Ma Pi Leng Pass, Ha Giang, Vietnam
The north-west province of Ha Giang is as north-west as you can get in Vietnam. Only a dumpling toss away from China this is Vietnam’s wild frontier with secluded mountain villages and one of the most spectacular mountain-pass drives in the world. The gorge road between the delightful towns of Dong Van to Meo Vac snakes its way precariously on the edge of towering cliffs of bright green. It was good that the scenery was so stunning because you didn’t notice the sheer drop next to the narrow road without safety barriers.

Dumplings, Singapore
I was in Singapore for the Singapore Writer’s festival and one of my big highlights was eating dumplings at Din Tai Fung restaurant. This Taiwanese based restaurant is famous around the world (the two Hong Kong restaurants both have one Michelin star!). There are 12 Din Tai Fung restaurants in Singapore and I had to see what the fuss was all about. Well, it was certainly worth the fuss – their dumplings are hands down the best, tastiest and juiciest dumplings I’ve ever eaten. And, the great news is that there are three Din Tai Fung restaurants in Sydney. I know where I’ll be heading when I go up to Sydney next.

Manly, Sydney, Australia
Talking about Sydney, I took Beth up to Sin City a few months back and she absolutely loved it. And with a day like we had it would have been hard not to. We began the day with a stroll through the city down to Circular Quay, then jumped on the Manly ferry across Sydney harbour (which has to be one of the most spectacular commutes in the world for those lucky enough to live in Manly) and when we got to Manly had fish and chips on the pier overlooking the harbour. After lunch we hired a tandem bicycle and rode up to North Head then all along Manly beach. We then caught the ferry back to the city as the sun dropped. it was perfectly romantic, even if I did do all the peddling on the tandem.

Disneyland and Universal Studios, Los Angeles, USA
I went to both of these 22 years ago and it was fun, but not as fun as seeing my 9 year-old daughter’s face when she almost wet herself on Splash Mountain (well, she did get very wet but that was the splashing from Splash Mountain), and when she squealed with delight on the Simpson’s ride at universal Studios (I did a bit of squealing myself, too, actually), or when she squeezed my hand so tight when King Kong jumped on top of the tour train on the Universal Studio Tour and when I finally, after all these years, I let her have Fairy Floss (or Cotton Candy). The dentist bill will be more than the entrance to both parks!

Cooking class, Hanoi, Vietnam
I’ve always wanted to do a cooking class in my travels, but never got around to it.  I’m so glad that I finally did one, and best of all, it was absolutely wonderful. The cooking school belonged to Hidden Hanoi and we spent hours (there were three of us) cutting and dicing and pestling and frying and grilling to make ’simple’ street food. The spring rolls were the best spring rolls I’d ever eaten (even if I do say so myself). I did try to make the three-course meal at home, however, and it took me all day to prepare and my spring rolls looked like squashed piles of mess (although the four glasses of wine I had while doing all the slicing may have had something to do with that!).

Isla Mujeres, Mexico
This is as idyllic as it gets. There was white sand beaches, swimming with dolphins, downing margaritas as big as my head, staying at the perfectly divine Villa Rolandi hotel, cruising around the island in a golf buggy, romantic lobster dinners on the beach, Coronas in the jacuzzi, Mexican eggs for breakfast right on the water and, oh, it was also my honeymoon!

A veritable feast of feasts, Ubud, Bali
This was my third time to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and, yes the events are fantastic, and the venues are wonderful, and the crowds are great and Ubud is a beautiful town, but the highlight for me is the food. As a guest at the festival we are invited to banquets every single night. Every night we were presented with tables laden with local specialties including my favourites such as Babi guling (roast suckling pig), Sate lilit (minced seafood satay, served wrapped around a twig of lemongrass), Urutan (Balinese spicy sausage), Opor ayam (chicken cooked in coconut milk) and the list keeps going (and so did the size of my stomach). I staggered home every night (although the bottomless glasses of wine may have helped there as well).

