Beaches, Curries and Elephants

Everything about Arugam Bay was lovely. We stayed in a Cabana (bamboo hut) for a few days, enjoyed swimming in the sea, walks along a near empty beach and I even gave surfing another go after our first lesson nearly a year ago in Bali!

After our days of relaxation and tiring myself out surfing we moved onto Ella in the hill country of Sri Lanka. Ella is a small crossroads of a town but very popular with tourists as it has an excellent combination of a cooler climate, tea plantations, good walks, and the locals grow lots of fresh fruit and veg which go into delicious curries. Whilst in Ella we did a great walk along train tracks, through vegetable fields and up into forest to get to Ella Rock, one of the tallest points in the area where we had an uninterrupted view of the surrounding hills.

Uda Walawe national park was out next stop to see wild elephants and it certainly did not disappoint! The park has just over 400 elephants and we think we saw about 40-50 of them mostly in small herds of 5 or 6. Little baby elephants staying close by their mothers greeted us when we entered the park and we knew it was going to be a good day. Everywhere we went in the jeep elephants weren’t far away, it was so nice to be on a safari where we saw a lot of animals and we could watch the elephants for a long time without them disappearing instantly. We also saw 2 rarely sighted leopard cats (normal cat size but leopards!) as well as monkeys, deer, eagles and lizards. We nearly had too much of a close encounter with one lone male elephant who we were watching graze meters away from us when suddenly he decided he didn’t like us being there and made a move to charge, luckily a loud noise from our guide soon put him off!

The south coast was definitely the busiest we’d seen Sri Lanka but the beaches were still nice and it was easy to find empty spots of sand away from the resorts. Mirissa was a laid back beach town fringed with coconut trees, not much happens there except for whale watching in season (too choppy for us to go) but we had some good food and enjoyed watching the sea at night with a beer on the beach.

In Unawatuna from our balcony at some point in the day we could normally see monkeys playing in the trees. We did a cooking school as we’ve been enjoying the local specialty of rice and curry so much throughout Sri Lanka. We prepared a feast of dishes; fish curry, pumpkin curry, green bean curry, Dhal (curried lentils) with crispy onions and devilled potatoes and were really lucky that it was just the two of us booked on so we had our own personal chef guiding us! What we really loved about the cooking school was that we did everything, chopped every vegetable, grinded coconut flesh from the coconut and made the coconut cream and milk by hand. It tasted amazing!

For the rest of our time in Unawatuna we had a swim most days, the best Sri Lankan curry of the trip at ‘One Love’ and we took a trip into Galle 4km away and wandered about the Dutch Fort admiring some of the colonial architecture in the old town. Now we’re back in Negombo for the night so we can catch our flight to India tomorrow!

Sri Lanka has definitely been one of the highlights of the trip so far and a really pleasant surprise. With so much packed into a tiny island it’s one of the places we can see ourselves going back to in the future.

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Beautiful Sri Lanka

Negombo Fishing Boats

We were all prepared for harassment, touts, pulling and pushing of drivers and hotel reps, we got off the plane expecting a battle, perhaps the hustle and bustle of Nepal or the constant sales pitch of India...but there is none of that and it is wonderful!  Very few touts, tuk tuk drivers accept it when you say ‘no thank you’, the drivers and the hotel owners will agree to lower prices with laid back bartering – it’s just so very relaxed, perhaps because it’s not peak tourist season, and people seem very friendly...and keen to inform us that England keep losing the cricket (an international tournament is currently being held in Sri Lanka). 

Kandy Cultural Dance Show

So, slightly stunned that we could look around the hotels in Negombo without any hassle, we picked ourselves a lovely place on the beach front, basked in the ocean breeze under the shade of the palm trees, watched the canoe sail boats float past and had our first (and currently best) Sri Lankan curry.  The food has been great, the curry comes as several small curry dishes to share, popadoms and a mountain of rice; we often have to order at midday for tea time as they spend most of the day preparing the fresh ingredients and cooking the dishes.  We also visited the Negombo fresh fish market, you see the fishermen arriving on the beach, everyone sorting out the fish, then either carrying it into the bustling market, chopping and gutting it or laying it out to dry out on the beach.  The crows are there in vast numbers, scavenging the unwanted fish!

