Bamboo Train Videos

Battambang

We were up early and were taken to the bus stop so we could catch one to Battambang. The hotel charged us $6 per person for the tickets but we discovered they were only $4 when we got to the stop. This is how they roll in Asia but we weren’t too worried as the Guesthouse had been very helpful during our stay. The bus ride was 5 hours with a couple of quick stops. One stop was in a large town and a small boy about 5 years old, came up to us showing us a local currency note hoping we would give him more. He saw the funny side when Tunde tried to take it but was very pleased to be given a jelly cup. He then spent about 10 minutes looking at our Lonely Planet and telling us the local names of things. Another stop was at a small road side restaurant which backed onto a rice field. We spent the time here watching the village people working in the field and watching the Chickens with the chicks pecking around on the ground.
We arrived in Battambang in the afternoon and were immediately overwhelmed by all the hotel staff and tuk tuks trying to get our business. This was a bit much so we told them all we were walking and they thought it was very funny when I said ‘I’m not listening’. During the bus ride we had looked in the guide book and selected a few places we could stay so we headed to these. A room with air conditioning was $12 for three people, not too bad. By this stage we were all starving so we headed to a restaurant for some lunch, Damien and I shared a really yummy sweet potatoes soup.
Its funny, the reason that we were going to come to Battambang, was that it is possible to do it on a very scenic boat trip from Siem Reap. The girls thought that this 8hr trip would be too long so they opted for the 6 hour bus instead. Still, back at the hotel we ordered a Tuk Tuk and headed off on an adventure. Our first stop was the Bamboo train which consists of an old, warped, single rail train track that runs through the countryside. The Cambodians are very good at finding a use for everything so when the French abandoned the tracks the locals began to build Bamboo trains. These consist of two individual axles, a bamboo platform and a 6 horse power gasoline engine. Our Tuk Tuk driver told the train driver we didn’t have very long as the tour started quite late in the day, so I think the train driver stepped on it. We were hurtling down the rail tracks, clunking over the joins and ducking the greenery which was encroaching on our path. Damien likened it to the GrinGotts scenes riding down to the vaults from Harry Potter, it was pretty fun. We think we were probably traveling about 60km when we saw the first train coming in the opposite direction, it was a bit scary! The driver easily managed to stop, got off the platform, then he and the other driver lifted the platform off the other train and place it beside the track. They then grabbed and axles each, put it to the side then pushed our train through, then reassembled the other train behind us. This whole procedure took all of 2 minutes. We continued on and watched this procedure a few more times. We think we had right off way traveling in one direction but it depended on which cart had a larger load and if there were multiple carts coming in one direction.
The bamboo train took us to a small town which manufactures bricks. One of the local girls took us through the factory showing us the massive brick kilns and told us the process for making the bricks. Again the Cambodians showed their resourcefulness, the kiln use rice husks as fuel. The clay is taken from the field beside the factory then pushed through a machine which produces a long piece of clay with holes in it, a bit like a play dough spaghetti machine. This is then fed onto a platform where it is cut into brick sized pieces. It then dries for a few days before being fired in the kiln for 15 days. This girl’s English was excellent and when we asked how she learnt she simply said she talks to tourists every day. We returned to the Tuk Tuk on the bamboo train. Damien and Tunde were both very pleased to have a go at ‘driving’ but fortunately I think it must be pretty hard to crash so we made it back in one piece. Back on the Tuk Tuk and the adventures continued. We watched the country scenery of rice fields and stilt house around us and watched the locals going about their business. We still find it strange how excited some people get when they see white people. Whilst driving through the countryside on the Tuk Tuk, there were two young girls sitting on a mound of soil watching the family’s road side stall. When they saw wave to them they were very excitedly waving back and one girl knocked the other off the mound and she rolled down the embankment.
The second place we visited was the temple Phnom Sampeau. The temple is up a hill which takes about an hour to climb so we had to fork out for motor bikes to take us up, but it was kinda fun. This area is very peaceful but it has seen some horrific things. During the Khmer Rouge rein the caves around the temple became known as the killing caves as people were bludgeoned then pushed through a natural sky light into the cave some 50m below. There were three caves used by the Khmer Rouge, the man cave, the woman cave and the boy cave which tells you who was killed where. Some of the victim’s bones are now housed in a glass case next to a very peacefully looking reclining Buda. The view from the top of the hill was lovely, rice fields as far as the eye could see only interrupted by some small mountains.
