Loco

The time has nearly come again for the UN Climate Change conference.  Youth delegations from all corners of this earth will be traveling to Poznan, Poland for December 1st, to address the biggest challenge of our generation, and to try to create an effective post-Kyoto climate agreement. Although the talks are a couple of weeks away, some youth delegations are already en route.  We join the Australian youth delegation on day 39 of their epic 6 week journey, across 22,336 km from Australia to Poland, as they discuss a Singaporean delicacy; vegetarian meat….come again?

It tastes like meat. It looks like meat. It even says meat on the menu. A new wave of vegetarian restaurants has swept over Asia, but you’d be forgiven if, at first, you were confused.

If you are a vegetarian travelling through cities like Singapore, Hanoi and Beijing, you ought to ask yourself one question: If meat grew on trees, would you eat it?

Last night in Beijing, I took a trip with the gang and our guides to a local vego place. It took some convincing (I’m still not 100% sure about it), but the meat on my plate was doing its very best to be like meat without actually being meat. Unlike so called NotMeat™, the cunning cuisine on my fork actually tasted like real meat from a real dead animal.

Although, we had observed the same phenomena in Singapore and Hanoi, a few of us were still sceptical, not least of all Ollie and I, who have had people we trusted say “This isn’t meat. Honest.” To their hilarity we believed them, and we weren’t about to be red-faced again.

China, with a fifth of the globe’s population (1.3 Billion) is getting richer, whilst meat is more fashionable, more popular and increasingly in demand. Watts reports that since 1980, the average consumption of meat in China has gone from 20 kilos to well over 50 kilos per person, per year. As a country, that is “more than 60m tonnes of meat a year, roughly equivalent to 240 million cows, or 600 million pigs, or 24 billion chickens.” Change in meat consumption on this scale has significant consequences, but China’s taste for flesh is more than just a status symbol. Chinese naturally want a better life for friends and family, after all, 60 years ago tens of millions of Chinese people died of starvation under Mao and even 30 years ago families struggled to eat.

We, the wealthiest, live in a carnivorous world. Interestingly (perhaps expectedly), Americans eat 128% more and Europeans 83% more meat than the average Chinese not to mention other developing countries. Meat consumption is an issue of equality, but the earth simply cannot afford to have everyone eating at the high, meat-everyday end of the current consumer spectrum.

China’s demand for meat is growing and may require imports to meet demand in the near future. As comparatively self sufficient as China is, feeding a fifth of the world on less than a tenth of the arable land, most countries are expecting imports to increase in the future, adding to the food crisis and the looming food emergency.

Other well published negatives of meat consumption are already taking effect. The health effects of the fast food lifestyle are rapidly developing in China, already a major health concern in countries like Australia. Enormous quantities of costly resources, such as of arable land, water and fossil fuels are currently required to produce meat. What’s more, the growing populations of ruminant animals (particularly ones that ‘Moo’ and ‘Baa’) pose a great threat to climate stability. The meat industry is significantly responsible for anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions, the most potent greenhouse gas. As Professor Ian Lowe clearly points out, “There is not doubt that reducing consumption of meat, especially red meat, is one of the most effective things the individual can do to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution.”

So, in answer to my original question, I would have to say yes. I will eat meat from trees. After all, it tastes like meat, it looks like meat, it is called meat, it is even priced like meat! I have nothing to lose and everything to gain from my patronage of the new wave of restaurants flouting plants as meat, vegetarianism as the new black and changing the course of accelerating Juggernauts like China in sustainable directions.

More of it!
I’m off to lunch
Nic

You can read past blog entries here.

So, it’s time for another installment from Lara and Tom. This week, they have some useful advice for us regarding possible entry and exit strategies for crossing Cambodia’s borders. Entry into Cambodia, it seems, includes an official guide who accompanies you to safety…

Aranya Prathet, Thailand, to Poipet, Cambodia
We crossed the border into Cambodia at Aranya Prathet, one of Thailand’s five land border crossings. It was a very confusing process with little information and scams a plenty. Have your wits about you and don’t trust anyone.

Having been warned against taking the ‘direct’ bus from Thailand to Siem Reap we made our own way to Aranya Prathet. It feels like the end of the road with little in the way of accommodation and the dredges at the bottom of the culinary barrel (including frog, lizard and bush meat).