Kat & Chris Sigiriya

Our next stop was to the hills of Kandy.  Here we spent a lovely afternoon wandering around the lake.  We were excited to see monkeys, storks, turtles, kingfishers, a pelican and a monitor lizard.  That evening we went to a cultural dance show, the drumming was excellent and the dances really entertaining and nice to see the traditional outfits.  At the end of the show they took us outside to watch them do fire-walking; as we stepped outside lots of bats were heading over to the lake – it was amazing sight as they were HUGE bats – Dracula sized!



View from Sigiriya Summit



The next day we caught the bus to Sigiriya.  The buses have been fine so far, all daytime and fairly short (3-4 hours).  They have been crowded occasionally, but normally they squeeze us and our bags in somewhere!  And they are super cheap – on average about £1.50 for a 3 hour journey.  Sigiriya is a UNESCO historic sight.  A huge rock on a fairly flat landscape, it was once a monastery and palace, speculated to date back from the 5^th Century.  Now only ruins remain, you walk through where the Royal Gardens once where, still the Boulder Arch remains, then climb up the rock to see the frescoes (rock art) literally half way up the sheer cliff face – no idea how anyone got up there to paint!  There is then the Mirror Wall which contains centuries worth of graffiti, most of which is now translated and in the museum.  Then through the stone Lion’s Paws and up again to the summit, where more building foundations have been excavated.  It is a beautiful view up there, vast greenery in every direction.  Then as we were sat admiring the view we realised we were not alone – surrounded by monkeys with bowl hair cuts!  It felt like we were in the Jungle Book!

Monkey

Our next stop was Anuradhapura, a historic town, famed for its religious structures.  The bus dumped us somewhere which was not the bus station and it took us a fair while to figure out where we were...we started to walk towards where we thought we might stay and met Berlin on the way, he had a homestay and offered us a very cheap price for the room, we accepted and stayed at his family home that night.  We hired bikes from Berlin, sadly they weren’t in the best condition, mine had one pedal and Chris got a flat tyre half way round, but they did get us around the sights and we enjoyed seeing the big stupas and sacred Bondhi Tree (2000 yrs old).  Again there were monkeys to watch – I nearly got weed on when we went under some trees – these monkeys are pretty looking, not like the slightly scabby South East Asian monkeys, these are grey, with black beards and loooong tails.  That evening Berlin’s wife cooked us curry and the next morning we ate coconut rotis in Berlin’s garden and watched a Mongoose scamper by!

 Chris at Uppuveli

From there we headed further North, to Uppuveli on the East Coast.  The North was heavily attacked during the civil war, consequently this is still a fairly new tourist destination.  It is no longer untouched, but it is very quiet up here as we approach the end of the season (Monsoon is due next month).  The isolation is definitely part of its charm, not sharing the beach with anyone, just listening to the lapping of the waves but it can be a little off putting...as we couldn’t find anywhere to eat initially, the hotels appeared closed and glimmers of the Civil War remain with all the properties being fenced off with barbed wire and guards on the entrances to the roads down to the beach.  However, we’ve come to love the palm lined beach and really have done very little but relax for the past 3 days.

We move on tomorrow, heading further down the coast to Arugam Bay, a surf town.  Enjoying it so far!

Lots of love – just over 2 months till we’re home!

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kat & Chris meet an unusual Monk...

So after my last superlative filled blog post we got sick, really sick. So sick that we couldn’t get out of the room in Mandalay without waves of nausea and dizziness hitting us but after a few days of resting we felt well enough to try some sightseeing again. We took a ferry ride to Mingun an hour away from Mandalay where the world’s biggest stupa would have stood if it had gotten finished and they have the 3^rd largest bell in the world, as well as one of Buddha’s footprints (it had seashells for toes) to marvel at! We had a great time and the ferry ride along the Ayeyarwaddy River was really lovely as we sat on deck chairs watching the river villages and hills pass by. The trip proved to us that we were finally feeling better so that evening we caught a night bus to Inle Lake.

