Yes readers, that's right. I've just got back from Mongolia.
In late Jan, work decided that there is simply no limit as to how far they'll send me to check out the books of mining companies and with that mindset, decided they weren't satisfied with sending me to the middle of the West Australia desert and promptly decided that Mongolia would be next on my list of exotic locations.
Left Perth on Jan 29th and flew overnight via Singapore and Beijing to Ulaanbaatar (UB), the capital of Mongolia. At this point, i'm going to remind you that it's January, which means middle of winter in Mongolia. For those whose geography is lacking, Mongolia is located near Russia, China and Siberia. Ulaanbaatar is the world's coldest capital city and has a population of about 1.5m people. Suffice to say, the 40+ degree temperatures i'd had the weekend before flying out were vastly different to the -20ish it was when I got off the plane.
After donning every item in my suitcase in an attempt to beat the cold, we were taken by our driver, Jiggi, to our hotel and then to the office. The next few days passed without too much impact with our morning walk to the office undertaken at around -25 degrees, work being done for most of the day, then out to dinner and home again. Food was surprisingly normal but then again, we probably went to THE most western restaurants in all of Mongolia.
Saturday we worked briefly in the morning before being taken out to the Gobi Cashmere factory, the local shopping centre, visited the museum of natural history, then out for a traditional Mongolian performance. Let me tell you something, the Mongolian contortionists are friggin awesome. I had five girls, folded over backwards on themselves with their heads between their legs (poking through from the back of the leg through to the front) holding themselves up on their hands and smiling at the crowd. At this point, my jaw had detached and left a hole in the floor where it hit. Good lord...
Sunday we again got taken around by our translator Zolo and driver Jiggi to a traditional Mongolian temple, went out to a hotel where you can stay in traditional style Gers (Nomadic huts), did some archery (it was freezing by the way), then took a quick trip up to a lookout to get a view over UB. One more day of work came on Monday then we flew out Tuesday, overnight flights again back the way we came.
And so ends another chapter. Pics are up at photobucket site http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e348/davewylde/Mongolia/
Where to next?
Ok,
There's a fair bit to say about my journey post Majorca so bear with me cause this is going to be long. I'll try and cut out a lot of unnecessary detail but there is a bit to cover. Upon returning to Austria, I set up camp at Siegfried's place for a day or two to help him celebrate his birthday. He and I then ventured into Northern Austria for some hiking in the mountains. This also involved a visit to an ice cave, which I must say is rather interesting. Instead of the formations being made of rocks, they are all made of ice. Very pretty but it's rather cold in them.
After a couple of days on the road hiking around the Alps, I returned to Vienna where I said my final auf wiedersehen to Siegfriend and his friends and headed to Berlin, via Stuttgart airport. I flew an airline called "FlyDBA" and without a word of a lie, the inflight magazine is Playboy. Yep, people just took these as they entered the plane without batting an eyelid. I indulged also purely to see if it's the same "quality" magazine as it is in Australia. Indeed is it.
My next two days were in Berlin where I took in all the sights I could, including a walk along 1.3kms of the original Berlin Wall, a stop at the infamous Checkpoint Charlie, a walk through the Topographie of Terrors, sighting Brandenburg Gate and visits to both Berliner Dom and the Reichstag. From Berlin, I headed to Hamburg by high speed train where I met up with a colleague Karen and his significant other. Karen showed me all around Hamburg, including its Reeperbahn/St Pauli which is the notorious "sex industry" area. I've never seen anything like it and words I type here really can't convey how open they are about prostitution. I had two days in Hamburg and toured around the city and its port, churches and markets. If you're looking for a cheap, very new, funky hotel, stay at the YoHo. Specifically for younger people, it's very affordable.
