air mail

penang,langkawi,food,london

mrlukenelson — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:22:00 GMT

After one month of travelling i have finally arrived in london. Its been a really exciting journey. After leaving Bangkok i went to penang in malaysia. I chose this place because it is made up of Indians Chinese and Malaysians giving it an incredible variety of delicious authentic asian food. I sampled meals such as crispy duck with jellyfish and rice, lovely indian currie's and beautiful fresh malaysian seafood dishes where you choose your own piece of live seafood and pay about 1 dollar australian per 100 g depending on the product. I have now worked out how to find the best restaurants in s.e. asia they need to have terrible decor, be full of asians and be ridiculously cheap, its good if there is one table of westerners so that you know your not going to be eating bug, dog or rat. I tried many nicer looking restaurants with much higher prices and found the food was always toned down in flavour to cater for tourists. After staying in penang for three days i went to langkawi island and stayed in a bungalow directly on the beach. This was fun and a really nice place however lacked the excitement and young backpacker atmosphere of thailand. It was more a place for older couples. I stayed there for two days then made my way back to bangkok and then left for london that night. The flight to london was great i had four seats to myself so i lay down and slept for about 8 hours of the flight. I went straight from the airport to my aunties house in haywards heath which was an apartment in a big old english manor, surrounded by botanical gardens. It was really nice it is autumn hear now and all the trees are glowing reds and oranges. I stayed there for 2 nights and then headed into london for the last 2 nights i stayed in a backpackers in london bridge which is one constant party everyone is really friendly on the first night a couple of irish girls brought a litre of vodka and got everyone in the room drinking, we then headed down to the bar which was ridiculously messy much like the downunder backpackers bar in brisbane but probably worse. THe next day i went to setup bank account and wandered around a little the tubes make life extremely easy but i have not seen to much of london from above ground it will take along time to explore this massive city. the weather has been suprisingly nice with blue sky most days and its about 13 degrees. I have now made it to an old friend (craig) s place in angel islington and am crashing in his bed for a couple days while he is in italy. Tomorrow i will start to look for work. bye for now luke

no more frogger

mrlukenelson — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:06:00 GMT

hi everyone i am in bangkok now last couple weeks have been really good. since chiang mai we went to pai a cool little mountain town in the north of thailand it takes 4 hours to drive here but is only 140 km from chiang mai, apparently there is 762 curves in the road on the way. Pai is like the thai equivalent of byron bay without the beach. full of relaxing bars chilled out people and lots of tourists. we hired scooters here and went missioning round lots of small mountian villages and really picturesque waterfalls. Scooters cost about 4 dollars a day so i hired one for all three while we were there. On one day we went for an elephant ride for two hours. Nousk, Matt and I all riding bareback on one elephant i had the front seat, pretty much sitting on its head with my legs tucked behind its ears. For the first hour we went riding through the jungle, the guide constantly stopping to pick magic mushrooms out of elephant shit along the way. We then went to a river where the man who was tripping off his balls made the elephant squat lie down and stand up again repetitively in the water with us on its back simulating an elephant rodeo. Everybody was cracking up with laughter especially the guide as we flew off the elephant into the water. Nousk and matt left for pai on friday i decided to stay another day as its a great town i went for a walk and met some israeli guys who told me to come to a bar thats open all night where we smoked a shisha pipe and i met some really cool people including a lovely american girl named kim. The next day headed back to chiang mai and then got on a train to bangkok that night. The train was called a sleeper which made me think i would get a cabin with a bed, instead the train had normal seats you were given a towel and the lights were turned off. It was about as smooth as as a pogo stick and sounded like a bowling ball in a washing machine. yesterday morning arrived in bangkok and have not been to impressed so far this city is like the rest of thailand but without the nice parts. Crossing the road is near impossible, people are constantly trying to rip you off, the air is grey and it smells like sewerage (sorry to any bangkok lovers maybe i m just tired) i have one more week before i leave bangkok so i have booked a holiday to penang in malaysia for the next week i will get back to bangkok the same day i fly out.

p.s. my camera has broke along the way so there wont be any pictures till i get a new one

thailand madness

mrlukenelson — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 22:38:00 GMT

hello everyone hows life. so far thailand has been really cool i met up with nousk and matt the day after patong we went for dinner got pissed and saw a really cool cover band who liked to mix four or five reggae songs in one jam. Next day headed to krabi and then onward to hat ton sai. hat ton sai was basically a beach full of rock climbers bungalows hippies and monkeys ( was pretty much in my element there) while there i climbed a coconut tree in order to get a free beer from the bar . we also hired a long tail boat and went snorkelling around some nearby islands i got extremely sunburnt and was in mass pain for days. Other activities included rock climbing, drinking and at least four meals a day, we met some cool people there everyone was really chilled out thai people are super friendly and seem to really enjoy life. After hat ton sai we got flights to chiang mai from krabi chiang mai is really cool heaps of good markets with ridiculously cheap stuff and bargaining has been lots of fun. Three days after getting burnt in ton sai my sunburn started to hurt extremely and i was pretty much screaming for a couple hours i ve never felt anything like it, i had to go to hospital for an anti inflamatorry shot and some pain killers its been two days since then and am starting to feel a bit better now. This afternoon we caught a taxi to a place called tiger kingdom where we were put in an area with about five young tigers which we could pat and play with it was pretty amazing. one started to run at me like it was about to attack but its trainer distracted it. anyway thats about as much as i could be bothered telling hope your all having a great time in oz stay in touch .... peace p.s. photo s are on face book

phuket

mrlukenelson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:14:00 GMT

hello everyone. after about twenty four hours at airports on planes and in taxis i have made it to phuket. i had a sleep when got to hotel this morning then headed down to the beach. walking around patong is anything but relaxing with people trying to drag you into their shop every five metres. but its been really funny dealing with it and trying to bargain with people. have already seen heaps of really interesting stuff( was offered sex and marriage about ten times at the bar i went to) just having lunch and a beer and wandering the streets. forgot to bring my camera so sorry no pictures. stay posted peace out my friends ... luke