Our guide, a 15 year old with fantastic English, was keen to get us down the hill before dark. I think my driver made it three quarters of the way down without turning on the motor bikes engine. We were pleased with what they wanted to show us, millions of tiny bats leaving their cave to go out hunting for the night. It was quite amazing, a constant black stream of tiny creatures, which apparently lasts for around two hours. The local people sometimes catch them with nets and make interesting stews and things, we didn’t ask to try. Back in town we headed down to the river front for dinner at the night market, however we didn’t stay long and ended up eating in a restaurant called White Rose, which was cheap, looked nice and turned out to have good food. After $4 chicken noodles and a beer we headed back to the guesthouse.
Next morning we woke early, had a coffee and bacon and egg bagel in town and then jumped on the bus. We had bought tickets the night before for the 9am bus, but when we arrived at quarter to, we were rushed onto a bus which left immediately. Were still not sure if the 8.30am bus left late or the 9am bus left early!

Siem Reap - Cambodia

After 10 hours it was Hello Asia! It’s so good to be back!
Not to be bogged down in one place for too long, after an hour at Bangkok airport and meeting up with Tunde, one of Christine’s work colleagues in London, we boarded a bus headed for Siem Reap, in Cambodia.
Hot Tip: for anyone looking for a good feed at Bangkok Airport take the free shuttle to the cargo stop and eat in the canteen next to Dunkin Doughnuts. We found this by accident, getting off the bus at the wrong stop, but as far as airport food goes its dirt cheap and top quality, we had freshly made pad thai. We were surrounded by local workers from the cargo docks and air hostesses.
Day 1

It’s our first day in Cambodia and there is plenty to do. We got up at 8am, had breakfast then headed out on a Tuk Tuk. It was an hour drive through the countryside and villages watching the people working in the rice fields. Finally we arrived at the first temple Banteay Srey or ‘citadel of women’ which we had been told we needed to visit as it had some of the finest examples of Khmer Art. It was a great first temple, not too big, very well preserved carvings and surrounded by a moat. Being so far out of town, also meant that it was not too crowded.
We climbed back into the Tuk Tuk and headed to the next site. On the way we were horrified to see another Tuk Tuk take the corner too quickly and tumble down the road embankment. Luckily the three tourists in the back were ok but the Tuk Tuk driver hurt his ankle. It was nice to see other Tuk Tuk’s stopping to help get the bike and carriage out of the ditch and make sure everyone was ok. Kbal Spears involved a 45 minute walk through the jungle, mostly up hill. It was a very nice walk with a few views of the densely forested valley below. At the top we were expecting a temple, but found it was just some stone carvings on the river bed. The river has 1000 lingas which are small round bumps carved into the stone in a grid like pattern, which represent men. There was also a waterfall at the top which was nice, but Tunde didn’t want to come down the stairs to look at it due to the HUGE spider sitting in it’s web over the stairs. On the way back down we spotted what we think is a black gibbon jumping from tree to tree. After lunch we visted another temple Banteay Samre, another temple built in a similar style to Angkor Wat but smaller. Nearby was Neak Pean, a quick visit which was good as once a bus load of noisy Chinese tourists left we had the place to our selves. It had a square lake with a temple in the middle which was flanked by smaller temples and lakes on each side. It was very peaceful and we enjoyed listening to the chorus of frog song. By now the sun was nearly setting so our driver rushed us over to our final stop, Pre Rup. This was a great place for sunset, for a few reasons. Firstly it is another nice temple which has some steep stairs leading up the different levels of the temple to the top which has nice views looking down on the temple and over the fields in the distance. Also it is not the most popular place in the area for sunset, so while there were other people there, it wasn’t too crowded. The sunset was nice too, the nicest we will see in Siem Reap. After sunset we showered, to cool off, its hot and humid here at the moment, it’s the start of rainy season. We ate dinner on pub street, a street lined with bars and restaurants, a bit touristic, but 50c beers was the deciding factor. Christine and I shared two local khmer dishes, Amok and a curry, which were both very tasty. Then it was off to bed in preparation for an early morning.

Day 2
It was a very early start, we met our Tuk Tuk driver and guide at 4:45am in order to see sun rise at Angkor Wat. This was nice but not as spectacular as I expected especially with the hordes of tourists all bustling to get the best photo spot. We are glad that we did it, even if the sunrise wasn’t as good as during other times of the year. We had breakfast at one of the restaurants which are not as nice as the ones in town but about twice the price. After breakfast we headed to our first temple, with a brief stop at the gates to the district, which had a decorative bridge featuring huge statues of hero’s on one side and demons on the other. Bayon Temple consists of three levels which represent the underworld, earth and heaven.
