No entiendo

“I don't understand”

In our first few days in Chile, this was one of our most used Spanish phrases.

To be fair, I had learnt it at high school. I'd even done an AS-Level, although I got a D. But all that was over 6 years ago, and apart from a week in Barcelona I've never had the opportunity to practice it. So, when we arrived in Santiago, I felt like I barely remembered a thing. It doesn't help that Chileans are renowned for speaking super-fast and dropping their S's (much like how we might sometimes drop the 't' when saying 'water'). So even if people were saying something I'd learnt before, I wasn't likely to recognise it.

Karl's situation was even worse. Let's just say that he'd paid so little attention to any language classes at school that we may as well say that he's never tried to learn a second language before. Beyond being able to count to 100 (he learnt while we were in Barcelona) and say the usual “pleases' and 'thank yous', he didn't know a word. For him, grammar was a complete mystery.

So our Spanish tutor Jesus had quite a job on his hands. I badly needed to refresh my memory (the knowledge was in there somewhere, I was sure of it) and Karl was desperately in need of some education.

On our first day, we went through the phrases that you might use to introduce yourself to someone. Talking about where you're from, what you do, your age, and so on. Unfortunately, Karl was running into some difficulty with regards to pronunciation. The tutor asked Karl his age, in Spanish, The phrase is 'Cuantos años tienes?' and in English it translates literally into “How many years do you have?”. The squiggle over the 'ñ' creates a 'ny' sound. For me, the answer was “Tengo 25 años” - “I have 25 years”. Karl's answer was a little more unusual.

TUTOR: Karl, cuantos años tienes?

KARL: Tengo 27 ano.

TUTOR: No, you need to pronounce it 'años'. Ano means 'arsehole'. You've just told me you have 27 arseholes.

To be fair, he hasn't got that one wrong since.

There was quite a lot to cram in over the five-day course, and with 4 hours a day as well as a couple of hours practice each evening, it wasn't easy. It was well worth it though. I realised that I remembered a lot more than I'd given myself credit for, it had just needed some unearthing and refreshing. And although the amount of new information could often be overwhelming, and the difficulty of trying to remember it all was often frustrating, Karl's come quite a long way. Don't get me wrong, we're not discussing politics with the locals or anything, but we can at least order stuff from the deli counter, buy a bus ticket, have simple conversations and get our laundry done without too much difficulty (there are good days and bad days). Karl even managed to get a decent haircut, asking for everything in Spanish!

Now, to make up for not having any photos so far, or in my previous post, here are some snaps of the gorgeous views from Cerro San Cristobal, a huge hill in the middle of the city. You can see the whole city, with a backdrop of the Andes. Truly magnificent.

Check out that view!

We travelled up the hill in the 'funicular', which is basically a fancy way of saying 'train on an inclined track', and it basically transports you up steep hills with ease (and some creaking):

Furnicularing

We'd been told that the walk down was quite pleasant, but unfortunately we took totally the wrong path (there were hoof marks, so I'm thinking it was perhaps a horse path?) and ended up scrabbling and scooting cautiously down mud paths and through bushes. Once we'd got down to the bottom of this 350m hill, we were faced with a wire fence and a steep drop to the road, but luckily there was a happy looking young, stoner couple sitting on a log and staring into space who very kindly pointed out a little exit path. I'm surprised there weren't any signs in English at the top of this path telling people NOT to go down it (there was lots of stuff in Spanish, none of which we understood), but I guess this just proves how important it is to learn Spanish before you travel to South America.

Part of our path downhill. What do you mean 'Where is it?'

And yes, those things ARE spiky.

After Santiago we journeyed on to a little coastal town called Valparaiso where we spent a lovely day wondering around the hills and riding more inclined railway thingies, except here they were called 'ascensors':

Oh, and I couldn't resist making Karl pose for this photo:

We also used our Spanish to buy a huge selection of food from the market. For 5000 Chilean pesos (about £6.50), we bought half a kilo each of cherries, tomatoes and avacados, 250g of olives, some chilli sauce, a red pepper, minced meat, loads of bread and a piece of lemon pie. Karl cooked up a delicious batch of chili and guacamole, and the rest of the evening was spent tucked up in bed, watching cable TV (very pleased to find an over-the-top episode of Nigella's new series, where she wears a blue outfit to match her blue kitchen. Read this article about her yesterday, which I enjoyed).

Tomorrow we're joining a 4-day tour which will take us to San Pedro de Atacama in the north of Chile, via various sights and points of interest.

Tale of Two Cities

We've been in Thailand for a month now, and I haven't told you a single thing about it – sorry! So much has happened that I just haven't had time to blog, which I guess is a good thing. There's a lot to tell, so I've split it up into a couple of posts.

