chickens

Just outside the hostel i was staying at
Bloody Chickens
The beach near the hostel at Sunset
A 767 heading right for us.
Another one of the sunset
One of the cloudy mountains at Dusk
View of the interior of the island

Muir Beach - the island (No touchy-touchy) is where we had a BBQ
Boat used for the Crisue - it had a glass bottom and wet floors
Another of the islands within walking distance of Rarotonga

Another Sunset pic - dont ask me what happened to the ordering of these photos!!

Sunset - again
Hermit Crab on no touchy-touchy Island
The captain feeding the fish
Giant eel
Giant Claims used for breeding in the Pearl farms

Well I'm halfway through my time on the cook-ing islands. Its so humid here. I still haven't got used to it. There are chickens everywhere. They roam free. Walking around the island, you see at least a hen every few yards. If bird flu hit the island would be in trouble!!! The locals don't eat them as they are too boney. They are a real pain in the morning as the cockrels cockadoodle-do to each other.

My first week here has to be one of the best I've had so far. The Weather was quite cloudy and stormy and so I was playing cards with the other "youngsters" in the hostel. We'd also go

to the beach when there was a break in the weather. The hostel runs some social stuff and we have all been doing that stuff together. It has been quite social and far more than i've seen anywhere else. I've learnt three new card games and swapped email addresses a good few times!!! Its now the second week and all of the group has gone but me. The last two girl survivors left last night. I am now the youngest (with the exception of two 18 year olds who i'm not sure can talk as they don't say a word to anyone!!). Its a real shame as most of the group went to FIJI together as their itineraries all matched in the cook islands.

The last week: We went to the local club together where there was a dance competition. Needless to say i didn't enter!!! That night descended into total drunken anarchy. One of the blokes was so drunk he got out of bed stark naked and was walking around the hostel while others looked on in drunken stupor. He then went upstairs to one of the dorms and found an open door. He climbed into one of the girl's beds whilst she was cleaning her teeth and started to fall asleep. The girl then came back to find a naked man in her bed. She told him to get out to which he replied "I mean you no harm, i mean you no harm". He then took her sheet and walked down the stairs. He then tried to get in his bedroom by taking apart the window (which has horizontal glass slats. After managing to remove two, breaking through the bug mesh and sitting on one of the pieces of glass naked, he was spotted by someone in the dorm who got him into bed. Now this bloke only had three drinks and was as quiet as anyone in the hostel. It's true what they say the quiet ones...That story kept people laughing for the next day and Chris will now and forever be known as naked Chris. After the nightclub we went Jet blasting. The airport is on the northern tip of the island and the runway is particularly short. So we get the bus to the end of the runway - next to the road by the sea. We wait in pitch black until we see a light in the distance. We then stand there as a 737 comes into land and passes mere feet over our heads. You felt the heat of the engine and the sea was parted as the jet came closer. It was an amazing experience and at one point it got quite scary as it felt the jet was coming right for us!!! We finished the night off with an all you can eat curry at the only indian restaurant on the island. It was actually really good and some people that had already eaten even had a fair wack at the curry!!! It was 20 litres of vodka give away on Wednesday night at the local club. We were keeping count on our hands as to how many everyone had as we where trying to beat the record set by someone last year of 15 vodkas before they passed out. I won the competition and managed about 8 before the vodka ran out. There was never any doubt really. This night turned out to be even more messy than the other and there are some dodgy photos circulating.....

Friday we went on a glass bottom lagoon cruiser around the south of the island. We passed over a giant clam reserve. Which is where they breed the giant clams for the black pearls the islands are famous for. The boat headed over to a small island (you could walk around it in 15 minutes) that was owned by the captain of the boat. We lay in the shallow lagoon (more like a warm bath than the sea). After the barbecue on the island we had the sarong tying show. For some reason Ryan, one of the group, picked me to be volunteer. Now there is no saying no on the lslands and so i had to strip to my shorts and be manhandled as the man showed everyone how to tie a g-sting with a floppy front used by the islanders when climbing coconut trees. I was horrified as he then made me close my eyes and stuck a rock in the baggy material in the front whilst making me dance Cook Island style and chant!!!! I felt like a performing monkey. The chant turned out to be "i look stupid". Nice. Needless to say i dont have any photos of the experience and i'm trying to wipe the memory from my brain. The Shame.

