Sarah Stackman

Home

Wed, 16 May 2012 02:36:37 -0400

As i flew across the oceans and watched the sea’s flickering waves beneath me, the magnitude of what i had seen, felt and been had not quite hit home yet. With what looked like an oil spill shimmering below me, eventually joining up, fading out and making way for the long, outback roads and isoated farmhouses of the Northern Territory, i had not processed the last few months nor cared to as i struggled to sleep in my cramped Air Asia seat; a stewardess waking the whole plane of 500 people up every hour in order to ask if they’d like to buy refreshments. I distinctly heard a upstanding Malaysian woman behind me mutter exactly where she could stick her refreshment before glowering at the hostess in such a way as only Asian women can. To those who dod not know, it is terrifying.

Coming home felt, and feels, right. Australia is a country of fruits and fools, mayhem and marvels. It is my country, first and foremost, it is my home. I had missed it greatly on my 3 month jaunt across the oceans and couldn’t wait to feel it’s admittedly cold embrace when i finally touched down. I wanted warm clothes and Woolworths (i know, evil corporation and all that but the concept of a supermarket is fairly unknown in Asia and becomes a fantasy many a backpacker holds dear), meat pies, saturday morning pancakes and wholemeal bread. I wanted a meal that didnt include half a litre of oil. In short, i wanted ‘Home’.

Now three weeks into the rest of my life, i am beginning to realise just what it is i have experienced and what i have seen. That i have not only seen India but ran my hands across the smooth marble of the Taj Mahal and felt the gentle rocking of a sleeper train. I’ve seen a fairly good slice of the world and watched the sun rise and set over my own backyard. Reading my old blogs, this time feels a little like a slice from someone else’s life, certainly not from the life of a pretty broke, middle class white-girl from B-town.

The world is opening up, not just in the form of the internet and the media but in accessability. i haven’t dared to crunch the numbers on what my on trip cost but i do know that with enough hard work and a little outlay a trip of this kind can be self-funded, especially if you plan to travel in first world countries. Third world countries are easily liveable on less than $10 per day. What this highlights is just how easily this kind of thing can be done.

Travel is not glamorous. You will get sick, not be able to to shower as often as you like and will spend your life trooping from one place to the next where you are often seen as little more than a cash cow. Your shoes will break and your t-shirts will become holey. It will test your powers of patience, your bravery and your willingness to put a dead cockroach in your mouth. However you will also feel wonderfully alive. You will laugh with people from all over the world and make great friends you hope to never ever see again. You will feel your soul grow stronger. You will marvel in things you could never imagine.

The world is a crazy place, but it is also very, very wonderful. As a friend of Mark Twain once said; “Travel widens the mind and loosens the bowels”, while this is true, the man himself also said:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness… Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

So go on. Widen your mind and loosen your bowels for a change; I dare you.

Nepal…

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:05:18 -0400

Nepal…

Nepal

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:54:32 -0400

Nepal

After spending a further two days in bed, I admitted defeat and zapped the shitty little virus with antibiotics, leaving me well and happy with 3 days left to explore Nepal. Pokhara was once a hippy mecca, brimming with overflow from Kathmandu and wafting gently with the smells of dried vegetable matter rolled up and smoked in a variety of creative ways. These days however, you’re more likely to run into a Trippy than a bona-fide Hippy. ‘Trippys’ come to Nepal not to expand their minds but their lungs on long trecks through the Himalayas and up to Everest base camp. Pokhara also caters for honeymooners and retired couples looking to get out of smog-filled London; thus the town is a mishmash of adventure shops, Yoga centres, high class restaurants and guesthouses.

Kathmandu, a 9 hour bus ride away, is similar however the smog is so bad even the locals walk around in face masks. My hostel, The Sparkling Turtle, was run by a strange, uptight and socially awkward Canadian guy and an old French woman who did not get on famously and whom tense silences were a matter of course! I got roped into cooking dinner for the whole hostel on my first night and ran around for three hours, making up a thai dish in my head and being scolded for using the mango juice bought especially for the occasion, before being charged phenomenally for it at the end like everyone else! Still it was a comfortable stay and I had lots of fun pulling down an old roof in my spare time with a couple of American guys and helping the Canadian fella do the shopping. He looked like the Nordic Canadians I had met so many times, however he walked with a strange posture and the roguish playfulness of his kind seemed so desperate to get out, he would ask me questions and as I answered them, tune out Barney Stinson Style and comment on the weather!

