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      1 Jan 2008

      sahara desert

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      We are in sleeping in a tent in the sahara desert but somehow I have mobile reception. I guess I shouldn't be complaining. The night sky is AWESOME! Its so dark that you're able to see so many more stars. Going to bed now as we are waking up at 430am so we can ride camels early and watch the sun rise!

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      It's cold in the desert. Saul trying to keep warm and wake up at 4:30am.

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      Meeting our camel guide who had started a small fire in the early hours to keep warm.

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      Waiting for the sunrise on top of the highest sand dune. It's was hard work running up the dunes. Talk about work out. We had to leave the camels behind it was so steep!

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      ...ahhhh

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      Looks like a Windows backdrop


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      1 Jan 2008

      Driving to the desert

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      We have had the most amazing couple of days. Having not booked anything in Morocco we've been extremely lucky. On the train from tangier to fes a local dude with excellent English was sitting in our 'compartment' and we got chatting. One thing led to another. He happened to have a friend who was a tour guide, an official one this time so he called his friend to meet us at the train station. We also met another couple traveling on the train so together we hired the tour guide. Thank god we did otherwise we wouldn't have seen half the stuff we did.

      Will have to write more and post photos when I get back. Am currently in a car on the way to the sahara to ride camels and sleep in the desert. Turns out our guide in Fes knew another guide who toured the atlas mountains and desert so we hired him to take us round for the next 4 days!

      The middle of nowhere...

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      30 Dec 2007

      Journey to Fes

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      We have a 6hr train ride ahead of us so thought it would be a good time to gather some thoughts.

      We're on our way from Tangier, or Tanger as it's spelt in Spanish, to Fes for a few nights. I've heard a lot of good things about Fes - to quote the Rough Guide, it 'stimulates all the senses: a barrage of haunting and beautiful sounds, infinite visual details and unfiltered odours'. Ahh just what I need. In any case I'm sure it will be better than our experience last night.

      Simply put, last night we got shafted. It sounds a little melodramatic, but at one stage I actually feared for our lives. I saw headlines. 'Aussie backpackers mugged and murdered in Morocco'. Yippy ky yay. I'm not sure what came over us but we were stupid. Despite all the guidebook warnings we fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book.

      It was dark when we arrived at the port of Tangier and without trying to make any excuses we were damn tired. So what happened? Well as we disembarked we got targeted by a faux guide who claimed to work for the tourist information center. At the time he seemed pretty genuine and said he'd help us find accomodation (we hadn't booked any in advance), get us a taxi and help us avoid any of the husslers out there. Yes, ironic. But at the time it all sounded ok, that is until we got into the small little taxi.

      The taxi driver looked like a cross between the grim reaper and the monk from The Da Vinci Code. As he slowly turned his cloaked head, yes I said cloaked, round the seat rest to stare at us the only thing missing to complete the pretty picture was a pair of glowing yellow eyes. Not wanting to judge a book by its cover I thought ok that's cool whatever but then the next thing we knew the faux guide jumped into the passenger seat and we took off. That's when the panic set in. 'Err how far is the hotel?' we asked as they drove up dimly lit side streets, 'and where is it exactly?'. Stupid stupid stupid. What were we thinking? As they conversed in machine gun French I thought (and pardon MY French) 'we're fucked'.

      In the end it turned out ok though. We still have all our limbs and luggage, we just paid an extortionate amount for a relatively short cab ride and got stuck in the biggest dump of a hotel ever. Live and learn. We sure as hell won't be doing that again.

      On a lighter note, here are a few photos from colourful Fes. Here professions are all about the trade...

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      House of rugs

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      Clay factory

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      Fabric factory...

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      ...where we saw a real life loom. Cool.

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      Me and Lisa. We met Lisa and her husband John on the train. They were on their honeymoon but we traveled around together for a couple of days.

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      Me, Lisa, John and Saul enjoying a traditional Moroccan lunch.

