Why won't they leave us alone? (Stockholm to Gothenburg, Sweden)

And so, dear reader, it was with fear and trepidation we departed Stockholm and dragged our bags towards Central Station. We had selected a smoother route, one that limited the cobblestones and small pavers. We made the station in good time and loitered near the platform from which our train would be departing. Seating was at a premium and if you got up to stretch your legs it was likely your spot would be taken before you had walked a few metres. Thankfully I like to roam around so, once Jayne was seated with our bags, I went in search of the mysterious platform 9. No luck. It remains a mystery.

Our train arrived on time, but it required cleaning for the next leg of the journey. We were, therefore, 20 minutes late leaving. While that was not a concern for us - we couldn't get into the hotel until 3pm anyway, there were plenty of people with connecting trains at Gothenburg that would be inconvenienced.

The high speed trains are fabulous and I still can't understand why Australia has not gone down this path. The thing of note on the journey was the guy across the aisle with his headphones on singing to himself. Funny. And annoying.

Gothenburg or Göteborg is another university town and is Sweden's second largest city. We are here for three days because I wanted to break up the journey from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Given the speed of the trains it probably wasn't necessary. In an ironic twist, we will need to change trains on the way to Copenhagen and the connecting train commenced its journey in Stockholm.

Interesting architecture everywhere.

We are staying in a hotel, the Radisson Blu Scandinavia. It is a popular chain over here and is also directly opposite central station. Despite Declan, our GPS, wanting to walk us down one side of the canal to turn and retrace our steps, I cleverly noted the hotel sign emblazoned in 3 metre high blue neon and headed directly there. I had decided to upgrade to a suite, given our baggage. Good decision.

Systembolaget

There is a lot to like about Sweden. Bottle shop or Systembolaget opening hours is not on the list. We dropped our bags, unpacked a few things, checked the map, grabbed the backpack and headed for the bottle shop. Should you ever travel this way, dear reader, and are in search of take home alcohol, the term to Google is 'liquor store'. Cheers America.

An insect hotel near the bottle shop.

Anyway the systembolaget was less than 10 minutes walk from the hotel through the Inner City past numerous shops, cafés and restaurants. The weather was predicted to be fine and we wandered our new locale, taking in the sights as we went. Sadly, there were KFC and McDonalds amongst the more interesting eateries.

As we passed the local market, noted for a later visit, it began to rain. Not heavily. Just enough to be annoying and ensure you would be uncomfortable. Not to worry, our destination was nearby and we could shelter there making our wine choices.

Good try. Fail. The bottle shop had closed at 3pm, as it was Saturday, and wouldn't reopen until Monday morning. I am uncertain if this is some puritanical religious bent tied to decades past or a clever ploy to get the locals out to eat and drink on weekends. If the latter, it worked for us.

Dinner 

A restaurant had already been selected prior to leaving the hotel so we navigated our way there. It was Italian of course. I have never seen so many Italian restaurants, with the possible exception of Italy. The rain had stopped, we arrived at the restaurant and were shown to our table by a delightful young woman who chatted to us about Gothenburg and things we could do. Especially as Sunday is a day when many places are closed.

The restaurant was one of those order at the table places that popped up everywhere during COVID in Australia. In Sweden they are going completely cashless and most places accept card only. Wouldn't that cause Bob Katter and Barnaby Joyce to have an apoplexy? Be worth it for that alone.

So we decided a long lunch drifting into dinner was required. We began with olives and wine and the order went through without a problem. We sat and chatted and watched people coming and going. Later I ordered our mains and the system would not accept my card. Curious. It worked an hour ago. Over to the counter to speak to the people. It wouldn't work manually either.

They didn't take Amex so we were limited in what we could do. Jayne came over and attempted to pay with her card. Also rejected. About 8 times just to reinforce the point. Back at the table I tried again using Apple Pay. Success! Who knows why or how. Dinner was on its way.

And when it finally arrived, disappointment. My pizza was OK. Uncut, but OK. What is with that? Jayne's carbonara was swimming in egg wash. Disgusting.

