Currently the weather in this part of LA has been fairly predictable, overcast / foggy up until noon and then the sun blazes through, 75F give or take a few with a nice cooling breeze near the seafront.

However most of the 14th during the day was overcast and nothing actually grabbed our eye, which is unusual. None the less we headed for sushi at Hama Sushi for the 5pm – 7pm “earlybird” bar menu which had selected sushi, various other dishes, beers and wine all at a reduced fee. California rolls never tasted so good. A stroll along the beach front brought us upon a large crowd of people who were dancing to the beat of lots of random drums. All sorts of people and characters jumped out, it was a strange little moment on a fairly quiet evening.

The following day, after an early morning run and homemade breakfast, we once again explored some of the Venice canals. They are a great place to wander around whilst having a good nosy at the huge variety of houses on display, these must be worth a fortune! Luckily our host has a bicycle that we can use and this is probably the best way to see the local area, especially the beach path system for “Peds” and “Bikes” which is a great ride past Santa Monica, or in the opposite direction towards Manhatten beach. So while Helen is doing her yoga, Dave is cycling the beach paths enjoying the views and topping up the t-shirt tan!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

As we have a great house to stay in whilst here in Venice Beach and we are travelling for up to nine months, we want to try and save money where we can. Today was shopping day and we ended up at Whole Foods (“Whole Paycheck” as its known by the locals) so we had to be very conscious of each product we bought. We really need to find a cheaper place to shop without a car this might be difficult.

Helen spent the afternoon at Exhale for the 1st full day of Yoga whilst Dave took the Leica and a selection of lenses for a walk around the local area which included a fair few random garage sales on the street. The fishermans pier at Venice Beach is a nice little stroll into the ocean and offers some good photo opportunities.

Venicebeach.com has listings of up and coming events and we just so happened to be here for the Venice Beach Music Festival which was a nice little event. Spending time watching the graffiti artists and skateboarders in the skate park, you can easily loose track of the time.

We decided to cook for ourselves and we were both suffering from the effect of jet-lag as by 8pm we were ready for bed.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After a good breakfast at the Lam Tong we checked out of our little place and moved over to Mellow. Luckily our room was ready so we dumped the bags got into our swim wear and headed to the beach, pretty much running in and enjoying the nice temperature. We played in the sea for a while swimming, trying to body surf and Helen got washed up. It made a refreshing change from earlier this month walking in our winter gear every day.

We did some research with J&J into our ideas for a Mekong tour, we were all quite convinced that a biking tour would be up our street so we looked into a few options and then hired a moto for the rest of the afternoon. We took ourselves up to the next village passing by markets, fishing boats and Pagodas. Children chased us around asking to look after our bike, we were teased into a temple and then asked for money which we didn’t have so made a sharp exit.

It was quite cloudy on our way back and so stopped for the stormy looking sky with the sun breaking through. Back in Mui Ne we ate at the restaurant where we had stayed the night before and enjoyed some lovely fish kebabs, the only downside was Jules was looking forward to a nice jacket potato but along came 2 very small potatoes wrapped up in foil turning out like hard boiled ones.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After an early morning run up and down the beach followed by a swim we enjoyed a hearty breakfast at Long Time before deciding on a route to go out on the scooter. After about 10 minutes of heading south of Mui Ne we were pulled over by the Police, we had no idea why they pulled us to start with; both of us were in helmets which is now the law in Vietnam, we weren’t speeding and we had driver’s licence…however we soon came to realise that they weren’t going to be pulling us over for any rational reason. They asked to see our licence or permit from the bike owner and took the bike from us placing it into a compound full of other bikes they’d already taken in that day. Dave had to pay for a moto-taxi back and forth to Mellow to pick up our details, and when we showed them to the Police they weren’t interested and insisted that we needed a Vietnamese licence. We knew this wasn’t the case and tried to argue our point even pointing to the Lonely Planet section on hiring bikes, but they weren’t interested and told us to leave.