The border is open from 7.30am to 5pm and you can buy your visa at the border. The tuk tuk journey from town (6km) should cost no more than 50 Bhat, and make sure your driver takes you to the border and not to the ‘Cambodian Consulate’. The Cambodian Consulate is a scam. The sign and building certainly look legitimate and they do sell Cambodian visas, but after one too many “sure brother’s” we got suspicious. Only it was too late; as we had handed over $30 for a visa that we later learnt should cost only $20. The best place to buy your Cambodian visa, if you haven’t got one in advance, is from the visa booth once you have gone through Thai immigration and customs. Cambodian immigration and customs are then a straightforward stamp and enter.

Poipet is an unnerving and unwelcoming entrance to a country. After the relative ease, cleanliness and smiles of Thailand, Cambodia throws dust, ragged children and deformed adults at you. Women pull carts through a cesspool of a road piled high with rubbish and mud. Going through the Angkor towers gate into Cambodia felt like walking through a portal in to another world.

Moving on from Poipet to Siem Reap or anywhere in Cambodia is a chore. The Cambodian authorities claim to have made it easier to avoid scams by providing their own irritating touts and escorts across the border. Whether you like it or not, they’ll accompany you from Aranya Prathet to Poipet and put you on a free bus to the tourist bus terminal (about 200m), where you pay corresponding tourist prices.
It is a slow roller coaster ride on red mud, about as bumpy as the roads in northern Laos, but it is also a fascinating introduction to Cambodia. Dazzling fields of rice stretch as far as the eye can see with water buffalo wallowing, children playing and men fishing with nets all up to their waists in water. Given the country’s history it feels tropically eerie. These feelings were offset by the surreal as a man on motorbike went by with two rigor-mortised pigs, trotters pointing towards the heavens, strapped on the back.

The last part of the trip is finding your guesthouse in Siem Reap. On the city outskirts the taxi driver passes you over to a tuk tuk for the final leg of the journey. Make sure you have a hostel reservation, or pretend you have one, and insist on being taken there and not to the one where the driver receives commission. The tuk tuk ride is included in the taxi fare. Another irritating ‘official’ rides with you trying to sell tours of the temples. Ignore him too. Once settled Siem Reap is definitely worth the hassle, and the journey there is an unforgettable and unique part of the Cambodian adventure.

Bavet, Cambodia, to Moc Bai, Vietnam
Leaving Cambodia is a doddle in comparison to entry. The road from Phnom Penh to Vietnam is good and there are direct buses from Phnom Penh to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) that take six hours ($12).

There is little more to say about the crossing. It was easy. You give your passport to the bus staff and they get the exit stamp for Cambodia while you are eating lunch and admiring the bling of Bavet‘s casinos. You then get off the bus to go through Vietnamese immigration and your bags are scanned at customs. Back on the bus and you’re in Vietnam….

You can read past blog entries here.

We can’t remember exactly how it started. We can’t even recall when. It was probably on another holiday and over another pint when…I proposed the idea for our next trip: “how about going on a wee jaunt around the world…” Lara screwed up her face “…without flying?”. Her eyes lit up

Having traveled across Europe, through Japan, China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, we join Lara and Tom as they take their first steps in Vietnam. They have traveled 17,063 miles, on 46 trains, 10 buses, 6 boats and 11 cars. (You can read previous blog entries here) Their journey into Vietnam was a doddle compared with what they faced departing Thailand for Cambodia, and so, while we wait for news of their slow travel adventures from the rice paddies and floating markets of Vietnam, we back-track a little to the Temples of Angkor, early sunrises, monsoon rain, and the trials-and-tribulations of slow-travel Cambodia style.

Crossing the border from Thailand into Cambodia it soon becomes apparent we’re in a different country. Not everything changes of course: the tropical heat is still intense; the writing just as squiggly; the large paintings along the roadsides of their monarchs with medals similarly blinged-up.

The friendly demeanor, the enticing smiles may continue, but we soon find out that these two countries share more differences than just the ongoing border dispute, (a nasty little row which has recently spilled over into out-and-out, albeit small-scale, fighting.) This current conflict is most certainly not good for business, at least in Cambodia’s tourist epicenter, Siem Reap, much-needed tourist dollars are down as visitors are scared off, leaving guesthouse owners and tuk tuk drivers like our own, the curiously-named Mr Pea, competing with too many others for too little business. Unlike Thailand, this is a country where crushing poverty is endemic and the recent past is very dark indeed. This starts to become apparent the moment we cross the border: hassle from hawkers increases; begging becomes commonplace.

