#i did like a very good very tasty border for this that i decided didnt suit it so now i have just a really good border floating about

[obsob]

oh potatus et molassus etc etc

[kazlifeadventures]

Trinidad & Tobago - Carribean dreams...

I am so ‘vex’ that I won't be ‘liming’ in this beautiful place any more. I have been one lucky person to have been able to come here and hang with a local for almost a week. Jasmine has shown me her Trinidad and for that I am truly grateful. I have eaten so many local foods and they have all been fantastic. I have impressed the locals no end with my love of pepper sauce. The food here is tasty, spicy, and pretty much specific to this island. ‘Nah boy’, I am so very much enamoured with this country! One of my friends asked me if I had posted photos of the food. Truth be told, I don’t have a lot of pics, its not the most photogenic, and I seriously just wanted to eat it! I have partaken in the local speciality of doubles, with ‘plenty’ I might add - for those unaware that is with extra hot sauce and/or the mango bone that is infused with more pepper. Doubles is made with 2 baras filled with a curry channa (chick peas), it originally started as a breakfast food, progressing to be an anytime of the day food. It’s nutritious, tasty, and sold at street side vendors everywhere. Apparently even pizza and KFC taste better over here. This I can now say I agree with. Not sure if the food tastes better, or if its adding the ketchup, mustard, and pepper sauce that assists with the taste upgrade.....

Jas took me to the home of street food a little town called St James, and made sure I got to have saheena, (seriously amazing spicy little deep fried spinachy deliciousness ) as well as alloo pie...amongst other things. The locals only really eat out at restaurants on special occasions so that meant Jas cooked for me a lot of the time, and wow, just wow. I loved the chicken curry (brown), smoked herring, baigan choka, salt fish, home made roti, the fabulous goat curry.... I could rave on, but google Trinidadian food and you’ll understand. Jas lives out in the ‘country’ to the South of Port of Spain, the capital. We spent one evening heading around to some of the local rum bars. Rum bars are everywhere here. Beer is cold and cheap (and made here - love the Stag and the Carib!). I got to meet a few of the locals. Over here they will buy you a drink even for something as simple as the fact that they had to order over you slightly. At the bar. They loved to meet the ‘white girl from Austalia’, as out here they dont see a lot like me... The good thing is none of it was them just trying it on with the foreigner. These are genuinely lovely, polite, caring people. I had a dance off with some girls from Venezuela, and ended up drinking way more drinks then I paid for, eating (they sell bar snacks and’cutters’ only at the rum shops) some tasty wontons at one place, and some really tasty fried chicken at another. We then got some free food from another lovely local who bought us a drink, and also then brought us across some Souse and Corn soup from his food stall (across the road from the rum shop). Anyway I can now say I have tried Souse, not sure I’d eat it again, it was flavourful, but pigs trotters in broth with onion and cucumber is not on my list of things to eat again! I think I have decided that I need to come back to Aus and start my own Trini food store, I think it’d be a huge hit. Love the local beers. Love the rum here. Jas made sure I tasted the Puncheon rum - 75 % and you never get a hangover or upset stomach... I wanted to bring some home, but alas no room in the suitcase! One of the biggest things, I was not aware that this is the home where Angostura bitters is bottled. It was first created in the town called Angostura in Venezuela by a German surgeon stationed in Venezuela, originally produced there between 1824 - 1830. In 1875, the plant was moved to Trinidad and that’s where it’s secret recipe is still produced today.

One of the main religions here is Hindu, they have a giant (85 feet - 26m) statue of Lord Hanuman Murti located in the grounds of Dattatreya Yoga. The statue is the second tallest in the world, and the tallest one in the western hemisphere. When we pulled up onsite there was one man looking after the bookstore who allowed us to enter the grounds and take photos. We weren't allowed to enter the temple/yoga centre as we weren't appropriately dressed. The gentleman then showed us the book explaining how the statue had been built and answered all my gazillion questions. It was like having our own private tour! Jas then took me down the road a little further to show me the temple in the sea. This temple was originally constructed by hand 1947 -52 by Sewdass Sadhu an immigrant from India. It has since been added to, and tidied up, but it's an amazing place, and a site of pilgrimage for Hindus. It's also one of the designated locations for Hindus to perform the funeral pyre. Hindu religion requires that the dead are burned near water and a holy place.

Brian Lara is still HUGE here. He is a home town Trini boy so I completely understand. Cricket is massive, and the new Brian Lara stadium is a huge landmark. They had a cricket game on when I was here (Trinidad vs Jamaica) but they had sold out the tickets otherwise we would have gone.