Then it got a bit real...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:51:00 -0400

Getting from Varanasi to Pokhara, Nepal was also a lot to do with crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, however it didn’t quite work out that way! It’s a bit long, however you asked for the full story so here it is! If you’re not one of those who actually wants to hear a long-winded account of the scariest night of my 18 years then please skip to the fun stuff! :D

Our train took us to motihari, a town where they hadn’t seen

westerners probably in living memory and who, when we got off the

train, crowded in on us, hundreds of people, treading on our toes and

whispering to each other. We sat down in exasperation, bags all around

us. it was nightime by then. Efforts to find a hotel ended up in men

laughing in our faces and leering, grinning as they told us they were

‘all full’ for the only 2 hotels in town. Our second rickshaw driver

took us back to the station instead of our hotel and we took that as

the cue to leave.( It was a pity, because in the daylight it was probably a nice town)

It then transpired that we couldn’t get into Nepal from there (after a

12 hour train journey already) but we could take an unreserved train

in 2 hours to the right town. A sweet boy tried to help us in

stuttering English but the crowds we crazy by then and the police

littering the station ushered us into their office. A man said

something outside the office, looking in our direction and the

policeman screamed at him like an animal, whipping him across the face

repeatedly as the crowd scattered, fear in their eyes. The policeman

all held automatic machine guns, biege suits paired with brand name

sneakers.

After 2 hours of not being allowed to leave the police office, extra men

arriving and everyone talking in hindi; the time for our train came and went.

Amber burst into tears (she was very ill) and they told us the train

was late. When we eventually got on the train, we were escorted by a

high-standing man, probably of the Brahmin caste who pushed men out of

his way as he walked, and we were locked into the guards carriage up the

front. The notoriously corrupt policemen then pulled down the shutters

and locked the doors, leering at us and spitting, grins on their

faces. The train moved backwards, going the wrong way and I held

Ambers hand, wishing that i had Dad with me with his ‘its all gonna be

ok’ look. His karate skills wouldn’t have gone unappreciated either.

For the first time in my life I felt the thousands of kilometres between where I had got myself and home. I felt every ounce of my vulnerability come crashing down with the knowledge that they had us there, could do whatever they wanted, and there wasn’t a sod all thing we could do about it. This was reinforced as the guards stalked closer and closer, closing the shutters despite it being a searingly hot night, double locking the doors while throwing hungry looks in our direction and twiddling with their guns as they leered in our face. Amber held my hand and I gripped it tightly, all our extroverted gaity gone.

The train ground to a halt at a station in the wrong direction and more men got into the guards carraige. We sweated in silence for an hour. Then the train ground into reverse, going the right way this time but on the wrong tracks, blasting its horn the whole time with engine smoke coming in through the rafters. I used this as an excuse to open the shutters, noticing as i did so that these carriages too had bars on the windows. When wefinally got the town we needed to go, us talking all the time aboutmeeting our ‘men friends’ at the station, it got worse as we weren’t sure if they would let us out and when they did, we were followed. We made a scene in the station and thanked them for their help in loud voices, leaving as quickly as we could.

More stares in this town. Crooked rickshaw drivers taking us to a hotel to gain their comission at 1 in the morning. I told amber and Harley that going with them wasn’t sensible but they were too tired, so i took note of the number of the rickshaw, told a friendly man who was trying to help us who we were going with and watched the street numbers and signs as we went past, the cycle rickshaw almost toppling over at every pitch in the road.

When we got to the hotel, the creepy manager tried to fleece us in every way possible. Agreeing the price then trying to add almost double for the extra person, then ‘not having change’, then trying togive us change in Nepalese currency, which is worth half an much, when I chased him down. Eventually i got mad, told him you don’t f*ck with an Aussie, especially a tired one and he gave us back our money and told us we could pay in the morning. The rickshaw drivers still hungabout.

We double locked the door and fell onto a bed covered in bloodstains, falling into a fretful sleep, huddled together.