After Hamburg, I trained back to Berlin then continued on for a flight to Stuttgart. Back to Le Meridien for one final time. I had two nights remaining. I hired a car the next day, much to my disappointment, instead of a BMW 1 series, they gave me a renault convertible. I was looking forward to spending my last two days in Germany blasting around their autobahns in a German car but never mind. I headed south towards Austria and Schloss Neuschwanstein, the pinnicle of fantasy castles and the inspiration behind Walt Disney's castle. Weather was pretty ordinary but I got there relatively early after speeding down the autobahn at speeds my family would rather not know about. King Ludwig II, the mad hatter behind this castle was truly a flamboyant character and his castles are amazing. I completed my tour and headed for Konstance.
To get to Konstance from Neuschwanstein, I had to leave Germany, drive into Austria, leave Austria, drive into Switzerland before returning to Germany again. Konstance is a little lakeside town set upon lake Konstance and is really a very beautiful part of Germany. I had dinner here down by the lake, taking in a fine seafood meal. I then set upon the autobahn for my return to Stuttgart where I proceeded to exceed the theoretical top speed of a renault meagane officially noted as 200km/h by hitting 222km/h flat out in 6th gear. All perfectly legal but that was the last time I'd try that again. Overnight in the Meridien would be my last and I packed up and said my final goodbyes to the staff that had looked after me so well over the last 6 months.
For my final day in Germany, it was pouring with rain. I had earlier had my heart set on getting up to the Nurburgring but bad weather and an impending flight that night kept me closer to Stuttgart. Instead I headed for Heidelberg where I walked around the old town, both the new and old university's, visited the old bridge and went up to see what was left of the Schloss (or castle) which was accessed by funicular. Given my progress to Heidelberg had been slow due to bad weather, I grabbed a meal and then headed back to Stuttgart for the last time mid afternoon. I returned the car to the airport and checked in for my flght home.
And so ended my 6 months in Germany and Europe. Stay tuned for more travel adventures to come.
Hi
Today I finished a week in Majorca with Siegfried and 4 of his friends. The entire week was spent in this order: Party all night, sleep all morning, beach what's left of the day. Fantastic. We did have one day where we hired a car and toured the island and another where we headed in Palma de Mallorca for some shopping and tourist activities but otherwise, party, sleep beach x 7 days.
My holiday travels now take me into Austria for a bit of hiking around the Alps, then it's off to Berlin for a couple of days, Hamburg for a couple of days then finally Stuttgart for a couple of days before heading home to arrive August 10th.
This therefore will be my last entry probably and so ends my adventures. Maybe i'll do one final instalment once i'm home but we'll see.
Until then!
Auf Wiedersehen
Dave
G'day
Well, I've now officially rolled off the project and have just spent the last 4 days with Mum. We left Stuttgart early Saturday morning and flew to Barcelona. There we got onto one of those hop on, hop off tourist buses and headed around Barca. Our first stop was Park Guell where we looked out over Barca. We then headed out in the direction of the site of the 1992 Olympic Games on Mont Juic.
We next took the funicular down to Las Ramblas and walked around there and through the Gothic Quarter back to our hotel for a regroup and to check in seeing as we were too early to check in earlier. After, we took the underground out to the Church of the Sacred Family. By this time it was getting late so we headed out for dinner.
The next morning we hired a Renault Meagane(despite asking for a VW Golf) and headed towards the Pyrenees and southern France. Our destination for today would be Toulouse. The drive through the Pyrenees was long and windy and slow in sections but the views were excellent. Somehow, we found the city centre in Toulouse, almost by accident and after smashing the car into the hotel car park wall, parked for the night and set out to look around Toulouse and get some dinner.
We got up the next day for a bit more looking around Toulouse before getting in the car and heading out in the general direction of Nimes. Along the way we stopped at a few smaller French villages along the canal regions including Castelnaudary and Carcassonne(which had a big walled city which we explored. More car troubles were to come when we got rear ended when I stopped at a red light. Thank god for plastic bumpers, you couldn't even tell we'd been hit. This time, I did manage to park the car at the hotel without more damage tho.
The next morning, we got up and looked around Nimes a little including a tour of the amphitheatre, which is a Colosseum type structure which was really good. We headed off next in the direction of Avignon but first stopped at an Aquifer just outside of Nimes. We passed through Avignon and headed for Marsailles. Let me give you the big hint, Marsailles is a hole, don't go there. We didn't even stop.