Kayaking, Cat Ba Island, Vietnam
After taking the prerequisite overnight boat cruise around Halong Bay I stayed at this tiny ‘resort’ (see below) which I shared with four other guests. I then spent the entire afternoon paddling around (and under) the countless magnificent limestone karsts and isles that rise out of the clear waters away from the maddening crowds. I even found my own private little beach that I only shared with a few empty bottles and couple of crabs.

Winter fun in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
It was very warm winter as far as Minnesota winters go (it was a mostly around a balmy -3 instead of the usual -20), but we still did lots of fun winter things like skiing (at Welch village which is only 40 minutes out of town), tubing (which is sooo much fun and one day jasmine and I had the entire Tubing Park to ourselves – see pic below), building snowmen (or more like a snow dwarf – or whatever the politically correct term is now for small people), snow fights (Jasmine will say that she won, but I got her a beauty in the back of her head), and my favourite thing – setting off a giant box of fireworks on new years eve in a snowstorm!

Hotel Esencia, Xpu Ha (halfway between Playa del Carmen and Tulum), Mexico
Para, Para, Paradise…. Chris Martin must have been singing about Hotel Esencia. Every tiny detail was just perfect. There was the perfect white sand and warm aqua water, stunningly designed room with private pool and great little touches like an iPod full of cool latino music, brewed coffee on call, and a free minibar stocked with funky Mexican beers. The ‘Mexican’ breakfasts were to die for and the gourmet Mexican cuisine in the gorgeous restaurant was even better. The beach was perfectly quiet with our own little grass hut with table service for lunch and cocktails. And to top it off I was there with the most wonderful girl in the world!

And it is was so beautiful that I have to show you another shot of that beach…

I’ve got a few fun trips planned for 2012 (if they all come off) including Morocco, Argentina, Vietnam and Newcastle (no, not upon-Tyne but Newcastle upon-the NSW-coast.

So, do you have a travel ‘highlight’ of 2011 or any great trips planned for 2012?

The Balé Hotel, Nusa Dua, Bali
Fluffy slippers, private pool, cookie jars, breakfast in your own private garden and an on-call 24-hour butler. There’s nothing like a bit of indulgent opulence to make you feel indulgently opulent. I ‘won’ a bunch of nights at any one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World (it was part of my prize for ASTW Travel Book of the Year) and we also stayed at the The Viceroy in Ubud (which was just as terrible).

Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
I was in Byron for the Byron Bay Writer’s Festival and not only was it up there with the best writer’s festival that I’ve been to (along with the Ubud Writer’s Festival), but gee it was nice to escape a Melbourne winter. I actually got to walk around in a T-shirt and didn’t have to wear socks to bed.

Walking Tour of Hanoi, Vietnam
I do love Lonely Planet. Yes, I admit it. I followed exactly step by step the ‘Walking Tour’ of Hanoi thats in Lonely Planet’s Vietnam guidebook and it was marvelous. It took me three hours and the walk took me down little side streets that I never would have found with hidden pagodas and markets and shops. I even had snacks and drinks at all the recommended places to stop and it was wonderful. I’ve followed the ‘Walking Tours’ of cities a few times now particularly when I don’t have much time in a city and it really is a great way to ‘discover’ a city.

Yarra Valley, Victoria, Australia
Less than two hours from Melbourne is our major wine growing area. It’s full of rolling vineyard covered hills, boutique hotels and resorts, wonderful restaurants and, best of all, lots of free wine tasting. And even better still is staying the night at one of the boutique resorts (at Balgownie Estate to be exact). The day goes something like this: wander around vineyard, try some wine, swim in the pool and spa, try some wine, sit on the balcony with a view, try some wine, dinner at a fine-dining restaurant, try some wine, stagger back to your room. What a perfect holiday.

Swimming with turtles, Gili Islands, Lombok
Our guide on our full day snorkelling tour promised that we would see a turtle. He was wrong. We saw about twenty of them –  and lots of brightly coloured fish and coral. Plus, the boat ride was beautiful and we had a fantastic lunch on Gili Air and it didn’t bother me at all that I had silly-looking goggle marks on my face all day.