The next morning heralded a 2 hour border crossing, being dropped on the wrong side of town in no-mans-land, a 10 hour bus ride with a drunk driver scidding around blind, mountainous corners on the overtake in the middle of the night chewing on the bettle drug unblinkingly. Sheerdrops loomed either side and a creepy man got on with a teenage girl who looked drugged with a dust mask over her face. I asked him if she was a friend and he smiled a toothy grin and said ‘she is passenger’. We discussed what to do and felt very powerless, we would be in the same danger as she if we interfered and the girl would still be in the same danger as before…

I’d put on my Doc Mrtens that morning and felt a little bit tougher knowing how far they’d taken me and the things I’d gotten out of before wearing them. After a taxi ride that wasn’t a taxi (we had no choice, but we pretended to call our ‘friends’ we were meeting up with and asked to be dropped in the busy main street) we found a nice hotel, a safe area and a restaurant that served pork for the first time in 2 months. I drank a triple whisky, ate some pig and felt a lot better!

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Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:35:50 -0400

To The Taj and Beyond!

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:00:00 -0400

This story continues 2 countries and three weeks ago, in the northern area of India and i have plenty to tell you. The city of the Taj Mahal, Agra, is much more charming than everyone says. Our rickshaw driver, upon introducing himself as we sped through the city, offered us ‘a very nice massage indeed-perfectly fine intentions!’ we told him that was very kind of him to offer however we simply must run. He looked a little hurt but not at all surprised that his unusual approach hadn’t worked!

Amber and I trecked to the Taj Mahal early enough to catch the sunrise, leaving an immoveable and resolute Harley sleeping soundly while we joined the throngs of tourists and even bigger throngs of mosquitos delighting in the prospect of such a feast so early in the day. I swear i heard one of them turn to the other and say:

“oh Charles, so much O+, I really am going to get Indigestion at this rate!”

I sincerely hope they did.

Since an untimely earthquake a few years ago, the famous pillars that surround the Taj have been a little lopsided, adding a quirky humour to the monument’s fabulous white granduer. We joined the masses to barge a spot on Diana’s bench, take a photo across the ponds and marvel at the beautiful river opposite before going to get Macdonalds (Amber was starting to get serious Maccy-D cravings) at Agra’s premier establishment.

The 14 hour train journey with food poisoning a little later, however, put a slight damper on the evening! I spent my time chillin in the door of the train, leaning over every couple of minutes and exhaustedly appreciating the landscape swishing by as i fed the mountains of railway rats making their home alongside the tracks. Getting to Varanasi, the Holy city and the spiritual heart of India, Amber carried my bag and i made it to the hotel to sleep for 3 days straight; after an exhausting treck throught eh Old City, dodging cow, scooters, hecklers and the ashes rising in the breeze from the burning ghats.

Varanasi is a beautiful, disgusting place. The Ganges, the famous river that flows through the city, is not just the place used to bathe in, drink from and wash the city’s clothing but also to throw dead animals, dead people, ashes; dead babies wrapped in tiny saris float amongst all kinds of rubbish, rotting food and of course all the chemical and toxic refuse from the 1000+ factories upstream. However, being the ‘Mother River’ to the Hindu faith, very few believe it holds any harm and contribute the masses of gastronomic infections and leprosy caught from leprosic bodies floating by to be a result of Karma instead and happily swim amongst it all, filling their mouths with the green sludge and spitting back at each other for fun.

Supercrap Res

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:02:56 -0400

Hey guys, don’t know why the resolution is supercrap all of a sudden, if anyone knows how to fix this please email me!

For now, *sorry* ! :D

cheers!

Bangalore, Southern India

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:56:21 -0400

Bangalore, Southern India

A bit of a natter about India

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:45:09 -0400

India conjures images of camels, filth, busy cities and Holy Varanasi, of the grand Taj Mahal and searing heat. However, India also has many things which you don’t expect. Perfectly upstanding gentlemen walking the streets holding hands, talking with their faces cm’s apart, often having a quick pee at the same time in the middle of a crowded street. Children will chase you down to shake your hand, greasy-haired rickshaw drivers leer as you walk past and camels are used much like the Hilux Ute to haul stuff around while sinewy old men push carts that would make many gnarly Aussie miners quake in their boots; faces set in steely determination.