So back to Mellow it was where we arranged to meet up with the owner and see what was going to happen, we knew there could be some kind of bribery involved and it was communicated that if the bike owner was to get his bike back from the Police then the total fine would be 1,000,000 dong which is $50! He asked us to pay half of this amount, to start with we asked a few questions with other bike companies and western people who’d been in the area for a while, but we learned that unless the fine was paid our bike owner would loose out on 10 days worth of trade. We also found out that many of the bigger companies pay a fee each month to the Police to avoid any problems like this with tourists. One comment that was made by a western man at Mellow went a little like this…”the police pull in a lot of bikes around this time of year…funny how it happens just before and after Tete…beer money!” Hmmmm! So another lesson learned and hopefully of some advice to those of you looking to rent bikes in this region. We decided to pay half to the man and be down with it, such an annoying start to the day and for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So back to the beach it was for the rest of a lovely afternoon, we didn’t let it bother us too much and enjoyed more swimming and relaxing. Later on we had a fab pizza from a restaurant about 10 minutes walk east of Mellow followed by an acoustic session with the Vietnamese version of a 70′s soul star at Joe’s bar – open 24 hours apparently.

22nd – Another day at Mui Ne

This was definitely the location for us Vietnam where we found some time to relax, obviously there are many tourists that travel through, the Russians use this area as their holiday destination but so do many professional kite surfers with the world championships taking place the previous week. You will often see the anticipation of kite surfers waiting for the wind, every day they wait for the right time, often getting ready and going home again after an hour of disappointment. Its good to see especially when the light is good.

We started the day again with running and swimming and the amazing fruit platter for breakfast from Long Time getting in a head start towards our 5-a-day. We decided to use the day once more for some beach action, earlier on there was some rain but by the afternoon it all cleared and we enjoyed a wonderful late afternoon sun, Dave even managed another run! This was followed by a moody golden sunset and we walked along the beach photographing what we saw along the way. You can learn to windsurf and kite surf on the beach and there are many schools offering this but it all costs money and was out of our budget but it is THE place in South-East Asia for Kite-surfing so no doubt the instruction will be top. Other activities around Mui Ne include the sand-dunes and various options of getting around them. We were heading this way when our bike was taken from us so we were quite happy not to spend anymore money getting around, but again have heard it’s a good afternoon option.

Our last evening in Mui Ne saw us go back to Joe’s for some Thai food, it was okay perhaps the portions were a little small for the cost but the atmosphere was good and we enjoyed more live music. Back to Mellow for our last night and the next morning we were due to leave at around 7.30am. Mellow were pretty good at offering us a discount for 3 nights stay with them, it’s always good to ask for discounts if you’re planning on staying a while.

We woke up to people using the washing areas, kitchen noise and the constant sound of rain. We were pretty relieved to know that we were moving upstairs to a quitter part of the guesthouse and it was also really comforting starting the day off with a good bowl of porridge. The rain was set for the day so we had to think about what we wanted to do that wouldn’t involved us getting absolutely soaked all day. Simon had a few ideas so we went along with those.

The first part of the day saw us walk up to the local fish market – around a fifth of the size of the one in Tokyo but it showcased it’s local famous crab – some of which had been freshly caught that day and were still clapping their claws together, others had been caught over a year ago and were seen as more of a delicacy. We were shocked to see that some crabs were on sale for up to 40,000 yen – somewhere around £300!!

After our little market experience we walked through the Kanazawa Castle grounds empty of tourists in the rain but you could still appreciated this beautiful site completed only in 2001 so it was very white and clean. Coming out of the grounds led us to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, a very minimal low to the ground glass-structured building. As we approached the gallery so did a bus load of school children, you really can’t avoid the school groups at any major tourist or art attraction over here. In the foyer they all lined up and listened intently to their teacher’s instructions, so we aimed to get a bit of a head start on the groups and darted into the gallery. The first group exhibition titled “Invisible reality” hosted works by Mona Hatoum, Anish Kapoor and Vik Muniz. Works by Muniz combined were a large collection of photographic prints showing injected bubble marks forming a pattern from re-constructed star-maps using NASA software. Each piece was a re-creation of the night sky-maps during key moments in time such as the fall of the Berlin wall. This was a pretty impressive piece of work.