Mt Buller Chutes, Victoria, Australia
It’s very rare that you get a real ‘powder’ day in the Australian ‘Alps’. Often it turns into glug not long after its snowed. But, I scored one of those days and it was a beauty. It had been snowing for a few days and even when my day of skiing began at Mt Buller you couldn’t see a metre in front of you. Then, magically the cloud lifted revealing untracked powder everywhere. I spent the the day in Mt Buller Chutes (double black diamond off-piste area) skiing soft, dry powder. You could have heard my hoots of joy from Melbourne.

Campuhan Ridge Walk, Ubud, Bali
This tranquil and stunning walk on the edge of Ubud has a special place in my heart because it is where I met my girlfriend Beth. Eighteen months after we met we did the walk again. It was perfectly romantic and, best of all, not once did one of the snarling stray dogs try to tear me to bits.

Pelican Beach, Queensland, Australia
I put this beach in my list of the Best Beaches in the World. It’s a little island between Harvey Bay and Fraser Island and we had the entire island to ourselves. Heaven.

Dining with locals, Son La, Vietnam
I was in Vietnam doing some volunteer work for an NGO and part of our job was to travel around the stunning and mostly untouched regions in the north west. But the best part was dining with the locals. We had lunch in a family home in small mountain village and a huge banquet (with a dance show) with local dignitaries in Son La and noodle soup (Pho) with a bunch of locals in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere that had probably never even seen a tourist.

Somewhere above Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Okay, I didn’t travel very far out of Melbourne, but boy what a way to do it. I flew upside down in a 1942 Tiger Moth biplane for 30 minutes and as well as loop-de-looping we skirted the city before climbing above Port Phillip Bay for ‘more than mild’ acrobatics. It was such a buzz even if I did almost wet my pants and vomit at the same time.

I don’t know what is in store for me travelling wise in 2011. There will be a trip to the U.S. and… who knows where else – that’s what I love about travel!

Happy New Year everyone and I hope there’s lots of wonderful travel experiences for you out there

Rice Wine in a Bucket (Vietnam)
Yes, it didn’t taste the best, but it was the ‘bits’ (no idea and too scared to ask) floating on the top that made my stomach curdle.

Kumis (Mongolia)
Kumis is the tipple of choice in Mongolia. It’s fermented mare’s milk and it tastes like sour milk that has gone off. The horse hairs floating in are rather disconcerting, too.

Mezcal Tequila (Mexico)
What initially began as a marketing gimmick in the 1940s the ‘worm’ is actually the larval form of the moth Hypopta agavis that lives on the agave plant. And yes, I ate the worm. Why mot? You’re only young (and stupid) once.

Snake Wine (Vietnam)
This alcoholic drink involves the infusion of a whole snake in alcohol. It didn’t taste that bad it was just the snake staring at me when it was poured out of the bottle. Plus, I thought it might help – it is considered to possess cures for hair loss. You can also get scorpion wine and lizard wine.

Black Death (Iceland)
Brennivín is Iceland’s signature tipple. It is made from fermented potato pulp, and flavoured with caraway seeds. That doesn’t sound that bad, but it tastes like burnt wine – which is not surprising because the word brennivín literally translates into English as ‘burning wine’.

But none of the above have anything on the WORST EVER alcoholic drinks. Try serving these up to your Christmas guests:

Sourtoe Cocktail  (Alaska)
This drink is made with an actual human toe… yes a human toe! The toes are real human appendages that have been dried and preserved in salt for use in Sourtoe Cocktails. If you are looking for fame, you can become a member of the ‘Sourtoe Cocktail Club’ by making sure the toe touches your lips at some point while you’re drinking- otherwise it doesn’t count!