It has fascinating wall reliefs of the way that people in the area lived 1000 years ago. All walks of life were represented, people cooking, workers in the rice fields, fishermen, weavers, people (and monkeys) drinking, markets, soldiers at war, cock fights and dancing. One part of the relief depicted a battle at sea between the Khmer and Cham people. Women were on the Khmer side and their job was to jump into the water and attack the boat by drilling holes in the side so it would sink. Many scenes with water included crocodiles in the waters, who would eat the bodies of the dead. The top level of the temple was amazing as it had small spires with huge calm smiling faces on each of the four sides. From here we were able to walk with our guide to the next few temples. First was Baphuon Temple which was another multi level temple, however much of this is in ruins, so we did not enter. There is a large reclining budda made of huge stone blocks on the exterior but was a bit difficult to see.
A bit more of a walk through a bit of a jungle, huge trees and we arrived at the gates of the royal palace. We climbed the very steep steps of Phimeanakas Temple which is the tallest temple in the palace area. The exterior of Royal Palace grounds had some fascinating lion and bird carvings along the wall of the terrace as well as some three headed elephants.
Preah Khan was our next stop. This was a huge temple with many rooms and passageways. It contained a number of carvings and inscriptions o the walls, statues, and a few trees growing inside the temple. It was a little busy in sections but the guide managed to show us parts that other tourist don’t find. Exiting the temple we bought a pineapple on a stick from a little girl.
Before heading to the next temple we had a quick stop off at one of the local schools to see what they are like. The children were all smiles at the unexpected visitors and a few of them could say hello. They were all delighted when we took photos of them, then showed them the picture on the camera screen. Ta Prohm was an amazing temple and was actually used as a film set for tomb raider. The only drawback was the number of tourists, and lots of tourist means the attraction needs boardwalk which is handy but spoils some of the charm. We like this temple due to the trees which had begun to grow on the roof of the temple then over the years had sent roots down the walls to the soil below. There were trees as tall as a five story building growing on top of the temple and the root system branched out with some parts about half a meter in diameter. It was good having a guide here as he was able to show us some of the quieter but still very interesting parts of the temple, and ensured a quick get away without having to go through the crowds. We had lunch then headed to the big one, Angkor Wat. This was massive and why the day trippers come to Siem Reap so it was very busy. It was full of long passages, budda’s but the most interesting part was the carved walls which told the story of Rama. We climbed the three levels and explored the passages and courtyards. When finished at Angkor Wat, it was around 3:30pm and we were all exhausted after the 5am start. We headed back to the hotel and had a bit of a rest. Christine slept for a couple of hours whilst Damien and Tunde made friends with other travelers in the hotel foyer. After a drink and dinner we headed to bed while Tunde went out with some guy she had met. We didn’t see her again until breakfast.

Day 3
After yesterday we decided a bit of a sleep in was in order. We managed to have breakfast and be in the Tuk Tuk by about 10am and were on our way along with Tundes new friend James. We are still amazed by some of the things we see whilst sitting back and enjoying our Tuk Tuk ride. There was a ute pulled up next to one of the many crazy power poles in the mist of all the traffic. On the back of the ute were two men holding a metal ladder vertical, whilst their colleague was working on the electrical wires above. We’re still not sure if ‘Health and Safety’ exists in Asia. The Tuk Tuk drove through the country side and then turned down a bumpy dirt road. We continued along this for a good forty minutes, getting nervous about becoming bogged when the river began to form huge puddles on the road. We boarded a boat which took us along the river to a ‘floating’ village. This was full of houses on huge stilts where the locals live. We watched people fishing, washing clothes and children playing in the very dirty looking water. It was very funny when three young girls, aged from 3 to 8 years old, in a canoe became so excited by us whities waving at them, that they crashed the canoe into a stationary boat. They were ok and laughing and then laughed even harder because we were laughing.
The boat took us to a small restaurant where we boarded small canoes and proceeded to be paddled by a couple of young boys and their mother through the flooded forest. We saw spiders, lizards, frogs in the lower branches of the trees and a very small monkey or squirrel in the branches above. Then it was back onto the big boat and he took us out to the lake which is huge, it was difficult to see the banks and I think it extended to the horizon at the far end. He turned around, took us back past the floating village and dropped us back at the Tuk Tuk. From there we had a few more temples to visit in the Roluos region.