The main exhibition was a collection of works by performance artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, think Honda car advertising and people dressed as a bear and a panda exploring Japan and other parts of the world. Quite humorous at times but also a little strange.

It was still raining when we left but had decided we would go to the local tourist exchange salon down town where they were holding classes in local craft. The craft we would learn was to make flowers out of fabric along with several other local ladies who were impressed and intrigued as to how we found out about the class. Namaste have a sheet that advertises what’s happening at the exchange salon so it was pretty easy for us to find. It was a really fun experience if a little surreal and we all walked out with a couple of bunches of flowers made from fabric and wire. Very cute, Dave was particularly good at this and showed off every little flower he made to a warm reception of cooing middle aged Japanese ladies impressed with his skill. ha ha!

Our next skill learning task was to go to a guitar shop and learn to play the shamisen a traditional Japanese instrument mostly played by Geisha. The family who run the workshop have been making this instrument for over a hundred years. We were led upstairs, had a powdered green tea and sweet and were instructed that we would be teaching ourselves. The video footage will describe the sound these instruments create. Helen was jamming out at various stages whilst Simon and Dave focused intently on get the correct notes. It was really funny and got us out of the rain for a short while. This was our last port of call before heading back via the packs eagles circling above a bridge over the river.

Later on we called Dave’s parents on Skype, bought discounted sushi from the supermarkets and planned a wee trip out for Dave’s birthday!! One more sleep to 27!!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

WHOA BESTIVAL….(bestival) I got ma Beb-ey!

Well not exactly what Paulo Nutini was chanting in his song, however it worked for us all year round since our last Bestival jaunt in 2009! Dave’s been singing it on average weekly since we came back after that one!! So of course we were mega excited about going to this wonderful gem of a festival on the Isle of Wight. Last year was going to be tough to beat…the weather was amazing all weekend, the line up was very strong, & it was our first festival together!

This year the journey down & back seemed really smooth, we were set up & ready to head to the Thursday night shindigs by 8pm! The ferry journey from Portsmouth is always fun, I feel a little bit geeky saying that, but it’s just like going on holiday, it’s only a short journey but you start getting a really nice feel for the festival atmosphere. Rammed full of people all with the same agenda & a nice buzz of excitement is in the air.

So Thursday saw us find a camping spot, which took ages as they were filling the campsites to their maximum & not letting people into the smaller sites further afield. This was probably one of the negatives from the weekend, I don’t think it got people off to a good start. Some campers had already set up their tents & were being told to take them back down again & move back to the other sites which were full to the rim!! We eventually found a spot on the edge of the black campsite, set up quite quickly & headed off to get a feel for the new layout of the festival site. A new field was added this year called ‘The Wishing Tree Field’ & Tomorrow’s world had a new venue ‘The Rock n Roll’ tent. Funnily enough the wishing tree field had a massive sculpted tree, somewhere you could go, make a wish & dance! There were also new additions such as ‘The Cabaret tent’ & many small venues. We did read that this year was about the small venue, so it was good to see little places packed with people dancing.

Friday came along, the weather was okay, no rain so that was a positive! On our agenda were The Wild Beasts, Delphic, Simion Mobile Disco & Hot Chip. The XX were performing & I would have loved to have supported them fresh off their Mercury music prize win, but Dave was more for Simion, & I couldn’t be bothered to fight with the thousands of teens backing up at the Big Top. We did venture to a few other venues in between acts & explored other areas we didn’t really see last year. Hot Chip were most definitely the highlight of the day for us. Zane Lowe warmed up for Dizzie Rascal the headline act, we stayed for a bit & then let all the teeny boppers get on with it!