Seagull Wine (somewhere way up North)
Miles ahead of all the other weird and unwonderful drinks in terms of sheer nastiness is seagull wine. Made by the Inuits, it stands as a testament to the ideology of getting drunk no matter what the cost. It’s easy to make at home for your Christmas party. First find a seagull, alive or dead. If it’s alive, kill it. Put it in a bottle. Fill the bottle with water. Leave it in direct sunlight to ferment of a goodly while and, bingo, you’ve got yourself some seagull wine. Now all you have to do is travel to the very depths of despair. It’ll still taste terrible, but at least you won’t care.

Cheers, everyone!

Rolling Stones – The Forum, Los Angeles
This was back in 1989 when Bill was still in the band and Keith was still alive !

INXS – Wembly Stadium, London
INXS were at their peak and Michael Hutchence had the crowd in a frenzy.

Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello and Madness – Roskilde Festival, Denmark
A great outdoor festival that I wish I could go to every year.

Crowded House – Town and Country Club, London
I’ve seen Crowded House about 12 times, but this was just after the release of Woodface and the mostly Aussie/Kiwi ex-pat crowd went crazy.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Hyde Park, London
Up there with the best concert I’ve seen (although I was miles away from the stage!)

Have you been to any great concerts overseas?

Below are some of the photos that I took with Beth’s little Kodak digital camera (which shows how close we were). I was quite amazed at how good the photos turned out.

Me in my 1984 U2 tour shirt (still fits!)

This is how close we were (can you see Bono’s nasal hairs?)

Up close and personal

The amazing video and light show

I love this shot – it was such a fluke!

This is blurred, but it has a lovely ethereal quality about it…

I have been to quite a few sporting events in my travels overseas and not only can it be a great spectacle, but often it is also a huge part of a country’s culture. A friend of mine even wrote an entire book about travelling around the world to different sporting events (Tony Hardy – Race Around the Sports World). I’ve seen all sorts of  sports over the years including ice hockey (I saw the great Wayne Gretzky play for the LA Kings); road cycling (cyclists zoomed past me to the finish line on the Champs-Élysées in the Tour de France); Gaelic Football (I saw a game in Limerick – there once was man from…); kickboxing (in Thailand – and thats gotta hurt); car racing (Le Mans 24 hour race – although 2 hours was probably enough) and even donkey races in Malta. But, if I had to pick the five best sporting events that I’ve witnessed they would have to be:

Basketball – LA Lakers v Philadelphia 76ers (LA Forum, USA)
Okay, this shows my age, but I saw the great Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar play for the Lakers.

Football – Manchester United (Old Trafford, Manchester, England)
I’ve seen Man U play a few times at Old Trafford, but my favourite match was a Champions League game against Fukakarkis (or some other similarly named Greek team). It was a nil-all until the 81st minute, then in the space of ten minutes Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and Ruud Van Nistelrooy scored.

Baseball – Minnesota Twins v Toronto Blue Jays (Metrodome, MN, USA)
Okay baseball is a little slow, but I loved the dome dogs, beers, 7th inning stretch and that organ that I’ve heard so many times in films.

Skiing – World Cup Downhill (Wengen, Switzerland)
This is the biggest sporting event in Switzerland and over 30,000 people line the 4.5 kilometre course to watch mad skiers scream down a hill at up to 160 kph. There’s cow bells, beer and even cheese fondues.

Cockfighting - Cock v Cock (Baucau, East Timor)
Well, it’s technically not a sport and the RSPCA aren’t too happy about it, but it is the biggest ’sport’ in East Timor. I didn’t actually see any cocks fight, but it was a wonderful insight into a local culture and a ’sport’ that has unchanged in centuries.

So, have you been to any great sporting events around the world?

My other favourites include:

You can order a Burger Bomb at Buns and Guns in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon. The chef wears a military outfit and the customers sit behind a wall of sandbags. Food is served under the slogan ‘a sandwich can kill you’. Just don’t ask for any shots.

Warning, may contain nuts. The ‘Clothing Optional Dinner’ takes place once a month in a restaurant in New York City. A group of nudists wanted something a bit more elegant than the wilderness getaways and beach resorts they generally frequent, so now they can nude up in style. Just watch where that hot chilli sauce falls…

Every meal is shit. That’s because every meal is served in a toilet. Oh, and you sit on a toilet as well. The toilet-themed restaurant is in Hangzhou, in the Zhejiang province of China. I suppose it saves getting up to go the toilet.

