Last Carriage

When I look at some of the things I packed when I went travelling around Europe back in 1999, I wonder what the hell I was thinking. I'd bought myself a standard YHA-issue cotton sleeping sheet to use in youth hostels, not even thinking twice about the fact that it took up about a fifth of the space in my backpack, and weighed as much as a couple of Lonely Planet books - the brick sized ones.

Before I took off on my current trip, I invested in a Kathmandu silk sleeping liner (large size). It barely weighs anything, is easily large enough to accomodate a 183cm length body such as mine, and compresses down to a tiny 250 cubic centimetres in its supplied carry bag. As an added bonus, the carry bag is attached to the sleeping sheet by a strap, so you don't have to try to find it every time you pack the sheet away.

I haven't actually had a chance to use it, until now, as all of the hostels I've stayed in have supplied their own sheets, so confronted with a long train journey and fierce air-conditioning, I figured I'd give it a go and hopefully avoid freezing.

Surprisingly, despite being very thin silk, it did help keep me warm. Not warm enough to avoid having to cover myself in various other items of thick clothing, but it was definitely warmer with the sheet than without.

It was reasonably easy to pack it back into its carry bag, although to make it as small as possible, it needs to be folded up tightly, and this isn't really practical on a train. Still, randomly stuffing it into the bag worked well enough.

The one real downside to using a silk sheet over a cotton sheet seems to be the build-up of static-electricity on your skin when you use it. Annoying, but not too much of an issue.

The one thing to be wary of when buying it, is that there are two different types: the standard liner (which I purchased) doesn't have a space for a pillow, whereas the same product with the YHA designation does have one. I've found it hard to find a silk pillowcase to use alongside it, so if you need it to hold a pillow too, make sure to get the right one.

I'm currently twenty-three hours into a forty-seven hour trip on Amtrak's Empire Builder train, a journey which travels more than halfway across the US, from Seattle to Chicago. As I write this, the train is hurtling across Montana's northern plains between Malta and Glasgow. To the north, it's dead flat as far as the eye can see; to the south, there are hills in the distance, but they are mostly insignificant.

This is a distinct change from earlier in the day, as the train weaved its way through the Rocky Mountains, so high in altitude that even the tracks were covered in snow.

This is farming country - the landscape is occasionally interrupted by farmhouses, barns, grain silos and graveyards of rusted-out agricultural machinery. I haven't seen a car on the road that runs beside the railway line for about half an hour, and I can't recall the last place where my mobile broadband device had a signal.

Not wanting to shell out $400 or more for a sleeper, I've chosen coach class, which effectively means being unable to lie down and stretch out for two nights in a row. The seats in couch class do have the ability to recline quite a way, and have a decent legrest that pops up, but it's still not quite the same as having a bed to stretch out on. I'm fortunate that the train is more than half-empty and I have staked a claim on both my seats; this let me lie across both of them during the previous night and get around eight hours of - frequently interrupted - sleep. Not ideal, but considerably better than a bus.

The entire journey costs $153; possibly less if booked in advance - but, strangely, at least $100 more if broken in the middle for a night. As you might imagine, I've decided not to go with that option, and thus am in it for the long haul.

Naturally, there's not a lot to do, other than look at the scenery or eat in the cafe, so bring a lot of reading material or a laptop if you're inclined to get bored easily. My carriage had power points at each seat, but other Amtrak trains I've been on haven't always had this, so be prepared to charge your electronic equipment up in the toilets.

The dining car is available during breakfast and lunch, but must be reserved for dinner; the cafe is open during daylight hours, although strangely the attendant takes a break smack bang in the middle of breakfast time.

The train's air conditioning seems to run permanently, and it can get cold in the middle of the night, so I recommend either bringing a blanket, or wear as much layered clothing as you can. I'd also recommend a facemask, if you're sensitive to light when trying to sleep, because it's never completely dark inside the train.

For the last three nights, I've been staying at Portland, Oregon's Northwest Hostel, which is one of two Hostelling International hostels in this city. The hostel consists of two historic buildings, one containing the reception, kitchen and rooms, and the other containing a second kitchen and more rooms, often reserved for groups.

This hostel is the only one of the two that is located within easy walking distance of Portland's main attractions - as its name suggests, it is in Portland's north-west quarter, and it is only three blocks from the "free rail zone" - the area where all rail-based public transport in Portland is free. Theoretically, it is possible to get from Portland's Amtrak and Greyhound stations to the hostel for free, only using the MAX light-rail and the streetcar, but it's not really a direct path, and it's probably easier just walking for fifteen minutes, unless your luggage is particularly heavy.