Saturday every year is THE fancy dress day, with a fancy dress parade & catwalk competition later on. This year the festival was the year of the Fantastical. Generally the whole site is themed around this & people were dressed up from Green Toy Soldiers to Bearded ladies, cup-cakes to fairy tale characters & s&m lovers!I had a bright yellow dress, I was aiming for princess but struggled to find the tall pointy hat I wanted for it! It’s just nice to dress up though.

On the hit list for that day was Giles Peterson’s 1.5 hour dj set in the Bollywood tent, Mumford & Sons, The Flaming lips, Giles Peterson always attracts a good crowd & I love being part of a load of mad fancy dress dance lovers! It’s such a nice vibe & to be partying like that at 5pm in the afternoon is surreal, refreshing & lot’s of fun. We both loved Mumford & Sons, although perhaps I a little more than Dave…he he! And The Flaming Lips blew us away, they really know how to put on an amazing show. Having little knowledge of their music both of us had heard that their live shows are something else, so we knew it was going to be good. But it’s a really magical experience, something that almost feels fantastical. Really good performers for sure! After the wonders of The Flaming Lips, we headed to bed in anticipation of a late night on the last night to see LCD Soundsystem…dreams of ‘Someone Great’ going on in our minds.

Sunday came & the sun came with it! It was a lovely day indeed. After a slow start & another round of welly boot wearing we set out to just soak up what was happening. A spot of The Cuban Brothers kept us smiling & the amazing choice of food kept our energy levels up. Fat Freddy’s Drop put on an refreshing performance, I had seen them a few years ago in Christchurch, New Zealand this time round they were much more giving to the crowd, really having fun with it on stage. Dave didn’t have any knowledge of them & was pleasantly surprised. They are a brilliant set of musicians fusing together reggae with house, brass & soul creating a magical mix of good tunes. The Prodigy were headlining that night, but to be fair I think my Prodigy days are numbered, I did enjoy it but just couldn’t really connect with the music. Straight after they finished their set the fireworks were set off along with the bonfire made from wood to be a fairyland castle, we watched from the distance with our veggie burger & Hot dog.

With 2 hours to go until LCD we journeyed around the site one more time, venturing back to the Wishing Tree Field before a spell at the silent disco. Those things are so much fun, two Dj’s competing against each other everyone listens through headphones choosing which channel we want to tune into. It’s so funny from an outsider’s view looking into a room full of people dancing randomly to different things in silence!!

So with that to get us geared up for LCD & we aimed for the Big Top in anticipation of the New York performers to come on stage. When they did we were not let down by any means. They really were the best performance of Bestival 2010 for us! We are big fans anyway & love their music so we hoped they would be as good as we imagined &they really were. After 3 nights of dancing & trenching up hills in muddy wellies we still had some gas left in the tank for LCD. I think they made our festival! Such an eclectic mix of house music, powerful lyrics, experimental electro & experienced musicians. YES!! If this was their last gig together as LCD we were there & very chuffed to have been so!

So there you have it, a round up of events for Bestival 2010! Rob Da Bank should be proud of what he has built with it, from a small festival of dj’s back in the day to now a mainstream dance festival it’s a real pleasure to have been a part it. Great location, good choice of food, good venues, fab line up’s, comedy, fancy dress, good hygiene…the list goes on. I have a feeling that when we’re back from our travels, it wont be too far down the list of things for us to do!

Here are a few photos from our mini adventure… (Nikon Coolpix, processed in Photoshop)

We are heading to Bestival on the Isle of Wight. Exciting times. We are most definitely taking more stuff with us than we will when we jet off for a year!

Dave needed a shave, sarnies were made for the journey, tent & rucksacks packed. Taxi!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, processed in Lightroom)