Going to the toilet might be a little more difficult at this restaurant. The restaurant in Brussels, Belgium is actually a dining table suspended by crane 50 metres above the street. Here a toilet ’seat’ might come in handy.

And lastly you can’t go past a Naked Sushi Restaurant (or Nyotaimori as they’re called in Japan). Pretty much it’s a naked woman covered in sushi that you, well, eat off. There’s quite a few of these around, so they must be popular. And at least it gives a whole bunch of young women and men a nice steady job (or the sashimi will fall off).

I could keep going, but it’s time for dinner – ‘Nurse!!’

Gun to the head – Trans Mongolian train, Russia
The train was trundling along through the middle of Siberia when I was confronted by two scarily drunk Russians on my way back from the dining car. One asked a me a question in Russian and when I said that I didn’t understand he began shouting at me and grabbed my arm so I couldn’t get away. Then he reached into his jacket and brought out a gun. A gun? It took my brain a second to register that he was holding a real-life handgun. As he was bringing the gun up to my head his friend screamed out ‘NYEY! NYET! and grabbed his arm. The gun fell to the floor. They both dived to the ground and a struggle for the gun ensued. It took me another few seconds for my brain to figure out that it was probably a good idea to get the hell out of there. I did get back to my compartment, but I never did see them again and I’ll never know whether he was just trying to scare me, rob me or murder me and throw me off the train into the Siberian wilderness (which happens quite a bit apparently).

Motorcycle crash – Koh Samui, Thailand
Okay, I’m not a very good motorcycle rider and I’ve had a few crashes in my travels (including this most recent one), but one crash was not only so frightening, but I was worried that I was going to bleed to death before I got back to civilisation. I’d ridden up a steep dirt track to a view point, but riding down was not so easy – particularly with my riding skills. It certainly didn’t help that I lacked the most basic of skills and I had to use my feet for balance, so could only use the hand brake. I had my hand tightly gripped around the handbrake as I crawled down the steep hill at a snail’s pace when suddenly the handbrake cable snapped. The bike (and I) hurled down the steep hill at full speed. How could I stop? In the split second that I had to make a decision I pointed the bike towards the jungle, but the bike tipped over and dragged me along the ground. I was still holding on (in hindsight, that was probably not a good idea). The bike stopped dead and I lay on the track covered in blood. My leg had torn open and blood was gushing out all over me. Anyway, I somehow managed to jump back on the motorbike and get my foot on the brake (and crawl down the hill) then spent a painful two hours riding in first gear (my leg had seized up and I couldn’t change gears) back to ‘town’ while being chased by dogs and bleeding all over the seat. And do you know what? On my very next trip to Asia I hired a motorbike again – and fell off again.

Violently ill – Togo, Africa
I’ve had a few dodgy tummies in my travels, but when I got sick in the jungles of Togo I thought I was going to die. It probably didn’t help that I had no idea where I was (which was my whole idea for my book Where’s Wallis?) or where the nearest hospital was or what was wrong with me or the fact that I literally had to drag myself through a steamy jungle with cramps that would kill a black dog. I guessed that it was some sort of food poisoning, but my whole body ached (including my eyeballs and even my eyebrows). I had to cross a large lake in a tiny wooden canoe, trudge through thick jungle then stand on a stifling hot road and hitch for a ride (there was no public transport). I got dropped off at the first place that resembled a hotel then spent 24 hours in bed in a fitful sleep. I hadn’t eaten anything in 36 hours by the time I crawled out of bed, but I forced myself to eat something so I could get enough energy to find out where the hell I was.