The hostel's website notes that it has dormitories ranging from 4-bed and 6-bed rooms through to 8-bed rooms, however it doesn't mention that these rooms are not necessarily isolated from one another. In my case, while my room was an 8-bed room, it was separated from another 8-bed room by a couple of curtains, so effectively I was staying in a 16-bed room. Personally, I prefer to stay in 4-bed dorms, but unfortunately, the Hostelling International USA website doesn't give you any ability to specify this when you book.



The beds - all bunks - were fairly sturdy, and didn't rock too much when climbing in, so there's less chance of being woken up when the person above you arrives in the middle of the night. Bedclothes are provided by the hostel - basically a pillowcase and a folded-up YHA-style sleeping sheet - and there were extra blankets available in a trunk in the hallway.



My room had free lockers, with a clip for attaching your own padlock, although the reception also had padlocks available if guests required them. There were also plenty of lockers available outside the rooms, again all free. I can't understate just how great it is to have free lockers; while obviously it's no guarantee of security, it's nice to be able to leave your valuables behind for a little while and not have to lug them around with you all day. Hostels that insist on providing only pay-per-use lockers - or none at all - should really look at this and learn.

Other than that, the rooms were fairly typical for a hostel. One minor annoyance was that towel hooks were located on the bed. Admittedly, it was nice to have hooks (I've stayed in some cheap hostels that don't have any at all), but it would be better for them to be located on the walls, away from where you can smell them.

The bathrooms were fairly drab, as one would expect from such an old building, but they were very clean. The showers were of the bath/shower combination variety, which might present problems for people with mobility issues, and while the water was always hot, the shower-head in one bathroom was missing, and it fired a fairly narrow stream of water at the occupant.



My dormitory had its own ensuite bathroom, and there were two others located out in the hall, one upstairs and one downstairs. I suspect the hostel could probably do with a few more of them, as there were times when they were all occupied.

Each building has a small kitchen, with a refrigerator where guests could store perishable food, however there wasn't much storage space for non-chilled food. Cooking equipment consisted of an oven, a four-plate stove and a microwave, with a fairly complete set of utensils. Not quite like the industrial kitchens of various hostels in other counties (such as New Zealand, for example) but certainly workable. I'm not sure how well it would cope if the hostel was full, though.



Also, simple things like washing-up brushes were missing, meaning that guests had to clean their dishes with a sponge - this doesn't strike me as a particularly good way to clean.

The hostel had plenty of common areas, from the dining rooms attached to each of the kitchens to a comfortable, although dark, ground floor lounge in the second building. There didn't appear to be a TV room anywhere, although given the quality of American TV, this was probably a blessing.

There is free wifi covering every room, and the speeds were good, although it did drop out a few times. There's also a large selection of board games available, plus a good range of travel books and also a book-swap collection.



Each building has a laundry, with one washing machine and one tumble-drier - I suspect in busy periods, this would be insufficient. Only one of the buildings had a rack where clothes could be hung out to dry.

The staff were all incredibly friendly and helpful, and upon arrival, they would take each guest through the hostel, showing them the various facilities, before taking them to their room. They also provided advice about Portland's sights and nightlife, and were more than happy to print out my onward Amtrak ticket (naturally, for a fee).



In all, this would have to be one of the most comfortable hostels I've stayed in so far, but this is tempered by the fact that it wasn't high-season and the hostel was half-empty. In more crowded periods, I do wonder if the small kitchens, low number of washing machines and lack of bathrooms might make the place a bit cramped.

Well, it's been over two years since my last post on this blog. What's been the problem? Well, work and lack of travel, mostly. Hopefully, however, that is all set to change, as I am now on the road again. I've taken a year off to go travelling, without much of a plan.

I'm currently in the US, and hope to be giving a good rundown of all the places I visit, as well as a guide to New Zealand, where I spent much of January and February this year. And in a couple of months, Europe!

So to those of you following on the rss feed, thanks for sticking around all this time, and expect to see more content from now on.

For years, flights between Australia and the United States have been dominated by the Qantas and United Airlines duopoly due to an agreement between the two countries that limited any other airlines flying the route to only four flights per week. This severely limited competition on the route, drove up prices and resulted in poor service, to the extent that serious travellers would only fly with Qantas.

Now, with a new government in Australia, a new open skies agreement has been struck between the two countries, and there are no longer any restrictions on flights for any Australian or US airlines.

Virgin Blue has been planning to fly on this route for a while now, and will commence services towards the end of this year under the banner of V Australia.