The hostel i'm staying at is fairly dirty and i dont think the toilets have been cleaned since i have been here. There are bugs and lizards and a few cockroaches around. Under my bed is an insect graveyard!!! The manager has a three year old daughter and she runs havoc around the place The the family think it's funny. If you leave stuff on the side she'll throw is over the balcony. She threw bleach over the washing line, emptied the girls sanitary bin on the floor and threw someone's food all over the corridor!!!

The beach is lovely here though and its a 2 minute walk at the end of the road. I have to be careful when i go there though as i was caught by an old local man who chatted to me for around half an hour about God and how Jesus loves me. He said a little prayer for me. He didnt mean any harm though.

There are so many churches on the island. They have a Mormon church, seventh day Adventist (is that right?), Catholic, Protestant, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. I spotted all these within 20 minutes of the hostel!!!

I have a few more days here left and i'm going to spend them on the beach. The internet is quite expensive here and so i'm going to wait till Auckland before i add all the photos missing from earlier posts. The computers i tried in Las Vegas and Hollywood didn't had USB connectors.

The cooking Islands

Well i think there should be a name change for this small group of islands just east of New Zealand. It never gets below 25 degrees Celsius and at the moment it is so humid you could cut the air. Its the rainy season so for the last few days there has been massive downpours where the heavens have just open.

The Island I'm on, Rarotonga, is the main island in the chain. About half the people in the country live here. The island is like a pacific paradise. It is not built up at all. I am yet to see any big buildings and any new construction. There is a main road that runs by the beach around the circumference of the island the houses are main off here. Surrounding the island is a blue lagoon full of reefs and corals. Just beyond that are crashing waves and the deep blue pacific ocean. The island is lush and green and has a mountain set in the centre. Palms are everywhere and every so often you hear a rip and thud of a coconut falling to the ground. The coconuts are massive. At least the size of small watermelons.

The hostel is nice. Everything is open, the front room, the kitchen etc all open to the elements. Birds come and go, cochroaches roam around etc. The bedrooms are the only enclosed spaces and needless to say they are baking hot.

They have some mean mossies here and so I'm constantly coated in deet. Even though its cloudy and i have factor 40 on, my face is still red. The sun is crazy strong.

The people here are really nice and I'm sharing my room with a bloke from New Zealand. He took me into town on the back of his motorbike and the heavens opened up. The beaches are beautiful here - set between lush green palms and the turquoise of the lagoon. It really does feel like paradise. I had the beach as far as the eye could see to myself yesterday. I sat through the warm rain and had a doze. There is a trip to the local club today and so we get a lift there and get picked up. The buses aren't that cheap - neither is most other things and everything is imported from New Zealand! The locals all speak English as their first language!!

Some observations on America and Americans

No offence intended from the comments below - just some observation based on my time in NY, SF, LV and LA.

1) There are lots of homeless people everywhere.
2) Americans have no sense of humour at all. They totally don't get jokes. Even really obvious ones.
3) It is really hard to eat healthily. Everything is served fried, with cheese or in mammoth portions.
4) It is really difficult to buy small size in anything - chewing gum, soaps, deodorant, clothes (XL here is like XXL back home).
5) Americans have no patience. The number of times I have been in a queue and the people behind me that start huffing and puffing after only a few minutes. It started to wind me up.
6) Tipping has gone crazy here. You tip the waiter, you tip the person who cleans your table, you tip the tour driver, you tip the person that takes you to the tour office, you tip your server, you tip the bell-hop who just stands there, you tip the maid who cleans your room, you tip the bartender, it gones on and on. Absolutely crazy.
7) Americans don't get accents. Most I've bumped into think i'm Australian????
8) There are some really huge people here. People are either slim/Average or heavily overweight. Not sure why. Not that uncommon to see people finding it difficult to walk down the street.
9) It is really dirty on the streets in the Cities. I wasn't expecting it coming from London but the cities are in a state.
10) The first thing Americans talk to you about after you tell them you are English and not Australian is the weather back home or the queen.