A scary proposition – Benin, Africa
I was in the dark back streets of Cotonou in Benin (for my book Where’s Wallis?) when I stopped for a drink at a bar. First of all I probably shouldn’t have been walking around in the first place (Lonely Planet suggests that you shouldn’t be walking around the area I was in AT ALL!). The streets were pitch black, so when I saw a well-lit bar I stopped for a drink, even though the bar’s name was a tad discouraging. The inside of Rita’s Rough Bar was full of boisterous drunk locals, so I grabbed a table on the footpath. Before long I was surrounded by a band of merry men asking me questions. After about thirty minutes a young very large muscly fellow asked me if I would like to go to his house for a party. ‘We can have lots of fun,’ he enthused. He then leant in, while putting his hand gently on my knee, and whispered, ‘I promise I won’t be violent with you.’ I took that as a cue to leave (and sprint back to my hotel).

Skiing off a cliff – Mt Hutt, New Zealand
I’ve done the bungy jumping thing and the biplane and other ‘extreme’ scary sports, but the most scared I’ve been is when I was skiing. I’ve skied every season for 25 years and I also worked as a ski guide, so I can ski, but one day at Mount Hutt in New Zealand I was sure I was going to die. I’d gone out of bounds to find some wind-blown powder and found myself a great steep gully full of the fresh stuff. It was only when I finished skiing the gully that it got freakin’ scary. I had to ski along the top of a steep, narrow ridge to get back to the ski area. I only had to traverse across it but it was all ice. As in blue, shiny, ice. But what put me on the edge of complete panic was that there was a sheer cliff directly below me. As in a sheer drop of hundreds of metres to certain death. It was only the sharpness of my ski edges and my steady slow traverse that kept me gripped to the ice. Just one tiny mistake and I would have been gone for sure. I was even worried that my heart was beating so hard that it might make my skis ‘chatter’ and I’d lose grip. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited skiing when I got back over the ridge and back to the ski runs.

Alofi, Wallis and Futuna
I had the entire island to myself for two days (besides a few wild pigs). I slept on the beach and lived on Sao biscuits and tins of tuna. Heaven.
 

Whitehaven, Australia
In photos of Whitehaven the sand is so white and the water so blue that it looks like its been retouched in Photoshop. But, it really is that white and blue.
 

Hanauma Bay, Hawaii
Yes, Hanauma Bay can be absolutely swarming with tourists, but I got there first thing in the morning and had the amazing beach to myself. Oh, except for a couple of Germans because they are always there first.
 

Baucau, East Timor
There was only one room available on the whole beach (in fact, about four beaches) and I had the water all to myself (although the large man-eating crocodile in the water that I only learned about when I was leaving probably kept the locals away).
 

Nilaveli, Sri Lanka
Nilaveli Beach Resort not only sits on a gorgeous palm-fringed beach, but there are no other resorts within kilometres of it (oh, except the burnt out shells of resorts that had been blown up by the Tamil Tigers).

Pelican Beach, Australia
See previous blog.
 

Blue Lagoon, Malta
Boatloads of daytrippers pour into Blue Lagoon, but I was staying at the only hotel on the island of Comino and I got up ridiculously early for someone on holidays to have it to myself for a couple of hours.
 

Paleokastritsa, Corfu
Paleokastritsa was the first beach I’d ever seen out of Australia. I was staying by a tiny muddy bay and hired a scooter to zoom across the island to get there. It was off-season, so without the crowds it was truly magical.
 

Lizard Island, Australia
Lizard Island is so exclusive that you get your own beach. You are given a little chug-chug boat and a map and sent to your own beach (there is one for every guest!). You also get a huge hamper full of food and amazing coral and fish only metres off shore. And you can go to a different beach every day you are there. 
 

Ipanema Beach, Brazil
Yes there are crowds, but boy what a nice crowd – girls wearing barely anything, skilled footballers and oh so cool Cariocas. And the beach is beautiful, too – If you can keep your eyes of all the hot bodies.
 

And there are plenty of other amazing beaches out there that I haven’t been to yet (Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, most of the Caribbean islands just to name a few).

So, what’s your favourite beach in the world?