The first was Preah Ko which was pretty much just some ruined towers. The most impressive was Bakong which was beside a river, had several levels o climb and numerous towers surrounding the main structure. Our final temple visit for our visit was Lolei, where it rained upon entry, but meant that we were the only ones there.
Back at Pub Street we had a late lunch. Damien’s hair was getting pretty wild so we dropped past one of the local street side barbers to get a trim. Whilst under the shops rickety roof a tropical storm hit. This meant that more of the locals were dropping off at the hair dresser to get out of the rain, and would then stay a while to watch the whitey getting his very exotic blond hair cut. It became a bit of a theatre. We ate dinner on Pub Street and Damien shared a Khmer BBQ with James. This is a cook yourself affair where you are given a few plates of meat (Snake, beef, crocodile, frog and prawns) and a small gas cooker with dome shaped lid which acts as the grill. We were pleasantly surprised that the frog was actually the tastiest meat of the lot. Snake was really chewy. After dinner we headed back to the night market to look for a painting as a souvenir. In the end, after talking to countless stalls we bought two very different ones in one of the first shops we had seen on our first night.
Showering tonight was a bit of an experience, we have left our mark on the hotel, so to speak. While Damien was showering, after the girls luckily, the exhaust fan caught on fire! It didn’t burn for long and he was able to blow it out, throwing water on the electrics didn’t seem like a good option! Still smoke filled the bathroom and stank out our room. We let the hotel know but there response was “no fan tonight!” We think it blew a few other fuses too, as the fridge wasn’t working the next morning.

Brilliant Berlin

The bus journey went very smoothly, nice bus. Arriving in Berlin we headed for the Metro but had some trouble with the ticket machines as they didn’t accept Visa. After a coffee and doughnut, a visit to the atm and returning to the bus station to get the train tickets, we were away. Berlin has a great transport system, and although we don’t fully understand it all, we managed to get ourselves all over the city with ease.
We spent our first afternoon in the area near the hostel. This is a cool artsy area, so had a very laid back feel. We also found the locals to be very friendly, almost as soon as we left the hostel one girl came up to us to see if we needed help. We must have looked fresh off the boat, as were struggling to unfold our city map. Although we knew where we were going we had a chat and then she pointed us in the right direction. A bit further down the road we wandered into what we thought was an art gallery, open door with lots of art on the walls inside. Ooops, turns out it wasn’t, it was just a studio where some artists work, but again they didn’t mind and were happy to show us around the studio before we left. The main direction of our walk was the East Side Gallery which is part of the Berlin wall which has been preserved. It is now covered in graffiti (art) some of which looks quite nice. This involved crossing the river over a bridge with small turrets along the side of it. The gallery itself stretches for about 1.5km and contained paintings of cartoony faces in bright colors, a Volkswagen driving through the wall, a cartoon of the US check point border crossing and memorials to the victims of the wall. At the end of the wall was a bar we had been told about called YAMM. This is next to the river and covered in sand to look like a beach. It is apparently some sort of charity to support African villages. It also had table tennis, basketball and soccer equipment. We finished the evening in the park eating chicken and chips and hoping to listen to some of the local musicians. Unfortunately there was a small fire so we think the fire brigade must have scared some people off as there wasn’t much happening.
In the morning we had a bit of a slow start as we had to change rooms. We booked the accommodation late and there was a problem with the booking, which means, while there are beds for us, they are in different rooms each night. Our first stop was one of the main focal points of town, the Brandenburger Tor which is the gate that used to divide the city into East and West Germany. We thought we might with a bit of a walk around this area, but soon found that it was off limits for the day due to some military procession. With not much to see we headed to tourist information and purchased a 3-day Museum Pass. This was brilliant and catastrophic at the same time. It was 19 euro for the card, and saved us heaps of money, but also meant for the next three days we locked ourselves away in galleries. At least we can say that the weather was very conducive to attending galleries. Our first stop was the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum which houses lots of modern art. On the way we stopped off to admire the ‘Denkmal fur die ermordeten Juden Europas’ which is a grid of concrete slabs of different heights which commemorates all the Jewish people lost during WWII. The Hamburger Bahnhof building is a converted old railway station and has a massive open central hall which contained a number of earth works by Richard Long. It was a very big gallery and we probably spent over two hours looking around, we both really enjoyed it. After a bite to eat we walked along one of the main streets in Berlin the Unter Den Linden. This has a nice garden through the middle of the road as well as many nice old buildings, churches and sculptures. On this street was our second stop, the Deutsche Guggenheim. We have enjoyed visits to a few Guggenheims, but this one was just ok. They currently have an exhibition of 8-10 videos on at the moment, some of which were interesting but other not so much. After this we managed to sneak in another attraction, the Ephraim Palais which is now a museum but has a beautiful spiral staircase connecting the four floors. The museum was ok but all about a German Poet’s life who is quite famous, but we had never heard of him.
