Around the world with Faye

Bangladesh and Nepal

2008-08-19T18:03:28Z

As usual I was having a panic that we'd miss the flight, little did I know that the flight was actually later than I originally thought!

31/7/08
After a fairly pleasant 9 and a half hour flight we arrived in Dhaka. Got through customs and got our bags and walked outside to see Bangladeshi people climbing at the rails of the airport. Maeve was there to meet us and we took her car to her apartment. The roads are absolutely crazy, like bumper cars. All the cars are dented and scratched all over. Maeve had bought us all a camise and a scarf to wear as your have to cover bottoms and breasts in Bangladesh! We had a sleep for a couple of hours and then got up and had our first taste of Bangladeshi food of Kedgeree and lamb, it was very nice.
We went out on the rickshaw and after going to the glasses shop we headed for the orphanage in Old Dhaka. We got a taxi, which didn't have enough petrol to get there and then we squeezed into a CNG, which then fell down a hole in the road, so we all had to get out and push it out....whilst almost getting run over in the process! Hilarious!
We spent a couple of hours at the orphanage, giving babies cuddles, changing little cotton nappies and entertaining the disabled children. It was really sad to think that such beautiful children have nobody.
We got a CNG back to Maeve's, it took ages and we were followed home by 3 boys which hung off the back of the CNG for several miles. We got back to Maeve's, had a quick shower and then went out to the Bagha Club for dinner and drinks. We got back to Maeves and played scrabble...I won by loads of points! Wahoo!

1/8/08

We got up early, I didn't feel to well. We headed for the Radission Hotel for breakfast which i really didn't feel like eating. I force fed myself, as I wanted to at least try and get my monies worth! After the Radisson we went to the Bagha club and spent the afternoon by the pool, it wasn't until about 5pm when I started to feel a bit better.
We then got on the rickshaws and went to the supermarket and then to the beauty salon. Rose, Caz and I had a thai massage while Maeve had a body scrub, we had a detox facial too which was awesome. Maeve opened a can of tonic in the salon and it sprayed directly in my face and all over the waiting area, it was so funny!
On the way back from the salon we went for a Japanese, it was new to me, but I really enjoyed it. We dropped by for a drink in the Nordic club, which is the Scandanavian club on the way back to Maeves. I was totally shattered and headed straight for bed when we got in.

2/8/08

We got up early and headed out on rickshaws to meet Maeve's friends and their cars to take us to Savaar to get on the boat owned by 'Friendship' an NGO. We cruised along the river from 10am-4pm, again I felt ill all the way to the boat, but luckily I felt much better by about 11am. The weather was great until the boat returned and then it absolutely chucked it down, we were drenched running 5 metres to the car off the boat. People in the rural areas around the river really are living with nothing at all.
From the boat we headed back to Dhaka and saw a nasty accident on the way back, a car was underneath a lorry. It's hardly surprising though after the way people in Bangladesh drive. We went for a quick drink in the Bagha club and then went back to Maeve's. We stayed in and ordered pizza for tea and got our stuff ready for the next adventure to Nepal.

3/8/08

We got up about 8:30am and got ourselves sorted. Maeve sent a random man to get some eggs and then we had scrambled eggs before going to the airport. Amazingly for a Biman flight it was ontime, although it did end up being about half an hour late. We got on the Fokker 28 and which was pretty scary as it was such a small plane. The food on board was absolutely horrible!
We arrived in Kathmandu, got our visas sorted and then Mohan was there with the car to pick us up. They greeted us by putting big flowers around our necks, which is Buddhist tradition for good luck. They took us to the Samsara hotel where we were staying for one night and then we went straight out again to the monkey temple. We drove around Durba Square on the way back and then stopped for our first taste of momo's in a cafe in Kathmandu. We stayed around the town and bought some socks and trousers for the trek, and then had a drink and a shiesh pipe in a shiesh cafe.

4/8/08- Up to the Langtang Valley

We got up at 6am and left the room and headed in the car up into the mountains. We stopped at 10:15am for our lunch...little early and we had to eat Dalbaht. We continued up the mountains until about 3pm when we had to get out and walk for a few hours because of landslides. We arrived in Dunche about 5:30pm, it was raining so we were very wet, but because of no sun, meant no hot water. We stayed at the Hotel Himalayan Legend and Lodge. It wasn't too bad, apart from being a bit damp. I ordered lasagne for tea and when it came it was tagliatelle with onion chicken and bacon, really nice but nothing like lasagne! We headed to bed pretty early, the first of many very early nights!

5/8/08

We got up at 6:30am and had some porridge, which I realise I don't like and then headed on our way just after 7am. We stopped at about 10:30am for tea and biscuits which were much needed! The village wasso cute and so were the people there. We saw all the children on their way to school and then walked through the school. The children were so sweet! We continued walking and then we stopped for lunch and Mohan made us a potato curry. Up until lunch time the weather was nice, but then it started to cloud over. A couple of hours later we came to our place of rest, we had a look around the teeny tiny little village. played with a cute girl that stank of goats, bought lots of yaks scarfs and went to a little monastry on the hill. We had dinner in the tea house, it was a bit chilly, but I had omlette and chips which was great! The electricity kept going out, so we went to bed about 8:45pm, I didn't sleep too well though as I was cold and the Nepalese villagers were rather noisy!

6/8/08

We got up at 5:30am, had some Tibetan bread for breakfast and then we started trekking. We trekked down hill for quite a long way and my legs started to shake (Shakey Stevens as we called it). I slipped on a big rock and feel down and when I tried to get back up my legs wouldn't hold me so I fell down again. It was really horrible at the time my legs giving way, but I look back and it was rather funny!! From there we had to walk through a fast flowing river and our feet were soaked, there was a beautiful waterfall. We had Dalbaht lentils and rice for lunch. Maeve ripped her shorts so had to sew them up, then we continued....it was up hill from there. There were a few leaches around, I got my 3rd one! Leached!!
It was really hard up the millions of steps, several times I thought my legs might give up. We arrived in Rimche to a warm shower! Yay! We had a shower and then sat in a room with a log fire, it was so lovely. We got our shoes, towels and clothes dried off so it was nice to not feel so damp. We played cards and then headed to bed at the ridulously early time of 7:45pm!

7/8/08

Got up at 6am, had some breakfast and then started walking. We stopped for a cuppa and then it started raining. We waited at the teahouse, but then just had to continue on in the rain as it wasn't going to stop. I'm glad I had my brolly in my bag! We ended up losing our porters as they'd gone on too quick and Mohan was way behind at the army base check point, so we stopped at a little teahouse for potato soup. It was lovely.
We arrived at Langtang, was really damp and spiders in our room. we met some Spanish guys staying in our teahouse too. There was no electricity, so again a particularly early night with the spiders!

8/8/08

We had a little lay in until 7:30am as it was only a few hours walk today to get to our highest point of 3800m. The sun was shining and we could see the snowy peaks of the mountains. We headed off about 8:30am and arrived at lunch time to a rather chilly Kyangin Gumpa to the 'Hotel Super View'....again no hot water though. We were unable to head up to the glacier, as there wasn't much point as it was too cloudy. We sat in the Kitchen to keep warm and then had some lunch. The lady cooking and looking after us was called 'Keeper', she's so sweet. We put warm clothes on as it was pretty chilly up there, the yak scarves came out!
There was a 6 month festival in Kyangin Gumpa. People were singing and dancing and then men had made bows and arrows and were doing archery. There was four everywhere and many drunk Nepalese people!
We watched the crazy people and then headed back to our rooms. I had a major headache, think the altitude had got to me. We had a knock at the door and Keeper was inviting us down to their festival celebrations. They had pastries, biscuits, crisps, coke, all with yak butter on it....I think that's a sign of wealth. We were then offered yak curd, I had to refuse it as I thought I could possibly throw up if I was to eat that!! We then ended up staying downstairs and watching the ladies dance...and then I ended up joining in with the dancing. It was a cold, but funny afternoon.
I had tomato noodle soup for tea and we were in bed before 9pm again.

9/8/08- heading back down the valley. Mum's Birthday.

I didn't have a very good nights sleep and was awake early as the villagers were building a house next to our guesthouse. Looking out the window the man was outside milking his yaks....amazing. I had chipati and honey for breakfast, it was pretty nippy in the hills even though the sun was shining. We had a fairly easy walk back down to Langtang, stopping for lunch...tomato noodle soup again. My legs were feeling pretty tired. My calves and my knees were beginning to hurt from the downhill walking. We arrived back in Rimche, although it wasn't quite so pleasant the second time round. We were sharing our room with some rather large spiders. We spent ages murdering spiders with hairspray and deet. Caz and I didn't sleep too well even after moving our beds into the middle of the room. It was raining so hard and we woke in the morning to another massive spider when I moved my rain coat....we just had to get out! Mohan killed a chicken for our tea and cooked up chicken dalbaht and lentils, had fresh bamboo in it too. Latest night, as couldn't sleep for spiders!

10/8/08

Pancakes for breakfast then we headed on our way for the hardest trek so far. We stopped near the bottom of the hill for lemon tea and cookies. We carried on and trekked up hill which was really hard, we stopped in a nice place called Safrubesi for lunch, I had potato omlette. At this point we were all in so much pain, Maeve with broken boots, Caz with a painful archy, Rose just being very good at not moaning and my legs really did want to give up on me. We walked up some roads, one of which turned into a river...so wet feet again. We then reached the hardest part of the trek and the most challenging thing I've ever done. the steepest up hill and steps, I really thought I was going to collapse. I was lagging behind a lot and was in so much pain, blisters were setting in. I had an opportunity to stop when a little girl wanted a pen. It was great that I had an excuse for a small break! We reached the top of the steps and then it was still about 2 hours unitl we were to reach Dunche. We finally arrived about 5:30pm, it was a very long hard day.....but so rewarding. I can't believe I did it. We all had such sore feet and legs, but we were able to have a lovely warm shower and put some clean clothes on.
We had a late tea and went to bed about 10pm. We had a good chat with Mohan, Depak and Baulo.

11/8/08

Had a bit of a rubbish sleep as there's a festival on in the village so the guesthouse was full and people were very noisy. We rushed out of bed, had breakfast and then headed for the roof of the bus! We should have been picked up by the car, but because of the landslides we had to go about 20km, on two different buses, walking over the landslides. The bus was so much fun, but rather scary. A great experience.
After the landslides we got back in our landcruiser after having fun on the top of the bus with Nepalese guys. We travelled back to Kathmandu, stopping in the same place for curry and lentils as we did on the way up. We arrived back at Hotel Samsara just after 3pm. We had a quick shower and then went around the shops.
We then went to the Everest steakhouse to meet Mohan and his family for dinner. We bought them dinner and gave them all a tip. We left and went to the Shiesha bar, but no Shiesha, so that was disappointing! We had a fair few beers. It was great to get into a bed and have airconditioning for a change.