Any westerner is a potential meal ticket and the locals go to great lengths to prise the much-valued dollar out of your willing hands (in Cambodia, the mighty Greenback is King; the local Rial currency used only as small change). At times it becomes just plain uncomfortable. Riddled with guilt from a day spent batting away beggars in rags and scrawny waifs we sat down for dinner at a café on the street. Within minutes they had zeroed in on us, trying to flog us their pitiful wares, surveying you with hungry eyes and making each mouthful feel unjustified. The tuk tuk drivers are incorrigible, following you into your guesthouse in a bid to secure the next day’s business: “where to tomorrow sir? Killing fields? Market?”. They usually draw the worst of my ire, but whilst you can bat them away with steely eyes and caustic curses it’s hard to deny those in greater need.

Whilst all this hassle this is often distressing, leaving you feeling powerless at best, and more often than not a cruel, cold-hearted, exploitative Westerner, there are also moments of light relief. Top marks have to go, in a very tough field, to the young lad who tried to sell us his wares whilst stood in water up to his knees in Siem Reap’s bus station during one of the frequent torrential downpours. There was no stopping this indomitable little chap. He had us in his sights and, in the pouring rain he bounded over, umbrella in one hand, fruit in the other. He danced up and down on the spot, every inch of him sodden wet yet still bearing a massive grin on his face, “Pineapple sir? Banana?”

You can read Tom and Lara’s full blog entries here.

Last Easter, 300 low-carbonistas set off on an epic 1,900 mile journey to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, via Leipzig in Germany…

The only (tiny, incredibly insignificant) catch is that the participants only had £15 to spend on travel! Blagging trains, buses, trams, ferries and good old fashioned hitch-hiking saw them raise £64,000 for a number of different charities located both in the UK and abroad.This year they’re heading to Zadar in Croatia, and they’d love you to join them!

The trip itself lasts one week with a half-way party (which will be Nuremberg) and then a final meal and party in Zadar.

Email me ASAP to guarantee yourself a place on Bummit 2009.  You only have until Monday 24th November, before the offer opens up to the masses.

For more info, check out Bummit here.

This is the last message from Kate on this leg of her low carbon travel adventure, as the sad truth is that she is going to fly the last leg of her journey to Australia (boo!).

For those of you who are just joining this story, Kate started travelling in August 2007 when she got on a cargo-ship from England to Costa Rica. Six months later she took the bold decision to carry on towards Australia, this time sailing. After getting side-tracked in the delightful paradise of Tonga, Kate has finally set sail again. This is the latest installment, and probably the last for a while.

This week signified the beginning of another leg of my round the world adventure as I finally dragged myself away from my home in Tonga and put myself back on track to reach Australia. I have not only found a new boat with which to continue my journey, but have pulled off the nautical equivalent of being picked up by a limousine, and am currently heading west on a yacht which represents all that is indulgent about being rich.

My new home is a 47-foot catamaran with my own cabin and private bathroom, a flat screen television and DVD player, 3 showers, 6 fishing rods, umpteen bottles of wine, and crisp gin and tonic on tap. Apart from the copious amounts of rum on board this vessel is much more “fabulous darling” than “yo ho ho” but the saving grace of life aboard Averone - which should earn me at least a little piratical kudos - is the presence of our captain, big bald Bob the budgie smuggler. Sounds good doesn’t it? However, I think that I may be one of the only people in the history of sailing to step aboard a huge luxury catamaran for an all expenses paid cruise to Fiji and immediately burst into tears.

What an opener, I know you’re all on the edge of your seats now; how did she end up on a luxury yacht? Why was she crying? Who is this Bob and what has he done to the poor budgies?

But before I open that can of comedy worms let me start with an apology for the radio silence which has accompanied my Tongan escapade. It seems that being on dry land was just too damned exciting to allow any kind of major email writing during my two month stay on the island, so now we must all suffer the consequences as we embark on a journey through time:

Previously in Kate’s life…

Having sailed across the Pacific with a motley crew of strangers and an increasingly grumpy captain I decided that it was time to explore the South Pacific on my own and thus made the courageous decision to abandon ship in the Kingdom of Tonga. However in comparison to the likes of famous castaways and mutineers such as Robinson Crusoe and Fletcher Christian, I was faced not with a gang of angry islanders and the prospect of surviving on a diet of coconuts but found myself in a little corner of paradise which is full of lovely people and where you can buy all kinds of delicious treats including brown bread, vegemite, and tea bags. For those of you who know me well the abundance of tea and toast should give you the first clue as to why I loved Tonga so much.