The next day we hit the galleries again. First stop, after once again moving all our things to another room, was the Neue Nationalgalerie which shows a collection of 20th Century art in a chronological manner. This was excellent as it had an audio guide on key artworks and an overview of the collections in each room which represented a key artistic style in a set time frame. It is housed in a modern glass box shaped building, with the gallery actually being below ground level. After some really good currywurst (sausages) for lunch at Curry 36, we headed to the Berlinische Gallery which contains modern works created in Berlin from 1870 to now. This was also very interesting as it had some contempory Berlin art in the lower floor whilst the upper floor housed the permanent collection which was again set out in chronological order but showed the co-existence of different styles within set time frames. This was another place that wanted to charge us to use our camera, so our lovely photos are courtesy of Google Image, sweet! Our last stop, which we nearly didn’t do was the Judisches Museum Berlin which looks at German Jewish history from the end of the Roman age to today. We nearly missed it as it was 6pm and we thought that it would be closed, however we walked past anyway (to see the building), and found out that it closes at 8pm. The building was the highlight of our visit, a very interesting new building designed by Daniel Libeskind and is based on a zigzag. It used lots of concrete and iron sheets, I felt it was very cold and sharp but it also contained lots of windows that cut through the thick concrete walls to let in light. The installation ‘Falling leaves’ which consisted of thousands of faces cut from sheet iron was amazing as it sounded like music as you walked across the space causing them to strike each other. Ideally we would have had an extra half hour, as the lines for the tickets and cloakroom took a long time. But we probably saw 90% of it before we were kicked out at closing time. The gallery itself has a lot of history and some interesting facts, but a lot of it is aimed at young children with hands on type displays. I think Damien was actually relieved to be out of museums, we are certainly getting value for money with the pass. The hostel has a BBQ we planned on using tonight but due to the weather we opted to make some pizza in the kitchen instead. One last room change for Berlin and we were off. It was the last day of the Museum pass and there was still lots we would have loved to see. So many museums (60 on the card) and so little time. Our first stop was Museum Berggruen which is known for it’s collection titled “Picasso and his time”. It is named after an art dealer who collected work during his career which is now housed in the gallery. This, I felt was the last chance we would get for quite a while to see a large collection of works by Picasso (over 85 works), Giacometti, Matisse, Klee and some of my other favourites from this period. It was a lovely collection and worth the effort it took to get there.
Just before lunch we had a quick look in a gallery of hundreds of plaster casts mainly of famous Italian and Greek sculptures. We also walked past one of Berlins famous landmarks, the very impressive Schloss Charlottenberg a place that dates from 1695 and was the summer residence for Sophie Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg and then the first queen of Russia.
We headed back to the train to make our way to the Museum sinsel (Museum Island) to visit Alte Nationalgalerie which contains 19th Century work. It was nice to see this after visiting all the 20th century as it becomes evident how some of the later artists were influenced. This entry included an audio guide which was great as it described what was happening in some of the paintings and what some of the artist inspirations were.