12/8/08

We all got up fairly early and left the hotel about 8:15am to go and continue our shopping. i got a few presents for people and got a silver chain and pendant and a little jacket. We had a breakfast in a nice little cafe and then stopped for a drink and a cake. I had an apple iced tea...it was sooo good. We went back to the hotel where Mohan was waiting to take us back to the airport. He gave us each a Buddha and some Nepalese tea. He also gave me some little booties and mittens for Eva. The plane back to Dhaka was delayed by an hour, but we had a lovely piece of pizza while we waited. We also waited with some people from Bhurma that were migrating to the USA, it was crazy they all had their documents in plastic bags, many of them refugees.
We got back to Maeves after being offered an upgrade to business class on the 45minute flight, by an air host called 'Happy'. We went straight out to the glasses shop to get Kenny's glasses and to the pearl and antique shops.
After there we went back, got changed and went out for a Thai meal. It was so delicious, but I got so full so quick.

13/8/08

We were up early for Maeve's wateraid car to take us to the slums. We got the car across town which took over an hour and Rose wasn't feeling too well. We stopped at the NGO office to get some people to take us around the slums. We were greeted by lots of dwellers, wanting to see us. The president of the slums showed us around and showed us the plans and improvements that have been made with sanitation in the past few years. They were so kind to us, making us feel really welcome and an old lady fanned us, which was terribly embrarassing. This particular slum was built over water, so whenever it rained heavy, people are living in sewerage.
We moved onto another, a project by the PSTC. We went to their office and had tea with the director. He was explaining some of the work they've been doing. Kanise then took us around the second slum, built along a railway line. Most were welcoming and again we saw the plans and Maeve showed us the water pumps and the privacy rooms, of which are shared between 25 families. One lady said in Bangla 'You come here, you look and you do nothing', that was very sad to hear. It's the corupt government of Bangladesh which means NGO's work is made more difficult.

We left the slums and then stopped at Nando's like true westerners! Had chicken burger and chips, it was fantastic!! We headed to the beautitians and we all had a body scrub and massage which lasted 2 hours, it was absolutely awesome.... We went to the International Club for dinner, the Wednesday night BBQ. Caz and I enjoyed some fish. Then it was time to go back to Maeves and pack. Went to bed about 1am for a few hours.

14/8/08

Up at 5am to get to the airport for just after 6am. we got checked in. Flight on time. 10 hours to get home listening to screaming kids and kids running up and down the isles banging into me. Arrived in Heathrow at 2pm, greeted by Justin and then a surprise of Charlie for Miss Hall.

Bangladesh and Nepal remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Back in the Shire!

2007-05-27T19:54:33Z

I arrived home and spent the weekend catching up with family and friends. Sunday morning I went to watch Becky and Lizzy run at Kelmarsh hall in the daffodil run. They both did fantastic, Bec coming 4th woman in the 10k and Hannah was fantastic in the 15 miles completing it in 2hours 20 minutes, so proud of my friends, I feel like I must get fit!
I spent most of the week rushing around getting things sorted. Spent time with Fliss for her birthday. Prepared my lesson for my interview, I got the job and will be teaching at the John Cleveland College in Hinckley from 2nd July. Had to take a photo of Long Buckby's beautiful sunset while I was doing my work. Popped into Guilsborough to say hello to everyone, was really nice to see people and some (not all) of the kids! It was a successful visit as I'm now going to be doing 2 days a week supply until I start at JCC. I planned to spend Thursday sorting myself out and getting my room into some kind of order, but I had a phone call at 7:30am and I was in Daventry doing some supply by 8:15am. No sorting for me! I then did supply on Friday at Guilsborough, so still no sorting done!
Yesterday I spent the day car shopping. It was pretty stressful as loan companies were messing me around and I couldn't decide what car I actually wanted. By 5pm I was signing on the dotted line....I bought a new Seat Ibiza. I'm now even poorer! I think I did ok though, got a good deal, I had my car geek with me....thanks Alex!
So, continued rushing around as had to get ready for the big girls night out. Nice to see everyone and catch up, although I need to see people more often as once or twice a year isn't enough. Photos are below. Think the blog really does have to come to an end now, but you never know, I might be back with more after Bec's hen do to Spain...another country to add to the blog!

Back in the Shire! remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Around the World with Ronald and Blog Uncovered!

2007-05-27T19:07:19Z

Ronald In Australia

Bali

Singapore

Koh Samui

Chiang Mai

Ronald seemed to have the same pose in a lot of places which was disappointing, but I wouldn't want to over do it anyway.

There's a few things that happened while I was away that I didn't blog at the time as I didn't want people to start worrying about me. The first week was the worst of all in Rio, I was with 3 American girls walking to get a tram to Santa Teresa when a guy came up and grabbed Leah's head and whipped her bag. To cut a pretty long story short, after 4 police vans arrived and about 30 police officers with massive guns, they caught the guy and Leah ended up getting her bag back. It was pretty scary though, especially in the first week of my trip. The guy is picture below and would get 5 years for taking the bag.
I heard lots of stories in Rio in my hostel, people having bags and cameras taken. When I arrived in Copacabana about 10 days into the trip to meet my Gap tour group. The guy that was supposed to be leading the tour had been mugged and beaten into a coma. He'd been in a coma for 2 days, the ripped off all his jewellery, including earings...he looked a state. So, he didn't run our tour someone else had to be flown out to do it. When I met my group, one of the girls had had her camera taken out of her hand on the beach.
We went to iguassu and the second night I was there there was a drive by shooting outside our hotel. Luckily we weren't there, on a night out at the time, but walking by in the morning was horrible as there was still a pool of blood, thank god the body had been removed! Two of the girls in my tour group had walked by that spot about 5 minutes before the guy got shot. Lucky...although apparently it was all to do with drugs. We were staying on the border, bit of a dodgy area really.
In Chile, we arrived at a hotel and all went out for dinner as a group. While we were out two girls in my group had their room broken into and had passports and money etc taken. At this point I was thinking someone must be on my side as quite a lot had happened so close to me, but fortunately it hadn't happened directly to me. That was South America and since then I heard no bad stories and nothing bad happened.
I did a couple of silly things. I bought a purse and thought I'd seperate my cash cards out so put my natwest card in the new purse in a different part of my bag. A week or so later I had a panic and couldn't find my card. Emptied the whole of my bag (annoying), to remember that I sent a parcel of stuff home. In the parcel was the new purse that I didn't want to use until I got home!...Silly girl, I was then one cash card down. I managed to refrain from losing another until about 2 weeks before I came home. We flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and then I got some cash out. When we arrived at the hotel my card wasn't in my purse, I must have left it in the machine or dropped it. So, from then on the only cards I had was Ian (by transferring money to him) and my credit card. Lucky it was so late on in the trip.
I managed to lose a few items of clothing while I was away, left a jacket at the skydive centre. I was looking back at some photos the other day and thought what a nice blue vest I was wearing in Rio, didn't remember having it, or that I'd even lost it until I got home and looked at the photo!! I obviously had far too many clothes to miss it. I came back with less clothes than I took.

Around the World with Ronald and Blog Uncovered! remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Hong Kong

2007-05-18T04:18:02Z

We left our hotel at 6am, unfortunately we couldn't fit in my favourite mode of transport so got a taxi to the airport.
We arrived in Hong Kong about 1:30pm and got a taxi into the city which was a bit naughty as it cost lots of money!...but with the amount of stuff I have I was about to tackle the public bus service after bruising my arm with my bag on the last public airport bus I got on! Arriving at our hotel was a bit strange, walking into a shopping centre. We squashed into the lift and I almost winded some poor man with my huge rucksack! We made it up to floor 3 where we were shouted at by some man, I was pretty scared and nowhere even mentioned the 'Oriental Pearl Hotel'. Anyway, the guy had us on his list. He went around the corner and I went to follow him as I thought he was showing us to our room, but he turned around and shouted at me and told me to wait. If it wasn't for the fact that we'd booked in and paid I would have walked out. So, it took us to a room...realised it wasn't clean, had a shouting match with his wife which wasn't nice and then he finally found us a room. Thankfully he apologised for shouting, customer service! We got into our room which you can't even swing a cat in, it's like a cabin, but it's fine for what we need it for.
We went out and explored, had a sit in the park for a while and in the evening we went to the famous temple street market. It was full of tack, nothing like the nice stuff that you get at Thai markets. We had something to eat, Ian ordered chinese sausage and rice, which was just as nasty as it sounds and my meal wasn't much better either!
Hong Kong is a huge city and made for people who want to shop, just like Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Sydney. So, what more than to spend the day shopping! I phoned Dad for my credit card pin and the picture below is what I viewed when I called. Well, spent a couple of hours looking around the shopping mall, but soon got fed up as I can't afford Armani, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Cartier, Burberry and every other expensive designer that you can think of! Ian and I sat on some steps to eat a doughnut outside the shopping centre and got told to stand up and move on! We went and sat in Kowloon Park, Kowloon is where we are staying rather than Hong Kong Island. We sat in the sun and read our books, but in Hong Kong you are not allowed to sit on the grass in the park! We sat on a conrete bench by a fountain in the park and I decided to lay down as my back was hurting, a security man came and asked me to sit up. I couldn't believe it, this place is pathetic! We went to a different market in the evening, the Ladies Market in Mong Kok, full of tack again and treated ourselves to a meal at pizza express...why not, nearly time to come home and earn money again!
Wednesday we got up late again, becoming a common occurance now. We went to the nice sandwich place in the mall next door and then headed down the road and caught the ferry over to Hong Kong Island. We wondered by statue square which was very unexciting and then made our way to the peak tram station. We got on the tram up to the peak. The tram was very steep in parts and as we went up the views were amazing, and even more spectacular when we got to the top viewing point. The only bad thing is that Hong Kong has a haze over it all the time, so the photos aren't great. Deciding that we'd stay at the top until dark so we could get some night shots we hung around, looked around the shopping centre, sat and had a drink and read our books. We were sat on a bench and I needed a back rest so Ian told me to lay down....yes, you guessed it I got told off again!! Before we knew it the clouds were coming in and by the time dusk came you could hardly see any of the buildings below, so again the photos weren't great. We got the tram back down, that was after having a panic as I couldn't find my ticket and then having to play teacher to all the Japanese people that were fighting like school children to get on the tram. They are so bloody impatient! I was so annoyed by the time we got on the tram, I had to calm myself down a bit! We walked back to get the ferry and then managed to catch the light show on the buildings on the way back over, little gutted that my camera ran out of battery! It was pretty late by the time we got back to the hotel, so we just had a much needed quiet night.
Yesterday we got up late yet again and went to our usual delicatessen to get our panini, we then went to the park and went to the swimming pool. We spent the afternoon there. After we'd got showered back in the room we went out, I bought another pair of shoes, actually lost count of how many I have in my bag now...but Hong Kong is for shopping. Mum, you can feel happy that I've found plenty of things to buy!! We then went down to the harbour front and watched the light show that they put on each evening at 8pm. It was pretty cool. We went for some food and then for a drink, can't believe it was our last night!
We've checked out of the room and now I am updating my blog..as if you didn't know! We've got a long wait today as our plane doesn't take off until 11:35pm, 4:35pm UK time. Wishful thinking that we might actually get upgraded and have a lovely flight home, but i doubt it. 13hours in BA economy, not looking forward to that! Well, this is my last blog, for now anyway, I'm actually going to miss logging on and telling people what I'm doing with my life! I might have to blog my trip to Spain in 11 days time for Bec's hen do, can't wait!
I hope to see you all very soon, land at 5:30am at Heathrow so it would be nice to see you!!....Mum, Dad and Helen xxxx

Hong Kong remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Koh Chang

2007-05-13T08:40:32Z

Well, after the terrible journey from Cambodia, Koh Chang was the place for us to stop and relax for 5 days and get some sun before leaving Thailand. The rain decided that we would be doing that!
Basically the time in Koh Chang was spent, sleeping, cloud bathing, reading, using the internet and having a few drinks with by the beach in the evening. We met a few people on our journey from hell and stayed up chatting to them a few nights.
We had a nice hut by the beach, it was just a shame that nearly everyday we woke up to the rain and went to bed in the rain. Most days we managed to get an hour or so on the beach, but would watch the sheet of rain some in from the sea and run....most of the time we made it under shelter before we got soaked through!
There wasn't a lot to do on Lonely beach....was very lonely, so we did get a little bored with not being able to sun ourselves.
On Thursday we did role play and Ian was interviewing me for my interview I had on Friday. I spent Friday morning preparing for the interview, it paid off as I got the job!
We left early Saturday morning for our last journey on a bus in Thailand. Everything went smoothly, you'd never believe it. It took 10 hours from door to door, but this was arriving early. So the last journey was the best!
So, we're back in Bangkok. Did a bit more shopping last night and had a drink in the local petrol station (honestly). During the day it's a petrol station and then it's a pretty cool bar in the evening. This morning we went to the Grand Palace, although we were too tight to pay the entrance fee to see even more temples! The weather's still rubbish so we're just hanging around now. Going out tonight to meet the people we met on the journey from hell and then we leave at 6am in the morning for Hong Kong.

