Bolivia (Part Two)

BOLIVIA!!

Hola mi amigos!
Let us pick up where we left off, shall we?

Sucre

We’d been wanting to do Spanish lessons pretty much from the moment we set foot in South America. If for nothing else, we wanted to avoid making the same perplexed face at people when they started rapid-firing Spanish at us. The tiny town of Sucre seemed like the perfect place. On our arrival, however, we were told that our reservation at our hostel had been screwed up and we now had to be in separate rooms. Normally that would suck and we’d deal with it, but we needed to be together so we could study.
‘That is unacceptable,’ I roared at the man who shrugged and said it wasn’t his problem. We tearfully demanded a refund on our deposit which he refused to do and then he goes ‘oh, there is a 3-bed room you can have’. Ummmm???? It ended up being an amazing room, but that man continued to baffle us for the week we were there. He’d always tell us one thing and then change his mind mid-sentence, without any obvious reason. So strange.
Anyway we ended up spending 90% of our time in that room. ALL WE DID WAS STUDY!!! We’d wake up at about 9am, study, have breakfast, study, go out for lunch (taking our books with us so we could quiz each other on verbs), study, go to class, study, have dinner and then update our vocab list before bed. Our profesóra Monica, a kind woman who always wore red, loaded us up with so much homework every class because she said we were such ‘muuuuy bien estudiantes’ (very good students). We, being the nerds we are, didn’t want to disappoint her and nearly killed ourselves in the effort. We ended up hating Monica, despite her kindness, just because of all the homework and we practiced our Spanish with sentences like ‘I do not like Monica’ and ‘my teacher is not very good’ (hey, we never said we were any good!)

La Paz

Where do I start with La Paz? It was basically just a cesspool of drinking, inappropriate behavior and an abundance of smelly chat. Nik and I especially out-did ourselves in the obnoxious mole department. But more on that later. We arrived in La Paz after a comfortable-but-oddly-sleepless night on the bus (perhaps it had to do with Nikola eating an apple in my face… core and all!). We were all feeling a bit stressy as we’d witnessed Nik and my bags being put on the bus but not Hez’s. Alas, when we collected them in La Paz, Hez’s was AWOL. Luckily, we found it… it had been put on another bus that was thankfully headed for La Paz as well! Naughty Bolivian bus system!
Anyway we got to our hostel, the wonderful Loki, and was thrilled to discover they had effed up our reservation and we were now in a private 3-bed dorm! We couldn’t check in right away so we decided to go for a stroll. It is a beautiful city in the way that those rolly dogs are beautiful… ugly, but utterly appealing. That night we got smashed on red wine (remember people, we hadn’t gotten drunk since Brazil!) and behaved appallingly (can’t say more than that as family members read this!)
The next night was pretty much a repeat except this time Nikola and I went out. Hez was supposed to come too, but at the last minute she peeped out from behind a pillar nervously and told us she didn’t want to. Uncool Hez! So Nik and I were let loose on the streets of La Paz and we ran an absolute muck! We bumped into a troop of policemen, attempted to steal their hats and chased them up the street yelling ‘WE LOVE POLICE’ in extremely poor Spanish. At first they were refusing to partake in our mischief, but by the end they all had their camera phones out and were taking photos of us sprawled all over them! Hilarious. We went to a bar after that and didn’t emerge until 9.30 the following morning.
We actually did cultural things as well (although it still involved drinking)… we saw a futball (soccer) game!! Bolivia v Argentina, the World Cup Qualifier! It was AMAZING!!! Everyone in our hostel drank together before. All the people who knew anything about soccer were going for Argentina. Accordingly, we went for Bolivia. And guess what? THEY WON! Not only that, they SMASHED THEM!!! Six points to one! Haha! Take that Argentina, you big thieving bullies! It was so funny though, because La Paz is at an altitude of 4200m, everytime Bolivia scored we’d all jump and down screaming for about two seconds before we’d get out of breath and have to sit down. It was especially bad for Nik, who after the game pretty much collapsed! Nothing a bottle of water and a KitKat couldn’t solve!
That night there was a trivia quiz on at the hostel to raise money for a local orphanage. Excitedly, we signed up. Oh dear. it was AWFUL! The questions may as well have been written by a three-year-old, the amount of sense they made. Most were about movies from the 70s that nobody had heard of or events that only caused a minor scandal in Bangladesh. We thought Nik the bartender, who was reading out the questions, was the one who had wrote them and we were heckling him pretty bad. However, it turned out to be the orphanage owner who wrote them and he read our answer sheet on which we had scribbled ‘THIS QUIZ IS SHIT!’. Whooooops!!!! Insulting an orphanage owner… that is a new low. Naughty girls.

WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS ROAD

No, the title does not lie. We really did ride down (on a mountain bike, no less) a road named most likely to kill you. I think 13 tourists have died doing it and thousands of Bolivians too. The number of crosses on the track were ridiculous. Basically, its just a narrow, bumpy dirt track perched on the edge of thousand foot drops. So scary. But the worst part was the pain! Have you ever clung for dear life onto bike handles for five hours? Have you? Give it a go. Our hands were BRUISED at the end. So sore. In our group we had four Israeli girls who made it pretty clear they had no desire whatsoever to befriend us. We’d ask them questions and get a sullen ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and then they’d just speak to each other in Hebrew. It was so annoying. They were also ridiculously slow going down the hill so we ended up being the last group to finish the track. The other groups were psycho though, so its maybe it was a good thing. They were all yahooing (grandma-sounding word but that’s exactly what they were doing) down the hill, being so reckless and nearly side-swiping me! I was nearly in tears.

We went to the Amazon jungle and did the pampas tour after this, but that will be a long article so I’ll put that in the next one!

Adios! xxxx

Uruguay – sleazy men, cute Cappy and another year goes by

URUGUAY

Uruguay was like a breath of fresh air after being in frightening Argentina. Yes, I must admit, it took a while to get used to bringing out the camera again. But with the help of some new friends and the surprise arrival of some old ones, we managed to get our groove back.

Our journey into South America´s often-forgotten little country didn’t exactly start off smoothly. In booking the tickets online, we were under the impression you were only allowed to book one seat at a time, because every time we went to select ‘number of passengers’ it would only allow one. `That’s fine,´ we thought, and booked Hayley her ticket first. We went back to do mine and discovered that there were no tourist seats left! Hayley got the last one! So we really had no choice but to book me a first class seat! Hah! So while I sipped champagne and spread out on my recliner, Hayley slummed it down in steerage, amidst crying babies and bleating goats (or so I liked to imagine).

Montevideo

Uruguay’s capital city couldn’t exactly be put on the World´s Most Outrageous Cities list. It’s nice, it’s attractive and the people are friendly (even if they do act like they´re all on Xanax) but it was a bit boring, to be honest. We had to spend a couple of days there as we had applied for our Brazilian visas and we didn’t really do much. On the first night though, we met Hannah and Helen, two lovely British girls who we ended up travelling with for the next two weeks. We went out to dinner with them the first night, which was interesting to say the least. Thinking they would be good, all three H´s decided to order a salad while I (big boy) got a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich. First of all, my sandwich came out with ham in it (I’m one of those awful vegetarians) and again being a big boy, I eagerly devoured it and didn’t realise until the pig was already halfway down my esophagus. Then the salads came out. Oh dear… it looked like something you’d give your fussy three-year-old. Square chunks of cheddar cheese in one corner, tinned corn in the other, two boiled eggs cut up into easy-bite-size pieces and two chunks of tomato to finish. Not a leafy green in sight! It would´ve been horrifying if it wasn’t so funny. The next night, H3 and I got onto the wines and hung out in the hostel’s ‘chill out zone’, which was really just a bright orange room with a couple of mismatched sofas and a guitar. I ended up having a fight with a repulsive Canadian man who will appear many times throughout future blogs as we just couldn’t seem to shake him! Him and his Johnny-Depp-lookalike friend who Helen was in love with. He was the world’s biggest dickhead and we met other travellers along the way who have met him and hate him! He’s famous across South America as being ‘that bleached-haired Canadian git’! That night I had the fight with him because he told me that every night, before he goes to bed, he hugs himself and says “I get to go to bed with ME!”
And he wasn’t joking either.

La Pedrera

H2 had discovered a little beach town further along Uruguay’s coast so we decided to meet them there. It was such a cool town, so chilled out and relaxed. Lots of hippies openly smoking bongs, bonfires every night and delicious shirtless surfers… Dreamy!
One of the nights we were drinking at the hostel and a girl came home with a little kitten in her arms! Somehow Hayley, Helen, Hannah and I became its mothers. We named him Capsicum. The reason behind this choice was that H2 were going to Australia and we had been educating them on word-differences between our two great countries. They had never heard of a ‘capsicum’ so we explained they were what they call `peppers´. Anyway Helen, Hannah and I decided we wanted to go to this party at the local reggae bar. Hayley was feeling tired so she went to bed while the three of us went out. We tried to leave Cappy at the hostel but the little lamb didn’t want us to go and followed us down the street, meowing pitifully. Who could resist? I ended up just picking him up and taking him with us to the bar. It was so funny. If I brought a cat to a bar in Australia, I would be escorted off the premises. In Uruguay, all the bar staff patted him and asked for holds. It ended up being a really fun night, we sat around a big bonfire drinking beer and chatting to locals. I got stuck talking to a total geezer though. He kept saying things like, “we are all walking pieces of art, our movements embody a spiritual beauty that blah blah blah…” At one point he started rhythmically beating the air because he “felt the vibrations of life drumming his soul”. It was the most awkward half an hour ever. Cappy was long asleep in my jumper by the time we got home at 5am and it was heartbreaking to say goodbye to him. He meowed at our window for about an hour.

The next day, the four of us went for a walk around town as we were all very sunburnt and couldn’t really go to the beach. As we were walking home, we heard a loud, “HAYLEY SPURGIN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!???” Who should walk towards us, but Nikola and Ty!!!! It was so exciting! Hayley and I screamed like banshees and jumped all over them, probably a bit inconsiderately as they were still loaded up with all their stuff. We weren’t supposed to meet them until the next town but they caught the boat from Buenos Aires early to surprise us! It was thrilling! We went out for dinner to catch up and then all of us got absolutely bollocksed (British word we´ve picked up) around the campfire with some very creepy locals. One of them was the biggest sleaze ever! He force-fed Ty and Nikola meat, then tried to steal our wine, then touched all our legs inappropriately and then vomited everywhere. Hideous. Hannah had a headache so she went to bed, but Helen hung out, earning herself the title of the World´s Most Clumsiest Woman. In the space of an hour, she had knocked over every single person’s drink… twice! The poor lamb. I love hanging out with her though because she makes me look coordinated!

Punta Del Diablo

We spent the first night in the lovely Punta Del Diablo at a hostel, which was a cramped little sweat box, but had the redeeming feature of a dog who had just had puppies! Oh, they were so sweet! We all named them. They were Empanada, Patricia (after a local beer), Chicco and Fat Whinger. We loved them, but wanted to get our own bungalow so we moved out (but still visited the babies often). The next morning, we moved into our beloved bungalow, a yellow two-storey house with ocean views, a hammock and our very own empanada (a South American pastry snack for which the puppy was named) shack next door. We even had our own two dogs, although none of us wanted to touch them. One of them was a big black and white mutt with a red eye and permanent lipstick while the other was coined `Falling Apart Dog´ due to its nipples grazing the ground and its various skin diseases. Hayley was getting angry at all of us for being mean to them, but she couldn’t look at them either. Still, our bungalow was the best! Nikola and Ty got the parents room, while H3 and I had the kid’s room upstairs. Ty was initially a bit concerned about sharing a house with five girls but we convinced him he would grow to love it. That night we had a housewarming party where we played Four Kings and got ridiculously drunk. Nikola and I ended up dancing on the couches so we all knew it was time to head out. Unfortunately, Uruguay doesn’t seem to follow Argentina´s rule of ‘the later the better’. We walked out into a ghost town (it WAS 4am I suppose). On the way home from that disappointing outing, we stopped at a supermarket where I flirted outrageously with the 60-year-old owner and his 15 year-old grandson, calling them `bellisimo hombres´ (“beautiful men”… oh the shame!)

The Toilet Incident

The next day, there was a bit of a situation with the toilets. Now, in South America, it is practice to not flush toilet paper, but instead put it in a stinky bin next to the toilet. It’s disgusting, but you get used to it. Anyway, Nikola wasn’t quite used to this custom yet and flushed, causing a blockage in the pipes and a regurgitation of all that mornings… erm… deposits. It was sooo disgusting and we couldn’t find our landlord to come and fix it. It was especially hard for Ty, who previously chose to believe that girls didn’t go to the toilet. I like to think we educated him well that morning. Anyway Helen, the trooper, decided enough was enough and took matters into her own hands. While the rest of us dry retched in the lounge room, Helen got the fire poker and used it has a stick to try and clear the pipes. What would we do without her?

Hez´s 23rd Birthday

While in Punta Del Diablo, Hayley celebrated (well, commiserated really) her 23rd birthday. We woke her up in the morning with a handmade, shitty card, two flowers, a fruit salad for breakfast and the promise that as soon as she finds something she likes, she can buy it. Slack, yes, but Hayley is more a buy-my-own-presents kind of girl. Plus Diablo didn’t really have anything great to buy. She seemed happy though. That night we had another party, this time a themed one. Well, sort of. We were trying to think of different themes but it’s quite difficult while travelling (you just don’t think to pack your Wonder Woman costume!) So we settled on all wearing black, Hayley’s favourite colour. It was such a nice night; we all sat outside and had dinner of wine, beer, Lays chips and nibbles. Hayley’s birthday cake was a cracker with cheese as the icing and a cigarette as the candle. She seemed satisfied. We decided to play drinking games. I suggested `Celebrity Heads´ which everyone said would be crap, but ended up being so much fun. Very upsetting though when my clue was `he´s very similar to you´ and it ended up being Shane Warne! Nik and Ty stayed at home while H3 and I went out to a party in town. I befriended a table full of locals who called me a `retardo´ because my Spanish is so shit (I understood that word though!) while Hayley, Hannah and Helen got stuck talking to a sleazy American. Helen ended up staying back at the party while we went home but not before we threatened the boy she was with.
“If you robado her, we kill you” we told him while he looked nervous. The next day H2 left for Brazil and the four of us just nursed our filthy hangovers.

Cambodia and Thailand – a whitey’s baking bliss

CAMBODIA
Phnom Penh

We arrived in the capital of Cambodia at 10pm, four hours later than the estimated time of arrival (we travel folks call it the ETA, and yes we feel like wankers). Tired and sweaty, we drove around for what seemed like forever looking for accommodation. It was made slightly more entertaining by the many men who ran alongside our tuk-tuks trying to sell us drugs. We finally found a cool little place, right on the lake and sat out on the back deck drinking beers until 3am (yes we were tired but that’s no excuse for being anti-social!) The next day, we wandered around for a little bit, bought some photocopied novels off a flirtatious 8-year-old boy and hoped on the bus to the land of dreams, Sihankoville.

Sihankoville

For the first couple of days in Sihankoville (anyone labour a guess at pronouncing this name? We were there for a week and still referred to it as ‘S-ville´) Anyway, where was I? Oh, well for the first couple of days in S-Ville, all Hayley and I did was lay on the beach, read books, get massages and EAT! It was truly heaven. We became so much a fixture on the deck chairs that once, an Australian man came up to me and shouted “DO – YOU – SPEAK – ENGLISH?”
“Umm, yes, quite well,” I told him, frightened.
Turns out, he just wanted to congratulate me on reading a good book (Life of Pi by Yann Martel, anyone read it? It’s amazing!!) I’m not sure why he was under the assumption I was a deaf foreigner, but still it is lovely talking books.
So as I said, we were very mellow for the first couple of days. To be honest, all we wanted to do after a long day’s relaxing was crawl into bed with an Almond Magnum and watch ‘Titanic’ on cable. But we thought we should experience the famous Sihankoville nightlife so we booked a ‘Booze Cruise’, which we felt tacky saying but which turned out to be loads of fun! It was basically just a small boat with about 40 drunken tourists, one Cambodian man to steer and a little boy who for some reason wore a box on his head. We drove around to all the islands, which were beautiful, swimming, playing volleyball and generally being very Spring Break. That night, we all went to this party on the beach and we danced all night. Unfortunately, my night was cut short when one of the girls, a very spirited 19-year-old who was celebrating her birthday, flung her sandy thongs in the air, whacking me in the eye and leaving me temporarily blind. Very funny trying to explain to people that what was wrong with me was that “I got a sandy thong in my eye!” Especially for non-Australians, to whom ‘thongs’ are a provocative underwear and not a shoe.