Never in all of SE Asia have buses felt as bad as they have over here, maybe it’s seemed worse because we were ill. Recently a new express highway was completed between Yangon and Mandalay and all journeys have been sped up by a few hours but leave at the same time as they used to and they’re nearly all night buses. So every night bus we’ve taken arrives in darkness at 3am or 4am. The reason for large number of night buses is so that locals don’t miss a day of work and we’ve only ever been on a bus with one or two other tourists so that does make sense but it can be painful being bundled out of a bus half-asleep trying to find a guest house and then feeling terrible for the rest of the day.

Inle Lake was fantastic. We spent 4 days there relaxing in a nearby ‘backpacker’ town enjoying the slightly cooler climate after Mandalay’s sweltering heat and smog. We took a boat around the lake and watched fishermen fish and locals transporting goods on canoes, visited lake villages and pagodas as well as the monastery of jumping cats (sadly we were too late to see the monks make their friends the cats jump). The sunset was the absolute best thing about the day as we raced to get home before dark we were treated to clear blues, bright pinks, hazy oranges and a thick oily looking lake. The boat trip was actually a glorified shopping trip (see first China post for Great Wall shopping trip terror!) but it didn’t matter as there was no pressure to buy anything, tea was provided at each stop and it was nice to take a seat and watch people going about their lives on the lake.

After Inle Lake we didn’t have too much time left before our flights so we travelled south to Bago. Naturally the bus arrived at 3am and the town was in darkness. Only one hotel was open so we didn’t really have much choice! After a few misgivings on our behalf about Bago being a scruffy little town we hopped onto a motorbike with a local guide and got shown the sights whilst passing through rural villages. It turned out to be a great day. We met a Monk who is revered for being a 17 foot long and 1 foot wide Burmese python. Watched 1500 Monks line up and eat breakfast, which was more interesting than it sounds and saw many glitzy temples and pagodas.

From Bago we travelled to the Golden Rock which is one of the holiest sites in all of Myanmar. It rained a lot as we arrived but we got ourselves settled into a lovely little bungalow at the foot of the hill where we had a view of the rock. We waited for the rain to clear and headed up the hill with 30 other people crammed into an open top pick-up truck for the steep 40 minute drive through lush rainforest followed by a steep walk to get to the Golden Rock. From a distance coming out of the hazy clouds it looked like a giant potato with a Stupa sticking out of it but as we got closer it became clear it was actually golden and not a muddy brown colour. The rock balances precariously on a cliff edge and it maintains this position because strands of Buddha’s hair were laid to rest there. With all the mist swirling about and devotees chanting it had quite a spiritual atmosphere. The truck ride back down was like a rollercoaster, the brakes worked but the driver didn’t feel he needed them as it was the last trip of the day.

We’re now back in Yangon waiting to get on our flights to Sri Lanka tomorrow. It’s certainly getting to peak tourist season as all of the grotty guesthouses were full when we arrived! Myanmar has been a fantastic place, not so much for the sights but more for the people who are so warm and welcoming. In fact it’s one of the first places on this trip that we feel like we’re moving on too soon, but maybe if we hadn’t been ill we would have been contented.

Hope all is well at home. We’re getting very excited about our return!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Myanmar – The world’s longest, biggest and tallest...

Cooking at Silom's

The week we spent in Bangkok was great. We did everything we didn’t get round to doing the first and second time we were here. The best thing was Silom’s Thai Cooking school which we have wanted to do for a long while as we love Thai food so much! Jim Thompson’s Teak house was another thing we had missed off doing previously but have now seen and enjoyed. The main reason for heading back to Bangkok besides the food was to secure a Myanmar visa which was easy enough to do luckily as we already had our flights booked.

We’ve been in Myanmar for 7 days now and I absolutely love it. The people are so friendly and genuinely seem very happy for us to be visiting. It’s not empty friendliness either like you get in so many other South-East Asia countries where someone’s only reason to talk to you is to try to get you in their transport or to sell you something. Don’t get me wrong that still happens but a lot of other people who have no monetary interest in us come up to say hello, or just wave and smile as we pass them. I suppose at the moment we’re still somewhat of a novelty which I wasn’t expecting seeing as tourism figures have been going up and up in the past few years.

