Georgetown, Guyana

Guyana and Suriname are the only two South American countries to drive on the left. Suriname is the smallest country in South America because although French Guiana has a smaller land mass, it's not a country in its own right since it technically belongs to France.

We had one full day in Georgetown to get our flights organized for Kaieteur Falls and for Glen to get his Suriname visa sorted out. First up were the flights - we got a taxi driver to take us to the tour office and paid USD$240 each for return flights from Ogle airport the following day. I'd been emailing with a guy called Frank Singh at Rainforest Tours and he made sure we had our seats reserved well in advance and made the whole process easy. Next stop wasn't quite as easy. The Suriname Embassy in Georgetown has a dress code - no shorts and no slippers (flip-flops) - we were both in shorts and sandals. Curiously though my shorts were long enough and my sandals deemed passable but Glen was prohibited from going inside the embassy. They let Glen fill in all the paperwork in the taxi and I took them inside to hand over and pay the fee - pickup later in the afternoon. Comical but excellent. Next stop the cricket ground.

Brickdam St near Stabroek

Stabroek market

The Bourda Cricket Ground in Georgetown is legendary for New Zealand cricket fans. It's here where Glenn Turner scored a then New Zealand record 259 and together with Terry Jarvis put on 387 which at the time was the second highest in test history for any country. A few things struck me about the place; it was really run down and not nearly as imposing as I had imagined, the drainage was awful, it had rained the night before and the outfield was flooded, but the people was so welcoming and again we made our way to the members lounge for drinks.

Glen & I at the Bourda ground in Georgetown, Guyana

Saturday November 23day was the day this whole trip was planned around - a day trip to Kaieteur falls in the Guyanese interior, purportedly the worlds biggest single drop waterfall. Thankfully the day dawned bright and the one hour flight from Ogle airport was smooth and picturesque as we flew south over the marshy plains and dense rain forest to the tiny landing strip next to the falls.

Kaieteur falls in the Guyanese interior

Me at Kaieteur falls

We spent about 20 minutes at each of the three photo stops en route, each stop offering a different angle and uncovering more of the falls character. It was one of those eerily surreal experiences being deep in the jungle with only a dozen people for company. Kaieteur Falls is amazing and I'll add it to my RWV list (Rivers, Waterfalls & Volcanoes).

The plane that took us to Kaieteur falls

About two hours later we headed back to Georgetown in the same plane and landed at about 5pm. I promised our taxi driver in Georgetown that I'd buy him a beer when we saw him again so he stopped at the nearest bar. One beer turned into four and before we knew what had happened we were back at the International Guesthouse. I don't recommend buying your taxi driver anything to drink before he's delivered you safely to your destination but this is Guyana and things are a little different here.

Tomorrow we head East, to Suriname. Dutch Guyana.

Port-of-Spain, Trinidad

My brother Glen joined me on a trip to cover the three Guyana's - British Guyana (simply called Guyana), Dutch Guyana (Suriname) and French Guiana (a department of France) - but on the way I discovered there is also a Spanish Guyana in Venezuela called the Guayana Region, and a Portuguese version now known as the Brazilian state of Amapa. The last two would have to wait but the other three were my destination this trip, but before we could get there, we had a pit-stop in Trinidad to kick things off.

Travel days are never too interesting but early on a Wednesday Glen & I caught the 7:40am flight from DFW to MIA, hung out at Admirals Club for a bit and happened to bump into our neighbor Natasha while we were wandering around. The Port of Spain flight left at around 5:40pm arriving close to 11pm local time in Trinidad. Since it was after 10pm the standard taxi rates were higher than normal - $45 for the Hilton. The trip only took about 20 minutes but when we told the driver we needed to come back to the airport tomorrow afternoon, he said make sure you give yourself two hours just for the taxi ride. He wasn't wrong.
We are stopping on the way back to do some bird watching so I got some Trinidad Dollars exchanged at a rate about USD$1:TTD$6.

Tourists typically come to Trinidad for bird watching or the carnival but since carnival wasn't in season and the bird watching was planned for our return trip we wandered down to the Queens Park Oval to see if we could find a way inside. Glen was wearing one of his IPL shirts with Warner on the back (American's google David Warner Australia Cricket) so he immediately struck up a rapport with the security guard who made a few calls and before long we were in the members lounge drinking Stag beer and eating lunch. There was no game on but we had a blast talking to some of the members and wandering around the ground. It was all pretty surreal, especially when the clouds rolled in and the rain came down, only to clear a few minutes later. We retraced our steps back to the hotel and spent all of two hours in the taxi back to the airport.

It's only a 55 minute flight to Georgetown, Guyana and as soon as we landed we found a stoned taxi driver in a barely road worthy sedan to drive us the 40 km from the airport to our hotel in Georgetown for USD$25. I chose the International Guesthouse because of the location and the good write-ups - I bought the taxi driver and the front desk attendant a beer and made Glen pay for our stay - $87/night for three nights. Maybe I was excited by another new country or another new currency but I was on cloud nine.  The exchange rate was about USD$1:GYD$200

Glen at Queens Park Oval

Me at Queens Park Oval

Bangkok, Thailand to Georgetown, Malaysia

ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK
On our last night in Bangkok Sara was poorly. And this happened right after we had phoned our respective parents to say that all is well. In the two days since then everything has been fine, helped by various drugs including Cipro and Imodium and plenty of water. We both have suffered from upset stomachs at various times during the trip but Sara has been affected more recently, whereas I was ill in week two. My last serious incident in the Philippines could have been precipitated by 3 Pina Coladas and 15 assorted shots - it 'could' have been, I'm not convinced though.

ANOTHER OVERNIGHT TRAIN
At around noon today our train pulled into Butterworth in northern Malaysia, 22 hours after leaving Haulamphong Station in Bangkok. It sounds rough but the train ride was superb. Thai trains have loads of room, especially compared to the Chinese carriages, and we both slept very well after playing endless games of backgammon and playing hide and seek with a little Thai boy in a Spiderman outfit. The border crossing was very smooth and unlike the Eastern European system we had to leave the train with all of our luggage to pass through immigration and then return to our seats once the formalities were complete. Another new country for the both of us and for me an exciting one because my parents lived in Malaysia in the 1960s and both of my brothers have passed through in the last year or so.

Me by the Malaysian flag

 Sara looking poorly in Malaysia

PENANG
Georgetown, on the island of Penang, is just across the channel from Butterworth and that is where we are spending tonight but early tomorrow morning we catch a bus to the other side of the peninsular and a small town called Kota Bharu. It's not that we don't like Penang but we need to keep moving if we are to make our flight out of Bali in a few weeks time.