The new agreement, however, will not remove restrictions on airlines from other countries on the US-Australia route. Singapore Airlines has long wanted to fly a Sydney to Los Angeles service, but is still hamstrung by Australia's refusal to allow such a move.

Whenever I travel, I always carry a small, portable shortwave radio with me, mainly to keep up with world news, when I'm travelling through countries where English isn't the main language. You may wonder what the point is, in this age of 24 hour BBC World and CNN satellite television - until you find yourself in a small bed and breakfast or hostel without a television, let alone a satellite receiver.

I was staying in a hostel in Florence back in March 1999, when NATO commenced its bombing campaign over parts of Kosovo and Serbia. The hostel didn't have a TV room, and there was certainly no English programming on the radio in the city at that time; if I hadn't had my shortwave radio with me, I probably wouldn't have even known anything was going on, just across the Adriatic. Now, many might argue that knowing about this might not have helped me in the least - but who knows; I could well have been heading to Croatia at the time, and there's nothing to say the NATO attacks might not have reignited the conflicts that had been going on in that area for many years.

The BBC have announced that their World Service broadcasts to Europe will close on February 18th, 2008. The World Service has been broadcasting in a number of forms since 1938, and has been one of the most reliable broadcasters of news and information programs available, and I dare say has been invaluable to many a traveller on the road in that time. Unfortunately, the BBC now expect people to hear their service via local rebroadcasts (which tend to only be available in big cities, if at all), the internet (hard to get to that when you're on the move) or satellite radio (not exactly something you want to put in your backpack).

It's a pity that the BBC couldn't wait until future technologies, such as portable satellite radio, or Digital Radio Mondiale broadcasts on shortwave, became feasible, because once they have left the shortwave bands in Europe, they are going to be leaving a very big gap for the traveller in times of emergency.

After reading an article in The Age today that pans the tiny republic of San Marino for having an excess of shops selling rubbish that no-one in their right mind should buy, it occurred to me that none of these shops would survive unless there was actually a market for them.

To be fair, San Marino isn't the only place in that area with an oversupply of plastic trinkets on sale to clueless travellers; I have distinct memories of seeing shady men setting up makeshift stalls on white sheets on the ground, in almost every Italian city that I went to. While on the odd occasion, their wares might have been related to the nearest famous site - for example, plastic colosseums and books on the history of Pompeii (printed in China, of course) - but in general, it was purely junk, like the green plastic soldiers, furnished with a rifle, that vibrate and simulate a real soldier crawling along the ground. While it makes me wonder why anyone would buy such things at all, who would be silly enough to buy them when travelling?.

Many of the vendors clearly aren't operating legally; I recall seeing one vendor, in Venice, having a worried conversation with a colleague who had just arrived upon the scene, and then quickly packing up his trinkets into a white sheet and running off, very fast; two minutes later, two members of the police force casually strolled into the area - I don't know if they were even aware that an illegal vendor had been operating there or not. However, if these men are willing to risk arrest to sell their goods, there must be some pay-off and hence I must come to the conclusion that people are actually buying this rubbish.

I see the same here in Australia; Melbourne's Queen Victoria market is often touted to tourists as a must see, and I'll admit, the atmosphere is fascinating and it's a great place to buy food - but half of its stalls are selling the same Chinese-made junk that are sold in similar markets everywhere on the whole planet. I wouldn't buy any of this in a pink-fit. Do tourists really need fake Gucci handbags? Or even the genuine Gucci handbags, for that matter? Or Bart Simpson t-shirts?

The French engineering firm Alstom have launched the prototype of their new high-speed AGV train at their rail test centre in La Rochelle. The train, when operational, will be able to travel at 360 km/h, covering a distance of 1000km in just three hours. It will also have more seating than existing TGV trains, with space savings coming from the removal of motor carriages at the ends of the trains - instead, the trains will have distributed motors underneath each carriage.

I've been to Hamburg twice, but didn't ever discover the fascinating Old Elbe Tunnel, which runs under the River Elbe, despite the fact that I was staying at the Auf dem Stintfang International hostel, which is all of two minutes walk from it. I've just found this video, showing one commuter's trip through it.

The tunnel allows for pedestrian, bicycle and motor traffic, but what is particularly interesting about it is that the entrance consists of four huge elevators, rather than a passage to the surface, and cars are physically lowered down to the tunnel and then up again at the far end. Naturally, this doesn't make for very high traffic throughput, and the tunnel is mostly used as a tourist attraction these days.

The northern entrance is close to the Landungsbrücken U-bahn and S-bahn stations; to get there, catch either the S1, S2 or S3 S-bahn lines, or U3 U-bahn line, from Hamburg Hauptbahnhof.

