Relaxing in Hoi An part II

Chilaxing on a gorgeous long beach with a pina colada... Tough life!

We did a cooking class at a small local restaurant. I LOOOOVE Vietnamese food, if I didn't make it clear yet.

We cooked spring rolls, grilled fish in a banana leaf, sweet and sour wontons, fried squid and a papaya salad. Omnomnom....

Relaxing in Hoi An

We spent three nights in Hoi An, relaxing, small riverside town in Central Vietnam. It is famous for its tailoring, and all the other travellers had some clothes custom made. With its quiet streets, pretty, wooden buildings, nice, relaxing atmosphere, not to mention a gorgeous beach, Hoi An felt like a haven from all the hectic Vietnamese cities. 

We had a nice hotel room with a pool as well. 

Wandering around the busy local markets was always interesting. Fresh veggies, herbs, fruit, live chickens and ducks! And cheap food, of course.

In Hoi An the pace of life seemed slower than elsewhere in the country, and I would have loved to spend more time there. We did a boat trip, a bike ride to the countryside, a cooking class and we even had some time to enjoy beach life, but I'll leave that until next time....

Mt Conner

It was a long drive to the big red rock. It must have been boring for Rohan, who had to do all the driving since I don't have a licence. I really enjoyed sitting in the van, listening to music and watching the sun set and the trees turn into silhouettes. 

When it got dark, we pulled over to a rest area for the night, an hour's drive from Uluru (Ayers Rock). In the morning we woke up to a nice view right from the van window! No, not Uluru just yet, it was Mt Conner. 

Rohan woke up during sunrise and took these pics. As those of you who know me know very well,  I don't care if the Ayers Rock just exploded, I'm not getting up at 5 AM to see absolutely ANYTHING.

Mt Conner is a gigantic flat-topped monolith, actually three times larger than Uluru. Access to Mt Conner is currently restricted.

Red sand, dry spinifex country, not many trees around!

Coming up: The world's most renowned red sand formation!


PS. Merry Christmas everyone!

Didgeridoo

Before we started heading towards the big red rock, we had to stock up in Alice and while we were there, we wanted to try the didgeridoo. There was an amazing didgeridoo player giving free lessons at a didgeridoo shop. I have to tell you guys, it is much harder than it looks like... But great fun! For me the most difficult part was trying not to laugh when I played it. 

The view of Alice Springs from the lookout on Anzac Hill. 

Flag of the Northern Territory

A disturbing sign in a public toilet:

At first glance, these headlines in a local newspaper were even more disturbing:

After reading a bit more, you notice that this time kids in fact refer to baby goats. Still, freaked me out.

The Red Centre

After 10 days of driving from Cairns we finally reached the Red Centre of Australia. Alice Springs, with only 27,000 people is the unofficial capital of Central Australia and is situated in the geographic centre of Australia. 

Alice Springs is a nice little town, a mix of old-style buildings and modern shopping centres. It is also the aboriginal art capital of Australia, and the streets are full of art shops one after another. For the flocks of tourists there are also tour operators and travel agencies in every corner. 

Approaching Alice we ran into these signs. Alice Springs is a dry zone, and that means you will get a heavy fine for drinking in public or carrying too much alcohol with you. You see, the indigenous Australians in the area (25% of the population in Alice Springs) like the booze a bit too much. So the town is trying to reduce alcohol-related problems with these new laws. For instance, bottle shops don't open until 2 pm and you can only buy cask wine after 6 pm, and only 2 litres per person. But when we visited the local Bottle-O, to us it seemed like the liquor was still flowing among the aboriginals despite the laws. 

But we only did a quick stop in Alice this time and moved on to the West MacDonnell Ranges for a couple of nights. 

Devil's Marbles

We stopped for Internet, supermarket and laundry in one of Northern Territory's biggest towns, Tennant Creek, with the population of 3,000. I guess there are not many big towns in the Northern Territory. Most of the population is aboriginals.

An hour's drive from Tennant Creek are the Devils Marbles. It is a pile of huge, several metres high, red, round granite boulders that have formed about 1700 million years ago. The site is known as Karlu Karlu for the traditional aboriginal owners. 

It is a very sacred site for the aboriginals. Aboriginal people believe that people from the Dreaming (stories that tell of the journey of Ancestral Beings that created the world) hide in the caves under the rocks. 

"They are real people like us. You can see them. A long time ago I went with my billycan down to the creek here to get some water. One of these secret people came out and started playing with me. I couldn't go away. My mother came and got me, saved me. After that we never camped at this place again, never. They are kind these secret people, but they can make you mad. They can change you into one of them. They can say 'follow me' and you can't go back. It happened like that for my cousin. He disappeared. The old people made a big ceremony, singing the ground and the rocks to make them let my cousin come back. We have lost that song now. We have no song to bring children back." A senior traditional owner

We were lucky, and secret people didn't make us mad. .... Or did they?