Bagan, Burma
My perfect day started at  5.00 am where I was met by my ‘driver’ and his horse and buggy. We rode in the dark to a temple in the middle of a field then climbed it to watch the sunrise over an endless and magnificent multitude of temples dotted across the countryside. The rest of the day was spent riding from one temple to another and each one was just and incredible and unique as the one before.

Majestic Hotel, Malaka, Malaysia
It’s nice to get a bit of over-the-top luxury now and again. Particularly when my girlfriend Beth and I had been staying mostly in cheap, dirty dives as part of the travels for my new book about.. well, staying in cheap, dirty dives. But this was something truly special. The Majestic Hotel (which used to be a cheap, dirty dive in the 70s) now lives up to it’s name. The rooms were stunning, the food was out of this world and the bed was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in.

Vertigo, Banyan Tree Hotel, Bangkok.
Vertigo is right. The rooftop restaurant is on the 61st floor of the Banyan Tree Hotel and Beth and I were lucky enough (or unlucky if you’re scared of heights) to get a table right on the edge. To enhance the spectacular views there is only candlelight at the table and the waiter uses a torch to show you the menu and show you your food when it arrives.  We were quite giddy by the end – but that may have had something to do with the wine that accompanied each course of our ‘banquet’.

Stuttgart, Germany
I loved Stuttgart so much I went there twice. The first time was as part of my book tour for ‘Couch Surfing – Eine abenteuerliche Reise um die Welt ‘. My bookshop ‘talk’ was the best attended of my tour and I had a lovely afternoon wandering the streets (and beer gardens). I came back to Stuttgart at the end of my tour for Canstatter Volksfest (Germany’s second biggest Oktoberfest) and did all those fun Oktobefest things like drink lots of beer, danced the polka and queue for 20 minutes to go to the toilet.

Lutzen, Minnesota, USA
This couldn’t have been more idyllic with our cute little wooden cabin right on Lake Superior (as in take one step out the door and you’re IN Lake Superior). And the big open fire certainly came in handy (the large piles of snow gives you an idea). We had lovely walks through the snow and it was so romantic when we saw a bald eagle tearing apart some road kill on the road near our cabin.

Ubud, Bali
I was in Ubud for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and the highlight was the three-hour ‘Jalan Jalan’ walk that I led through the Ubud countryside (well, when I say ‘led’ I did get lost in the first 10 minutes). And we ended the walk at a gorgeous villa overlooking the rice fields for a breakfast of smoked salmon and crusty bread, fresh juice, croissants and apple danishes.

Mandalay, Burma
As I mentioned in my On ya bike blog, I spent a few days riding around Mandalay. I visited impressive temples, local restaurants and well, generally just rode around a lot checking out the city. And the highlight of my highlight was going to see the Moustache Brothers. The brothers are a comedic trio that perform ’shows’ in their lounge room that combine wacky comedy routines, classic Burmese dance and satirical criticism of the totalitarian Burmese military regime. One of the brothers served six years in a labour camp for telling a joke about the government. 

Batu Ferringhi, Malaysia
Batu Ferringhi is apparently the single most heavily developed stretch of tourist resorts in Malaysia, but the southern end of the long stretch of beach was quiet, the guest houses were nice (and cheap) and the handful of beach side restaurants (as in right on the beach) were delightful. It was my girlfriend Beth’s favourite place we travelled to.

Peterson, Minnesota, USA
Peterson is a cutesy tiny town in the south of Minnesota (near the border of Iowa) with plenty to do. We went canoeing on the Root River, cycling on the Root River bike track, stayed at a cutesy B&B, ate at cutesy restaurants and shopped in cutesy shops.

Luang Prabang, Laos
I spent a few days on a bicycle riding around this stunning town and it was one of those places that I just didn’t want to leave. Great food, great bars, great scenery and even a great bowling alley.

I don’t know what is in store for me travelling wise in 2010 (so far only a trip to Bali), but that’s what I love about it. Life, like travel, is a great big adventure.

So, do you have a travel ‘highlight’ of 2009?

