rare that the tennis courts are in use.

Most interesting to me is the dynamic. This time last year, comparatively speaking nobody played the game. Today there are 40 people that regularly play with more turning up to try it all the time. Quite a few have given up on tennis to concentrate on pickle ball and have become very good players. So much so that there is already the growing question of people not wanting to play with others that aren't up to their standard. Last year, it was great just to play. Now things have moved on very quickly as people's competitive natures kick in.  The first tournament was last week. I took part, lost more than I won but along the way hammered the winner and lost quite comfortably to one of the perceived weaker players. Personally I am just happy to play. I am looking forward to seeing how it pans out.

3. F&B

Being visitors, we spent a lot of time eating, drinking and being entertained. Both in people's homes and out and whilst my waistline expanded at a greater rate than my steely will evaporated, boy are things expensive. Noticeably so since last year.  For sure, we spend a lot of time during the course of the year in Penang, which is a lower cost environment, but really. On our first visit to a supermarket, we saw a cauliflower priced at $11.99. It has always been the way that local produce was expensive, but it didn't feel like this. On the other hand booze and beef in supermarkets aren't that expensive but put them into a restaurant and vroom! Apparently restaurants mark up wine a minimum 4 times these days so good luck with finding a $50 bottle of wine at a restaurant.

This said I did go through my list of favorite things to eat in Bermuda. Pretty much.

 i) Multi-grain roll with tuna fish and chopped egg, lettuce and tomato, butter on the bread and those cute little yellow peppers that go pop in the mouth. 

Only from my friend Paul at Hickory Stick on Bermudiana Road in Clarendon House. I used to eat this sandwich probably three times a week when I was working just down the road. On the other days it would be Paul's fish cakes on Tuesdays and on the other day I'd go somewhere else. I know... traitor. Creature of habit...me? No way.

 ii) Beef patty

Quite a few places do patties but I found one of the nicest to be from Supermart on Front Street. Find them in the hot shelf near the whole chickens. One is not enough, two is too many. These are great hand held foods for maybe a morning after. On such days, an apple doesn't quite cut it.

 iii) Club sandwich with coleslaw

OK, with French fries!

Loads of places, some up market, do perfectly adequate club sandwiches but my favorite is at The Spot on Burnaby Hill. It may not be the best but I like it. You eat at the counter and get to drink their famous coffee which they generously refill whenever you want.

 iv) Bermuda fish sandwich. Layered pieces of fish, lettuce and tomato, butter on the white toasted bread, ketchup, tartar sauce and lots of hot sauce on top.

Mahi Mahi 

Many places do fish sandwiches, most aren't that good. The best tend to be in the least attractive looking places. Viv went to Woody's in Somerset and raved about it. I went on a search for a fish sandwich on a public holiday and found none of the best places open so had to settle for a very poor second best. However I was recommended to the Seaside Grill on North Shore next to the Clay House as the fish was purported to be really fresh. We went twice, the first being mahi mahi, the second and best time being when I had red hind. Boy, was that good.

 v) Liver and onions, maybe with bacon but always lots of gravy

I really like liver from several places but finally settled on the Red Carpet on Reid Street which serves it with mashed potatoes, veggies and lashings of gravy. The maitre d' Chris asked me how I'd like it done... cooked of course. You don't have liver medium rare. It is the gravy that makes it for me and this was pretty terrific.

 vi) Auntie Blanche's cherry and walnut cake

This is almost undescribable as it is so sublime. Traditional Bermuda cakes are rum cakes, Christmas cakes laced with rum, mince pies and somewhere along the line fruit cakes the king of which is the cherry and walnut cake. Our old neighbors Blanche and Brenda were great bakers and fine exponents. Blanche in particular did wonderful cherry and walnut cake. She once told me that her secret was the gin she soaked the fruit in. Others are much dryer but Blanche's are moist and simply lovely. She only made these cakes at Christmas time as she would soak fruit in their respective booze for a month or two before and make them a couple of weeks or so before the big day. More latterly she would make cakes ostensibly for me as I am a fanatic about them. As she has become older, these occasions have grown fewer but a week or so ago, she made me a beautiful cake. Simply lovely. Thanks Auntie Blanche!

4. Transport

For such a small island, getting around Bermuda is really key to enjoying it properly and fortunately we had a car at our disposal for much of the time we were there. Thanks Dave and Jeremy! However I had a fantastic time on the local public transport as with the passage of time, I turned 65 and on renewing my driving license, the fine people at TCD also awarded me a Bermuda Senior's ID card. Nice photo too! Amongst other wonderful things, this little card enables me to enjoy free travel on buses and ferries!!! Beat that! So I did at every opportunity and found the number 1 and 3 buses are pretty darned good.

We went for quite a few walks on the Railway Trail which I really do enjoy. I am impatient by nature and do wish they'd rebuild the trail more fully than it was before/is right now. Progress is great but to me painfully slow. Looks like volunteers only at the moment. I wish it were a higher priority.