My Tongan life was characterised by a healthy dose of good wholesome fun, which is in no part due to the abundance of glorious sunshine and the distinct lack of mind-numbing imagination-slaying popular entertainment. Television in Tonga doesn’t start until 5pm Mon-Sat and is totally non-existent on Sundays which is reserved for church-going and divine celestial singing. There’s nothing like trashy TV shows to destroy any desire to do get out of the house but there is no such distraction in Vava’u. So, in alphabetical order here is a list of everything I have done over the last two months:

Beach (that was a given really)

Dance (regularly at my favourite bar Tonga Bobs)

Explore (including climbing a mountain and investigating bat filled caves)

Fly a kite (on the beach)

Free dive (I can now reach 10metres)

Hermit crab race (you guessed it, on the beach)

Host the pub quiz (in Tonga Bobs)

Impersonate Yorkshiremen (on the beach and in the bar)

Jump off the jetty (surprisingly not near the beach)

Kayak (into the unknown, and to the beach)

Limbo (also at Tonga Bobs)

Sail (in dinghies and in the weekly yacht race)

Scuba dive (ooooh fishy)

Snorkel (roughly three times a week)

Whale watch (those whales sure are massive)

and some other things I can’t think of right now.

So, in a nutshell I was having a ball, a good old fashioned hoot full of childish glee which is how I managed to lose two months of my life in Neiafu. But the icing on the cake was the friends I made, some real legends that I am going to miss loads. This made leaving Vavu’a a little problematic and led me to turn down several good opportunities to take to the sea again. My attempts to seek passage towards Australia bore fruit on more than one occasion, but there was always another reason to put my departure off, a birthday party, quiz night, a Tuesday…the list goes on. So when I eventually did summon the courage to leave it was with great regret and that is why I spent the first hour aboard my new yacht crying my eyes out like a total loser and waving as my friends became mere specks on the horizon (cue the violins).

International hitchhiking is something that I had never really considered before I set out on this adventure. It sounds like the sort of thing that would be impossible, especially as someone who prior to sailing from Mexico had no experience at all. But actually I had numerous offers of passage to Fiji and beyond. Some were more promising than others and some were basically just sleazy old dudes hoping to entice young women out into the vast oceans. You have to stick to your gut instinct with these things so when Bob approached me in my local pub I almost thought it was too good to be true; free passage to Fiji you say? On a luxury catamaran no less? I don’t have to pay for food? You insist on doing all the cooking? It just didn’t sound real, but two days in and life aboard Averone couldn’t get much sweeter.

Big bald Bob is a brilliant bloke, a very rich moustachioed Englishman who sold his business at the age of 42, relocated to New Zealand and swore never to work again, opting for opulence and extravagance at every opportunity. He is of the opposite school to me when it comes to comedy beards and claims that these “gnome-like sailors” have got it all wrong. This morning as I tucked into my weetabix he strolled into the galley in nothing but a pair of Speedos, worn in the embarrassing Dad style and announced “I hope you don’t mind my budgie smugglers at this hour”. This is a man who claims that the smell of cigarette smoke before lunchtime makes him vomit yet he will quite happily catch, kill, and gut a fish before breakfast. He makes my former captain seem uptight and ridiculous, and has totally changed my outlook on sailing as he serves champagne and sushi for lunch, or stops everything to watch the sun go down with a nice cold drink.

Yesterday Bob caught yet another fish on one of the many rods which are permanently streamed from the stern of the boat.  Vegetarians looks away now: this one was a Mahi Mahi, a massive square headed beast of a thing which flashed a vibrant display of blue and green as it tried to fight off the hook before being hauled onto deck where it proceeded to thrash wildly spraying the entire deck, and all of us with its blood, charming. But when that same fish becomes your lunch only a few hours later it’s pretty hard to complain.

As I sit here writing this email I am sporting a rather fetching gimble belt which for those of you no familiar with fishing accessories (such as I was only days ago) is a belt into which you put a rod when you are trying to pull a fish in. That’s right folks, Bob is teaching me how to catch fish. So hopefully I will soon be recounting you with tales of my triumphs over nature and the many fish dinners I have created.

We’re half a days sailing away from the shores of Savu Savu in Fiji where we will stay for a few days before heading off to cruise the islands. I will probably stay on Averone for a couple more weeks taking in the sights and sounds of the many Fijian islands before I finally bite the bullet, swallow my pride and (possibly, maybe, if it’s the last resort, because I am ridiculously broke) fly to Australia where the grown up world of jobs and responsibilities await me.

I can almost hear you all draw breath, that’s right, Kate ‘I’m never going to fly again’ Andrews may be on the brink of admitting defeat and taking to the skies for the final leg. Oh well, no shame, I’ve managed 11 months, 17 countries, 14,000 miles and no flying to date so I am going to shelve my ideals momentarily in order to get my bank balance out of the red. Please send all gloating emails to www.at-least-i-tried.com.

Images courtesy of Johnanlb and joeforjette.