Hollywood

Set of Jaws

Set of The Grinch

Ladies toilet inside Mann's Chinese theatre

Bar inside Mann's Chinese theatre

Famous Globe
Gates to Universal Studios
View of the Universal Studios estate
View from the Universal Studios tour of one of the sets used for flooding scenes
View from the Universal Studios tour of the set used for King Kong

Part of a shopping centre that had walkways with views of the Hills
View of outside Mann's Chinese theatre
View of the Hollywood Hills

Rodeo Drive

New Disney centre
One of the first Spanish Churches in the area
Hollywood Bol getting ready for the Oscars
Manns Chinese Theatre
Walk of stars

I'm staying in hostel just off Hollywood Boulevard. The location is superb for sight seeing as Mann's Chinese theatre is just minutes walk down the road. The walk of the stars lines the streets and its wierd seeing some big names on the pavement surrounded by homeless people, "smoke shops", sex shops etc. Wasn't expecting that.

My first impressions of LA are as follows: it is a huge city/metropolis of cities that have poor public transportation links which explains the huge roads, the ratio of cars to people (almost two to one) and the horrendous traffic jams that seem like they last forever.

I decided to book a tour of the city as there was no way that i was going to see all the sights by public transport in the time I have. This tour turned out to be a few minutes looking through the window at points of interest as we zoomed by in the coach. There was a lot of time on freeways!! Bugger. Still the afternoon was wicked as it involved going to Universal Studios! As it is out of season there were no queues and the rides were half full. I thought they had some pretty amazing rides there. One was 4-D and involved, sounds, smells, movement, actors, 3-D goggles etc. I had a massive smile on my face for the whole afternoon - i must be a big kid at heart. On the way back we were supposed to catch the coach that would drop us off at our hotels/hostels. I had lost my ticket but thought that it would be alright as the driver was the one would took us round in the morning. Big mistake. He totally didn't want to take me home without the receipt. His attitude was that if you haven't got the receipt then your not getting on the bus and was not bothered at all. I tried talking to him and eventually he phone the office and found that I was on the manifest. What a plonker. He was really nice in the afternoon.

I toured Mann's Chinese Theatre the next day and found that there's not much to learn about the theatre itself. The guide was a comic and invited me to his show. Shame I'm catching a plane. I looked over the pavement outside the theatre where all the stars have their handprints, footprints and names in the pavement. I did notice that all the men's shoes prints are huge. My feet (size 12 and i'm wearing size 12.2 shoes at the moment) could fit into all but one of the footprints. Now either some of the smaller actors have huge feet in comparison to their height or I smell a rat. These footprints were huge - no joke.

I had a gander at the Hollywood sign from the best view point - a shopping centre near Mann's Theatre. I was really suprised how small the sign actually is. When you see it on TV the picture must be taken fairly close to the sign itself. I took a few pictures but you can barely make the sign out!!!

Death by Greyhound part II

I had to catch the greyhound from Las Vegas to LA. I was not looking forward to this as it would be an all day affair. I sat near the front so that i was least likely to be disturbed. Our driver wasn't as authoritarian as the one from SF to Las Vegas, and so there was some chit-chat during the trip.

The people behind me were characters to say the least. One was a granny with missing teeth a broad southern accent. Others were in their thirties and from Cali as they called it. The chat soon turned to guns, drugs, beatings by the police, race, jail, etc. They were all talking from person experience and at one point they pulled out the Tequila. I could smell it leaching forward on the bus. Every so often the door to the loo at the back of the bus would swing open and fill the bus with the rancid smell of urine. That mixed with tequila was making me feel quite ill. The main story teller was sat to the side of me and was getting quite animated in his storytelling. The bus driver told him to sit down twice and at one point the man started to talk about beating up the bus driver when he got of the bus!!! This man was huge and ex-Army - the bus driver was tiny. I'm sure the driver must of heard this because the next time the storyteller told a joke and everyone laughed he pulled the man off the bus and told him he couldn't ride on this bus anymore. That was like a red flag to a bull and started a huge row. The man was told that if he didn't leave then the police would be called. That got the man of the bus because of his "record" as he said (it pretty bad by the sounds of it). After all this we got into LA main terminal at 5:30pm. I got on the bus at 10am. I never want to ride on greyhound again!!