Day 2

When you're travelling overseas, dear reader, there are many ways to start a day badly. One is to open your email and discover your VISA card has been suspended due to suspicious activity. For perspective, we have been away for a month and although it's not my main card, it gets used where Amex is not accepted. It has, therefore, been used in England and Norway, but apparently Sweden is a totally sus country and it was is now locked.

The only solution? Phone Australia. Do not respond to the email. Phone. The sim card I purchased is data only and I've tried making calls over the net but it doesn't work. Thankfully Jayne's phone did and I called HSBC in Sydney, well it was a Sydney number. After the usual 10 minutes on hold, I got to discuss the issue with someone in the fraud team. 

It's a school. Not Hogwarts.

She asked me if I authorised a purchase for $181AUD and provided the trading name. Really? Trading names are not generally the name of the establishment where you spent the money. I told her I bought dinner at an Italian restaurant in Sweden and named the two amounts spent in SEK. "Oh," she said, "You're in Sweden." This woman's progeny will never work on rockets.

Anyway, card restored it was time to search for breakfast. A potential challenge on a Sunday so we headed for Haga, a tourist area.

Haga

It was still early by Swedish standards and even the tourist area was quiet. There were a few cafés open and all were well patronised, as if to prove to the authorities that Sunday trading would be a beneficial move.

Reflective.

Finally we found a table in the third café and joined the queue to order. We tend not to eat much when we travel, a light breakfast and one meal usually suffices. The usual double espressos, a croissant and Jayne had something sweet, I can't remember the name. 

We didn't stay to explore Haga because we were returning the next day. Today we were going to the Museum of Natural History. Why? Because museums are open on Sundays, unlike the rest of Sweden and closed on Mondays.

It looked harmless enough from below.

Museum of Natural History

Admittedly it is a while since I've been to a museum of this sort. It is also billed as a museum of taxidermy. Their big claim to fame? A stuffed blue whale. I kid you not. Now I'm no taxidermist, so I'm not really in a position to criticise, but ... well, you'll see from the pictures.

The walk to museum passed the Skansen Kronan, a 17th century fortress. It is on top a hill of course with a great view. It can wait till the walk home.

The Skansen Kronan.

Walking through the doors of the museum was akin to wandering into a day care centre. It was all light and movement and screaming children and ambivalent parents. It appears museums are very popular on Sunday.

The magpies are really colourful.

The lockers were all taken which meant carrying our bags and coats. We climbed the spiral staircase to the top floor to work our way back down. In short, it is the museum of taxidermy. There were a few skeletons and some hands-on explanatory displays for kids. Otherwise it was stuffed animals.

Even the bear is looking away.

Stuffed birds, mammals, fish, assorted sea creatures, you get the idea. The museum, the oldest in Gothenburg, opened in 1905 and some of the exhibits looked like they were original. Particularly the birds, losing feathers, faded colour and a generally moth-eaten appearance.

The two floors of exhibits generated that wonderful echo sound that little children so enjoy to make. Some so much, they had what looked and sounded like a 'scream off' with other children. Yes, this was fun, dear reader.

An anorexic giraffe looking in a mirror.

And then the whale, the prize exhibit. I photographed it from above as well as from ground level. The lines on the side of the whale turned out be where it was cut open. To reseal it they used screws. It's head had three very large hinges. I assume this is for educational purposes so you can look inside. I thought it was just weird and unattractive and ultimately it didn't look real. Which also brings us to the title of this post, Why won't they leave us alone that timeless 1986 classic from Dot and the Whale. Do yourself a favour.

Hinges and screws.

After passing through the mammal exhibit, replete with a giraffe, elephant, moose, buffalo, bear and Australian marsupials. We exited to take a wander in the adjacent perimeter of the botanic garden.  The gardens would no doubt look far more impressive in the summer and the scale of the space seems akin to our national parks as there is 360 kms of cycling track within its precinct.

Skansen Kronan

Our return journey took us back to the fortress, built in 1687-9, that lies in the heart of the city. It is perched on a hilltop, accessible by a zig-zag pathway. It is steep to access on one side and there is a more meandering path on the other. The view from the top was overrated. It looked across the city towards the storm clouds in the distance. 

Nice day for a walk.

There were many locals out walking their pets and not all of them were dogs. We were amazed to see people walking their cats, not on a leash. It was tempting to stay and watch what was about to unfold because two dogs were waiting around the next bend in the path.