Koh Chang remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cambodia

2007-05-07T09:22:20Z

We got up early yet again and set off in the pouring rain to get our bus. We walked to the hop where we booked it, we were told we'd be picked up from there. A guy turned up late, on foot and we had to walk in the rain to the bus...my bag's to heavy for walking!! Finally we got on the bus and then it took 45mins to actually move anywhere and it was nearly 2 hours after that we made it out of the city. It took ages to get to the border and when we got there we were dropped off at a restaurant for an hour, ripped off for our visa and had to buy the food as that was all that was around. Not only that we were told there was no cash machines in Siem Reap, so ten we got ripped off big style for changing some money! Anyway, after getting off the bus we trudged through the border. It was hectic and busy and there were lots of people and children begging, it was quite sad. As soon as we got through customs straight away you could see the poverty all around. Cambodia is a lot different to Thailand. The border was crazy, people charging around with huge wooden carts, ad loads of people on motorbikes and push bikes. We had to wait and then get on a bus, which dropped us about 2 minutes away. We then got on another bus to take us to Siem Reap. The bus was small and there was no space for the luggage. They piled seats with bags and then we piled in, it was very hot and sweaty. We were told it would take 4 hours to get there. The road was just mud and extremely bumpy, it was going to be a long four hours. After stopping after 4, we soon realised the 4 hours was going to be longer. After sweating and looking out of the window at the poverty, people sitting in candle light in their wooden huts we arrive to 5* Angkor hotels on the outskirts of Siem Reap. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be staying in one this time! A guy had travelled all the way to the border and back with us, caught up in another scam we ended up staying at his guesthouse as we finally arrived at 10:30pm and weren't about to go out in search of somewhere. We stayed one night and left in the morning.
We got to a much nicer guesthouse, in the town centre and then spent the day having a look around Siem Reap, which is a really nice city. Parts of it have a real European feel...apart from the many children walking around trying to see you things, or one little boy collecting cans and plastic bottles. He was so cute, got 3 cans out of me, empty of course! The fashion in Siem Reap is pyjamas for the girls and spider man caps for the boys. People actually walk around all day and night in Pj's!
The evening was nice, I sampled the local Cambodian fish curry which was lovely. Had a couple of Caprina cocktails which brought back memories of Brazil.
Saturday we got up early and got in a tuk tuk (different than that of Thailand, is like a horse and cart, only the horse is a motorbike!). We drove to the area of Angkor, first going to the Angkor Wat Temple. It was huge, with a massive moat and just amazing. The expanse of it was incredible, kind of lost for words trying to describe it. We spent a couple of hours looking around the temple and got bugged by people to buy stuff. We got back in the awaiting carriage and went to Bayon temple. This temple was just as amazing, loads of huge faces calved out of stone. Think this was my favourite. We then went around a few more temples and the Angkor agricultural site to, Elephant temple, Lepard King and also to Kleang. After our lunch we went to Preah Khan and Ta Keo. All of which were superb and i especially liked Prhom which was in Preah Khan with trees growing through and around the stone. It was a long day as we left at 8am and we walked a long way as well as having our own driver! We had an easy night, although I did stay up until about 1:30am to watch Villa win!
Yesterday we got up early again and got a van to our bus on the other side of Siem Reap. We were told it would take about 5 hours to the border and in total 12 hours to get to Koh Chang in Thailand. It took 7 long muddy hours to get to the border, the road was terrible and as it had been raining (again) the road was thick mud. I felt so sorry for the people as their motorbikes were stuck and they had to wade through thick mud for miles, pushing bikes piled with stuff. Even the 4x4's weren't doing very well...might be because they have about 30 people in the back of them! They like to fill cars, vans, buses and trucks to the brim with people. Our bus was full, no seats spare...but no luggage space. It was under seats, on top of people and piled high in the isles...not to safe. After looking out the window for 7 hours looking at the strange way of life and pigs, skinny cows, chickens in the road we finally got back to the border. We got dropped off, got on another bus to the border, and then had to walk across. No easy process, it took 2 hours! We didn't get into Thailand until 5:30pm. Luckily our mini bus to Koh Chang hadn't gone anywhere! Although we would never do a 4 hour journey in half an hour to get the ferry to Koh Chang! So, we were stuck on the mainland for the night. 11 of us in another min van, Ian and I sat on the very hot engine and we were taken to a hotel near the ferry port for the night. (Was this a set up too!!??) We stayed in the hotel and managed to kill about 30 mozzies before giving up and going to bed! The good news we managed not to get bitten, the bad news Ian is poorly and was up in the night being sick. It must have been the noodles he had for lunch yesterday as that's all we had on the horrific journey.
So, we got up this morning, back in another van to take us to the ferry. Got taken to another restaurant and waited there for an hour, then another van to the port, waited there, a boat to Koh Chang and then another van on Koh Chang. So we were supposed to get here last night and we arrived about 11:30am today. Ian isn't very well and I had to go around looking for somewhere to stay. The 1st place had no nice rooms, I walked up the beach everything was huts falling apart with no bathrooms. Got back to the Nature Village where Ian was with the bags and then a room became available. Thank the lord! We got into the room about 1pm, now Ian is trying to get better. Well, I have to say the last 30 or so hours have not been the best and I've lost my patience several times. Now we're here, it's been raining and isn't looking any better. Don't think I'm moving again for a few days!!

Cambodia remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Bangkok

2007-05-07T08:20:10Z

We got up early yet again and made our way to the airport in Chiang Mai, got our flight, paid more again for the luggage and arrived in Bangkok about 9:30am. It was throwing it down so we thought we might go to Cambodia, but there wasn't a bus early enough. I managed to bruise my arm dropping my bag as it's near on 30kg now! Too heavy! We made our way into Bangkok in a taxi and then went out for the afternoon. We walked down the famous Koh San Road, which isn't like I thought it would be. I imagined it to be far more lively than it is. We wondered down to the palace but couldn't get in as needed trousers on. By this time it was starting to rain again and I needed a wee! (Just for you Lizzy, I know you like the details!) So, we'd refuse the con tuk tuk, but then ended up getting in one anyway. They entise you in and then take you to shops to try and get you to buy stuff. Anyway, for 15p I got to go to the loo, 4 temples and yes, a few shops...but we didn't buy anything, hence why we think the man just ditched us at a temple! Anyway, after a long wet walk, getting lost and getting into another tuk tuk we got back to the hotel!!
In the evening we went back along the Ko san Road, still wasn't particularly busy and then we stayed up to watch the football. We got talking to a guy from Kenya, he was teaching English in angkok, really interesting talking to him. I ended up going to bed about 4am ish before the extra time of the football started. Ian arrived in on his birthday at 7:30am.
As you can imagine ian didn't want to get up on his brithday, he was rough and it was about 1pm before we got out of the room. We got a taxi to the Siam shopping centre which took ages as the traffic in Bangkok is rediculous. I got Ian a present, I had already bought him a market tshirt! I carried a cake and candles with me as I thought we could have a nice lunch, but Ian was too ill to eat! We came back in a tuk tuk and then went out for dinner, i gave Ian his cake then. We then had to sort our stuff out for the move to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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Chiang Mai