This a big land, a grand land where people live close together and communities are tight. From the blustering streets of Mumbai to Industrial Bangalore to the deepest, darkest deserts of rajasthan, India is resolutely, absolutely and always; unique. A uniqueness that is copied and pasted across the entire nation 1,170,938,000 times, looking to lead very similar lives to the naked eye but in truth seperated in 5 major and thousands of minor castes that dictate the way life is lived.

A road here is not just a place to drive on. It is a blaring mess of horns and people, cows, piles of steaming crap from both people and animals. Indian men spit, anywhere, everywhere and constantly, avoiding these blobs of bubbly unsavouryness is probably the number one difficulty when walking down an indian street!

On what we would call the road’s hard shoulder Indians build houses, wake up, cook, clean, defecate in small groups, bring up their children and die. In Bangalore, I bought a single speed bycicle and rode 30kms in a day, over hills ad mountains on the nation’s main highway, seeing it all for myself. I stopped at a roadside cafe and gave the teengae boy my bycicle (i figured he had more use for it than me) then took a wild local bus back into town.

I flew to Jaipur a couple of weeks ago and travelled the desert state of Rajasthan, on everything from the notorious Indian Railway Network to the local Rickshaws and the forever faithful shank’s pony. Cities such as Jodhpur (yes! the quintessential riding pants were invented here!) where every third house or so is blue (to represent the brahmen, or warrior caste. The trend then kind of took hold and the town looks like a living, breathing ad for Dulux Paint.) Jaipur, home of the magnificent Amber Fort and a very delicious mutton curry; Pushkar, where Josie Dew the pushbike adventurer saw a pigeon eating pish devour an entire bird’s head in the 80’s and tomorrow, to the Taj Mahal, which need little explanation except this juicy tidbit:

The Taj was built by a prince who was in mourning for his favourite wife, who died giving birtht to their twelth child. it is said that his hair turned grey overnight and that he built the Taj in her memory; they were also cousins. In the end, he was locked away after it was finished due to fueds for rule in the area but he was given a cell overlooking the Taj so he could look over it until the day he died.

I have 3 weeks to go until i fly out of Kathmandu and have teamed up with a couple of lovely Hampshire girls. Not only is it nice having company to have soneone to complain to or to catch their eye when something extraordinary happens, in India there is one topic that crops up in almost every conversation; the state of ones bowels. Kathmandu quickstep, Delhi Belly, Dysentry, call it what you will sickness is rife in India and it seems nothing else is more interesting to backpackers the country over! It is not unusual to find a group of internationals congregating around a table, smoking, eating and drinking while discussing with rapt attention the ablutions of that very morning!

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Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:09:56 -0400

Hello Beautiful People!

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:57:43 -0400

I write this as I fly over the Indian Mainland, from Bangalore in the south to Jaipur in the country’s northern desert state of Rajasthan, home of tigers and camels, elephants and ancient forts. I have some time to kill so I thought the best way to fill it was to write a proper bitty that’s a bit more than just the misspelled snippets that have been dribbling their way home J

This is my second month in Asia and my fourth on the road, (minus 2 weeks at home of course to sort out visas and soochlike!). Since leaving on the 25^th of November last year, it is now the 19^th of March and I’ve seen Australia by Glorious Motorbike, Bali by a thoroughly disrespected yet still much enjoyable scooter, Java by heinous Train, Singapore on a friend’s university room floor, Malaysia by its Chinese District and India in its most prosperous City. Now I’m off to find what lays in the barren lands that border Pakistan up north, to the Taj Mahal, Varanasi and finally Kathmandu and the splendor of Everest.

The last few days in India have been lots of fun. India is not what people usually tell you it is. Yes, it is enchanting and smog-filled and overcrowded but it is also ridiculously charming, like that fat kid that everyone knows from their high school days who just seems to charm the pants off everyone while picking his nose and generally being disgusting. India is that kid. Its sidewalks have piles of burning rubbish but they are the result of crooked old men and women who has swept it off the streets. Street stalls sell food cooked in week old cauldrons with unidentifiable bones but other stalls also sell fresh watermelon, delicious fried banana and lots of things that you have no idea what they are but which you put into your mouth anyway.