5. Beaches...

I was really trying not to do beaches again this year but really couldn't avoid it. Truly they are lovely. This year however there were a number of storms out to sea and these storms brought in mounds of brown sargassum weed which is piled high on most beachfronts from Horseshoe Bay to Coopers Island. Still the best I've ever seen.

***

Looking forward to returning again soon.

Road Trip in SE Asia Part 1

This is a very densely populated part of the world but one where many people are continuously on the move which is being enabled by a vast improvement in infrastructure, mainly roads. This means that driving say from Penang to Hat Yai in Thailand to play tennis for a few days isn't a massive task. Rather one where you just start up at 8.30 am and reach your destination around tea time.

Doesn't look far on the map as I have noted our start/end points.

Sounds like a long while but if you count an hour or more for lunch, a lengthy stop at the duty free shop on the border to pick up your duty free wine (or other spirit of your choice), some interesting getting into and out of the bus at the various immigration points and a number of pit stops to care for the personal needs of many of we oldies on the bus, then it boils down to not very long at all.

I was chatting with someone who didn't come on this brief weekend sojourn only today who told me that Hat Yai is the place where people go every 3 months to get their passports chopped (aka stamped). Why would this be, I asked? They issue 3 month tourist visas and some people who live here in Malaysia from as innocent as a spouse of a Malay who never bothered to get a visa in their own right to illegal workers (and they do exist, coming in from Myanmar and Indonesia primarily or so I am told) head there and get restamped.

It is quite a palaver actually. On the way out isn't an issue from the Malay perspective but it is on the Thai side. The organizer told me that Thailand is the only country in the world to charge you when you go through Immigration for the privilege of getting a stamp. However this isn't certain as there are signs everywhere saying "no charge for passing through Immigration... during regular hours." Apparently they justify the charge by saying it is for "overtime".

We didn't pay anything or at least don't think we did and as we chose to go out on a Friday and back on a Monday, the crowds weren't too bad. So the delay wasn't that onerous.

Coming back though was the reverse. The Thai authorities ushered us through in no time but the Malay side was a bit of a pain. Nor from the immigration perspective but from customs. Being a muslim country, Malaysia is pathologically concerned with alcohol and making sure that nobody ... and I do mean nobody... has more than 1 liter of the stuff per person.

I don't know what else they are looking for as they took great pains to examine our bags for booze and stopped a couple from our party who had in addition to their allowance the remnants of a bottle of wine with no more than 2 inches left at the bottom of the bottle and hassled them. This after they had 'cleared' things with the supervisor at the outset.

Some more serious things they look out for at the border: human trafficking and ivory

However the real reason for going to Hat Yai was to stay at a sports resort just out of town where there were 4 indoor tennis courts. Very good they were too and apparently very useful as it rains an awful lot in Thailand (and for that matter Malaysia too). The entire thing was a nice idea having in addition to tennis courts, 5 badminton courts, a big gym and a Muay Thai complex as that sport (Thai kick boxing) is hugely popular.

The town itself is meant to be the largest in southern Thailand with over 200,000 inhabitants. It is located in Songkhla Province more of which later. Only further south is the separatist insurgency! Thankfully. We saw no sight of it but there were certainly tons of police and armed forces lurking around all the time.

Tuk Tuk is the best way to get around

The big reason to come here other than as noted in the guide book is food and shopping. One big shopping mall takes care of the latter but the food is everywhere. You simply cannot avoid eating and being with a bunch of Malays from Penang meant that nobody wanted to. You can scratch the surface of even the grumpiest Penangite by asking where his/her favorite chicken rice stall is and that lets loose a fountain of information (always different from someone else) and you have broken the ice. Voila!!



We had some great food, so much so that I have resurrected my other blog "Grey Nomad Eats" -- you can find it here -- to wax lyrical in the way it should be done.  But my goodness the food was simply fabulous. It is great in Penang and so it is in Hat Yai too.

Unfortunately we stayed at the Lee Gardens Hotel right in the middle of town for one night and it was totally and utterly a dump. I was OK with it for one night but the following day we got stories from every member of the party regarding their experiences. I know that we slept with our bags on the bed with us!

The Western Saloon was pretty good fun... and had the band

Nightlife was fun though. And it was a pleasant surprise that there was no reluctance to serve booze of all sorts. We even found good cocktails as well as craft beer.. and of course a bar that had a house band playing classic rock. Guitarist was very decent too.

Cocktails at Homeless, also a restaurant 

One thing though is the language barrier. One on one, it is OK as most Thais I think know some English but street signs, shop fronts, etc. are simply impossible as they are mostly in Thai script without translation. Google Maps was very helpful.

Sometimes even Google gets confused

Highlight for me was lunch on the 3rd day when we went on a longish drive after leaving the tennis resort and before checking into the Lee Gardens in Hat Yai. The last little while was next to a large body of water on the way to Songkhla proper (we never made it to the town just stopped at the restaurant to eat).

View from the restaurant of the fish farms and the water

Did I say the food was great?

All sea food from the waters next to the restaurant

And here is the itinerary in full. Thanks Track My Tour creator Chris! You can find the full story here.