2007-04-30T14:04:40Z

After exchanging some more books to read Ian and I started our mission of a journey to get to Chiang Mai. It started off with a taxi to the port, a bus to a different port and had we been even a minute later we would have missed it and all our connecting transport! Got on the ferry to Don Sak, and a bus back to Suret Thani. We waited around for 4 hours in Suret Thani, we were told the bus to Bangkok would pick us up from the tour agents...oh no, we were bundled into another tuk tuk and off we went, half an hour later than expected. Our bus left Suret Thani at 7:30pm and having no sleep at 5am we arrived in Bangkok. We got a taxi to the airport in order to get our flight to Chiang Mai...it was the worst taxi ride of my life. The taxi driver was either drunk, or completely crazy! I hope the latter! Anyway, we got to the airport kind of safe and then found out we were at the wrong airport. So, picked all our bag back up and got in another taxi to the right airport. Got there abouy 6am and had to wait until 11am for check in...I did the airport tramp sleeping look for an hour!!...don't worry Mum, Ian watched the bags while he read his book that he couldn't keep his head out of! Finally we arrived in Chiang Mai at about 4pm at a cheap guest house with rooms which was lucky! We rested for a while in our lovely airconditioned room. In the evening we went to the night bizarre and had some more street food, price going down...only 35p!
Wednesday we got up late and then went for some food, we decided to ask a tuk tuk to take us on a city tour. Only it was his own special city tour...he took us to the jewellery shops of Chiang mai and all the handy craft centres. After we reluctantly walked around those places (not in the city) I then showed him the map and told him to take us back to the city! He did! We went to see some more temples, Ian was delighted with that! The weather was scortching, about 43 degrees, that's why we didn't just fancy walking around the city. It rained in the evening, and when I say rained, the heavens actually opened! It was much nicer though, really cleared the air. Thursday we just chilled out and sat by the pool after being lazy and getting up late, the weather really closed in again and it went really cloudy and hot. Each evening we've been to the night bizarre, it's so cool looking around there, see something new every night. We've also been going to a pancake man after our cheap dinner, I asked him for lemon and sugar on Wednesday and Thursday night and he didn't have it, but Friday we went back and he had the lemon and sugar for me!
Friday we went on a one day trek tour, first we went elephant riding, that was really cool. When we were on the elephants one of the others got loose, this elephant was running wild...so guess whos elephant man went to the rescue??yes, ours! So we had no man on our elephant for a while, it was pretty scary, but he was very obedient. We then bought some bananas and fed our Nelly as a treat! From there we went to a small village and met some locals, there was some small children playing in a concrete hut, they were so cute. We walked from there to Maewang waterfall and had a swim, much needed. We walked from there to Kareng village, another small village, the children were running up asking us to buy bracelets, I was soft and bought one, but then they all wanted me to buy one! The people in the village were all weaving and making scarfs, they were really nice. The coolest thing were the chickens and pigs and the little piglets! We left there and went for some lunch, traditional Thai soup, more rice and fruit! We left after lunch and went bamboo rafting which was totally hilarious! We were going down the river in the rain and then we hit a really rocky rapid!...our raft got stuck while Ian was trying to steer the back and paddle, we were almost in! Was funny! The boy guiding our raft was only about 10, and he was incredibly strong. As we went by all the local people were splashing us...as if we needed that, we were already soaked from the rain and the bad paddling of John! Then what can I say, I just sat in the middle and enjoyed the ride! We left there and headed back to Chiang Mai.
At the weekend, we spent the days by the pool, on Sunday we had Thai massage which was pretty cool. Lady was concerned about my back. It cracked enough though so I think she made it better! We went to two different night markets, both of which were really cool and cheaper than the night bizzare that we've been to the rest of the week! I had my portrait done on Saturdau night, although I don't think it looks like me at all! Ian thinks it looks like Steph off Neighbours. It was quite embarassing as loads of people were watching and then another artist sat down and started to draw me too. So, not sure if the portrait will make it back home. Today we've been to cookery school, which was lots of fun and I managed to burn my hand...not so fun! It's ok though, no need to worry! I do need to worry about how much I ate though as we HAD to eat everything that we made. So at 11am I was eating Pad Thai, at 12:30pm I had my very own Spring rolls and Tom Yam soup. By 2pm we had made a green curry and stir fried chicken with cashew nuts and rice, so we ate that. I was collapsed on the floor about to give birth to something Thai at that point!! We had some different fruits and then at 3pm we had bananas in coconut....I was so so full! Had a good day though, and I'd love to come home and cook some thai food, only thing is there's so many ingredients and at home I won't get someone handing the ingredients to me and then doing my washing up too!!
We packed our bags when we got back, bough more stuff in Chiang Mai, so more money on excess baggage...oh well! We're off back to Bangkok tomorrow, we were going to head straight to Cambodia for a few days but think we may struggle to get all that way tomorrow. Therefore we're going to stay in Bangkok for a couple of nights and then head to Siem Reap in Cambodia about Thursday. It's Ian's birthday on Weds (getting old!) so don't really want to be travelling all that way on his birthday. Heard some not so great reports about Bangkok, so a bit sceptical at the moment, but we'll see how it goes.....
Chang Mai Internet and tours:http://www.travelhubchiangmai.com

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Koh Samui

2007-04-25T05:56:15Z

We got up and left Phuket in mini van about 7am, we drove in the van to Suret Thani where we waited for an hour to get our bus to the port to reach Koh Samui. Well, we thought a bus would arrive. Instead we got a tuk tuk and squeezed 13 people into it, bags on the roof. It wasn't very nice and I had a dead foot by the time we got dropped off again....and told to wait for another bus. So off we got, and then waited again, until we got a big coach downt to the port.Thankfully when we got to the port we were just in time for the ferry, got straight on board and off we went. On arrival at Koh Samui we couldn't find our taxi man, shortly after a nice thai man found him asleep in his van! So, we got into another van and went to Lamai beach to our hotel. The room was absolutely baking and it stayed that way for the 4 nights we were there. Trying to budget we got a room without a fan. Other than the room, the hotel was great, right on the beach with a pool aswell.
On Friady and Saturday we basically laid by the pool during the day and then walked down into the town in the evening. We've taken to eating at street vendors rather than restaurants as the food is so cheap, less than 50p a meal and it's really good and fresh too. So we've had food and then Saturday night we watched 3 games of football! Joy!! Sunday we went on a trip around the island of Samui, first visiting Mother and Grandfather Rock (photos I will not publish!) and then onto a monkey show. We got fresh coconut and watched the monkey climb the tree for coconuts. Then the sariest bit was holding the monkey!...I have a bit of a forced smile as I thought he might bite me or something!
From the monkey show we went to the Khunaram Temple where we saw a mummified monk, it was horrible, had been mummified the way he sat to meditate over 20 years ago. We then went to some waterfalls, we walked for about half an hour to get to them and I have never sweated so much. It was so so hot. When we got to the falls, they really weren't very impressive, so the sweating really wasn't that worthwhile! Seeing the elephants and the littel playful gibbon where we got dropped off were much more satisfying! the gibbon was so cute, he just kept jumping around allover everyone, his face was so sad when we left!
From there we went to Nathon Town, had some lunch and a little walk around. There wasn't too much there apart from a few shops. I bought a lovely big sunhat, which is already getting annoying to carry around!
We then went to see big buddha, and big it was! Outside the temple was a pile of bricks, you could donate some money and write your name on a brick to help fund building the temple. So, Ian and I wrote our name on a brick. Our last stop was the Plai Laern temple, a big huge statue with lots of arms, the area was in water with thousands of catfish in it. They were all coming to the surface for food. When we visited they were also in the process of building a huge laughing Buddha. The temple was really beautiful. In the evening we into the town back to the food carts and then watched the Villa game, why can't we win!!

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Ko Phi Phi

2007-04-25T05:55:45Z

We left Krabi and just aboard this strange open bus and bus surfed down to the port to get the boat. There were hundreds of people jammed onto this tiny boat to go to Phi Phi. It took about 2 hours to get there,and the 2 hours weren't very comfortable. We arrived in Phi Phi, found a room and then a little man put our bag on a big wheely thing and took them to our Up Hill Cottage. Sounds more special than it was! We were in the tsunami evacuation zone, so at least we were safe. Phi Phi is just like a little island village, small tourist resort with shops, restaurants and bars. There was a lot of construction going on there and seeing the pictures of what it was like after the tsunami, they've done well to get it looking like it is so fast. We went for some food, sat on the beach and then for a couple of drinks to watch the football...great! Met a couple of Villa fans in the pub who live right next to my Grandma and Grandad, which was random, small world!! We went to bed and were woken at 4am by the loudest thunder I have ever heard, it was so scary, I wondered what was happening. I thought the building was going to fall down! The next day the weather was beautiful and we had a wonder around the town and then sat on the beach for the afternoon, it was really hot. In the evening we met up with Kaz and Nikki who we met in Krabi, had a few drinks and watched some more football!
Monday the weather was pretty dull but we booked to go on a boat trip. Kaz and Nikki decided not to go because of the weather, but we had to as it was our last day on Phi Phi. It turned out to be a good day really as it would have been too hot if the sun was blazing. We first stopped to see some monkeys and did a bit of snokelling, I sat out the first snorkel as Ian went in and said it wasn't great. We then went off in the longboat to Bamboo island, we threw rice at white crabs and watched them carry it along the beach. I went snorkelling and got a little scared as I was surrounded by thousands of small fish. Everywhere I looked or swam they were there. I soon got out of the water, but went back in to combat my fear! We cruised then to the north of Phi Phi Don, the island we were staying and jumped in the sea for a snorkel. The coral and the fish were amazing, loads of colourful fish and one which was huge. I got a bit freaked out by the long tailed black sea urchin with illuminous orange eyes, I was scared it was going to prick me! I was getting so close to the coral and the fish, it was great. From the really good snorkelling we went to Phi Phi Lay, this is the island where 'The Beach' is filmed. We went by some caves, which people had set up home in. The sea was crystal clear, it was beautiful. We took a little walk around and did some more snorkelling which wasn't even close to being as good as the last place. We watched the sun go down and cruised back to Phi Phi Don. It was a good day out, great to do some more snorkelling. We went for some food and then chilled for the evening.
Left Phi Phi, the man wheeled our stuff down to the port and then when we got there it started to pour with rain, we made it just in time! Only got a bit wet. The boat to Phuket was far better than that from Krabi, it was actually a proper ferry. We arrived in Phuket later than scheduled, but got a van to Patong Beach. Arrived at a hostel and luckily managed to get a room, I didn't fancy wondering around in the rain trying to find somewhere. We had a walk around Phuket and my first impressions weren't very good! It's really touristy and full of retired men and common people! (to put it nicely!) It's expensive too, which is not how Thailand is meant to be. When it stopped raining we sat on the beach for the afternoon and stayed and watched the sun set. The evening in Phuket was even more bizarre, it's very hard to even put the place into words. People joke about old men with Thai girlfriends, well we sat outside a bar in Patong beach and just watched the world go by. Caberet shows, lady boys, thai boxing and white men walking down the street with up to 3 Thai girls on their arms. It's crazy. We sat at breakfast this morning and apart from Ian and I there were just single guys in there or with their Thai lover, I just can't understand it. I'm actually getting very irritated by it all, I don't know what's worse really, the ugly white men with the girls, or the sad Thai girls. Anyway, I would only recommend Phuket to people just to see the strange goings on, otherwise the place is not nice. It's like being in Magaluf, but a lot worse! Thankfully we're leaving here tomorrow, I can say this is one place I won't be coming back to! The one thing that is interesting is the photos around of the tsunami and how this place was destroyed, you'd never know it had happened. Tonight I'm sure we'll spend the evening in disbelief again watching all the strange people (I don't know, maybe I'm the strange one here!). We're leaving here at 7am to go to Ko Samui on the eastern side of Thailand.

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Thailand

2007-04-14T06:23:49Z

We left Penang early with 10 of us jammed into a mini bus. We crossed the border fine, but had to pay to get into the country as it was apublic holiday. It's Songkran the buddhist new year. Can you believe they charged us 15p...bloody cheek hey! 3 and a half hours later we were dropped in a place called Hai tao in Thailand. We soon realised that we didn't really want to be standing around as Songkran is where all the locals just have a 2 day long water fight!! Blessed with water for the new year. It was complete carnage everywhere, traffic jams, people on trucks just driving around throwing water over people and people at the sides of the roads with water guns. Anyway, we had to wait at a place in order to get another mini bus to Krabi. I needed some money as I had no thai baht, so I thought I would walk to the cash machine. People were all nice to begin with, sprinkelling me with a few drops of water and oils to say happy new year and then I just started getting buckets of water tipped over me. I was absolutely drenched! I came back dripping...the worst of it was that the cash machine wouldn't give me any money! We got in a mini bus with a crazy driver and it took us ages to get out of Hai tao as the streets were just grid locked with people throwing water and white powder all over everyone and the cars. I felt most sorry for the people on the mopeds! On our way to Krabi thre mopeds were getting stopped and blessed in every town we passed through.
We arrived in Krabi after the drive with a bit of a mad man and got here about 6pm, so we travelled all day. Went to get some money and still the cash machines wouldn't work. I phoned the bank as there was Ian and I and a couple who couldnt get money and we had nothing between us. Friday 13th and a problem with visa and getting soaked! Great. We waiting ages, and as it was a holiday there was nowhere to change money either. Luckily I had a non visa card and got some money so we could get some food and a few drinks with Kaz and Nikki. Thankfully visa did eventually sort out their problem!!
We're just waiting around at the moment as we are waiting for our boat to go to Ko Phi Phi, the island where 'The beach' was filmed.