We flew into Yangon and spent a day walking around the busy former capital seeing various temples and beautiful decaying colonial buildings before catching a night bus to Bagan. We didn’t manage to get much sleep on the night bus and we arrived earlier than expected at 4am! Being half-asleep we got some coffee before heading to a guesthouse and whilst sat down saw the monk’s alms procession passing through the streets at dawn.

Bagan is famous for its huge array of temples which from high up stretch out as far as the eye can see. For 2 days we biked around the temple sites which reminded us a little bit of Ayutthaya and Sukhothai’s crumbling temples in Northern Thailand although much less built up. A Highlight of Bagan was seeing the Ayeyarwaddy River and the village a few minutes from our guesthouse where it seemed like the busy tourist town we were staying in no longer existed as locals washed in the river, kids played in the sand and animals roamed freely amongst the wooden huts. Later that same night we ate at a place called Weather Spoon’s that was owned by a Burmese guy who 2 years ago lived in St George in Bristol working for one of the hot air balloon companies. Small world!



Bagan Panorama



There are no large overseas chains of stores or restaurants in Myanmar due to economic restrictions in place with America and other countries stopping them from investing. Whilst I love the 7/11 stores that are everywhere in Thailand for cheap(er) beer it’s nice to just be dealing with little local stores, sometimes set up outside of people’s homes. It reminds us a bit of Nepal which only has a fake Starbucks nearby the Everest trek starting point.

Moving on from Bagan we got a daytime bus to Mandalay. We once again hired bikes (yes we’re a little bit saddle sore now) and cycled out to the nearby town of Amarapura where the world’s longest teak bridge is. The bridge is built over a lake with very pretty surroundings and it was buzzing with locals, monks and nuns all the time we were there making it all the more interesting.

Applying Gold Leaf

Cycling back to Mandalay we visited a 2000 year old gold Buddha that has for over a hundred years had gold leaf (small wafer thin sheets of gold) pressed upon its body by male worshipers adding an extra 6 inches to the Buddha’s body. Nearby we got to talking with a monk who had a good grasp of English but wanted to improve it further, he told us he’d seen an American movie recently and asked us what the word ‘shit’ meant. Hollywood you have a lot to answer for...

After a brief afternoon rest we visited part of the ‘world’s largest book’ which is stored in two pagodas. The very impressive Sanda Muni Pagoda we went to is made up of hundreds of tiny stupas which each shelter a four foot high marble slab engraved with the text. When read in the correct order these marble slabs make up the 15 books of the Tripitaka (Religious texts). We also saw a 900-tonne Buddha carved out of a single piece of marble before climbing up Mandalay Hill to get a view of the surrounding area before the sun went down.

World's Tallest Buddha

A detour for us was Monywa where the saw the World’s tallest standing Buddha at 424ft – completely unnecessary but quite enjoyable! There was also a huge reclining Buddha at 312ft which had pigeons nesting in its nostrils and whose left buttock was a doorway.  The other main site nearby to Monywa is Hpo Win Daung which is a collection of 492 Buddha Caves that have been carved into the limestone hills mainly during the 14^th century. It’s amazing the amount of detail that has gone into each cave, most feature at least one limestone Buddha, sometimes there’s 7 or 8, and a handful  of the caves also have wonderful murals painted in them.

We travelled back to Mandalay this morning by bus through heavy flood waters / rivers that many smaller vehicles couldn’t get through. The monsoon season’s not been too bad so far, only once or twice have we had to wade through flooded streets!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Farewell to Sydney

Us at the Opera House

Hard to believe that it all came together in the end...months of thinking about it, weeks of preparing a plan and then within two viewings of the van and a mere 5 days of advertising – Lola was sold, and sold at a higher price than we paid all those kilometres ago!  It was bitter sweet; we love that campervan and were SO sad to see her drive away, but what a relief that it went without having to reduce our price, without having to put up ‘urgent’ posters at the hostels....just brilliant really!

Sunset View on the Manly Ferry

We had been house-sitting for one of my cousins in a suburb just outside of Sydney.  Just perfect for us sorting out the van, getting our return trip organised and for exploring Sydney.  Kay & Pete and their two children, Emma and Luke arrived back from their holiday the day after the van sold and very kindly let us stay for the remainder of our time in Australia.  It was lovely to spend time with the family and get to know Emma & Luke.  Emma showed us her amazing ballet skills and she performed on the recorder in a big concert at the Opera House while we were there; Luke found a new play friend with Chris and spent a lot of time playing draughts with him and showing off his toy car collection!  Kay & Pete spoilt us with cooking us meals, treating us to take away and letting us sample lots of Aussie wines!