Cat walking. No leash.

We turned for Norstad, the large shopping mall near the hotel in search of the yellow all weather coat I didn't buy in Tromsø. Once again to no avail. We found a Pandora store although Jayne didn't like the specifically Swedish offering so there was no purchase.

Mini golf. No nerds out today.

Back at the hotel our room hadn't been serviced so we adjourned to the bar with the computer to sort out our last leg of unbooked travel, Prague to Vienna. After considerable research looking at the two different train companies and whether it was better to book through Prague or Vienna, I finally made a decision. I booked through the Czechia site because it allowed you to select seats where the Austrian site did not and the private train company couldn't guarantee us seats together. Stressful, but done.

Retiring for the evening we discovered our room had been ignored and had not been serviced. Oh, well, we'll discuss that on the way tomorrow.

Until next time.

Thieves in the temple (Kampong Cham, Siem Reap, Angkor Thom, Cambodia)

We were awake at 5:30am, dear reader. Our bags were outside our stateroom before the appointed hour and we were seated at breakfast shortly after 6:15. Breakfast was the usual affair, although we had been warned by our tour guide not to imbibe too much coffee or tea because of the long bus trip ahead. (He was concerned about incontinence amongst his charges). Service was perhaps a little slow. I think they were focussed on the arriving crowd rather than the departing group.

I discovered something else last night, dear reader. There is a coffee machine on our level. A real one with beans that need to be ground. The working class boy inside of me eschewed the concept of our “butler” providing us with a morning coffee and now it was time to regret. We could have been having proper coffee every morning. Ah well.

Everyone assembled in the lounge at 7:40 for the final disembarkation from the Mekong Serenity. We were back in our three colour groups, one specially modified bus (allegedly) per group. Apparently, a number of seats had been removed to provide more space to stretch your legs. It is, after all, a 5 and a half hour bus trip to Siem Reap.

The seats were certainly larger than usual, think Business Class on a plane plus they had a foot rest and could also decline. I was more interested in sitting my seat up straighter and tried to adjust the seat back. The end result was my seat reclined into the lap of the person behind me. All much to Jayne’s amusement. “Oh, Liz, you could give Brad a head massage while we drive along!” she managed to get out between fits of laughter.

Seat re-positioned, I extracted the computer from my pack and began editing photos and catching up the blog.

We stopped after an hour for people to use the “happy room”. They are unable to say toilet over here. Maybe it’s an APT thing. The toilets were quite visible, to the amusement of some. The urinals may as well have been on the driveway for all the privacy they offered. The women’s toilets were more secluded and, hanging on a hook by the mirror, was a grimy green comb, presumably for anyone to neaten up their hair before resuming their journey.

Back on the bus, I had just settled into writing the blog and the announcement was made that we were stopping again. I swear we hadn’t been driving for more than 20 minutes. Anyway, we stopped at Preypors River. Actually, it’s more of a lake, which apparently never dries up and is obviously a major stop for APT tour buses. 

This was not a mat.

The complex consists of a restaurant, takeaway fast food and a souvenir shop full of weird toys, packets of strange food, along with clothing and other keepsakes that we have seen in countless markets along the trip.

The "special" view. Not so special. A lake, not a river.

The takeaway was doing a roaring trade, especially in ice creams, but they actually had a real coffee machine and the temptation to try a decent coffee, after several weeks of disappointment, became overwhelming. An espresso was ordered and, while it was delivered in a paper cup, joyously it contained the best coffee since leaving Australia!

Barbequed salted fish, anyone?

While I luxuriated in sipping this liquid gold, we wandered out the back to the restaurant on the lake to sit and take in the view. The lakeview, however, was hard to focus upon since, hanging all the way along the edge of the roof, was a series of clear plastic bags, tied up by string and each showcasing liquid of varying colours: red, green, yellow. A couple had presumably suffered a rupture and were flapping emptily in the light breeze. But the rest glinted in the sunlight, dancing and posing the question, “Why?” No answer was forthcoming and so we re-boarded the bus, bound for one more detour before our intended destination, Siem Reap.

Just weird.