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Penang

2007-04-14T12:17:17Z

We got up fairly early and took a taxi to the bus station in Kuala Lumpur. We arrived at 8:30am as they told us to and still be 9am we were boarding the wrong bus! The bay they told us to get on at had the wrong bus in it...we had a bit of a panic as we didn't want to miss it, but then it turned up about 10 mins late. So, on we got, bus looked fairly good, ok inside. We sat on the bus for 45mins while different people got on and off, people were chucked off and asked to move seats, luckily we managed to stay on the bus and in the seats that we were in. So, and hour late we headed north to Penang, an island off the North west coast of Malaysia. We were going about 30mph and the bus was making terrible noises, and we didn't stop for 4 hours and there was no toilet on the bus! Anyway, we had a short toilet stop and a couple of hours after we arrived in Penang...not in George town where we wanted to be though! Some man took us and another man in his van to George town and dropped us on Love lane. Some luck came our way when we were dropped right outside a nice guesthouse all very new inside and very cheap too, bonus!! We got into the room and then decided to go out and get some food as we thought we'd have a stop on the bus, but didn't so hence hadn't eaten all day. In KL we ate in the mall as recommended by lonely planet, so we thought we'd try the food in the mall in Penang...bad move. The duck looked lovely in the picture so Ian and I chose the same dish, mistake! The duck was like all the bad bits of a duck churned together and even the rice tasted nasty, and how can rice be nasty!!....Believe me it was! So, we picked at the food and then decided we really couldn't eat it, so we went somewhere and paid a pound for a meal rather than 50p!!! They do say you get what you pay for! To top off the bad day we went to the cinema and watched a very bad film with English subtitles, I'll say no more!
Thursday we spent the day looking around Penang, we ended up going to most of the places on the Penang Heritage trail, but weren't actually planning to do the trail. We went to a couple of temples, a mansion and then to the Penang museum which was actually quite good and fairly interesting. From there we walked down to Cornwallis fort, where we saw the obvious, some cannons and there was a small gallery there and a prison cell which Ian locked me in!! We visited another temple and a mosque and then went down to the shopping centre where I was very naughty and bought 4 pairs of shoes. The shoes in this very nice shop were beautiful and I just had to do it, it was the shop I resisted in KL, but I couldn't do it again! The most exciting part of the day was getting back from the mall, we got on a trishaw. It was fab, I loved it. Currently trying to upload the video, but not sure it's going to work on this slow computer! In the evening it chucked it down with rain yet again and we just made it to the red garden food court before we got soaked!

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Malaysia

2007-04-10T14:20:30Z

Hey all, hope everyone had a nice easter weekend. I didn't do anything for easter although I did manage to have half a bar of dairy milk!
The hostel we're staying at in Kuala Lumpur is really nice, 'The Haven Guesthouse' I'd recommend it. Only thing is the nocturnal guy that has been in our dorm for the past couple of nights, I didn't get too much sleep last night.
Yesterday we spent the day exploring the city and one day was enough really, there isn't heaps to do here. The night we arrived we went to look at the Petronas Towers (twin towers), looked really spectacular at night although from where we were standing there was lots of buildings in the way of them. So, on exploration of the city we saw an advert in the hostel for a free city tour. We walked a few kms to the pick up point to find that it wasn't running and we needed to book on. From there we did our own city tour, heading first to the Menara KL tower. The 4th largest in the world (Number 1 is the CN tower in Canada which I went up 2 years ago). We took the lift to the observation platform and got an MP4 player (all mod cons here!) to watch and listen about the city. It was pretty cool. We got some good views although it was misty because it was raining around the tower. The view of the towers was pretty cool, as you can see in the photos.
From the tower we headed to China town and then to another street to visit a couple of temples. From the temples to the train station which is great architecture and then onto the National Mosque. I didn't think the mosque was all that great really as it was quite modern and I prefer the older style islamic mosques, we could see an amazing one from the tower. We couldn't go in the mosque as it was prayer time. From the mosque we headed to central market and then back through china town, by this time it was about 9pm and the place was really bustling with people. Lots of men saying 'I give you good price'! From the first whole day here we saw loads and I really like the city, it's very metropolitan.
Today we ventured back down to the towers, we found the good place to take photos. They were really amazing. We spent some time in the shopping centre at the bottom of the towers and then spent the rest of the day touring other shopping centres. On the one floor of the shopping centre you had all the big names, Mont Blanc, Hugo Boss, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Guess, and many more...I couldn't afford to be there! On that floor you had to pay to go to the toilet and on the other 6 you didn't...cheek! However we did go into the Louis Vuitton shop later today so that we could have a look at a real bag as we've seen so many fakes! To be honest, the fakes look exeptionally good! So, we've spent most of the day in just 3 of the many malls in Kuala Lumpur, they are huge! We went to the top floor of the Times Square shopping mall for our dinner. Lovely food and only cost a quid, bargain!! This shopping centre was huge, the food was on floor 10 and there was a theme park running from floors 5-10. It had a really big roller coaster, have to say I'm not sure I'd have wanted to go on it. There was also a bowling alley and cinema, not to mention the hundreds of shops! It's crazy as I don't see how so many malls can keep making money as there wasn't a great deal of people in them.
Oh, by the way, weather's still humid and overcast and currently raining!
Tomorrow we're catching the bus early in the morning, heading for Penang, north west Malaysia. Hope all's well, lots of love xx

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Singapore

2007-04-10T13:13:55Z

We arrived in Singapore after a nice Qantas flight, cabin crew weren't quite as miserable as on previous flights. We also got a whole bar of dairy milk rather than just a bite size one...bonus! After eating the food Ian and I both decided to save our chocolate. Anyway, I'm glad I did because as we got off the plane I started to get really bad stomach ache. The subway and walk to our hostel as far too much effort and by the time I got to the hostel I had full on bad tummy. We booked an 8 bed dorm over the internet, only to find that the room had 16 beds, just what I needed when I felt so rubbish! So, I spent all night being sick, drinking water and crying with pain, and also watching and listening to 14 other people coming into the room at different times in the morning, and of course lots of snoring...I hate dorms! We managed to change rooms in the morning to a 5 bed dorm where I spent much of the day sleeping. Managed to get up in the evening and go down and watch a dvd.
The following day I didn't feel great but didn't want to waste any more time in Singapore so we got out for about midday and went to explore. We went down to the river and had a look around the Singapore art gallery was pretty good although Ian doesn't like abstract art which causes a few ructions. From there I was struggling to stand up as I wasn't feeling great so we walked to the famous 'Raffles hotel'. We had lunch there, we managed to get our lunch and a drink for cheaper than a big mac meal or boots meal deal, so it had to be done. A good start to getting my appetite back. We left Raffles and went down to Merlion park where we expected to see green grass, there was none of that though. The Merlion is Singapore's land mark, it's a big concrete fish with a lions head. After we went on a boat tour down the Singapore river, it was a really good way to see the city + I didn't have to walk anymore! Clarke Key was really nice with lots of bars and restaurants,looked lovely from the river. After our boat journey we returned to the hostel on the subway and spent the evening relaxing.
Friday we headed to the island south of Singapore city 'Sentosa', we got the subway to the harbour front and then got an extremely high cable car over to the island. There was a cruise ship docked in the port and we went over it, it was huge, 4 spas, pool, basket ball court, mini golf all on the top deck that we could see. We had a good view of the city from the cable car. When we got to the island it was packed and we soon realised that it was a bit too touristy! We sat on the beach for a couple of hours doing a bit of cloud bathing! We left the island and on the way back went along the river, taking some photos of the banks. We went to the Asian Civilisation museum at the cheap time between 7-9pm, but didn't sepnd long there as we both found it rather boring so we headed back to the hostel.
Saturday was a bit of a job day, post office, booking bus and hostel for Kuala Lumper and job applications for myself. We went out down to Clarke Quay about 4pm, we got some food in Hooters! I lived in Nottingham for 4 years and never went to Hooters, but we were in need of some non Asian food! We looked around the shops and then got the subway and a bus to the Night Safari Zoo. Got there about 8pm, it was really cool. Saw lots of animals, mainly nocturnal. There were lots of deer, buffalos, giraffes, zebra, bats, lions, but my favourite was the leapords that we got to see really close up and the asian elephant with huge tusks. On the way back from the night zoo, Ian dropped his wallet on the bus, luckily we weren't too far from the bus office so he got it back. But we didn't arrive back at the hostel until about mid night.
I liked Singapore, but I'd like to go back there with lots of money as it's definately a big shopping place and a place to go out for nice meals and drinks on the river. It surprised me how everything was in English and how many people spoke excellent english. We left at 9am this morning (Sunday) for Kuala Lumpa and arrived here about 4pm. It was so hot in Singapore I could barely cope at times, just so humid and it seems KL is the same!