Chris at Sydney Airport

After I finished my admin work and a couple of days doing after school care, we made some time for some sightseeing.  We went for a lovely walk with Pete & Emma in the Royal National Park there were some amazing coastal views.  Me & Chris had a day trip to Manly on the ferry across the harbour, it was just lovely and on the ferry back we watched the sunset behind the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it felt really special, I was even a little teary thinking about us leaving Australia behind.  We had another great day on ‘Pete’s Northern Beach Tour’ where we visited some of the beautiful beaches and view points north of Sydney.  We even saw where they film Home & Away!  Picnicing has become a favourite past-time and we had a couple lounging in the Botanical Gardens, it’s just so beautiful in there, could have stayed staring at the view for hours. 

Batu Caves

We left Sydney yesterday, backpacks packed again!  As glamorous as ever, we departed on Air Asia and landed in Kuala Lumpur.  It was really, really busy and then we realised why – for the 2^nd year in a row we are in Malaysia for National Malaysia Day!  Tired from the flight this Asian business was a little overwhelming, but fresh faced today, it’s not been too bad.  We’ve had a lovely day out of the city at Batu Caves, a large Hindu Shrine built into the caves.  It was a beautiful setting in the cliff side and fun to watch the mischievous monkeys stealing the religious offerings!  We headed to Little India for lunch and filled up on roti & curry for a mere £1.60 including drinks...we’d forgotten how cheap Asia can be.  Enjoying seeing all the little shrines dotted about again, the smell of incense and the food stalls...haven’t missed the sewage smells and the squat toilets though!

Off to Bangkok tomorrow.  Very excited for a curry & a Chang!

Miss you all, 3 months and 7 days till we’re home!

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Final Road Trip

Getting back on the road with Lola after our time working in Adelaide felt great. Driving long distances and admiring the sights and wildlife is what Australia has all been about for us. Our first stop after leaving those lovable but troublesome horses behind was to Chloe & Dave’s house in the Adelaide Hills where they cooked an amazing Pork Belly roast.

On our way over to Victoria we travelled South Australia’s Limestone Coast which we didn’t do last time we were here. We saw Australia’s only colony of white Kangaroos, which looked a little bit like giant bald cats. Took a detour to South Australia’s biggest sight Larry the Lobster standing tall at 17 meters! Enjoyed coastal drives even spotting whales playing way off in the distance! Then we visited the city of Mount Gambier which was built around extinct volcanoes and craters, and has amazing sinkholes that have been turned into gardens. All in all South Australia was a great place to stop for a few months, even if we didn’t intend to! There is a lot to enjoy as a tourist around the state and Adelaide was a fantastic city to live in, easy to navigate as it’s more like a big town, good transport, fantastic library and we made some great friends there as well as getting to look after horses for 6 weeks! J

Entering Victoria we were really excited to drive the Great Ocean Road as it’s recommended as one of the best things to do in Australia. The beginning of the drive was amazing as straight away you see dramatic, sheer cliffs and an extremely volatile Southern Ocean. Cliff fragments such as the 12 Apostles jut up from the sea a short distance away from the coast which is very picturesque. Then the drive takes you away from the coast and uphill into the forest, unfortunately this wasn’t as interesting as there was no ocean to be seen. Back onto the coastal road for the final part of the drive and we began passing through a lot of seaside towns, saw some waterfalls and koalas, visited the lighthouse from ‘Around the Twist’ and went to a interesting surf museum. It was a really nice drive as you’re hugging the coast and can see the ocean at all times but it wasn’t as spectacular as the first section.

Melbourne was next, we had a nice day seeing a Wallace and Gromit Inventions exhibit at the Scienceworks museum, drove to St Kilda and admired the ‘urban’ penguins as well as the view of Melbourne from the pier. Then we made a pilgrimage to where the Australian TV Series ‘The Block’ was filmed this year – we watched this renovation series from beginning to end and loved it so it was really cool to see the finished houses, although maybe that makes us bit sad! Then to Ramsey Street where they film the exterior shots of Neighbours, it looked vaguely familiar but it’s been so many years since either of us watched it – still had to be done!