Our final stop was the Neues Museum which has an impressive collection of Egyptian artifacts. Again we felt this would be our last chance for quite a while to see Egyptian stuff, so even though we were thoroughly museumed out and have seen heaps of Egyptian stuff, we stayed until closing time at 8pm. The building was heavily bombed during WWII and before reopening the had to be major structural works completed to stabilize it. There are areas which retain the original décor which is very thematic whilst other areas are like blank canvases waiting for the exhibitions to give theme character. The collection of papyrus paper was the best we have seen, there were succoffix’s from around the world, a full temple and the audio guide gave very good descriptions of various displays. I’m a bit sad that the museum pass has now expired but at the same time relieved, it has been rather exhausting! After a bit of a sleep in we headed out to have a very different art experience. It was an alternative walking tour which visited some of the streets and locations around Berlin which feature lots of Street Art. We caught the train from the station Kottbusser Tor near the hostel to Alexanderplatz where we met our guide Vee. When the tour started Vee loaded us all onto the train and took us to the starting point in Kottbusser Tor. Vee showed us some of the work by some of the more famous Berlin artist including a guy ‘named’ sixa because he rides around Berlin on his bike with a paint can on each handle bar and writes a ‘6’ on any peeling posters and property which is falling apart. Apparently he has been picked up by the police about 200 times but has never been fined as he is not painting directly on the surfaces. Another funny thing that ‘sixa’ does is paint a smiley face on the lid of the paint buckets when they are empty and nail them to walls or street signs. She also pointed out a space invader, these are in just about every big city around the world but in Berlin people have started to copy the idea but they never look as good. We were shown a rambling shack with was built entirely out of recycled materials when the Berlin Wall was standing. It was on a slice of East German land but on the West side of the wall as the wall diverged to go around a very beautiful church. We saw the squat houses, a series of angry polar bears and a cute little girl killing cats in numerous torturous ways. There is also a series of surveillance camera’s painted on walls, talking to each other, these have funny comments for example on camera says ‘I just saw someone throw up’ and the camera next to him replies ‘it was probably a tourist’. The tour finishes at Tacheles which is a squat house and art market. Apparently it used to be the squatter would sell there are to have money to live on, but these days it’s become a bit touristic. After coffee and dinner back at the hostel we headed out for the evening. We started with drinks in an old double decker bus which had been converted into a bar with beer garden. We then headed to a nearby club that was playing more alternate style music, with some German tracks mixed in. It was a good night but ended quite late.
After a hectic week of walking, art and galleries as well as a late night last night, we had a lazy Sunday. In the afternoon we checked out a market in a park, which turned out to be a bit of trash and treasure. On a grassy hill was hundreds of people sitting and watching locals doing karaoke. It was really fun watching the would be stars singing and the crowds clapping, cheering and singing along.
After the markets we headed to Postdamer Platz to watch the new and final Harry Potter movie in 3D! It had to be done, and it was good. I won’t say what happens! (but Harry dies).
Monday was our last day in Berlin and sadly, last day in Europe. That said, we are so looking forward to Asia! We were up early to pack and headed to the post office to send home some of the things we have collected over the past three months. After a coffee in a café full of locals, we headed back to the middle of the city for 1hr of mad tourism. We rushed past the Bundestag, Haus der Kulturen der Welt which is in a cool building, gardens, wall victim’s memorial, Reichstag and the Brandenburg Tor before returning to the hostel for our bags. At the airport we enjoyed steaks as one final meal in Germany before boarding our flight to Bangkok. After more than two years its, Goodbye Europe!

Czech this place out! Prague

We arrived in Prague in the afternoon, dropped our bags and headed out to explore. Our accommodation, whilst quite nice is a little far from town so we had to catch a tram. We caught it across the river and had a look around the local area including Charles Bridge. From there we caught the tram up the hill and then walked through the castle to get to the Monastery for the sole purpose of the fact that they brew their own beer (when in Czech visit a brewery!). It was worth the journey up the hill as the food was very good, Damien especially enjoyed his dark beer ice-cream which tasted like chocolate. The following morning we dragged ourselves out of bed in order to eat as much as we could for the buffet breakfast before the 11am city walking tour. This plan backfired heavily as by the time we made it too the town square we both had stomach aches from overeating. We persevered and listened as our guided showed us some of the sites of Prague city. He explained that the Astronomical clock was voted ‘the most disappointing tourist attraction in the world’ (runner up is the glockenspiel in Munich, been there too) and that the city has been part of many different countries and under the political control of many different governments. Up until 1989 it was under communist rule but this was over through when the Berlin wall came down. He told us of the velvet revolution when all the citizens stood in the street shaking their keys to symbolize that they were taking back their freedom.
