Purto Madryn

I´m headed down to Puerto Madryn this evening - a mere 19 hour bus ride. Its got millions of penguins, beaches, and welsh villagers. I´m not joking! Seriously, there are Welsh villages there. Either that or my lonely planet is lying. Aparantely there´s also german villages outside Sao Paulo.
There isn´t that much to see in Buenos Aires - caminito, a lively tango-y place, recoletta cemetary, where they buried Evita (eventually - she wasn´t aristocratic enough) and err, lots of old european buildings. Really, really good food - haunches of meet delivered as fast as you can eat it for 2 pounds. And riots as police evict squatters - fortunately, it was only the squatters who were rioting. This has absolutely nothing to do with my decision to get out the city, honest!
I was going to head for lost inca cities, but the problem with inaccessible mountain fortresses that are so remote they escape destruction and looting is that they take a long time (a week by bus? I lost count after 72 hours...) to get to. Inconsiderates. Still, that¨s a good trip in itself - cly to Cusco, go Macchu Pincu, Lake Titiaca, the salt flats and fly out of Sucre. Maybe next time. I´ll instead loop through Barriloche to Santiago, up through Chile and back accross Mendoza. Or I´ll meet someone who has a clue and end up in the antarctic. I don¨t really care!

Buenos Aires

I´m now in Buenos Aires, if you hadn´t already guessed from the title. Its nice, warm, cheap, full of Argentinians who look ad speak Spanish and are all football mad. Internet cafes are back to reasonable prices (one thing I didn´t expect from america, it had worse connections than the jungle! I think everyone´s got broadband at home). Already been mustard squirted, and then mysteriously quickly some passer by happened to have a paper towel (he claimed it was birds, no breed I´ve heard off! Still, I didn´t taste it to make sure), and an intense interest in my bag and pockets, don´t think he got anything. Buenos Aires is a big city like any other. Now, do I go south to penguins or north to the lost cities of gold?

Las Vegas and Grand Canyon

Las Vegas was gratuitosly ostentatious. Good fun, pretty cheap for America - I suspect subsidies to get people into the casinos. Just a tad over the top though - fake volcanoes, new york skylines, eiffel towers, arthurian castles, waterfalls, white tigers (ok, they were real), more neon than you can shake a stick at. Great food - eat as much as you like for $10, and its really nice food. Nothing to do except see the casinos at night, so I did a day trip to the grand canyon. This is worth seeing. I can´t really describe it. Its too big. No, its bigger than that. Its 3 kilometers top to bottom, and about 180 degrees left to right. Errr... here´s a picture.

Road Trip round california

I've got a week and a car in california. I've just gone up to San Francisco, down the coastal road, I'm back in LA, headed to Las vegas today, grand canyon tomorrow, LA again then I fly to Buenos Aires (assuming the plane isn't stuck in New York). Phew. So far it hasn't been too bad, as there's another driver - shame he flys out today. It works out cheaper than the buses! San Fran was really nice but very expensive. LA is a bit rough - Hollywood et al are quite cool but thats about it.

Tokyo and out

In the last 7 days, I`ve hit 9 towns, had about 500 pounds worth of shinkansen, been up mountainous mysterious esoteric mountains, bathed in volcanic hot sand, seen the Ninja-dera and digested a rail timetable. I`m now glad to be in one place for the next 6 days. Tokyo is big. There`s not a lot in it, either - or there might be, but you need to be Japanese to get there. Its a bit depressing, talking to some english teachers who are fluent in japanese - people refuse to talk to them. I think its the other side of the politeness- anyone who cannot manage a three hour tea ceremony is ostracised. Los Angeles on the 15th!

Next saturday is going to be the longest day of my life - about 48 hours long. My flight leaves Tokyo at 19.00 and arrives at 14.00 - on the same day! The original plan was to cross the date line on my birthday just to really confuse people, but alas, the flights didn`t work out.

Wow, I actually hit all the places on my earlier plan. I think its the cold - you want to rush around, to warm up! Kanazawa was a nice, little town with a great garden/park and ninja temple (the current owners deny that it was ever used for secretive ninja training, but the sneakiness of the traps in it and the tourist board say otherwise.) Koya-san is the headquarters of the esoteric buddhists, very tranquil and holy, and halfway up a mountain in a ceder grove. I stayed at one of the temples - ancient paper screen walls, calligraphy on the walls, a zen garden outside my window, practically open to the elements, and a 10 course vegetarian meal served in my room. Japanese food is a bit bizarre; shall I just say, they have sour puddings. Not sweet, not salty (like the Thais), but tongue churningly sour.

There are a few cheap places in Japan - there seem to be a mysterious unpublished lot of "economy hotels". Not "love hotels" - room rates by the hour (aparantely, entirely legit as most of them are used by people looking to get away from families...). There`s Sun-plaza in Osaka which was 1700 yen a night (9 pounds!), New Koyo in tokyo at 15 pounds a night. I haven`t bothered with the youth hostels, they all seem to be 20 pounds a night for a dorm bed. Sushi is great, and cheaper than sandwichs. Even so, I`ve spent 40 pounds a day, which is less than most other travellers here but a lot of money.

Kyushu

Phew. This is a lot of travelling. I`m now in Beppu, the hot spring and tackiness capital of Japan. Sand baths, dodgy museums, hot springs... thats about it, the beach is far too cold. I`m taking an overnight ferry to Osaka, then onto the mountain retreat of Koya-san. I went up to Mt Aso today, nice to get some snow! Unfortunately, it was closed due to huge clouds of sulphur being belched. I suppose that`s the risk of visiting active volcanoes!

Kyoto

Kyoto is very nice. There are over 2000 temples and shrine, a huge castle, loads of day trips - I`d recommend it on any trip to Japan. I ended up staying there 5 days as there was a nice, cheap hostel (the Tour club), and tons of day trips - to Nara (the ancient-ancient capital, Kyoto was the capital after about 1100), and to Himeji (the huge castle where they filmed "You only live twice").
I`m now in Hiroshima, at the hypocenter of the blast (don`t ask "what blast?"). There`s a park, a library, a museum, a cultural center, and the one surviving building - quite how it survived a direct nuclear bomb, I don`t know. Its sobering.

I`ve started the rail pass - I have 7 days of free trains (well, 140 pounds for the 7 days). I`ve already used up 160 pounds worth of travel in 2 days, so its worth it! Next stop Beppu, for some relaly tacky hot springs, then Aso for the volcano, then Koya-San for the mountainous temple retreats, then Kanazawa then Tokyo. I`m putting it down now just so I can see how badly I veer from this plan!