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      The tannery. Probably one of my highlights. It's where they treat and colour leather.

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      And.. the end result. the largest number of leather coats, shoes and bags you'll ever see.

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      Spice shop. You get get everything here. Even Mandrake roots. yeah.

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      A shot of our guide at night. All the men in Morocco walk around in djellabas to keep warm. They're wool coats with hoods which look like something out of the DaVinci code.
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      29 Dec 2007

      Tanger, Morocco

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      We made it to Morocco. Caught the ferry from south of Spain to Tanger, Morocco. Typing on a French keyboard is hard work so not going to write much more than this. Its taken me about 5 min to write this as the keyboard layout is different, the keys are faded so i cant make out the letters and on top of that there is arabic all over them too.

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      Saul looking a tad disappointed after we found out our 'hotel room' didn't have heating or hot water.
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      26 Dec 2007

      Miraz, Spain

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      I'm in a pilgrim refuge house in Spain. About 600k out of Madrid. It's pretty basic here but sort of refreshing in a weird way. It is bloody cold however. And when I say cold I mean bone chilling icy cold.. Sitting on the toilet freezing your arse off cold.. Condensation dripping from the bedroom walls cold. You get my drift. It's pretty damn cold. To make matters worse the hot water isn't that consistent which makes taking a shower living hell and stepping out of the shower living hell twice over. Walking bare foot on the tiles is like walking on ice. Actually ice may be a little warmer.

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      Our car, the windscreen is completely frozen over with ice.

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      Our 'dorm'. There were 7 of us freezing our butts off in here at night.

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      We didn't need a fridge. Putting the drinks outside on the window sill kept them cold.

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      Xmas dinner

      So where are we exactly? It's a little town called Miraz which is on the Camino route to Santiago de Compostella.The place we're staying at is like a hostel to house pilgrims making the journey to Santiago but it's closed for the holidays and we're basically housesitting. Although having said that this didn't stop a Mary and Joseph turning up at 1am Christmas Eve, with donkey, looking for a dare I say 'stable' to stay the night. This couple were really something. When I say donkey I'm not kidding. They had a donkey. They were also dressed in full biblical robes and had a baby on the way. She was 8 weeks pregnant. The guy claimed to be a prophet who apparently hasn't paid a cent for anything in 14 years. Some may call this spiritual spreading of the Lord's good word but I call this good old fashioned freeloading. Mind you, he told us this as he was eating our bread and drinking our wine so he's lucky he didn't find himself back out in the cold with his donkey. The Lord giveth but the Lord just as easily taketh away.

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      I wish I had more photos but I was too stunned to do or say anything. I got their donkey though. We're off to Lisbon tomorrow. Watch this space.Merry xmas and a happy new year to everyone!

      And I just had to post this pic... Corey and our xmas leg ham. All 5kg of it.

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      19 Dec 2007

      John Mayer and Eric Clapton - Crossroads (ABC News)

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      DAMN I love the blues. Mayer totally upstages Clapton here. Best part of Mayer's solo 1m45s to 2m10s. The notes speak to me *sigh*

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      18 Dec 2007

      Bissell Cleanview II Special Edition

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      Whoaa that was intense! I just fired up my Bissell Cleanview II Special Edition vacuum cleaner for the very first time. This shiny red plastic beast comes with a million and one attachments, includes a Hepa filter, has a wide cleaning path, a turbo brush, and dual edge cleaning (?? I have know idea what this means). Oh and get this, it has a headlight on it, yes a headlight, so you can see all the clumps of dust in those dark dusky corners under your bed.

      The slogan on the box says 'We mean clean'. And clean it did, but not without waking the whole of Manhattan. It's about 10:30pm here, which isn't THAT late for a city that never sleeps, so I while I had the motivation to clean I thought I'd better ride that wave.