I spent a day at the beautiful Maracas beach, located on the northern part of Trini. On the way there we stopped at the lookout and had a quick look at the food stalls. I got to try some ‘Chow’, a garlicky spicy way of preserving such things as Pineapple, apple, mango, cucumber... its yummy and not too spicy and I really appreciated the stall holder giving me a taste ( and Jas’s friend Isabelle for buying some of the pineapple one). Maracas beach is a favourite with the locals and its a thing to do to have a ‘bake and shark’ when you go to the beach. Betcha cant guess what I had... Can I say amazing (again!!) You not only get your bake (which is a deep fried Roti) You get beautiful fresh deep fried shark fillet inside it, then you go to a buffet like area and add as many of the additions as you want . Yep, of course I added a bit of EVERYTHING . I had to taste it all. Seriously that thing was amazing. BTW I do taste everything first before adding pepper sauce... pepper sauce heightens the flavours. Jas’s friend Isabelle got her son in law to give us a shout out on the radio station he worked at ( they had it playing at the beach), so ‘Karen from Australia’ is now Trini Famous... love it!!

Jasmine took me out to the Pitch lake, in La Brea, and I’ll admit, I had no idea what it was ( I thought it was a lake!!) Anyway, some how we ended up with a colourful local as our personal guide, he was You tube famous and has apparently featured on David Attenboroughs visit to the lake. I have to sit and edit my ‘documentary’ when I’m back in Australia, it’ll be awesome.. I promise. Suffice to say the lake is the most amazing tar pit. Seriously amazing tar pit. The roads leading into the area are all like travelling over mini crazy hills due to the impact of the tar movements in the area. You have to use an authorised guide on the site, which is fair enough as a wrong step could see you disappear forever into the tar... literally... Trinidads pitch lake is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world (estimated to hold about 10 million tonnes) Its covers about 100 acres and is about 250 feet deep. There is a cool legend involving the origin of the lake the involves a hummingbird (I like the story), Historically Walter Raleigh re-discovered the lake on his expedition there in 1595. It has that charming rotten egg smell, and the mud and sulphur water apparently have healing properties. Locals were there immersing themselves in some of the pools while we were there. As we didnt have swim suits we had to settle with getting coated in the mud on our legs, and for me, also my face...lol!!! I didnt get a chance to put it on myself, out guide was very keen to smear it all over my face... (and shirt and hair.. etc...). Rinsing it, after it had set, was a whole other process involving splashing what looked Iike green water all over my face (and legs), all I wanted to do was rinse my face with some fresh water afterwards - and it took over an hour or so until I finally got somewhere to do it. Let’s not talk about how much scrubbing it required later that night to get the last bits of our skin! A great fun day though, made all the better for our colourful guide! I have had a crash course in some of the Trinidadian slang/words and between that and their accents I am sometimes lost in a conversation... (definitely accents particularly when you are trying to enter the country and the border control guy is talking to you and you have to continually say, sorry what??? ) I’m a lot better now!!

Jas couldn’t make it over to Tobago as she had work scheduled at her house that she needed to be around for. So I decided to head over for a night, hire a car, and see what I could see. Its literally a 20 min flight over (only costs about 50 US return) FYI 24 hrs isn’t really enough to see everything. I didnt get to the water fall or national park. I had headed down to Store bay beach when I first arrived with instructions to try the curry crab, conch and dumplings in Tobago (its their local specialty, amongst a few other things). Have to say I liked the conch, crab was over cooked and dry, and dumplings were kind of chewy. The ‘provisions’ that I got with it were really nice though - Plantain, Potato, green banana, avocado ..I would have liked to have tried another outlet to give a second opinion, but didnt have the time. I did get to the beautiful Pigeon Park, a natural reserve area, filled with some shops, water sports hire, beautiful beaches and glorious spot to watch the sunset. I also got out to the Fort of King George in Scarborough hiking up the giant hill to take in the glorious views. Hilariously there was a traffic hold up on my way there due to some goats being herded along the road. Island time boy. I would have to say, as much as its a part of the one country, Tobago island is completely different to Trinidad. Its a lot more touristy for a start, it has more servicible beaches. The roads are not as pot holed as Trinidad. The people are still lovely, but you get the tourist scouters who are looking to sell you on anything they can. Its a beautiful place and I’m so glad I got to go across and visit. As always, I can always go back!