The jewish quarter was very interesting as it has been inhabited by the jewish population for centuries. Originally it was basically swamp land but one government decided to clean it up. They did this by leveling all the existing buildings which raised the height of the soil by a couple of meters. This can be seen where there were a few key buildings left, they are now about 6ft below the street level. Another interesting point was the Jewish cemetery. The Jews were only allowed this one small space to bury their dead, so when there were more deaths they had to burry these people on top of the already existing graves. The height of the cemetery ground was actually about two-three meters above the street level and some research has shown that there are up to 11 graves stacked on top of each other. We also heard the story of the Gollum who is said to be stored in the attic of the Old New Synagogue. Gollum was a clay creature created by a rabbi to protect and assist the Jewish people. He held a word of power in his mouth written on a piece of parchment. Each Friday the rabbi would remove this piece of paper in order to give the Gollum his Sabbath, his day of rest. One Friday the rabbi was nursing his sick child and forgot to attend to the Gollum and the Gollum became enrage that he was being denied his day of rest. The Gollum ran around town creating chaos, crushing houses and ripping out trees from their roots. Finally someone ran to get the rabbi to deal with his creation. The rabbi decided that the Gollum was to emotionally unstable to be trusted and was put to rest forever in the attic of the Synagogue. During the war a German soldier heard this story so he went into the attic to see if it was true, however he was never seen again, were not sure if this is a romance story, and they are living together happily, or whether the Gollum ate the soldier bones and all. After the tour we headed back into the old town of Prague. It is very beautiful, many nice old looking buildings. It is also full of tourists. When we arrived there was a medieval festival with men dressed as warriors and women in traditional dress dancing. We had hoped to watch the clock on the hour, however got there a few minutes late and missed the big spectacle. We looked at the powder tower and returned to St James Church to have a look inside. Hanging from the roof is a human arm (skeletal). The story behind this was that once upon a time a drunk thief snuck into the church one night. He saw a statue wearing a lovely gold necklace and thought to himself, I might have that. He climbed up to the top of the statue and as he grabbed the necklace, the statue came to life and grabbed him by the arm. He was now trapped being held by a stone statue. All night he prayed and made promises to the statue and god, I’ll be good, never steal again, never drink again, but nothing happened. Next morning a monk walked in and saw the exhausted man up on the statue, the monk told him off, before trying to help free the man, they used oil and butter to try and slide his arm out, but nothing worked. Finally the thief suggested that they cut the arm off, too which the monk replied ‘oh good, I was hoping you would suggest that’. Five minutes later the monk had returned with the saw and lined it up with the thief’s arm. The thief cried ‘stop stop, I meant cut the statues arm’. The monk thought about this briefly but decided that if the statue had imprisoned this man for trying to steal the necklace, what would the statue do to him if he tried to cut the statues arm off! And so the thief lost his arm. As soon as the thief was free he ran away as quickly as he could, but as he did the statue released his arm, it fell to the floor. The monk didn’t know what to do with the arm since the thief was long gone. Eventually he decided to hang it next to the doorway in the church as a warning to any other thieves, and to this day it still hangs there! Late afternoon we headed back to the hostel for a nap intending to head to a local concert later that evening. We were tired from walking all day and our nap turned out to be a long one. We ate dinner near the hostel and never made it to the concert.
Having had a good rest, we were up at a reasonable hour for a day trip to Kutna Hora. We had contemplated doing this as part of a tour but in the end opted to do it ourselves. The town of Kutna Hora is about an hour’s train ride from Prague. As we boarded in a hurry, coffee and cookie breakfast in hand we met a couple (Praire and Jeremy) from Florida, who we ended up spending the day with. The main attraction and first stop for the day was the Ossuary / Bone Church. As the name suggests, this place is a church and you may have worked out from the name it also contains some bones. How many bones? I think the answer is Lots and Lots of bones, Human Bones. As you enter the church you proceed down a flight of stairs, the walls are decorated with bones in various patterns. To the left and right are bone towers each 2-3 meters high. In the middle of the room is a bone chandelier and the back of the church has more towers and a bone shield.