We then headed for Sete, a little seaside town just south of Montpellier. This was our destination for the night and dinner was had down by the canal that runs through the centre of town. Seafood of course.
Our final day, we drove back to Barca but only after we drove through another city, Bezier, which I was unable to navigate out of. After driving around for about 15 circles and 65 days, we finally found the way out of Bezier and headed to Barca. Our final car problem occurred on the way when a warning light on the dash came on and being a Spanish hire car, was in Spanish. I pulled over and called a colleague who spoke Spanish and informed me that it meant "Change Oil Quickly". A few more calls were made to Spanish 'help' lines, and dad and in the end, we went to the nearest Europecar who topped up the oil despite it not really needing it and drove on regardless.
We returned the car, got the guy to sign off saying there was no new damage and then casually walked away until we were out of eyesight then ran off thanking god we didn't have to pay extra for all our 'incidents'. That night we flew to Frankfurt but only for a base to fly from the next day.
Overnight at an airport hotel and then I flew off to Vienna to continue my holidays and Mum flew home to finish hers. We said our goodbyes and parted company.
I will endeavour to update this after Majorca but we'll see how we go.
Til then.
Stay safe, sorry about the epic post.
Dave
Hi
Apologies for the late entry. This weekend just been was officially my last weekend of travel for Project Rainbow as I'm finishing up work here on the 14th of July for good. Anyway, before I get sentimental I better tell you about it. Mum and I left Friday night for Lisbon, Portugal which was somewhat of a novelty given the Portugal team were coming to Stuttgart to battle it out in the World Cup for 3rd/4th place against Germany.
Our flight was quite long as we had to transit in Frankurt but we still got there and checked into the Meridien. Not much was done that night as we were tired and it was late so we crashed ready for an early start Saturday. Saturday morning we quickly realised that our hotel wasn't exactly central to the action but it wasn't that far either so we just strolled down the main road in the general direction of the centre of the "old town".
We found some Elevador de Santa Justa which took people sorta up one of the hills to the side of old town which also doubles as a good lookout. I think it was built in like 1901 or something but to be perfectly honest, I can't really remember. Anyway, after that, we headed down to the water where we caught a tram up the hill on the other side of old town to where the Castelo de Sao Jorge is. We wandered around there and took in the great views and general castle structure but there were really no rooms or anything as such to speak of to go in and look at.
We then headed back down the hill to catch another tram out toward the Monastery. We grabbed lunch here then wandered to the Monument to Discoveries and again, climbed that to grab the view down the water front and back over to the Monastery. We decided not to go to the Monestary today and headed back to the hotel for some research about where to go when I finally finish. We headed out again for dinner where we went to a restaurant part owned by actor John Malkovich, Bico do Sapato. We had a really good meal and some nice champagne.
Sunday we slept in a little after drinking too much Champagne the night before before heading to the Monastery for a look around. We were a little disappointed we couldn't explore more with the public area essentially restricted to a courtyard. There were several exhibitions though that we looked around. Given our flight was at four, we didn't actually have much time for too much else so we headed back and wandered back up the main pedestrian street again taking in some last minute shopping.
Flights home were uneventful and so ends the last of my work travels. I will update once more before I leave Stuttgart as i'm not taking my laptop on the next leg of my travels.
Hope all is well, see you soon enough!
Dave
Hi
Well, firstly, mum arrived in Germany on tuesday night as she decided to join me in my travels so i'm now travelling with her on weekends. Her choice for this weekend was to visit Edinburgh in Scotland so off we went on Friday evening.
We arrived uneventfully after a flight via Amsterdam and found the Sheraton where we were staying after a bus ride to the airport. Friday night we just stayed in to conserve engergy for tomorrow. Saturday we got up, hired a car, a pug 206 and headed for St Andrews. About 60 odd miles of motorway and we arrived. The weather was kind to us and we walked around and saw all the sights, grabbed lunch and also visited the famous "old course".