Yes, but do they get the true experience of travelling. You can’t have truly experienced Africa unless you’ve slept in a bed covered with giants ants or got the real taste of India without stained sheets that smell like vindaloo. So, I’ve decided to make my own list. This is my Top 5 World’s Worst Hotels:

Wisma Tirta Yatra - Penelokan, Bali (US$4.20 a night) 
Okay, I could put up with the smelly, stained sheets and the fan that didn’t work and the barking dogs all night right next to my window and the bucket shower with somewhat rancid water, but the toilet was so scary I couldn’t go anywhere near it. I couldn’t go anywhere near it because it was totally covered in giant ants feasting on the ’stains’ around the hole. And that’s not much fun when you’re busting for the loo.
 

Happylands – Dahab, Egypt (US$2 a night) 
I was happy to leave Happylands. I had a sleepless night because the sheets were so disgusting I couldn’t even touch them. God only knows what the horrific stains were on the bed and I certainly didn’t give it a closer inspection to try and figure out what exactly they might have been. I went to bed fully clothed (even though it was boiling hot) and used my T-shirt as a pillow case, then spent the night waking up in shock when any part of my skin touched the sheet. And the bathroom smelled even worse than the sheets (if that was possible). The next night I lashed out and paid a whopping $5 a night for another hotel (which wasn’t quite as happy, but nowhere near as stainy). 

Hotel Saut d’Eau - Saut d’Eau, Haiti (US$60 a night) 
The Hotel Saut d’Eau wasn’t quite a hotel. There were no hotels in the village, so to find a room involved walking up to people’s houses and asking if they had a spare room. Which wasn’t easy because we were in Saut d’Eau for Haiti’s largest vodou festival. The room we eventually found (I was with two other travellers and a guide) was tiny with a concrete floor, lots of cockroaches and no beds. The owner told us that we could buy our beds (straw mats)at the market. All four mats didn’t quite fit into the room, so I had the guide’s smelly feet in my face all night. Oh, and the toilet was outside next to a banana tree where hundreds of people walked past day and night.

YHA - Hamburg, Germany (US$20 a night) 
The hostel itself was nice. I just didn’t get any sleep and almost threw up in the shower. I didn’t get any sleep (and I’d gone to bed early because the hostel had a curfew) because the South African fellow sleeping above me in the bunk bed sounded like a lion on heat. He snored all night so I lay awake all night. Okay, I did finally nod off to sleep at around 5.00, but I slept in and missed breakfast (even though I was only 2 minutes late). After a sleepless night I really needed a shower to wake me up, but when I stepped in the shower I stood in a pile of shit. And yes, you may wonder just like I did why someone would poo in a shower – particularly when there was a toilet in the same room. 

Hotel de la Plage - Cotonou, Benin (US$45 a night) 
I had a beer on the hotel balcony overlooking the beach when I arrived. Actually, ‘beach’ is too kind a word. Pigs were rummaging through piles of rubbish near the waterline, while only a hundred metres further along there was a dense shantytown that seemed to be built entirely from rubbish. A barbed-wire fence separated the hotel from the beach, which meant that it probably wasn’t a good idea to go for a nice sunset stroll along the seashore. The hotel also had a swimming pool and, although it was stinking hot,  I didn’t go for a swim: a grey and brown film of sludge was floating on the surface and I’d only got shots for three out of the nine diseases in the water. I didn’t get any sleep either. Firstly, there was a knock on my door at around ten o’clock. When I asked who was there no one answered. This went on a few more times. My heart started beating wildly. I was pretty sure it was a mugger doing house calls using the old trick of waiting until you open the door, then bursting in and robbing you. Over the next two hours they tried again a number of times (or maybe it was a new set of muggers each time). At about one in the morning, when the knockers had finally given up I was finally about to doze off to sleep when the air-conditioner broke down. Soon after, the room was like a one of those furnaces they melt glass in. I had to take showers periodically throughout the night to prevent myself from bursting into flames.

See, that’s really experiencing a country. None of those fluffy slippers, cable TV and mini shampoo bottles – just stained sheets and dysentery.