Singapore remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Bali

2007-04-02T09:07:27Z

After arriving in Denpesar and waiting what felt like forever to get our visa and go through passport control we found some little man who ripped us off to take us to our hotel. After a pretty scary ride, almost knocking people off their mopeds and running over about 20 dogs we arrived safely in ubud where we are staying. The driver insisted at the airport that he knew where our hotel was, but when we got to Ubud we spent a fair amount of time driving up and down one road trying to find the hotel. When we finally got to the hotel, noone was to be seen. I got it in my head that I would be sleeping outside, but soon a little security man found us and took us to a very nice room. It was about 1:30am, so we got straight to bed.
We got up and went for a wonder around Ubud, first visiting a small tourist information centre and almost being attacked by a monkey! Ubud is full of art shops and boutique type shops, I really like it. I could spend a fortune here, although it is really cheap. We went to the market, but decided that our first day we would just look, what a challenge that was to get through the market without buying anything! We sat by the pool for a couple of hours and then in the evening we went to a temple up the road. The Balinese women were performing, with a couple of men too. It was really good watching the dancing and the music was excellent too. A lot of the movement was with hands and they had pretty scary eyes. The clothes that they were wearing were beautiful, loads of bright colours, gold, turquoise, yellows and reds etc. We left the show and went for some food, I'm finding it very hard to believe how cheap the food is and it's really good.
Tuesday we went to the monkey sanctuary, they were so funny. It amazes me how much like humans they are. It made me laugh watching them inspecting eachothers hair and bottoms! They were playing around in the water and jumping off concrete statues, hilarious to watch. I really enjoyed seeing the monkeys, although I did manage to get eaten alive by mozzies which wasn't much fun and I itch like crazy! We had some lunch and then in the afternoon we went and looked along a different street, Ubud's much bigger than I thought it would be. We went to the market and I started bartering for a few things. I feel sorry for the people though so although I'm getting things cheap, I think I could get them for a better price. I did go back to a woman and buy some trousers as the day before she said i would have bad luck if I didn't buy anything from her....didn't want to be cursed forvever so I went back!! She did recognise me! We spent the evening having another nice meal and a few drinks.
We went on a tour on Thursday, booked on the day before and we were the only ones, so basically had a guy drive us around to different places for the day. First we visited the rice terraces which were totally spectacular, such beautiful scenery. We visited 4 temples which were all fairly similar, the Holy Water temple was my favourite though. There were hundreds of school children there bathing in the waters and the teachers just taking their clothes off (imagine that at home!...you'd lose your job no questions asked) They were just standing there in their bras and with no tops on! How rude, it was great to watch though and all the children were so excited and so polite to us, kept saying 'hello Miss', 'hello Sir' I felt like I was back at school again!
It amazes me how these people base their life around religion, 3 times a day they make offerings and burn insense, we visited one temple and there were literally hundreds of people decorating it ready for a celebration. There were people riding along on their mopeds in the rain with their offerings on their head, not forgetting 3 other family members on the moped! Talented! It was a good day out, we got to eat with a view of Butar volcano (the most expensive place we've eaten so far), but it was a wicked view.
Since we've been relaxing, I've read another book, had the most amazing Balinese massage and a not so great pedicure! We went to Kuta on Saturday, the tourist enclave, and that is was. We arrived in a taxi which took an hour from Ubud and it seemed to be pretty quiet. we hoped to spend some time sitting on the beach, but seemed little point with so much cloud! We looked around yet more shops and markets and spent more money...but not too much for the amount we bought. Ian's really getting into his bartering now and is getting good at walking away and people will follow us down the street asking us to come back. The most interesting part of the day was when we returned and had a sit on the beach. We were surrounded by about 15 Indonesian School children wanting to practice their English. We had to write in their little book and tell them that their english was good...it was like being back at work, writing 'well done, tries hard'! They then all wanted their photo taken with us, I got one too though. From then it seemed we attracted different people on the beach, people were staring at us. As we were leaving a group of people asked if they could have their picture taken with us...how random! So there we were in the middle of this family having our photo taken, anyone would think we were famous. Don't get it! So, we stayed in kuta for the evening, treated Ian to watch a football game as didn't know if we could see it in Ubud. The funniest part to the day was on the way home, the taxi man didn't know how to get to Ubud, we were trying our best to give him directions through the back streets of Bali! Anyway, he stopped to ask some locals directions, got out of the car and forgot to put the handbrake on, so Ian and I were in the car slowly rolling back down the hill. It was hilarous and we both did a sychronised dive into the front to reach the handbrake...luckily we didn't roll too far and it was funny rather than tragic!
Sunday we just lazed around, went to the market again and tried to dodge the rain for the best part of the day. Ian had a call in the morning to say that he'd won a holiday and a woman wanted us to go to Nusa Dua, in the south of Bali. After confirming that it was time share we decided not to go. In the evening the woman rang back and Ian gave in and said we'd go down today. Last night we went to watch another wierd and wonderful show in a temple at the top of Ubud, we were running a bit late and were speed walking up the road when a lovely Balinese boy offered us a lift....on his moped! So we hopped on and had a very safe ride, it was great fun! The show was good, slightly strange and one guy particularly crazy, he was walking through coconuts that were on fire...lots of pain I can imagine! This show was mainly men like the other show that we went to last week and I managed to count about 80 men, can't believe how many there were.
So, this morning we got up and went down for the timeshare talk in Nusa Dua. When we got there the guy realised as Ian said on the phone that we weren't interested. So we had our free breakfast, got the money for our car down there and Ian got his free accommodation pack and off we went without listening to anything! The best part was the fact that they paid for a driver, so we stopped in Kuta again on the way back, so we could do a bit more shopping!! The ride home wasn't great as it seemed to take forever, but we did get to see some more of Bali, Legian, Seminyak and a few other places. It's quite good here for the villages, every village has a different trade, so we drove through villages of kites, stone works, wood carvings, roof tiles, wood wind chimes and other random specialist villages.
So, our last night in Bali tonight. Ian thinks we should stay up until 4am to watch the Villa game, but I'm not convinced! Tomorrow we fly to Singapore and then have about 6 weeks to get to Bangkok, travelling through Malaysia and Thailand.

Bali remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Good bye from Australia

2007-03-25T03:59:51Z

Arriving in Darwin we were pretty shattered after the last night out in Cairns, so got an early night. We hired a car, so drove from the airport into the very small city centre. We hired the car as we planned to venture down to the Kakadu National park. As the area has been hit by a cyclone in the last couple of weeks, the main highway bridge into the national park was closed. We decided to still go, but as we were driving past Litchfield National Park on the way we stopped off and had a little look around there. I was so glad we did as the waterfalls that we saw were totally amazing. Our first stop was the magnetice termite mounds, termites are just big ants and I find it so hard to believe that they can create such a mound of what is just feaces and saliva...lovely!! Some of the mounds were up to 6 metres tall. They were all around the area, there must be millions of the little buggers!
We then headed further into the park to Florence falls, I was so surprised at just how spectacular they actually were. I felt like I was at a mini Iguasu, it was great. We walked down the 170 stairs to the bottom of the falls, but we didn't swim as I forgot my bikini and didn't fancy walking back up and down those stairs again! When walking back from the falls there was a gage and it was 34 degrees and about 98% humidity....we thought it was warm!!
From Florence falls we went to Tolmer Falls, as we were driving there the rains came again so we decided to stay in the car and have some lunch instead. While it was raining we drove down to Tongi Falls where I have never seen anything like it. The place looked totally devastated, it was completely flooded. The swimming had also been closed as there were crocodile sightings. Because it was so flooded we had to wade through water to get to the boardwalk in order to go to the lookout. I was pretty scared I was going to get eaten by a croc! We survived anyway! But, I have never seen so much water! The water was right up to the boardwalk which has stilts of a few metres and the tops of the trees were just sticking out the top of the water.
Obviously the waterfalls were totally amazing, the amount of water was incredible. Unfortunately I have run out of photo space on my site for this month so can't provide anymore photos. I wish I could as I'd love to share the experience with you all. Anyway, we went back to the car, getting pretty wet as it was still raining and went back to Tolmer Falls. It was raining but not quite as heavy as before so we walked down to more breath taking water falls in a huge steep sided valley with a great big blow hole in the top. It was awesome.
From there we left Litchfield national park and made our way down the Stuart highway....only 4500kms from Adelaide! Passing the great big road trains which are 3 large lorries put together, actually pretty scary to drive past! It rained all the way and at about 5:30pm we stopped at a place called Adelaide river where we set up camp for the night. Well, we sat in the car for almost an hour waiting for it to stop raining before we put the tent up. We managed to get it up eventually and then spent the evening sitting in the bar playing cards as Adelaide river had nothing to offer other than that! It was quite a scary place, full of loads of big fat toads jumping around. We went to bed pretty early, didn't sleep well at all and it didn't help with Ian waking up in the night and being convinced that trees were people! I had to tell him that there were no people outside the tent and then got myself pretty scared!!
We woke up sweating from the heat, jumped out and got a shower. Although there was no point as we just felt disgusting again by the time we got on the road.
We drove to Kakadu National Park and stopped at the ranger station just inside the park. We were hoping to head north and be able to go back on the road that was closed, but it's not due to open for about another 6 weeks! Several other roads in the park were closed and to be honest the area looked totally wiped out, all the trees were on their sides. As the roads were closed we weren't going to see the attractions that we wanted to so we went to a couple of lookouts....saw our first snake in OZ and then drove back towards Darwin. We camped at a place called Howard Springs for the night.
Again we woke up boiling hot. We drove back towards Darwin stopping in a village called 'Parap' to go to the local market. It was a pretty cool market, just the usual jewellery, fruit and veg, Asian foods, bags, paintings etc. We got back to Darwin and had a wonder around, I decided to get my hair cut! That set me back a few pennies, but I wasn't feeling too good about my hair, so thought I should get it done. Last night we met up with Emma and Lynsey, the girls who I spent Christmas and new year with. It was great to see them, we went for something to eat and had a few drinks. I can't believe that it's been 2 months since I've seen them, it's gone so fast. They are flying to india today, so we waved them off this morning and then we've had a look around Darwin. We haven't seen the sun in nearly 2 weeks, but it's now decided to shine the day we leave so it's been rather warm walkig around. Just going to relax this afternoon while we wait for our flight tonight to Bali. I'm a bit sad to be leaving Australia, have lots of great memories. Only place I wouldn't return to is Alice Springs...steer clear!! Couldn't tell you the best place as there's been so many of those. Looking forward to seeing some culture in Asia as there's not much of that here! Remember I have no phone now, so mail or leave me a message on here! I'll be back from Bali....xxxxxxxx

Good bye from Australia remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cape Tribulation

2007-03-20T01:46:01Z

We left Cairns at 7:30 in the morning, according to the driver the place where you party,sleep and get out during the daytime. I'd tend to agree as Cairns doesn't have much to offer in the city itself. We left our big bags in storage and took our over night bags with us up to Cape Tribulation. Our driver filled us with so much information, I'm now definately going to be the best teacher of rainforests ever! We stopped in the mossman Gorge, the first section of tropical rainforest. This was far better rainforest than the Atherton Tablelands. It was raining which meant that the forest looked so lush and green and so dense, it was fantastic. We also saw mangroves, where the vegetation grows from the salt water. From the Gorge we went to a small animal sanctury where we saw Cassowary birds,snakes, crocodiles and I got to have a black parrot on my shoulder. Not ony that, we had the best bacon and egg roll ever! The guy also had a snake in pillow case, he'd just been out to some womans house to get a snake out...it was in her bedroom! I touched the snake, in the sealed pillowcase!!
From there we went up to the Daintree National park, went to some lookouts and learnt some more about rainforests...in between battling to stay awake on the bus! We went across the daintree river on a pull ferry and then to some more mangroves further north in the national park. From there we made our way to Cape Tribulation where we stayed for the night. In Cape Tribulation we went for a walk along the beach, we were told not to go in the water as there are stingers and crocodiles. Ian and I had to cross a creek though in order to get to the lookout, it was only shallow, but I was so scared of getting eaten by something! On the way we walked through more mangroves and there were thousands of red crabs wondering around amongst the trees. We got to Cape Tribulation beach safely and went up to the lookout so see across the beach. I think it would have been more spectacular if the weather was better. Cape Tribulation was small to say the least, consisting of about 5 hostels/hotels, one shop and a pharmacy. We spent the evening playing cards with a few other people in the hostel. Yesterday we got up and spent the morning around the pool, cloudbathing! We organised to go to the bat house, which we later found out was closed on Mondays, gutted! We got back on our tour bus at 2pm and headed back towards Cairns. On the way we stopped at an icecream shop where thay had random tropical flavours such as wattleseed. I stuck to the mango one. From there we made our way back to the Daintree river where we went on a Crocodile cruise. It was fun spotting crocs, we managed to see about 4, 2 larger ones and 2 small ones. The baby ones were so cute, didn't look like they'd hurt a fly! Spot the baby below:
We left there and went to a fruit shop on the way back, the highlight wasn't the fruit, but the baby roo's/wallabies! They were gorgeous, I got to feed the smallest baby. They were hanging up in peg bags in the fruit shop, really sweet. On the way back we had a whistle stop tour around Port Douglas, seems like a lovely place, nice harbour, although 4 mile beach wasn't the most amazing beach. We arrived back in Cairns, checked back into the hostel and then went out for our free meal. Pretty good, cheapest hostel we've stayed in in Australia and you get free dinner!
Ian's gone rafting today, but I didn't really fancy being thrown out of a dingy! With all the rain up here I think it would be far too scary and I'm not the biggest fan of going under water so I left him to it! I'm spending the day looking in the art gallery, going around the shops and lazing around, if the rain manages to stay away for long enough. So, Darwin tomorrow and then fly from Australia to Bali on Sunday, OZ is almost over!