The reason we returned to Bangkok at the beginning of June was to meet up with my lovely friend Tara, who I've known since high school. Back home, we get together every couple of weeks for a good natter, too much sushi and waaaayyy too much wine. The thought of not being able to do this again for a whole year was just too much to bear, and before I left London she made plans to come out to Thailand with two of her sisters, so that we could do pretty much the same thing on the other side of the world. Sushi was replaced by green curries and pizza, and in place of wine we had some amazing whiskey shakes (think whiskey blended with fruit and ice – amazing), and a fab time was had by all.

During the day we left Karl to his own devices while we escaped Bangkok's heat in some air conditioned malls for a spot of lunch and some window shopping. All of this might not sound too exciting to everyone back home, but it's been SO long since I spent time with my friends – it's not till I spent a few days with Tara that I realised just how much I've been missing it!

Along the way, we saw some of the effects of the recent protests, which had taken place predominately in the Siam Square part of town, where most of the big malls are located. We tried to enter one of the shopping centres but were informed that it was closed. One look at the next mall along, Zen World, told us why. It has been completely burnt out in a fire – and I mean totally wrecked. There's just the skeleton of the building left.

My photo only shows a very small section, but the mall is actually an entire block long and the extent of the damage is the same across the whole thing. It was quite shocking because the buildings and street surrounding this mall look pretty much untouched. And on the surface at least, the rest of Bangkok seems to be business as usual – you'd never guess any rioting had taken place. Anyway, I just though it would be an interesting update compared to my last photos of the protesting (a couple of months earlier), when people were camped out on the streets, happily enjoying picnics and foot massages.

Tara and I also decided to see a couple of temples while we were out and about. There was Wat Pho with the huge reclining Buddha, which was pretty cool:
But the highlight was probably this:


I don't think I've ever seen one of these outside of a theme park or beach!

Meanwhile, Karl had his own adventures, making friends with a Thai guy called Daeng, and spending the entire day eating and drinking, returning home only to collect the bottle of whiskey he'd bought from duty free the day before. He stumbled in at 5am after finishing the whiskey with his newfound friends and going to a local nightclub! The next day was spent nursing a horrendous hangover, but it sounds like the spontaneous adventure was definitely worth it. Oh, and he got a haircut from a gay hairdresser who tried to cop a feel. Fun times!

After a few fun-filled days, Tara flew back to England, and Karl and I headed up Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. It's Thailand's second largest city, and it's a lot more chilled out than Bangkok, with plenty to do.

What with our love of both cooking and Thai food, it only made sense to do a cookery course. Thai food is one of those things that never tastes quite right when I try to make it at home, so I was very eager to learn how it's really supposed to be done. We chose a company called Cooking at Home, run by some friendly ladies who have a really nice open-air kitchen just outside the city. We made pretty much all of our favourite dishes – Thai green curry, hot and sour Tom Yum soup, green papaya salad, spring rolls, and mango with sticky coconut rice. These are our delicious creations:

To be honest, after over three months of eating out, it was strange to be back in the kitchen and it took a while to remember how the whole cooking thing works. For example, just after this photo was taken, Karl managed to fling a chunk of spice paste into his eye.

It took a little while to recover, but once we got going it was a lot of fun, and the food was fantastic (if I do say so myself).


We were given recipe books too, which is handy because there's no way we'll be able to remember everything when we get back next Feb!

The next day we hired a bike and rode up the nearby hills to Doi Suthep temple. Well, the bike wasn't very good, so we kind of chugged up really. And once we reached the temple, there was an enormous flight of stairs to climb – they're stunning, but a killer to climb.

At the top, once we'd caught our breath, it turned out we weren't correctly attired to enter the temple, so we hired some extra clothing to cover up. I got a nice long wraparound skirt made from beautiful blue Thai fabric. Karl got baggy pants.

The temple was beautiful, and there were stunning views of Chiang Mai too.

Plus we found some bells to play with. And in.


We'd read that not much further up the hill from the temple is a little village with an awesome coffee shop. We hopped back on the bike and chugged up a little further. We followed some signs and made our way up a very windy, very potholed, uphill lane. Very slowly, and very bumpily. According to the Lonely Planet guide, it was only supposed to be a few hundred metres up the lane, so after driving for a few kilometres we were beginning to doubt whether we were on the right track. We chugged back down, asked for directions. No, we were on the wrong road, we had to go further back down the hill.

We drove down, found a temple and asked an English-speaking monk for directions. No, we'd been on the right lane in the first place, we should go back up to the lane and drive for 10 kilometres to the campsite, and it was just past there. Should we bother, we thought? Half an hour and a lot of fuel later, we were at the campsite. We checked at reception and were told it was just a few kilometres further down an even more potholed road. Another 15 minutes later, we came across a teeny village with just a handful of wooden buildings. Finally! It was an awesome coffee shop – an open-air wooden building, overlooking a lush green coffee plantation, with the hills in the distance.