India will surprise you and delight you. It is a lesson in opening your eyes an also in hitting ones immune system 63 times with a blunt axe. I have been here for less than a week and more than once I have been eating something, casually watching rats scoot over the pots and pans my food was made in, occasionally sampling the dishes within. “Ooh, rats!” I would think, and go back to whatever weird concoction I was attempting to eat one handed!

I’ve met shy post office workers who have walked with me hand in hand at daybreak to show me the temples where they pray and where the postmaster is also a holy man. I’ve stayed on the couch of a lovely family who tried to teach me the finer points of etiquette while nearly pissing themsleves laughing at my attempts to master it. I’ve eaten the kinds fo spicy food that could strip the grease from an engine and watched the sun go down over a blue city.

A family dragged me inside to show me their pet pigeons and the bed bugs i got from the hostel in Bangalore could very likely munch through steel, god help my outer limbs!

sorry

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 02:36:59 -0400

Still working on the whole wifi thing guys…sorry!

*love*

xxoo

Coming Soon!

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 23:24:02 -0400

Hey all,

Thanks for keeping up with my adventures and for being so patient-i know its been almost 2 weeks!I just haven’t had good enough wifi to update properly.

I’m loving India, it’s crazy and brutal and beautiful :)

Hope you all have a particularly exceptional day

lots of love

sarah

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Tue, 13 Mar 2012 05:58:37 -0400

A Malaysian side street

The Lovely Scot, Stacey!

Batu Caves. A weird wonderland of neon!

The Calm Before the (Indian) Storm!

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 05:15:43 -0400

Today is my last day before i fly to India tomorrow, so i thought it high time to get eaten…My tiny fish that is! A lot of places here have these pools where you put your feet in for the sole purpose of having them nibbled by little fish. It is apprently good for getting rid of all the icky callouses and stuff that 4 months of doc martens have a bit of a habit of causing and I’m sure, like everything else advertised around here, it will probably make you live 200 years and make you ‘very happy always’!

(Yesterday i spotted a massage chair shop with pictures on the walls of a woman apparently experiencing a pretty intense…well, you get my point. The icing on the cake was the slogan which read: “The Optimus Chair: Giving you that aching kind of feeling that’s just so good!” It must have a been a pretty great chair, at $4000!)

Wandering around Kuala Lumpur’s Central Market, I spotted a fish spa and, dragging my unenthusiastic friends along with me, insisted that being nibbled by flesh eating fish is pretty much the coolest thing you could do ever. (Including having a haircut thats looks like a cows ar*s, Justin Bieber, you have been surpassed!). For 5 Ringit (or under $2) we stripped off our shoes and dunked our feet in.

The effort it takes is enormous, the effort not to pull your feet out that is! It tickles so much! After 10 minutes of giggling and gritting my teeth, my feel look freaking awsome. I Love the fish! They make my motorbikers feet look like Elle Macpherson’s face! Long live flesh eating fish!

KL, The Sa Fa of the East?

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 22:12:47 -0500

No, Kuala Lumpur is not the San Francisco of the east, they both just have equally abreviated names created to allow a sense of community in their own city and to alientate every other poor idiot who travels there. Plus, KL has a lot more asian people. They also have a monorail!

Kuala Lumpur for me is the ten days between Singapore and India, the land of disgust and beauty, entice and vice. I’ve been here since the 4th of march and have been too busy sleeping and wandering to post anything. I am a dispicable human being. (Sorry mum!)

I am in chinatown, which is quite charming. My hostel, The Travel Hub, is located up a seedy set of red steps which i like to imagine is the Red Carpet. ‘Yay! Thankyou so much for attending this morning’s stair climb, oh pile of shoes. And for keeping my dark secrets surrounding muddy boots’.

Spent a few days in the Cameron Highlands, which is right near the centre of Malaysia. An area, where, inexplicably, everything was named by an senile old cowboy. Features such as ‘Slim River’ sit side by side banana palms and mountainside huts made of bamboo.

Crawling up steep highways and rocketing around blind corners in the rain while the bus overtook petroleum trucks at 5000 feet; i still found time to enjoy the scenery while contemplating my last words in this life. The Highlands reach hazily into the sky covered in lush greenery. Small mountain tribes still live here, unconcerned with western life, (except for the twice daily tourist exhibition to their villages, that is!)