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Magnetic Island and the Atherton Tablelands

2007-03-17T03:12:21Z

After bus, ferry and another bus ride we arrived on Magnetic Island to our beach side backpackers resort. It was all very nice...apart from the rain. We chilled out and dodged the rain for a few days, managing to venture from the hostel once to go to the shop! We woke up to pouring rain, I got totally soaked through trying to get to the washing machine, I might as well have got in it! Anyway, we did the washing had free breakfast and when the rain stopped we took out a kayak onto the sea and had a little sail on the sea. There wasn't much to see though and I was pretty scared of getting eaten by a shark or stung by a ray so we didn't stay out too long. We sat by the pool and then in the eveing managed by chance to make friends with the barman who provided us with free drinks all night...bonus! It was very windy, lightening and lots of rain during the night. The following day we left the island and headed to Cairns on our last Greyhound journey. It rained most of the way to Cairns and we got drenched getting our stuff from the bus to the hostel. We went and had our free hostel meal and a drink and then headed to bed early as we were tired.
We got up early on Friday and boarded Gus the bus part of Uncle Brians tour to the Atherton Tableland. It was possibly the funniest day I've had in a long time, thanks to cousin Paul. Cousin Paul was the guy who drove Gus around and he was so so funny. He was just cracking jokes all day and telling us random stories. We went to different parts of the rainforest around Cairns,Babinda Boulders, Josephine falls where people got to rock slide. We then had a jouney to Mr lunch, on the way we had to play silly games, passing a polo on matchsticks from mouth to mouth and cousin Paul had a box of mindgames which kept us all amused. We got to Mr Lunch's place, where we had been hyped up abouth seeing his dog and the previous day it had got run over...cousin Paul put his foot in it! We had chicken and cous cous and lovely fresh baked bread. After lunch we left there and went to Millaa Millaa falls where the timotei advert was filmed and also Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl. The falls were very impressive. From there Cousin Paul put on the tunes and we sang all the way to lake Eacham. Due tot he fact that it was raining for most of the day I hadn't been swimming yet as it was too cold. I was the first to jump into the lake, and it was really nice...until we got out and had a look down into the water to see huge Crayfish which so easily could have eaten my feet!!( They're like lobsters) We did a bit of turtle spotting and had hot chocolate and then made our way to try and find some platypus. We saw a couple but they were a bit far away to get any photos. From the Platypus cousin Paul put on the tunes and we rocked all the way home...a long funny day! I had a great time.

Magnetic Island and the Atherton Tablelands remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands

2007-03-12T08:27:14Z

Gooday and welcome back to my webpage! (Think the sun may have got to me!)
Well, we arrived in Airlie Beach after the over night bus journey, which wasn't actually too bad. My back is better, but I am sitting here and I feel like I'm floating, due to the fact that I've been on a boat for the past couple of days!
We spent a couple of days in Airlie beach just chilling and sitting by the lagoon down by the beach front in Airlie beach. First couple of days were hot, but fairly cloudy so weren't feeling it too much. We are camping at the moment again and each night it always managed to rain, so Ian was darting out of the tent at 4 in the morning to get our clothes off the line!...quite amuzing! We met up with Vicky who I lived with at uni for a couple of hours before her and Shane went on their sailing trip, was really nice to see Vicky, can't manage to ever meet up in England, but we managed it across the other side of the world. Been about 3 years since I saw her! But it was cool to share travelling stories and find out what the places are like that we're going to as Vicky has just come from South East Asia. So, we didn't do much while waiting for our trip out to the islands on Saturday.
We left with 40 other people on our boat out to the Whitsunday islands. We soon realised that the island cruising was going to turn into a big party over a few days! We sailing straight to South Molle Island, one of the biggest island, that was where we were sleeping for the 2 nights. I ended up in a room with Ian and 4 other 18 year old boys, joy! We headed to the pool for a while, Ian went in and I took some photos as the sun went down. We then went to dinner....queing with over 100 other people! Thankfully it was ladies first, although I'm not too sure what the boys thought to that! We played drinking games after dinner and had a few drinks. Weren't too late to bed, however, the boys decided to have a small party on our balcony...don't worry! Granny Austin and Grandad Boon soon moved them on so we managed to get to sleep!!
We got up the following day, breakfast at 7am. Very early, but very pleased to see bacon and eggs on the menu! Fantastic view of the sea while eating breakfast and we got to share it with the colourful locals pictured below!
It was so cool, and the birds were really cute and friendly...I did get slightly scared when the fluttered in my face! But, it was all good!
We were on the boat by 8am and sailing to White Haven beach where we spent a couple of hours on the beach and had a bit of a snorkel, but there wasn't much to see around the area. We got into our stinger suits which you have to wear if you're swimming in the Whitsundays and jumped off the boat and swam to the beach. When back on the boat we had a lovely lunch, nice cold meats and salads and then spent about 4 hours sailing back to the island. We were straight in the pool when we got back to South Molle Island. Got ready for dinner and straightened my hair for the first time in months. Lisa a girl on the boat travels with a hair dryer and straighteners. Only, I wasn't very impressed, as it was so hot it just went wavey again! Lisa and I went down to dinner and then Ian came down about 10 mins later limping. He's gone over on his foot, so now has a very swallen ankle. So, he sat at dinner with ice on his foot! Same again as previous night, drinking games and then a few drinks. Only, the 18 yr olds couldn't hack 2 nights in row, they were in bed by 9:30pm! I didn't drink much, but went to bed about 1am.
Today we were up early again, I'm totally shattered. We had breakfast with the birds again and then got on the boat. We sailed to some coral reef. Got back in our suits and jumped off the boat and went snorkelling, the fish were cool, but the coral was even more beautiful. We had fun swimming around, bought an underwater camera so got some shots of the fish and coral. Unfortunately I can't download from a disposable camera!! Once we'd finished watching fish we climbed aboard and had some lunch. Then we sailing back to Airlie Beach, arriving back about 2pm. It has been so hot over the past couple of days, I can't actually bear to sit in it anymore! Think I've well and truely topped up my tan and I have a sore hip, obviously missed that bit when applying my factor 30!...bet you don't believe me, but we have been using 30 suntan lotion. Getting off the boat they inform us of more partying tonight, the boat has an area reserved in a bar in Airlie beach tonight...great! I'm so tired!. We walked up the hill back to the place where we're camping, don't think I've ever perspired so much in my life!! I was so hot. Last time I remember sweating so much was in Italy when I was 9, I'm sure my family can vouch for that! So, we went straight in the pool, set up our tent, then walked down to the lagoon and in the pool again! Since then just laying in the shade as the sun is killing me off!! Meeting up later with the people we met on the boat, hopefully a tame night!
Tomorrow we're getting on the bus at 9am and going to Townsville, about 5 hours away. We'll then get a ferry to Magnetic island where we're staying for 2 nights before our final leg of the east coast up to Cairns. There's loads to do in Cairns and further north so we're spending a week up there. We fly to Darwin on the 21st for 4 days and then Australia will be over

Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Hervey Bay- Fraser Island

2007-03-07T03:48:47Z

Another early morning leaving Maroochydore for a 6hour journey north to Hervey bay. We arrived in the afternoon and got ourselves sorted for our trip to Fraser Island the following day. We didn't take big bags so had to sort everything out and take minimum with us, not too difficult, bikinis short and a couple of vests! We went out for a few drinks in the evening, but didn't go to bed too late as we were due up before 6am again!!
We got up at 6am checked out and put our bags in a big locker. We then had to watch a video about Fraser Island, how to drive and camp safely. It was quite amusing, 40 people sitting in a room trying not to fall asleep at 7am listening to how to deal with a Dingo (wild dog) and where and where not to camp and drive etc. When we'd watched that with had half hour safety talk and then got put in our groups. We were very lucky as were in a group of 8 rather than 10, so more room in our van! We got in our van, I drove first and we went down to pick up all our camping gear. We got tents, stoves, cool boxes, roll mats, utensils and everything we needed for the few days. It took a while to load everything into the truck, but soon we were on our way to do the food run. Just imagine 4 lots of 8-10 people who have known each other for 5 minutes going around the supermarket buying 3 days worth of food together! It was absolutely hilarious, like being on big brother or something. At this point I already knew that one guy in the group was going to do my head in! Anyway, I think our shopping was pretty successful as everyone was happy with what we bought and we managed to not spent too much either. It was also quite funny listening to the other groups coming out moaning about eachother already! Anyway, we did well and managed to fit everything into the van, we drove down to the ferry and I had to back the van onto the ferry and we were on our way to the very sandy Fraser Island. We arrived there about midday and drove the length of the island up to Indian head, we took a walk up to the look out, fantastic views, but then it started to rain. On the walk we saw some huge spiders...and I mean huge. This big black spider had the biggest body I'd ever seen, it was incredible. Wanted to go close to take a photo, but I was too scared. I was completely amazed, it honestly was so huge. From Indian head I had my first scary sand ride to Champagne pools. The sand was pretty deep, got a bit stuck and had to just go for it up thei hill. The van was all over the place, but we made it! It was raining so I decided along with lots of other girls not to go in the pools as we didn't want to freeze! From Champagne pools we made our way half way down the island and set up camp for the night. There was all four trucks which set off together, so it was quite fun setting up and getting bbq's going. Only downer was that it rained on and off all evening and everyone had pools of water in their tents, so don't think people had the best nights sleep. Everyone was up before 8am and starting to pack things away, but we could go anywhere until the tide had gone out enough to move. We went down to a camp to have breakfast and wash our dishes from the night before. From there we went to see the Melino Ship wreck, Eli creek which as like a clear fresh water river and then to Lake Wabby. We didnt realise how long the walk to the lake was going to take us, but 45mins later we arrived at a beautiful warm lake with massive dunes. On the way we saw lots of big spiders again, they were horrible, but apparently not poisonous so I wasn't too scared!! It was like being in the desert at the top as all you could see was sand. We swam in the lake and then had to walk back from there, we all got back into our trucks and went to look for somewhere to set up camp for the night. A decision between 40 people really isn't easy I tell you!! After going to a couple of places it was getting dark and we ended up at the place where I said we should camp in the first place!! We got set up and I prepared and cooked Spaghetti Bolognaise for our group, the rain stayed away. We all sat around had some fun, lots of people singing different songs from different countries, it was quite entertaining! I didn't sleep well at all allowing me to get up at sunrise and take some shots! I sat on the beach for the morning and then we left camp and drove to Lake Mckensie. It was so beautiful, gorgeous white sand and clear blue waters. We had to cut our stop short as it started to rain. The picture below is of me and Jo, a girl from my van. At the lake it was so funny, some people were getting some food out of their van. The guy turned around and a dingo came over and grabbed a packet of biscuits from them and ran off. We were watching it and it was so funny when the guy realised what had happened! So, we were back on the ferry and arrived back in civilization about 5pm. Fraser Island was fantastic, but it was so nice to get back and have a shower after 3 days...minging! Last night was an early night as I was so shattered and I woke up this morning not being able to hardly move. I didn't think banging my back getting out of the van a couple of times could be so painful the following day. So, at the moment I'm feeling a little fragile with a bruised back and I'm sure the over night bus journey tonight is going to do me no good whatsoever!!