All it served was strong black coffee and Thai pot noodles. We had both, and sat for a while to enjoy the view until we noticed some rain clouds in the distance and decided it would be wise to head for home. Unfortunately, we weren't quite fast enough. Only 10 minutes later we got caught in a torrential downpour. The roads got slippery so we stopped off to shelter at the campsite for an hour until the rain had eased up, and then set off again through some lighter rain in a bid to get home before sunset.

It was pretty grim at first – the temperature is cooler in the hills, so we were damp and shivering until we'd got far enough down the hill to feel the blanket of warmth that surrounds the city. But all in all, it was a fun little adventure, and must surely be the biggest journey we've ever made for a cup of coffee!

Darjeeling - a home away from home

Who would've thought that we'd come all the way to India, and that our favourite place would be the one most like home - as well as being big on tea (they have 84 tea estates here), Darjeeling is cold and grey. And we absolutely love it.

After the sweltering heat of Calcutta, the cooler weather here is unbelievably refreshing - we've done away with our traditional Indian outfits for the time being, and swapped them for trousers, long-sleeved tops, jumpers and socks. We've even had the odd bit of drizzle, which gave me the perfect opportunity to whip out my attractive pink waterproof jacket. No photos unfortunately ;)

To get here we took a three hour jeep ride from a horrible little town called Siliguri. It was another one of those journeys with gorgeous views, sharp bends and steep drops, but luckily our driver was calmer and more sensible than previous ones. Halfway through the journey we stopped off at a little roadside cafe and had our first taste of momo, traditional Tibetan Himalayan dumplings that are stuffed either with pork, chicken or vegetables, and can be ordered steamed or fried. As you can imagine, since arriving in Darjeeling, we've made our way through all of these options, and our favourite is steamed vegetable momo from this lovely little cafe stall. We've been having breakfast here every morning too - spicy omelette in a bun, followed by a cup of chai. The omelette comes loaded with green chillies and shredded vegetables. Every morning the owner asks "Chilli, sister?" and i foolishly reply "yes, please!", only to finish breakfast with my nose dripping and eyes running, much to her amusement. It's bloody good though!


As well as good food, Darjeeling of course does good tea, and today Karl and I walked along to a nearby tea plantation to see how our favourite hot beverage goes from plant to delicious brew. When we visited the spice plantation in Kumily, we had a taste of just-picked tea leaves. They pretty much just taste like leaves, and it's actually quite hard to believe this is where tea comes from. At the Happy Valley plantation today, we were taken on a tour of the machinery used to dry, roll, sift, ferment and heat these leaves and create tea. We also spent about an hour walking around the plantations - unfortunately we choose a bad time as everyone was on their lunch break, so we didn't see any actual tea-picking. But once again, the views were incredible, even if it was a bit foggy. And we met some hilarious kids who ran around us shouting hello, before asking whether we had any chocolate. I really wish we did, I felt terrible saying no!


One of the reasons we wanted to come to Darjeeling is because you're supposed to be able to see the Himalayas from here. March and April are supposed to be the best time for this, as the skies are clearest, but alas it wasn't meant to be for us! For the past few weeks a thick fog has descended on Darjeeling, sometimes so thick that we can't see the building opposite our hotel! Although I am quite disappointed at missing a glimpse of the mountains, it's quite cool to be walking around in the clouds :)

We've been making the most of the cooler weather here to do more exploring, and on Sunday we decided to visit the local zoo. The zoo here is quite small and is mainly inhabited by animals local to the Himalayas, including mountain goats and red pandas. They also had the Himalayan Monal bird which, according to the little information display, cries 'Klee-vich! Klee-vich!" - needless to say, this has now become one of Karl's favourite birds. We also saw some the most adorable little monkey, who was keen to impress and entertained us with various acrobatics before cuddling up to its mum:


On our way back, we visited a beautiful temple, with lots of colourful shrines to different gods and goddesses, including one that was hidden in a little cave underground. What made the temple all the more beautiful and special was the colourful prayer flags that were strung up all around. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


Ah, I almost forgot! One of the most interesting experiences we've had since arriving here was a much-needed trip to the hairdressers for Karl. At first glance, it looked nothing like a barber shop. On closer inspection, it still didn't! The guy chopped away at Karl's mop with just an old comb and a pair of scissors that weren't at thier sharpest. We were dubious as to how it might work out, and for a while I was convinced I could see a bald spot appearing. However, it turned out to be surprisingly good - in fact, it was way better than some of the terrible jobs done by various hairdressers in Bow. It was followed with a shave, thankfully with a new and fully sharp blade. It ended to Karl's dismay (and my amusement) with a very weird head massage that consisted of much hair-ruffling, prodding and rather a lot of thumping! All for a mere R70 (one pound) - bargain!

Darjeeling has been a lovely way to end our trip to India. While a lot of other towns and cities have been hot, chaotic and noisy, Darjeeling has been cool, calm and clean, and I've felt really content here. I'd love to stay longer, but tomorrow we begin our journey back to Calcutta, and on Saturday it's off to Malaysia!