Melbourne as a city looks a little bit rough around the edges, and by that I mean the suburbs near the city looked rough. Once in Melbourne there’s loads of art sculptures everywhere, interesting looking buildings, a fun evolution of the moving image exhibit at the ACMI and some really great European looking streets filled wall to wall with small cafes and coffee shops. We heard in Adelaide that Melbourne is the place every one goes if they want to do some ‘real’ shopping it didn’t disappoint as the streets were filled with designer shops and boutique shopping arcades – nice to look at but not made for our budget unfortunately.

Away from Melbourne we drove to the Gippsland area of Victoria and visited the amazing Wilsons Promontory National Park. Really nice walks, beaches, kangaroos, emus and coastal views but the best bit was seeing four wombats in the wild. These creatures were so cute, looking just like a giant cuddly toy and when they walk they rock to the left and right making them even more endearing!

Our final stop before driving to Sydney was to visit Liam and Bella in Canberra to receive a Patey Street hangover. We had Japanese food, went to the pub, sang Karaoke and played real life Goldeneye. The next day was not so fun, although we just about recovered by lunch and went to watch The Dark Knight Rises with Liz, Liam’s sister so it wasn’t a totally wasted day.

After a fun few days in Canberra we’re now in Sydney. Kat’s doing admin work for the cartooning club she helped out whilst in Adelaide. I sold my guitar within 2 days of advertising it L We’ve unpacked and cleaned Lola, how much stuff we’ve accumulated! The advert is online and flyers are now posted all over Sydney’s hostels. Fingers crossed for us!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Heaps good on the Horse Farm

We are nearing the end of our time in South Australia and since I last wrote we have been living in Gawler, about 40mins from Adelaide at a small horse farm where I’ve been taking care of 9 horses.  They are all trouble but I do love being there with them (most of the time!)  There is Jemima the escapee Shetland who I have spent more time rounding up than anything else!  Then we have Sparky the Welsh Pony Stallion, only 12hands tall but full of attitude and for a couple of weeks refused to have anything to do with me!   Little Jazz is mum to the idiot foal Walter, who canters about the place carrying his food bucket and swinging it around.  The comedy odd couple is the big grey, Ferris who has no sense of personal space and Kolbie the 9 month old Shetland foal, who looks like a big woolly dog (I want to bring Kolbie home).  Then the other three live in the field, Orly is the one I ride and a bit of a grump, Harry jumps the field fence regularly and little Ginny gets bullied by the other two!  They are 9 characters and it has been a great experience living with them, Floyd the cat, Jesse the dog and Grandpa Henry at the farm.  I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’m trying to think of a way to work with horses when I get home.

When we haven’t been busy with the farm – always a fence to build, grass to mow, wood to stain...we have both been working too.  I have been doing kids clubs – vacation and after school for primary kids.  It is exhausting, can be very rewarding but gosh, I’ve shouted like I remember teachers shouting when I was little!  Chris also got roped into the vacation camp and helped us with the 120 little darlings who were having a PJ party and pillow fight day!  Chris has also managed to get a real job doing data entry.

In-between all this working we’ve still seen our besties, Tom & Laura.  The kitchen has enabled us to make roast dinners for each other and cakes!  We’ve also had a random evening at a roller derby (a brutal but entertaining sport that I’d totally recommend) and hopefully will be going out for a nice meal before we leave Adelaide. We’ve also been out drinking cider with Chloe & David.  Chloe is the one great thing that came out of my time doing care work; she was a fellow worker being terrorised by the patient!  So we have totally bonded about our awful experiences and have been meeting up for ciders since then, so lovely to have a few friends in Adelaide J

So leaving Adelaide is our next plan and hopefully we’ll take a scenic trip to Sydney where we will try to work again and sell Lola – sad times, but we need our pennies back!   The plan to go to the US has changed and we’ll be heading home through Asia to save some money.  Excited about moving from heaps good South Australia....really excited for when the van is sold and we can book all our flights home!

Love you all,

Miss you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx