Backpack Storybook

London, United Kingdom – An old school friend dropped in to London this weekend, just another stop on his route from Korea to Japan to South America on to Ireland and then back home to Australia.

Or at least, that's how I think it goes, I couldn't keep up with his convoluted travel schedule no matter how many times he explained.

It was also good chance for some of my Western Australian friends and I to catch up for an afternoon beer. Perth seems to be one of those smaller cities or towns that spring boards its young people off to the brighter lights of Sydney, Melbourne or London for a few years after university.

If we're all away living and travelling in different parts of the globe it's sometimes easier to catch up on the other side of the world in a global city like London. There's a good chance many of us will pass through here at one stage or another.

The venue for the catch up was the Vibe Bar on Brick Lane in London's inner city east. It's not an area I go to much because I don't work there and its a bit of a hike from my south west London home. But I'm glad I tore myself away from the laptop on a warmish Sunday arvo because Brick Lane was doing a good job of collecting all that is good in London in one place.

Along this famous stretch of markets hemmed in by centuries old terraces I came across a group of enthusiastic, bookish types who had set up an advice stall with a card table and typewriter outside a book shop.

The usual outrageous characters of homeless, scammers and drunkspatrolled up and down the footpath.

Shifty types sold bicycles in the great Brick Lane bike yards. I wondered what percentage of them was stolen but realised I had no way of telling. Apart from the bikes with the U-locks still bolted around the frame.

Further up I passed a bunch of stalls selling bric a brac. Either all the good stuff had long been sold or it had been crap all along, but some of the stuff for sale was optimistic to say the least.

Retro is obviously very cool right now in London, but I couldn't understand why anyone would want a late 1990s Nokia mobile phone. To recent to be ironically cool, too brick-like and heavy for anyone to consider actually using it.

All this window shopping was making me thirsty so I retired to the beer garden of the Vibe for a pint of Becks to talk about old times with the assembling crew from high school.

Much later when our stomachs began rumbling with hunger we walked back up the street for a famous Brick Lane curry. The waiters touting for business reminded me a little of the touts in Asia, but with one obvious difference: the UK touts actually took no for answer.

Soon the offers became too good to refuse and we chose the restaurant who promised us two free beers each and 30% off our bill. Still thinking of the Vietnamese touts, I was sceptical about how they were going to make up for such a generous offer and still turn a profit.

To their credit, they did it with minuscule meal portions and £2.60 (roughly AUD$6) for rice, rather than (blatantly) ripping us off by fiddling with the bill.

Labels: UK

Cotswolds, United Kingdom - A day trip to the northern Cotswolds, north-west of London.

Labels: UK

London, United Kingdom - One of the things I've been enjoying in England is the more relaxed approach to drinking. London is not quite Europe, but it does seem less uptight than Australia about having a beer.

You can buy booze in supermarkets and off licenses (corner stores) and it seems to be reasonably priced too.

The biggest surprise for me was seeing people drinking outside pubs on the street. Now that the weather has warmed up nicely in spring, its not unusual to see punters buying a pint inside the pub and then drinking it outside in the sun.

And I'm not talking about a beer garden. Jacq and I visited Putney Bridge on the weekend and found ourselves having a quiet drink on the footpath about a block away from the pub. Drinkers were lined up along the riverside walk enjoying their bitters and Pimms from plastic cups.

Its a great solution to the fact that most English pubs are great in winter but in warmer weather seem like stuffy, dark little holes. The 'beer garden' is usually just a couple of picnic tables outside on the footpath.

What I haven't worked out yet is how the English change from well behaved street drinkers in the afternoon to rowdy, sometimes violent puke machines once pubs close at 11pm.

Fights break out, pot plants are overturned and the pavement is sprayed with salmon-pink vomit. Its a totally different world.

I suppose thats the difference between pint number two mid-afternoon and a tenth pint at 11pm.

Labels: UK

London, United Kingdom - England has been enjoying some outrageously good weather recently. To celebrate, we thought we’d organise a barbecue for Sunday, the hottest day of this week’s mini heat wave.

We’re lucky enough to have both a backyard and a barbecue, so it seemed a shame not to use them as much as possible.

But first we had to mow the lawn, which looked like it hadn’t been cut since last summer. We borrowed next door’s mower. Strangely, it was an electric model. Plug it into the wall and away you go.

Initially I was sceptical. As an Aussie I’m more familiar with the smoky two stroke Victa models. But apart from the blades slowing down slightly in the tough stuff, it did an admirable job. And there was no need to stuff around with fuel and struggling to start the bastard like you have with the petrol mowers.

After that it was a matter of getting the barbecue organised. Again, I'm more familar with the gas-powered barbecue and flat hot plate common in Australia. But my Seth Efrican flatmates had bought a more traditional braai that used coal.

It was a dirty, hot and sweaty business getting the bitch going. And I could never tell if the pile of charcoal was about to extinguish or spark into a roaring fire. It just sat there and stayed black. And then went grey.

People arrived. We sat in the sun and drank tubes of beer that quickly went warm. The girls made waaay to much salad.

I manned the braai and burnt the sausages to a crisp while the coals were too hot. By the time the steaks went on it was too cool and they took ages to cook.

Nevertheless we all tucked into the feast and then laid around some more. A couple of blokes even had an arvo snooze in the shade.

Later still we went down to the local park and played cricket. A group of local ten year old toughs milling in the middle of the park complained we were playing on 'their' pitch. They kicked their ball at us a few times but we mostly ignored them until they sicced their overweight Mum onto us. Not wanting to get into the sort of knife fight with a bunch of hoodies that seems to arise from relatively harmless beginnings in this city, we moved on to the private sporting fields across the road.