The next morning was like something out of CSI. We woke up to loud noises coming outside our room and banging on the door. We opened up and there was our hotel manager, flanked by policeman telling us we had to leave the hotel as it was being shut down! There were policeman and reporters and cameramen EVERYWHERE, right outside our room! They all seemed to be congregating around the room next door and we tried to have a peek but couldn´t see anything. Anyway, it turns out the guy that was staying next door was found to have two little Cambodian girls in with him and he was filming himself molesting them!!!! WE WERE STAYING NEXT DOOR TO A PAEDOPHILE!!!! We could not believe it. We felt so sick. Especially since every morning we said hi to him. So disgusting. Thank god Cambodians are really tough on sex offenders so he´ll be locked up for a loooong time. We moved to another guesthouse, but still couldn´t shake the creeps we had knowing what was going on next door.
Anyway let’s move on from that yucky subject. One thing we really noticed about Cambodia (and Asia in general) is the obsession with being ‘white’. As one of the darkest-skinned races in South-East Asia, Cambodia seemed to be full of advertisements for skin bleaching and pictures of Westerners. While we were sunbaking one day in S´Ville a little girl selling bracelets came up to us. We got talking and she told me that she was a dancer and had just gotten some professional photos taken for her to take to auditions. She showed them to me.
“You look different,” I told her. I couldn´t quite put my finger on it.
“Yes, they photoshopped my skin to look white,” she said.
“Why did they do that?” I asked her, outraged.
“Because I asked them to,” she said. “I want to be white.”
I was furious!
“But you have gorgeous skin,” I told her.
“No, no, I want skin like yours,” she said, stroking my freckled and sun-damaged arm. I told her I lay in the sun for hours so I can have skin like hers. That´s when a young boy on my other side said solemnly, “Aahh, yes, we all want what we can´t have.”

THAILAND
Bangkok

We got to Bangkok quite late in the night, but you know what they say… Bangkok never sleeps (or is that New York?) Well, whatever, Bangkok was still bustling with tourists and stall vendors and prostitutes so we wandered around for a bit looking for somewhere to stay, finding one in this back alley for AU$10 a night (pretty cheap for Thailand). We got the thrill of a lifetime when Belle, our friend who we travelled with in Vietnam, opened the door to the internet café we were sitting in. Of all the internet joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into ours. Very exciting. That night we realised our mistake in staying in a $10 a night place… it backed onto Koh San Road, which is a notorious backpacker area, full of loud, raucous bars. So, with ‘YOU!! SHOOK ME ALLLL NIGHT LONG!’ blaring in our ears and the light from outside shining so brightly, you could’ve sworn it was noon, we fell asleep. The next day, we set about on running several urgent errands including: getting fake student IDs off a street vendor as they guarantee cheap rooms in South America and getting Hayley’s nose pierced. Wild! We then set off for the south islands…

Phi Phi

Anyone who has seen ‘The Beach’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio knows what I´m talking about when I say Phi Phi is like heaven on Earth. Or, it would be, if everyone just left it alone. While the island itself is absolutely stunning, the thousands of overweight, sunburnt British chicks and the muscled, shirtless beefcakes walking around with their undies up to their nipples… well, they are not. We had fun at Phi Phi, we met some really cool people and got to see some absolutely gorgeous sights. But to be honest, Phi Phi is drowning in tourism. Everyone who seems to go there (excluding yours truly, of course) seems to have one mission in mind: get wasted. And, whenever possible, get laid. But I’m sounding very snobbish! We did have a great time there. Highlights include exploring the surrounding islands and having a monkey grab me on the leg and drink from my water bottle, snorkeling in crystal blue water and taking underwater snaps on Hayley´s waterproof camera, and eating the best Pad Thai in the world.

So that was the end of our South-East Asia adventures. Next, was the ginormous and slightly scary land of South America…

Wanderlust

Why dreaming is a large part of the globetrotting fun

I’ve been dreaming of France since I was 10 years old. My primary school let me choose between learning French and Italian and I swung Chanel’s way choosing Français. My high school taught Italian so I got lost for a little while. However, I never lost the desire to wear a beret, strut about like a Can-Can dancer and purchase anything and everything reminding me of this country I longed to see. For a week I’d been tossing and turning trying to decide whether I go out on a limb, forget all reasonable thought and responsibilities and just go. So I booked. I maxed out my credit card and secured flights in and out of romantic Paris. I was ecstatic, elated, on top of the world. I started planning my wardrobe, the miniature toiletries I’d have to buy, and organised to borrow a massive suitcase to fill with teacups, art and presents, all emblazing Parisian icons. I watched three Audrey Hepburn films in a row, all set in France, and read the two Parisian guides I naturally already owned. I saw Coco avant Chanel and started on her biography. I needed to absorb as much knowledge as possible before this whim of a trip began. Then I hit a wall. My supposedly free accommodation was no longer and I couldn’t afford the trip without such a luxury. And to make it worse my tickets were non-refundable. Fuck… excuse my French. So I made the only choice a recession-unfriendly, struggling writer has and changed my flights to the following year. Shattered? Yes. But we’ll always have Paris. So back on the bandwagon I hopped booking 6 weeks, 10 countries, and true European bliss. I realised that if my last-minute voyage hadn’t gone topsy-turvy I would have missed out on how exciting it is to dream up the perfect trip. Within hours I’d devoured the Contiki website, restaurant reviews, and Lonely Planet guides from more countries than what my highly-desired and now non-existent Frenchcapade had offered. There are so many options! And I now have the motivation to save money – so I can actually eat more than a lone baguette each day – and something to look forward to. I can count down the days until I clamber to the front of the waiting crowd, rush to my allocated seat, buckle in, await lift off, and about 30 hours later arrive at my destination… Paris, when it sizzles.

Malaysia – not quite fast enough

MALAYSIA

Kuala Lumpur

If this trip was our version of ‘The Amazing Race’, then that made Kuala Lumpur our first pit stop (only without Phil there to tell us we were team number one). We probably wouldn’t have chosen to visit Malaysia – to be honest, unless you enjoy feeling inferior as you wander around the side-by-side Louis Vuitton stores in hemp pants and headscarves, then I don’t know why you would want to go there – but we flew with Malaysian Airlines so we had to make an appearance. We struggled our way through the bustling heat and crowd of China Town, looking like sweaty, overgrown turtles until we found a cute hostel to dump our packs. We were determined to explore the city, in spite of the heat. Our first stop was the Low Yat Centre (we humorously referred to it as the ‘Low Fat Centre’ – clever, no?) to inspect the ‘cheap’ electronics… au contraire, my friends! Perhaps we are stingy (this argument has been made on our behalf many time before) but $200 for a portable DVD player?? Dick Smith has them for half that! We walked away huffily and instead amused ourselves by taking snaps in front of various landmarks. At the second-most-famous Twin Towers in the world, we took a photo which had me standing over the camera looking like I’m falling headfirst into the lens… too soon for 9/11 jokes? That was pretty much the highlight of Malaysia, so you can probably tell we weren’t too impressed! We flew out the next day to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam.

Land of the (punctually) rising sun

Japan is a country of manners, where even inanimate objects consider your comfort. Vending machines offer cold and hot drinks, trains come with a “silent” carriage (and they are bang on time), and you need only fondle a map scrunched in the dark recesses of your bag before a smiling local rushes to your aid.

None of these compare, however, to the Amazing Japanese Toilets.

Flush your pre-conceived notions of Asian latrines down the nearest squatter, because this country houses the Rolls Royce of toilets. We all dread the cold-weather-toilet-trip. That cringe-ful, bladder-ful moment when you know you have to leave your bed. That instant hypothermic shock as your feet hit the floor. That painful moment of suspense as you lower your pants … and then – blissful warmth! Oh delight. Oh treat of treats. Oh what height of luxury it is to be able to defrost your frozen buns on a heated toilet seat. Marie Antoinette never had it this good. Actually, it’s so good that many a male has been known to “girly pee” while in Japan. Not only do these technological marvels self-heat, they also self-deodorise and self-censor – that’s right, you can have an embarrassment-be-gone sound play as you “go”.

Perhaps an ironic topic to breach so soon after the last paragraph, but the other amazing thing about Japan is the food and drink. As an omega-3-deficient non-eater of seafood, I was anxious about how I would remain nourished while traveling. Sure, they have rice and teriyaki chicken, but would this be enough? Turns out I could have flushed these worries (down the Amazing Japanese Toilet) as well. You may or may not know, but the Japanese put our barbecuing to shame. They know steak (mmm, wagyu beef), and do it well. Most places have a cook-it-yourself arrangement, which is certainly a novelty. Value is added to said novelty when you can eat all you please within a set amount of time. Amusement is combined with said value which is added to said novelty when you can eat all you please within a set amount of time during an all-you-can-drink situation. Confused? You will be when you consume this much iron and alcohol in two hours. At the time of travel (February 2009) we found a place in Osaka that let you eat and drink just about anything for 3500 yen – which equated to around AU$65, and a bathtub’s worth of beef, beer and cocktails, at the time.

The thing about Japan is that everything is found either up or down a series of stairs, which means that an excellent club or restaurant won’t just jump out at you on the street. To know the local hot spots you have to ask the local people, which is often best done as a mixture of mime, picture-pointing and interpretive dance. But it’s all part of the fun. If it wasn’t for overcoming the language barrier, so much fun would not have been had, including the aforementioned barbecue.

The Japanese do partying well – very well – and hard. In fact, they party so well and hard that we westerners often could not keep up.  It’s actually amazing we could stand up at all, between the “Beer and Liquor” vending machines on the street and the all-you-can-drink clubs up the stairs. We should have known what we were in for when a 60-something-year-old Japanese lady looked at the 5% Asahi we were holding and scoffed at us for drinking light beer. Towards the end of the journey we were introduced to “Strong 7”: a beer-flavoured alcoholic beverage available in all good convenience stores. Strong was right. I’m no brewer, but apparently it’s “beer-flavoured” and not “beer” beer because it’s impossible for beer to have a 7% alcohol content. Legend has it there is even a “Strong 8”, but we were too scared to even look for me to bust this myth.

One club, ironically titled “Pure”, asked 2000 yen cover from girls (around $35 at the time) and 3000 or so from boys. In return you get a cup. That is your cup for the night. It can be filled with anything – and I mean anything – at any time from the bar. Needless to say, barely anyone remembers that night. Perhaps our downfall was filling it with tequila shots.

All this said and done, a trip to Asia is not truly Asian without trying your microphone-gripping hand at their national sport – and Japanese karaoke hot spots have a lot to offer. One place we found in a quiet Tokyo suburb offered 11pm-5am Karaoke plus all you can drink plus all the ice cream you can eat – this ended up being a Sizzler desert bar-type situation. But wait, there’s more! Groups of five or more get a free potato!

(NB – “potato” turned out to be a very small plate of fries)

The beautiful thing about finishing a rip-roaring Karaoke session at 5am is that the subway starts running at this time. So you can pop over to the famed fish markets, at least until Maccas opens, and tell your mum you did it. It’s one of those places Lonely Planet says you simply must go to. They aren’t wrong – this place nearly converted even me to the cuisine of the marine, and it wasn’t just the cow-sized tuna. Although perhaps the tuna weren’t quite big enough, because at the end (or rather, start) of the day there is nothing like a 6am McMuffin.

And on this note, it is important to add that Japan is not all about the booze and the late nights. Sure, the hard and fast lifestyle is fun, but it isn’t nearly as rewarding as what Mother Nature has to offer: a real wild (-life) time. I’m talking some dear deer friends just waiting to be frolicked with. Wild is an overstatement for the hoofed residents of Nara – Japan’s old capital – but these deer sure are fun, and you don’t even have to buy the deer food for them to come and say hi.

To get especially “au naturale” in Japan, shed your kimono and head to the nearest onsen for yet another way to pamper you bare derriere. The catch: it is imperative you are indeed bare. Starkers. In the buff. In your birthday suit. And on this could go. Scary isn’t it? It’s true the idea of public – because these places tend to be public – nudity is more terrifying than a plate of poisoned fugu (ever seen that Simpson’s episode?) but believe me it’s worth it. Outdoor or indoor, there seems to be one of these traditional hot spring bathhouses in every suburb – some villages are devoted to them.  For killer skin and a relaxin’ good time, get over your inhibitions and take the plunge. No-one’s looking anyway, they’re Japanese: far too polite.

If you do want to travel Japan, see the following for the best way to do it

Travel:

Jetstar are having one of their famed sales right now, with flights to Tokyo or Osaka between mid-May and June from $199

www.jetstar.com

Rail Pass: It’s imperative you get one. They let you go almost anywhere within the country

www.japanrailpass.net

for more information

Hostels:

K’s House

http://kshouse.jp

We stayed at the Kyoto and the Tokyo one. There are plenty more though.The Kyoto one is particularly excellent and is perhaps the best hostel you will ever stay at. Ever.

J-Hoppers

http://j-hoppers.com

We stayed in the Osaka and Hishoma branches. Both very cosy and friendly with traditional rooms available – they are exceptionally comfortable and make you think of a primary school slumber party.