The small roadside sun shelters built everywhere around there sell whatever the mountain wanderer could want. Including something i was quite sure was made of a dead cat…

Once in the Cameron Highlands there is not much to do but huddle into the corners of the couch all day, occasionally turning to an appropriate Englishman; (this one was called Colin) to say ‘about that time eh chaps?’ and brave the rain in cold shuffling groups to stuff our faces on the $1 Indian Food on the street below. It really is a hard life, this travelling lark!

I enjoyed this wanton laziness but felt KL was the place to be; so here i am, back in the place of the cheerful homeless, bacon street stalls, far more food than is decent, knock-off everything and 7/11. The Reggae Bar down the road has signs everywhere saying ‘No Smoking on the Premises’, ‘Calveen Klain’ underwear stalls entertain the humours of irony-tuned backpackers and where getting up at 1pm is perfectly respectable. Been spending my afternoons soaking up the Aircon and gorging my brain with The Great Gatsby, Brideshead Reisited and the ever great Josie Dew. Long Live Backpacking!

I know this is only supposed to be a travel blog, but i just...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:32:43 -0500

I know this is only supposed to be a travel blog, but i just have to applaud the way the 88 year old President of Israel is ‘Reachin’ out to the kids’ on this one. He wins the internet this week!

This is but the next great adventure.. Why hello dear...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:47:29 -0500

This is but the next great adventure..

Why hello dear followers!

May I mention you’re all looking splendid today? And that shirt really sets off your eyes!

Singapore, the land of many Starbucks, super control, giant slug ships that chill on top of buildings and the writhing, twisting, breathing Helix Bridge. A small city that has cemented itself firmly in the eyes of the world, Singapore rises from its island like a very large, sterile, white forest of gleaming columns and green shrubbery. The last 20 years or so have seen this country totally transformed.

I am in the gracious hospitality of Mina and Jonelle, who I met in Bali a few weeks ago and who have very nicely allowed me floor space. From her window Singapore at night glistens and beckons, hinting at lost treasures dug deep into a cavernous floor.

Since the last post, I have travelled by scooter across Bali with my mate Lawrence, spent about 36 hours on trains across java and didn’t sleep for 3 nights, subsisting entirely on biscuits. I’ve caught a Balinese cold, which is really more fun and gross than anything, been caught in a Singaporean monsoon on top of a giant boat on top of a giant skyscraper and scored a student discount at Starbucks that I don’t deserve, that’ll teach the capitalist pigs! :D

So, Bali. Those who stay where the air is smoggy and the transport plentiful miss out on seeing a well-kept secret. The western side of Bali is where the real treasure lies and it is well worth braving the dangerous roads (especially when you are blissfully unaware your licence is suspended and thus you are uninsured) to see it. Leaving the metropolis of the tourist towns, Kuta, Sanur, Denpasar and Ubud; the coastal road extends towards Gillimanuk on the western tip where the ferry meets with Java. As we wound our way down perilous mountains, Lawrence holding on for dear life, cascading countryside fell away around us and glistening, deserted black sand beaches called from the roadside.

As we rode closer to the tip, beachside communities sprang up, sandwiched between sheer, mossy rock faces and walls leading out to sea. Mischievous monkeys stole my much prized Rexona (womens deoderant is almost unattainable here) and attempted with much gusto to try to eat it. I thought: serves the little bugger right.

Tiny port towns housed shimmering harbours where bright blue boats pack in side by side, a laughing family played at the water edge and an old man with a spark in his eye let me take his picture.

The ferry left for java at 9pm, and for the next 2 nights and 3 days, I sat on trains. The tedium, uncomfort and sheer frustration of such a journey is not worth repeating, although I did see a lot fo beautiful countryside as well as now having an infinite knowledge of the best way not to sleep on a an upright Javanese train seat!

The Six Degrees Hostel at Jakarta provided welcome relief as I stumbled through the door at 5 in the morning, sleeping on the couch until check-in time at 11. The staff were lovely, the food great and the lure of a real bed was almost too much, I slept until noon the next day and almost missed my flight to Singapore. xx

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Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:51:00 -0500

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Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:42:14 -0500