      Well, if you've ever wondered what it feels like to hold a jackhammer, wonder no more. Just buy the Bissell Cleanview II Special Edition. It vibrated through my floor like a mad little Energizer bunny. I'm sure the neighbours downstairs were cursing my name for a good 10 minutes straight. This thing was so loud it sounded like a Mac truck ran through my apartment.

      Oh lookie here, I found these comments about it on the net:

      'Heavy, loud, high maintenance, terrible performance'
      'Cons: too many to mention'
      'Cons: parts break down and melt ruining the entire vacuum'
      'Worse cleaner I have ever owned'

      I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given its $60 price tag, but I definitely got $60 worth of laughs tonight, and come to think of it.... I would pay $60 just for that headlight.

      This vacuum sucks, and not in a good way.

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      15 Dec 2007

      X-Files 2

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      I think I just let off a girly scream! I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to see this. Mulder is back :)

      XF2 is currently shooting and is due out July 08. Comingsoon.net posted this pic from the set. *sigh* Duchovny still rocks.
      http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=40236

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      27 Nov 2007

      Living in the Wild Wild West

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      Given I've spent the last couple of weeks playing tour guide perfecting the N.G. tour of New York, I figure I should start reviewing some of the places I've been to. These range from the most extortionate and extravagant to the dirtiest 'Titty Twisters' out there.

      I'm going to start by talking about the most recent of my escapades, the Red Rock West Saloon. If the name doesn't give it away think 'Coyote Ugly' meets 'From Dust Till Dawn'. Although the vampires kept their distance, the moment I saw the boarded up, blacked-out windows coupled with hanging buffalo skulls and crooked neon signs, I knew we were on to something special.

      To greet us, sitting on a wooden barstool just inside the entrance, was a bandanna-wearing heavily tattooed fat biker dude wearing a sleeveless leather vest. I would have laughed apart from the fact he could have taken me out with his little finger. While he checked our ID I perused the wall of polaroid photos behind him. Crazy bald biker men doing crazy things starred back at me. Hmm this was going to be an interesting night.

      We grabbed a few beers and got settled at back of the room looking a little out of place. It was still pretty early and wasn't too crowded, which gave us some time to take everything in. A pool table lay up the far end of the bar, but nobody seemed that engrossed in the games they were playing. Another fat biker dude sat on a stool in the corner near the toilets, under a neon Budweiser sign, hoeing into a piece of fried chicken. Nice.

      Strangely, the floors looked really bare - not because they were made of rough untreated wood, but because there were no tables or chairs or anything for that matter. Given this didn't give off the dance club vibe, it seemed slightly odd to have so much empty space. Then it occurred to us that the bar was the focal point of the room. Screw the lonely old pool table. All the decorations, knick knacks, paraphernalia and posters hung behind the bar.

      Suddenly it struck me that the bartenders were all women and half naked woman at that.

      Then it all kicked off. One of them grabbed a microphone and screamed in a twangy southern accent:

      'EVERYONE.... DO YOU WANT TO HAVE YOUR DRINKS KICKED IN YOUR FACE?!! GET YOUR DRINKS OFF THE BARRRR!'

      And the whole place came to life. Barmaids wearing cowboys hats jumped up and started line dancing on the bar. Hula hoops were being swung dangerously low on hips, threatening to take people's heads off. Free shots were being poured down people's throats and men's shirts were being ripped! It was crazy but awesome at the same time. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos or videos (it seemed a little wrong to do so) but here's a clip from Coyote Ugly to give you a flavour of what I mean:

      CRAZYYY!

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      27 Nov 2007

      CSI Miami - Endless Caruso One Liners

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      CSI Miami. Pure CHEESE. Caruso you should have stayed in NYPD Blue. Please decide whether you want your sunnies on or off. LOL I'm dying watching this!



      Jim Carey however, is The MAN. He's got Caruso down to a tee.
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  • ngthatsme

    Sometimes geek, sometimes chic. I'm a third culture kid - born in Malaysia, grew up in Australia, worked in London and am now in NYC. I love traveling to places strange and unknown and having unforgettable random adventures.

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