Las Vegas baby

Largest gift store in the world

View of the main observation deck
Giant muffin @ the highest Starbucks in the world
View of downtown Vegas
One of the rides at the top of the tower
View of the strip

I know the name of this one ....bellagio
View of the strip from the stratosphere tower (building on fire at the top of the strip)

Outside the Luxor Resort
Umm, I forget the name of this resort
And this one...
And this one....
And again this one....

Stratosphere tower
Luxor resort
Inside Luxor
Inside Luxor
Inside the Luxor

I was staying at the Stratosphere hotel. It is just at the top of the so called "strip". The strip is where all the big casinos are. The stratosphere has a huge tower (the largest in Western North America) attached to the hotel. It is a famous landmark and I was really lucky to be staying there as it was really convenient for the buses that ferry you up and down the strip (I only paid 15 pounds per night!!!!). That's just two pounds more than i was staying in the six dorm in SF.

I found the main entrance to the casino (which took a while) as the place is absolutely huge!!! I couldn't believe it. I walked through what must have been hundreds of slot machines before i found the checking in desk. I was staying in the middle of the hotel on floor 11. There are 24 floors and I was on 11. Once on 11 i walked for a good few minutes down the corridor before i eventually found my part of the hotel. I was only staying in the middle!!! My room was the size of our lounge/dining room back home. My bed was massive and i had views of the desert and mountains. I still cant believe i paid only 15 pounds for that a night!!!

I had heard that the buffets at the casinos were mental and so i headed to one of the many restaurants on the ground floor....I have never seen so much food in all my life. There was table after table after table. Serving American, international and fast food. It cost just 7 pound for all you can eat including teas, coffees, soft drinks etc. Looking around there were so many seriously overweight people around. Tables were full to the brim with half eaten plates of food and at one point there was almost a stampede through the doors to the restaurant for some reason?? Some many people looked like they were having trouble walking. I'm not surprised, the healthiest food at the buffet was a bland salad cart and one stand of Chinese food. Everything was either deep fried, covered in cheese or made from reformed meat. I ate so much i thought i was going to explode (when in Rome). Simon would not have beat that feast and that's for sure. After waddling out of the restaurant i hit the strip for some serious sight seeing.

The bus took half an hour to get to the end. Each casino is set about a quarter of a mile from the road and so there was loads of walking to be done which was a good thing considering the food baby i was carrying. The Casinos have to be seen to be believed. There were monorails joining casinos, giant walkways over the main road and each casino has its own theme. The pyramid of the Luxor was amazing and has a huge sphinx sitting along side. The rooms are set in the external walls of the pyramid and so have an amazing internal view of the casino below. The water and lights show outside the Bellagio was amazing even if it was to Elton John. I had a go on the slot machines and managed to last five dollars worth of credits for hours. They give you free cocktails as long as you are playing on the slots so I lasted that money for as long as i could!!! I managed to stay awake till two in the morning, which considering how much sleep I got on the greyhound the night before was no small feat!!! They have no clocks and there are no windows so when i went to bed i had no idea of the time.

The following day I used my free pass to ride upto the top of the Tower. It is the tallest on the West Coast and had views of the valley and you could see the edge of the city all the way round. There were actually three rides on the top of the tower. They looked terrifying as each basically left you dangling over the edge of the tower. I had to have a coffee in the Highest Starbucks in the world. It was actually quite cheap considering where it was. After taking in the views I headed down to the strip and had a walk around the largest gift shop in the world. This place was seriously tacky and seemed to sell anything and everything with Las Vegas stamped across it. I headed back to the casino in the hotel for some serious gambling and drinking. I managed to double my money at one point and then slowly loose it all. For food I did the buffet in the hotel again. This time the sound track to my meal was two Americans behind me who commented on how nice the food was in a southern accent. They made a comment at what seemt like each bite and they were there for a fair while. I hope they were eating. At one point i couldn't help myself and let a laugh. Las Vegas is incredible and i'd love to go back. A week is probably enough for the next visit.