My time in the Caribbean has come to a close. (9-16 Oct). What an adventure. I have had a fabulous time, and recommend to anyone to come here and see this place, taste the food and meet the people for themselves. The country has their own issues with government corruption which impacts the improvement of infrastructure like roads etc. And there are warnings around safety as there are elements involved in crime that impact locals and tourists alike. This just makes Trinidad Tobago, not unlike a lot of other countries that I have visited on my adventures. It just means the more prepared you are to be open to new things, different ways of doing things, different cultures. The more you are aware of your own safety, and that of your belongings , the more you can avoid crime. Crime can impact you anywhere in the world, countries like this dont have it any more or less than others, it just seems to be in the media more....

[runawayruthie-blog]

No need to be a Princess

Day 20 : Vietnam / Laos : Hanoi/ Vientiane

Today was spent chilling and lazing around our hotel rooms waiting to leave for the airport. We as a group had decided to treat Sambo to a pair of runners (Trainers as the English had me saying on this whole trip)😂. Bec and lew were sent on the mission to purchase the right ones and collect all the dollas. After check out we gave Sambo the trainers (see its what I call them now🙈), he was very surprised and didn't know what to say. It was nice to give something back to him after all his hard work on the first half of the trip, he still had loads of work to do with us for the next half especially as we had a flight to catch today. We loaded onto the bus at half 1 to set off to Hanoi airport to catch our short flight to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. The flight was a v.short one, only 50 mins, Michael O'Leary could learn a thing or two from Lao Airline which is Laos equivalent to Ryanair. The flight itself was a short 50 mins, wasnt full and each passenger got served a snack 20/25 mins into the flight, who wouldve thought snacks were needed on such a short trip. once Landed with went through immigration as per usual when moving through the different countries there was Vietnameses immigration then Laos Immigration were we paid $35 for the visa. It was then time to get a short bus journey to our hotel in Vientiane where we'd stay for 1 night only. We all headed out to dinner as a group, I accidentally left my phone on the sofa in the lobby and only noticed when I got to the restaurant so I told Sambo and he headed back to the hotel to have a look for it because when he rang they said it wasnt there. Little did I know the girls had picked it up and hadnt given it back to me. I was ragin'😂. I felt awful for unintentionally making Sambo walk back to the hotel for me. Thankfully I didnt loose my phone but unfortunately I never got the girls pack for taking it 🙈. After dinner went bowling, which was great fun, I came second in my team but 5th overall.

Day 21: Laos - Vientiane/Vang Vieng

Tuk Tuk time again, majority of the group decided to explore Vientian themselves but some of us decided tog et a Tuk Tuk tour. We were brought to the main attractions of Vientiane. We saw That Luang, Patuxai Victory Monument, The Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) Centre and Wat Si Saket. I enjoyed this tour but I think it wouldve been better if we'd known exactly what places we were stopping at and why they were important. After a bit of googling when I got back I figured it. My favourite park of the tuk tuk tour was visiting the COPE  Centre, here we watched a documentary about how the US had a Secret war with Laos.The CIA backed a secret army in Laos to help fight the communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese between 1961 and 1973.. A lot of innocent people died during this period, almost 50,000. In 1964 Us warplanes carried out 580,000 bombing missions over Laos and dropped and almost 2.3 million tons of bombs. It is said that the in following years 200 peeople died per year due to bombs that hadn't initailly exploded when dropped. There is still a number of cluster bombs, bomb remenants and undenoated bombs all across Laos, innocent people are still dying due to these bombs. In the documentary we saw that the people of Laos collect the scrap metal to sell but sometimes that ''scrap metal'is a bomb. In the worst case secarnios the bombs have exploded and killed men, women and children. The COPE centre helps rehabilitate people that have been become victims of the unexploded bombs. They make prosthetic limbs and help with physio.  It was a real eye opening experience.  Once we got back from our Tuk Til tour we got lunch in JOMA bakery then hit the road to Vang Vieng.  The drive was amazing, the roads were meandering through the mountains, the view was just spectacular. Once we arrived to our hotel we headed out to dinner and then to my absolute favourite place...the Irish pub! ☘ You can take the girl out of Ireland but you can't take Ireland out of the girl. They had live music and Irish beer, which I didn't have cause yano Guinness is just to heavy for moi.

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Day 22: Laos - Vang Vieng

Have I kayaked before? Yes. Have I zip lined before? No. Spend the day doing both, hell yeah!. We spent our day kayaking down the Nam Song River. It was unbelievable, as Jenna said it felt like we were trapped in a computers home screen it was that pretty. I think my kayaking buddy, Katja, was not impressed with me at the beginning due to our boat capsizing. In my defence, I was fixing my go pro and she could've steered!( isn't that right katja 😂😂).its all part of the experience, we weren't the only one either. After kayaking we got to go ziplining, it was epic. I couldn't tell you night they were but the sign said over 200m, I'm just not sure if that was height or the distance it went. Once we had the adrenaline rush of zip lining, we went tubing in a cave, after we went for a walk through the cave with just a headlight to guide us through that pitch black. After an extremely eventful day we headed out for dinner in mind other than the Irish pub from the day before. This turned into a night out where I got punched in the face....accidentally, but hey it still happened. I was home relatively early, I don't think I'm cut out for late nights anymore.