After taking in what St Andrews had to offer, we headed off to Perth, Scotland of course, the "other Perth". We also stopped by a castle somewhere I can't recall off the top of my head for the moment but they wanted 10 quid to go in (like $25) and i've seen heaps of castles in my last 5 months so we kept going.
We drove back to Edinburgh and returned the car in time to watch the end of the England world cup game. Sorry chaps, your time has come. Also for Brazil which is a surprise, loosing to the French. Anyway, we ordered a bottle of wine in the room and started on that before heading out to dinner at Est Est Est which was very nice. We returned to the room a little under the weather to retire for the night.
Sunday was a little gloomer than saturday with some scattered showers but muggy. We headed straight for the royal mile and started at the Edinburgh castle end. We spent most of the morning touring around that looking at all the prison cells, the museums and general castle grounds. We then headed down the royal mile in the direction of Holyrood Caslte which is at the other end. Unfortunately, the queen was due to visit the next day so the castle was closed to the public and we couldn't go in.
We then decided we were running out of time and headed back via the Grssmarkets to the hotel after quickly grabbing a bit to eat for lunch. We then headed back to the airport for our flight back to Stuttgart which was typically uneventful.
Portugal next weekend so stay tuned.
Cheers!
Dave
G'day
This weekend I finally managed to head to Barcelona. For as long as I can remember now on this project, I've been trying to get to Barcelona but was hindered by expensive flights, until now. Myself, Raja from London office and Sarah from Jersey office flew out Friday night and then met Sarah's friend Laura in Barcelona who flew down from Edinburgh. We parted ways at the airport due to the girls having different accommodation (booked separately and only found out by co-incidence that we were both going).
Raja and I found our hotel, which was very nice and located right by Placa Catalunya which is really in central Barcelona. We then headed out to Royal Square where we had dinner and then wandered down La Ramblas street to the harbour and took in the night atmosphere. We were both tried (I'd been up celebrating the aussie victory the night before) so we headed to bed early that night.
Saturday we got up and headed for Parc Guell for a bit of a look around and out over the city. It's a very funky park designed by some famous guy who's name escapes me at this point and it quite weird in all fairness. We then headed back to the Gothic Quarter by underground and wandered around there and grabbed a quick bite. After lunch we continued around the Gothic Quarter some more before heading to the beach.
It was a nice day so the beach was packed. Fortunately, being spain, it was packed with many very very good looking ladies. Eye candy everywhere. It was also nice in the water. We chilled here for a while before heading back and getting ready for dinner which was also by the beach at a restaurant called Agua. After dinner we met up with the girls and went to a few local bars before heading back to the beach area again to a nightclub called Catwalk. I nearly choked over the 18 euro cover charge, but once inside, partied the night away. Quite literally. I got to bed shortly after 7am.
Sunday was a little slow but I somehow dragged myself out of bed at 10:30 and headed for the Church of the Sacred Family. Was a little disappointed as it was under some heavy construction both inside and out with scaffolding everywhere. Would certainly have been impressive short of that. I then went back to hotel and woke Raja up around 1pm and headed up to the site of the Olympic Games and saw several arenas, the torch and generally walked around that area. We then headed out to an English bar to watch the England match and were thoroughly disappointed, despite England winning. Bad game.
After soccer we headed back to the hotel and prepared for the night. We'd booked a dinner and a show. The dinner was a buffet style with Spanish cuisine and the show as a traditional Flamenco event. The show was excellent with the exception of the stupid American lady next to me who insisted on calling out "ola" every bloody 3 minutes. After about 45mins, I eventually told her to shut up. After the show, we again met the girls for a recap of the previous nights events and a final drink to say bye to Laura who was going back to Edinburgh while the rest of us returned to Stuttgart.
Monday we all headed to airport and parted ways with Laura and once again, I find myself back in Stuttgart.
Hope everything is going well back home. Remember to e-mail me with news from Oz. Dying to hear what has been happening.
Ciao!
Dave