The story? Well again it involves a monk! Here is my take on it anyway. There has been a church and cemetery on the site for a long time, around 1280-1320 ish. After a hundred years or so it was burnt to the ground by some not very nice people, the Hussites. It was built again, a few hundred years pass and then for reasons that I don’t know, someone decided that the land was no longer to be used as a cemetery. The bones were dug up and stored in the church. Now our monk friend liked things to be neat and tidy so he started to pile the bones up. He did this until he had 6 towers of bones (the bones are actually stacked, no rope or glue t support), as well as some pretty unusual wall decorations. The church contained the bones of 40,000 people, when he was done stacking, the left over bones were taken back outside and re buried. So that’s it, it’s a bit eerie but strangely compelling. Our entry ticket included a few other churches in town so we visited these, Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady and the glorious gothic St Barbara’s Cathedral. We ate a bbq lunch in one of the nearby pubs, which was so good, walked around town for a bit before heading to the Silver Mine. We had a guided tour of this which was interesting as it had a museum showing the equipment used in the mine years ago when it was operational. It also included a walk through some of the tunnels to get a feel for what it was like down in the mines. The funniest part was the fact that they dress you in a white coat, safety helmet and torch, and then walk the whole group through the middle of town to the entrance to the caves. After the tour we headed back to Prague. We had been past a brewery restaurant yesterday afternoon and thought it would be a good way to relax with Praire and Jeremy after a big day. Unfortunately we forgot where we actually saw it, so had to settle for just any pub in town. We ate dinner and then farewelled our new friends as they had a night train to catch. We stayed a bit longer before calling it a night and heading back to the hostel. Our final day in Prague we were keen to spend a bit more time looking at the sights, after a sleep in. Our hostel , the Czech Inn, is nice but a bit big, is not near the centre of Prague and doesn’t have kitchen facilities. We walked from the hostel, found some breakfast and then visited a church which was near to the hostel. Then like the first night we took the tram up to the castle. While they call it Prague Castle, it looks more like a palace, and is really just a series of buildings on top of a hill. It is very nice and has lots to see and do, there are numerous museums. We were walking through some gardens when we discovered a birds of prey display. This was interesting, there were about 10 birds including falcons, owls and an eagle. The centre of the castle is a big gothic church which we visited. There were also some nice views of the river and the Prague old town. Walking down from the castle was quite an easy stroll. We looked at shops some tourist some not so much. This led us to Charles Bridge. This is a famous bridge and possibly Prague’s biggest attraction. At both ends there are towers with arches to walk through. The bridge itself has many statues lining both sides. In between the statues are tourist markets selling all sorts of souvenirs and hundreds of tourists taking photos! After crossing the bridge we ventured into the old town again hoping to see the clock chime on the hour, but again just missed it. Wait another 58 minutes, stuff that! We headed to a brewery restaurant for dinner, the one we couldn’t find last night. It is a big place and when we sat down we found out that they were serving one of the generic big company beers. Not good enough, so upon enquiry we found out if we head upstairs to a smaller dining room the serve the micro beer in there. Good move, not only were we in a long narrow room with low arched ceiling but the beer was good. We ate traditional food, goulash and stroganoff, which was also very good. After dinner we went for a bit of a night walk along the river, the old town and castle looked nice at night all lit up with flood lights.
Next morning we were up early as we had a 9am bus to Berlin. Yes we took the cheap option and took the 4hr bus, which actually isn’t much longer than taking the train. It was fine, as far as bus rides go, we slept, ate and then arrived in Berlin just after midday.

Plzen - the home of Pilsner

Getting to Plzen was relatively easy, which was a relief, as neither of us felt like a big travel day in the morning. First a bus back to Cesky Budejovice and then a train to Plzen. We checked into our pension which is in the middle of town and looks lovely. Then we headed out to have a quick bite to eat and head to the main attraction in town, Pilsner Urquell brewery. The reason for visiting town is because this is where the Pilsner style of beer was first brewed. We arrived at the brewery just in time for the last tour of the day. The tour was completely different from the one in Krumlov. This is a massive brewery which exports worldwide and is owned by the Miller group (we did the Miller tour in America). One of the first things you do on the tour is learn that you need to buy a permit to take photos, and then you jump on the Pilsner bus which drives you around the site. The tour was quite good, again the guide takes you through the brewing process, including the bottling area, which is the biggest in Europe and uses a laser to check the bottles are ok to use, cool hey! The beer is bottom filtered which means that when the yeast is added the beer needs to be kept at a low temperature in order for it to ferment. The highlight of the tour was heading into the labyrinth of tunnels below the brewery. Back in the day, to brew the beer in cool conditions, they stored it in tunnels below ground. There are 9km of tunnels and cellars below the brewery. Most of these are no longer used, although a small brew is made in the traditional way, which we got to taste in the cellars, we thought it was actually nicer than the standard beer. During the tour we got chatting to an Aussie couple, Crystal and Luke, who joined us in the outdoor bar after the tour. By chance there was some music tonight, so we stayed longer than planned and watched the three bands playing on the outdoor stage. No rest for the wicked, next morning we were up nice and early for a big breakfast. We then headed out for a look about the town in daylight. It is actually quite a nice little town, the main square has a church and fountains in it. After some morning tea in a café, not sure we needed it but what the hell, we headed to the bus station for a bus to Prague.