Hervey Bay- Fraser Island remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Brisbane-Maroochydore

2007-03-07T03:44:17Z

Brisbane was a bit of a chill out time, staying in the Irish lads lovely apartment. Went in their pool, spa and spent lots of time in the city looking around the shops. Managed to buy a dress, for Bec's wedding...posted it straight home! Other than that just bought some books and a lonely planet for the next South East Asia part of the journey. We sat out on their balcony in the evening having dinner which I prepared for the boys and a few beers. Oh, we also went to the cinema one night to see Music and Lyrics, the one with Hugh Grant...I loved it!!
On the Friday morning we were up at 5:30am in order to catch our 7am bus from Brisbane to Maroochydore. We stayed there for one night in order to go to the Australia Zoo (the Steve Irwin Zoo) which I know Lizzy would have loved so much. We arrived in Maroochydore, had our bags taken to the hostel while we got on another bus to the zoo. It was already a long morning. We spent the day at the zoo which was really cool, had a great day. The whole place is totally Steve crazy, the even have people dressed up with a big Steve head on. His family are photographed everywhere too. We looked along the memorial path where there's loads of tribute to him, it's really quite sad. I feel for his family. well less of the morbid stuff, I got to feed an elephant, stroke kangaroo's, pat koalas and touch tortoises. It was a great day out, although it was boiling hot and we sweated buckets sitting watching the tiger presentation. We left the zoo late afternoon and made our way back to the hostel in Maroochydore. The town was full of very noisy, but very beautiful colourful birds, thousands of them. We spent the evening watching Love Actually on the tv...a nice change.

Brisbane-Maroochydore remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Surfers Paradise

2007-03-07T02:41:37Z

We got the bus from Byron Bay, was a little sad to leave as I really liked it there...want to go back and jump out of a plane again! Anyway, we arrived in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast not long after we left as the clocks went back. So rubbush, it's summer, but dark by 7pm. We got to our camp site and as we were setting up the tent it started pouring with rain and we got very wet along with all our belongings! So, we ended up sitting in the tent for about 45mins waiting for it to stop pouring, all good fun! So, the Gold Coast wasn't looking too glam as we arrived on one of the few days in the Gold coast when it rains! Oh well, we got to burn cd's and do fun stuff like that!
The time in the Gold coast did get better, the sun started to shine. On Saturday we met back up with Dave again and went to Sea World together, we had a nice time there, watched sea lion and dolphin shows, went on a few rides and saw sharks and lots of other sea creatures. My favourite part though was seeing polar bears, they were most amazing to watch. I could have stood there all day watching them and I know that Dave could too. They were such big bears, i just wanted to give them a big cuddle! They were gorgeous. We cooked on the BBQ a few times as we have no pans, so unfortunately it has to be hot dogs and steaks!!
Sunday we spent by the pool, it was so hot though, I was sweating like a man! The pool at the camp site was really nice, in fact the camp site itself was rather nice....apart from the ground being too hard to put the pegs in! We went out down into Surfers Paradise in the evening, it was about half an hour walk from the campsite. We had some food, watched the street entertainers and had a drink in an Irish bar! Spoke to my Grandad as it was his birthday, got a bit sad with everyone getting together and I'm not there. Also had dreams about Becs wedding and meeting Ethan (Lizzy's little boy) last night, so think I must be missing home a little! Yesterday we went to Movie World, wasn't sure we were ever going to get there as 3 buses decided to drive straight past us. i was getting a little irritated having stood at the bus stop for 50 minutes waiting! When we finally got on the bus, we got to bus surf and were nearly thrown through the windscreen a few times....but all was good, we got there safe in the end! We met up with Dave at Movie world, my favourite part of the day was the Police Stunt show, it was awesome. the best ride was the Scooby doo ride, a rollercoaster in the dark, I loved it! We spent several hours, going on rides, getting wet on the log flume and watching a 4D Shrek show. We left Movie world and Dave took us down to Harbour town shopping Centre, a label discount shopping village....big mistake! I got quite stressed, saw so many nice things and at bargain prices too. Unfortunately travelling doesn't allow you to spend too much money on clothes! I bought myself a new bikini as I'll hopefully be wearing it lots over the next few weeks! We left the shopping village and got on the bus back to Main beach where we were staying...only to realise we weren't on the right bus. Not much luck with buses! So, we got off and went back the other way and it took ages to get back to the campsite. Got back, had our BBQ and then made our way down to the bus terminal. I fell asleep when waiting for the bus, then again when we got on the bus! We arrived in Brisbane about half ten, we walked to the hostel which almost killed me as we have so many bags. Then I went to sleep again!!
The irish lads who I spent Christmas and New Year with have just got an apartment here as they're planning to stay and work for a while, so we're just about to move to their place for a few nights. All's good, I'll be back with the Brisbane update in a few days! Sorry, no photos as I have run out of space for photos on my blog this month. I'll put some on in a few days! Miss you and love you all xxxx

Surfers Paradise remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Byron Bay

2007-02-23T05:32:39Z

Camping in Byron Bay has been cool, feel quite at home here with our little nylon home to go back to! The toilets are bug free and the camp site is right on the beach...couldn't get anymore perfect. Oh yes it can, the place is full of lovely dress shops and I finally got to fly!
We've spent our time looking around the shops and lazing on the beach, believe it or not, that's the first time I've had a bikini on and laid on the beach in over 2 months....what do travellers do hey!?
The highlight of my trip so far was getting up at 5:30am this morning and heading out of Byron Bay to the airstrip. We finally managed to even get to a skydive centre!

I got all prepared and the guy explained the process of jumping and the landing aswell. I'd forgotten it all by the time he'd said it! Anyway, off we went up in the small plane all jammed in like sardines in a tin! The journey to 14,000 feet took far longer than I expected, I was quite relaxed really. Far more so than i was on the ground..as my nerves show on the dvd. As soon as we reached 14,000 of we went, I was second out and Ian third. We both had camera people jumping with us! The feeling was incredible, freefalling through the sky for 70 seconds. It was truely amazing. It was pretty cold and then we hit an ice cold cloud which definitely was cold, I could barely breathe and I went a bit deaf as my ears weren't too impressed with the altitude. Whilst in the cloud Steve my man pulled the parachute and we flung into the air, then I really did feel like I was flying. Below the cloud it was far warmer, but it was raining. It was so awesome, just sitting comfortably, floating through the air...the best feeling ever!
My face looks crazy in the pictures, but it's going to when falling at 200kph! When at the bottom i just wanted to go back up and jump again! I like the way you can see the plane in the background! Moving on to Surfers Paradise tomorrow.

Byron Bay remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbours

2007-02-20T01:51:49Z

We spent a day in Port Macquarie and a day in Coffs Harbour, deciding to do flying visits so we can move further up the east coast and relax and have good times at the beach.
We got up pretty easly in Port Macquarie in order to make good use of our one day and to get around quicker we decided to hire some bikes, brand new,a bargain at only $5! So, we headed off on the bikes and my bottom was in agony after about 5 minutes, but it soon went numb and I got used to it!! We cycled down a small reserve called ' Koolongula' hoping to see bats, lizzards, and snakes, and we managed to see two lizzards, although we were going pretty quick on our wheels! We then headed down to the beach front and cycled along the coast, saw some big scary pelicans!...the new bikes weren't that great with rick solid sadles and new hand grips, my hands were red raw. After 2 hours I'd had enough of the bike, so we took them back! I decided I'd rather walk!
In the afternoon we went to the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie, they were so cute. Was thinking about adopting one, but decided I need the money too much right now! We had a lovely time, learnt lots about the animals, the blind Koala was my favourite. We were there for feeding time. But because it's a hospital you're not allowed to hold them.
We left Port Macquarie that night and arrived in Coffs Harbour about 1am. It's such a mission getting into a dorm and making beds without making too much noise. We got up and made the most of our day in Coffs Harbour, a much bigger place than we were expecting. We walked the 3km and back down into the town and back, went up to a lookout whcih gave some wicked views out over the beaches and then sat by the harbour and had ice creams. It was a good day, but I think it was only worth staying a day there as there wasn't really very much to see.

Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbours remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Sydney and the Blue Mountains

2007-02-20T01:40:12Z

As I said it was pouring with rain for a day in Sydney, but it managed to brighten up a bit although it was still quite overcast. When in Sydney we went to Olympic Park, went to the Sydney/Telstra Stadium where Jonny Wilkinson won us the world cup. The tour was pretty good, mainly focused on the 2000 Olympics, we got to stand on the Gold podium which was pretty cool. Went in the changing rooms and toured all around the grounds, it was cool. We originally wanted to see the cricket ground (well Ian did), but we went to completely the wrong place! The tour was fun anyway. From there we got the train to and a bus to the Famous Bondi Beach...it wasn't as great as I was expecting, think possibly because the weather was a little dull. But we sat on the beach for a while watching the surfers and had a look around the surf shops (not buying anything!!) Much of our eveing was spent planning our trip to the blue mountains and up the coast. The following day I had a lay in while Ian went to find the cricket ground, he went on a tour which he really enjoyed. In the afternoon we got the ferry to Manly from Sydney harbour and had an afternoon looking around there and sitting on the beach. Manly was lovely, but I'm feeling once you've seen one nice beach you've probably seen them all! It was great to sit and watch the surfers. The ferry on the way back into Sydney gave us some great views of the city, everything in view...it had to be at this point my camera ran out of battery! In the morning I'd had a surprise, randomly bumped into Steven one of the Irish lads that I spent Christmas with in the hostel so that was a nice surprise. Ian and I went out with them in the evening for a few drinks, had a good night...Ian was a bit more of a dirty stop out than me and went off to Bondi.
Thursday we got the train from Sydney to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, about a 2 hour train journey west of Sydney. We got there about lunch time. We camped in a hostel garden...was quite strange, but good as we could use all the facilities. We got a tour bus around the Jamison Valley and went for a walk. We walked into the valley and to Scenic world where we got the steepest railway in the world down into the valley and then the gondola back up. We got some great views although the blue mountains haze is across the photos which is annoying. We didn't have long to explore as we were a bit late arriving as we missed the train by about 2 minutes! The following day we got up and went up to the Valley, I wanted to go to the rainforest room as it sounded cool. We walked for an hour down the furber steps (hundreds of them) down into the valley, only to find that the rainforest room was like a meeting room! (Gutted!) So, Ian walked back up (crazy) and I got the steep railway back up to the top of the valley. We got to see some water falls and more amazing views of the valley though.When at the top we went on a cliff tops and valleys tour on an open top bus which was cool. Got to see some fabulous views, and also some great lightening! There was a storm in the valley which later came over to Katoomba where we were staying. Our tent didn't leak, but now I'm sad because it's not looking new anymore!! We did some more walking and the next day my calves were killing me! Got to see the 3 sisters from Echo point and the Katoomba falls. It was raining in the evening, so got pretty chilly...the people in the hostel put the fire on. We braved the cold and went for a walk and then back to our tent...didn't have the best nights sleep. We spent the whole of Saturday travelling, train, bus, bus, mini bus arriving at 10pm in Port Macquarie in the East coast.

Sydney and the Blue Mountains remains copyright of the author faith8069, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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