As we left for the fields, they called out that we weren't allowed to play there either. Nor did they make any attempt to restart their game of football.

After a couple more overs a drinks break was declared and we all repaired back to the backyard for another round. Good times.

Labels: UK

Bath, United Kingdom - My first glimpse of the town came from my seat on the train we took from London’s Paddington station into the countryside of south-west England.

After miles of rolling paddocks and occasional villages populated by semi-detached homes, Bath appeared as a shining, golden town, its sand-coloured terraces stretching away along a green hillside.

Closer up it looked no less impressive. Jacq and I strolled through the town on our way to the YMCA and were captivated with the layout, the architecture and the views across the valley.

The town had managed to keep its sense of history. Centuries old terraces line the streets. Sure, Sainsburys, Starbucks and other chain stores inhabit some of the buildings, but by the looks of things they’ve not been allowed to build the prefab shops that had sprung up in the other towns we’d passed. Instead they (mostly) blend in.

Bath is also conveniently compact. Between the train station, our room at the Y and the river were all the major tourist sights. In two days we saw the Roman Baths, the Pulteney Bridge and weir, Bath Abbey, the Circus, the Crescent Costume Museum, Assembly Rooms and half a dozen other historical sites.

And these were just some of the attractions. Most of the museums charged between £5 and £12 for entry so we only saw a couple.

Of course, the Roman Baths is a must see in the town. After watching the queues stretch around the block on the Sunday, we arrived early on Monday to get in before the tour buses arrived from London.

Many of the attractions in Bath had a free audio tour for visitors. At the baths we were treated to the slightly absurd sight of dozens of people shuffling around with a mobile phone-shaped set clamped to one ear. You could choose between the official commentary, a children’s version or a guest tour by Bill Bryson.

The Roman Baths are a museum piece now. The blue-green water and the ore-stained brick work around the pools are just for looking at. The real bathing happens at a flash day spa around the corner. But we were able to get a little bit hands on in the Pump Room after the tour by tasting the spring water. Served warm and frothy from calcium encrusted taps, Jacq likened the taste to a glass of water with dissolved aspirin.

My favourite part of the trip was a midday hike up the eastern hills into the farms overlooking Bath. We came across some rather posh cows, who, unlike their curious Australian relatives, showed no interest in us.

On the walk back down we came across one of the many canals that dot the English countryside. Long, narrow houseboats lined up moored to the banks. Their owners seemed to be a mix of nomadic retirees or gypsy ferals.

I decided there and then a fitted out narrow boat on a Gold Coast canal should be my next Australian residence.

Labels: UK

Labels: UK

London, United Kingdom - Backpack Storybook is off to the historic town of Bath this Easter. However, because we were only able to book accommodation at the Bath youth hostel for the Sunday night, we found ourselves with a couple of spare days up our sleeves.

While Jacq met friends at the Tate Modern art gallery today, I took the train waaaay out west to Zone 4 to Richmond to visit the Kew Gardens.

Alongside seeing Buckingham Palace (see here), visiting Kew was another "I can't believe I'm in London" moment.

Back on the Gold Coast in Australia, while working as a PR, I wrote several media releases about my organisation's involvement in an international project with the gardens. At the time I remember thinking how prestigious, how historical and how interesting the Kew appeared. And how far away from the Gold Coast it seemed.

So it was with a small sense of personal satisfaction that I got to stroll around the 300-odd acres of gardens today. The sun was shining, the mercury was topping 20C and the English were slowly going bright red from sunburn. Basically, it was a great day to be outside.

Some of the gardens were amazing. I walked among small tufts of flowering alpine plants whose survival depended on stainless steel funnels constantly blowing cool air onto their leaves.

At other displays I had a sense of deja vu. In the enormous glass palm house I dodged other visitors marvelling at the palms and tropical plants in the humid air. It was kind of impressive, given that we were in England

But it had none of the lushness or smells of rich, rotting compost that we encountered in the real jungles of Laos and Thailand.

At the Chinese pagoda I strolled past without barely raising my camera while tourists went nuts. "It's got nuthin' on Angkor Wat," I thought.

Instead, I lost my mind over the English rose gardens and neatly ordered beds of plants in the Duke's Gardens. It was all so terribly English!

Meanwhile, the locals walked past these attractions without a second glance. There's no pleasing some people, I suppose.

Labels: UK

London, United Kingdom - Today Jacq and I ventured over to the north side of London to Hampstead Heath.

Apparently, this is the rich area of London.

When shoebox size flats regularly go for £350,000 around this city its sometimes hard to believe London actually has non-wealthy areas. Perhaps its easier to think of the different boroughs as being either rich or richer.

Anyway, as far as suburbs go, Hampstead was very enjoyable. Well kept terraces lined the quiet streets and Londoners flocked to the cafes and bars along the high street to enjoy the rare spring sunshine.

We were there to check out Hampstead Heath, a large park. London is around 33% parkland and there are large open areas, usually called heaths or commons, all around the city.

In our area alone we have Clapham, Tooting and Wandsworth commons. They're great spaces for kicking the footy or, come summertime, sunbathing in our underwear. I've heard its very popular among the English.

Hampstead was fairly unique in that it had a steepish hill in the middle. For the first time since arriving in January we saw the horizon. We were able to look to the south west and see the city skyline from afar - rather than being in it.

The sense of space and fresh air was energising. Then we caught the tube back into south west London and had a pint with our old room mates in a smoky pub.

Labels: UK