The bus rolled into the carpark of a large complex, 5 minutes from our hotel, so that we could all obtain a temple pass that would be used over the next two days to allow us to enter the precinct for which Siem Reap is world renowned. These passes are mandatory and their pre-purchase expedites the entry of large groups of people into the UNESCO listed 401 square kms parcel of land that houses many temples. This site would be where we would be spending the majority of our time over the final days of the APT tour. Perhaps it should be renamed an AFT tour. Come on dear reader, use your imagination, you can work it out.

Our temple pass, valid for three days over the next week, comes resplendent with our photos. The process of getting our photos taken and having the passes in our hands was remarkably efficient. However, the photos. Oh my! The camera must have been “made in China” a line which is a local joke. My likeness bears a stronger resemblance to Barnaby Joyce than it does me. On second thought, I’m not even certain the beetrooter could go that red in the face.

We later learned that these passes also provide a donation of $2 per pass towards the provision of a free children's hospital and maternity unit for the local community - a precious resource in this developing country.

The welcome at the hotel.

We arrived at the Sofitel in Siem Reap to collect our room key and have a quick light lunch. Then it was straight to our room where our bags were waiting at the door. My Accor membership paid dividends once again and we had been upgraded. Our suite comes with a sitting room and a bowl of fresh fruit.

Almost more space than at home.

Then it was back to foyer to board our buses for Angkor Thom which translates as ‘great city’. The temple passes were clipped at a checkpoint and then we were required to change from the big bus to a Toyota Coaster. They limit the size of the vehicles in particular areas of the park to minimise vibration and to fit through narrow ancient stone entry points. The first stop was the Bayon Temple, also known as the temple of the faces for reasons that are obvious when you see the photos.

The money shot.

The whole area is surrounded by a moat that is 100 metres wide and access was across a narrow bridge and through a gate in the wall. The bridge was adorned with statues of the heads of gods on one side and demons on the other. We scheduled a photo opportunity on the return journey.

Watching out of the corner of his eye.

Ever feel like you're being watched?

Our guide, Reaksmey, was brilliant and he steered us away from the big crowds to the best vantage points. It really is a special place and I was constantly imagining how the temples and other structures originally looked. From Bayon, we visited the Terrace of the Elephants, a long, elevated platform with an edifice of elephants on both sides where the king would watch parades and games of polo. No really, polo. The grassed area directly in front of the relief was extremely boggy and I didn't have the big telephoto lense.

The wall of elephants.

In discussing our experiences later that evening, it became apparent that we really did win the tour guide lottery. People from the other two groups didn’t get to see some of the things we saw, or indeed do some of things we did. We were the only group to climb the steps to the king’s platform.

The climb up to the King's platform.

Looking down on the peasants. Well peasant.

We retraced our route and stopped briefly on the other side of the bridge where it began to rain. How refreshing. I was unconcerned because I couldn't get any wetter than I was already.

All in a row.

A close up of a god.

We drove to our original bus and returned to the hotel to remove our dripping wet (perspiration, not precipitation) clothes and prepare for dinner. The afternoon temperature had reached over 30° and the humidity was over 75%. Combine that with the distance walked and the fact that some areas lacked any breeze and it made us all pretty moist. Not in a good way.

One of the garden ponds at the hotel.

Dinner was a “freedom of choice” affair and a number from our original entourage chose to dine at Malis. The food was very good but the entrée serves were ridiculously large. The bowl of noodles we were individually served, could have fed 2 or 3 people. At another table that was not part of our group, the same meal was served and it was half the size. None of us consumed the entire dish because we wanted to be able to eat the main. Service was slow and inconsistent and, overall, the night was not a brilliant success.

The tuk tuk drivers that earlier had delivered us to the restaurant, waited outside to return us safely to the Sofitel hotel. We were driven home via Pub Street. This is the place where it all happens. Apparently. It was loud and neon lit at the entrance: not really my style. Perhaps I’ll check it out during the day.

Back at the hotel it was strictly time for bed. We have a 4:15am wake-up call tomorrow to see the day dawn over Angkor Wat.

Although we didn't see any thieves in the temple, I'm sure they preceded us by many years. The British Museum would have been among them as they "acquired" exhibits. Anyway, this is a classic by Prince. Enjoy.

Until next time.