Anyone who's stayed a few nights in a youth hostel with be familiar with the standard fare: large dormitories and shared facilities. Many of us might not want it any other way - although it looks like times might be changing, at least for many UK youth hostels, who will soon be getting a makeover.

A number of new hostels will be opening, and a few - considered lost causes - will be closed. Some of the bigger changes will be the removal of some dormitories, turning them into private rooms, sometimes even with ensuite bathrooms.

This will certainly be a major shift for many hostels, and it makes me wonder whether it will result in price rises - or even an overall drop in the number of beds available for hostellers. Will this have a negative effect on the social atmosphere within hostels? I'm sure that many of us have met people that we probably wouldn't have ever spoken to if we hadn't been sharing a dormitory with them for a number of nights. Will it turn hostels into nothing more than a chain of ultra-economy hotels?

AOL Travel has published a list of 10 Destinations Where Your Dollar Goes Far, although after reading through it, I was only able to find the following six:

• Lisbon, Portugal


• Santiago, Chile


• Dubrovnik, Croatia


• Wellington, New Zealand


• Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam


• Budapest, Hungary

I'm not entirely sure that I can agree with Dubrovnik and Budapest, however; yes, they're definitely cheaper than much of western Europe, but I wouldn't argue that your money goes all that far there. While food and public transport is cheap, accomodation is the killer; I recall the number of hours I spent walking around Dubrovnik trying to find somewhere reasonably priced to stay.

I've just noticed on the Scanrail website that their railpass, which covered rail travel in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, is no longer available; sales of this pass ceased on December 31st, 2007.

This is a shame, because it was possible to purchase the Scanrail pass even after a traveller had arrived in Europe, although with a few restrictions. The only remaining equivalent is the Eurail Scandinavia Pass, which is not available to European residents, and cannot be purchased by travellers already in Europe.

The Northern Territory News reports today that a new luxury passenger service is planned for The Ghan, the famous inland Australia railway line that runs from Adelaide to Darwin.

Prices have not yet been announced, but the article mentions that GSR, the operators of the Ghan, had been studying a similar service that operates in South Africa for $1000 per night. According to GSR's website, they expect the service to begin in late 2008.

Of course, for those of us who can't afford to pay four figures for every night of a trip, there are still the standard classes of travel on the Ghan; it's worth noting on that table that there are significant discounts for members of YHA Australia.

With a southern-hemisphere summer well and truely in motion, there have been a number of articles in the papers about Australia. Starting with The Guardian, there's a look at Bruny Island, just off the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, along with some photos.

The Dominion Post visits Adelaide, possibly Australia's most underrated city. The Post also goes houseboating on the Murray River, which is sadly still experiencing the effects of a severe drought.

From The Telegraph, we have possibly the least imaginative trip possible, a surfing holiday on Bondi Beach; but then it recovers with a couple of stories on South Australia's Flinders Ranges, and New South Wales' southern coast.

Finally, the NZ Herald has a glimpse at a different side of Sydney.

With reports that Ryanair is to, once again, increase their checked baggage levy, I have to now ask the question - is it really worth the hassle flying a budget airline? How many passengers can really travel with only cabin luggage? And do you really want to be flying aboard an airline where you're fighting to get past everyone else's baggage?

It's rare now to see a day pass without yet another story-from-hell about a budget airline. In recent days, there has been talk on the radio in Australia that the new entrant to the skies here, Tiger Airways, does not allow passengers to consume their own food on-board, forcing them to buy their on-board meals, if they wish to eat. Perhaps not an issue on a short-hop Melbourne to Sydney flight, but on a long flight to Perth, you could be quite hungry if you don't want to be stuck paying through the nose for their meals.

There has been more trouble with Tiger, with reports of passengers being stranded in Melbourne when Tiger cancelled its Sunday flight to Mackay, telling them they'd have to wait until the following Friday.

Today, there's a report of budget airline Pacific Blue hunting down its passengers who were last aboard, to remove them from the flight, due to understaffing.

Add to this the fact that many budget airlines use inconvenient airports - for example, in Melbourne, a number of Jetstar flights leave from Avalon Airport, which is even more difficult to get to than Melbourne's already badly accessible Tullamarine Airport - and in many cases, costs of getting from the airport to your final destination may well exceed what you paid for the flight. Not to mention the time wasted getting there.

I tend to stick to flying with Qantas, in Australia. Yes, it generally costs a bit more, but they still do have good deals advertised on their website - and I can then be reasonably confident that if they cancel my flight, I'll be booked onto a replacement flight quite quickly.