Day 23: Laos - Luang Prabang

Majority of the day was spent travelling from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang. We had one very sick passenger on this journey due to very little sleep, hangover and windy roads. Poor Lew 🙁, it was self inflicted though😂. It took almost 5 hours to get to Luang Prabang, again driving through the mountains on the long windy roads. The sights were beautiful especially where we stopped for lunch. It was breathe taking. Once we arrived at our hotel, we headed out with Sambo on an orientation walk of the quaint little town. We got brought to the food market and the night market, here we tried buffalo jerky and coconut pancakes?( I think that's what they were called). I wasn't a fan of the pancake but the buffalo jerky was delicious. It was then time for dinner, some went to Joma bakery whole the rest of us went to the food market. Here we got a to choose what meat we want and it was barbeques in front of us. I must say the food there was actually one of the best meals of the trip, it was so tasty.

Day 24: Laos - Luang Prabang

Today we got a well deserved lie in😍.  When I say lie in breakfast was at 8:30am, but after so many early mornings if consider it a lie on.  To fill our afternoon on Luang Prabang we went to a bear Sanctuary and the Kuang Si waterfalls. We explored the bear sanctuary and saw one 3 legged bear. They are wonderful animals, so playful with each other. After the bears we went to see the amazing waterfall that is Kuang Si Fall. I find myself saying "it was spectacular" or "there are no words to describe it", in this case I think the picture will speak the 1000 words I'm looking for. Once we got back to the hotel it was a quick change into respectful clothes to walk up 299 steps( thanks for counting Laura) to watch the sunset at Wat Chom Si temple. It was well worth climbing the step stairs to watch, it was magnificent again the pictures will speak a thousand words.

Day 25: Laos - Luang Prabang/ Pak Beng

Rise and shine! Another early start to head to our slow boat journey down the Mekong River to where we would be staying at our last honesty of the trip. Expectations had been lower as requested. The thought of the slow boat journey was worse than the journey itself, I coloured, read, watched Riverdale and played some card games. The 8/9 hour boat journey actually flew. We arrived at our home stay in Pak Beng. Pak beng is a minority village where the people speak their own language and not Lao. It is a very poor village. When we first arrived I was disappointed to hear there was no shower like the last homestay, but I eventually embraced being sweaty as did everyone else. We met the chief of the village who offered us their drunk of choice Rice wine mixed with beer Lao, it tasted of beer that hadn't been fully brewed. We played with the children, taught them a few words of English then had dinner. We were then showed to our rooms, when Sambo asked for 3 girls to volunteer, little did I know he was putting us in the chiefs house which was made of actual concrete unlike everyone else's accommodation. The rest of the group were split into 3 groups all boys together and all the girls together, it was against their beliefs to allowed men and women share a bed unless they were married. After a bit of a sing song with a drunk Sambo, we headed to our beds to try catch a few zZz's which turned out to be pretty impossible due to the massive storm thundering against the metal roof. Counting down the minutes until 5:30am so I could get up and get onto the boat to pee, brush my teeth and warm up. Even though the homestay was a massive culture shock, it was a great experience to see how those people lived with little to nothing, then we came strolling in giving out about not have a shower and whatnot, it gives you a different perspective on life.

Day 26: Laos/Thailand - Pak Beng/ Chiang Khong

Today was out last day in Laos and it was to be spent on another slow boat to the Laos/Thailand border. After the most dangerous walk of my life down from the village in the pouring rain to the boat, I was final able to have "shower" using a helluva lot of deoderising wipes, brushed my teeth and peed on toilet rather than into a hole in the ground!. It was glorious!. Breakfast was served around 7:30/8, it was good just eggs and bread. Later on our boat crashed into some rocks ( I think) which cut the engine out so we had to swap boats, luckily enough there was boat heading to the border to pick up a group doing the trip the opposite way to us. Once on the other boat, we started playing card games mainly spit, which I taught to anyone who would listen 😂. We had a championship to see who was the best spit player of the group. I then went for a short 2 hour nap, it was glorious. Finally we arrived at the border, got through the immigration process easy peasy and then we were on the way to out next hotel.