AAaaahhhh mental few months!!! Where do we start?!?! OK, so erm back in Australia we had a fabulous trip to the Kimberley regions, treking into gorges, kayaking, fishing, swimming, flying you name we tried it. The scenery was absolutely mind blowing and whilst Daire did a stirling job takes pictures they just don't convey how amazing it was!
We then said goodbye to Sydney. Gutted to be leaving all the new friends and job but excited for the journey ahead and putting down some roots in Dubai. So off we went to Thailand! Few days getting to know Bangkok included the usual temple scene as well as a fab night at the Muai Thai (kick boxing) and lunch with an old friend Joe and his daughter Scarlet. We then hit Koh Samui where we were joined by Chrissie and Justin, friends from Singapore. It was all celebrations as Chrissie told us she was 'up the duff' and we had a fad few days chilling and motoring around the island. When they left Daire and I stayed on for a few more days and did some snorkling and more sun bathing etc. (Although Daire did have to do work one day!)
For there was a quick weekend in Dublin for Daire and Singapore for me. I went and stayed with Sarah, who got married in July and we had a brilliant weekend doing girlie stuff and getting a bit trashed! Loved it!! Daire was god father to his 4th niece Millie and so enjoyed a weekend at home with the family - lucky bunny!
Back in Bangkok we boarded a night train to Chiang Mai for a more 'chilled' experience - after a 14 hour train journey we had a do to list an arm lengths long. In particular Daire wanted to do a Motor bike ride out into the country. Need less to say after a few days exploring Chiang Mai and doing the Flight of the Gibbon (Excellent fun BTW) we threw our legs over a Honda Dream 125cc nike and off we set for 6 days and around 1000k of pretty exciting, tough yet rewarding 'biking'! Highlights included riding and 'playing' with an elephant, the amazing views, getting close to the Burmese boarder, getting SOAKED in a teeny KMT village at the top of a mountain and white water rafting. Oh and we even did a few running repairs on the bike that cost us a princely sum of 50p (Daire gave the mechanic £1 he was so pleased with the work!)
Back in Chiang Mai we planned the next stage of our trip - to Cambodia! 2 days and 2 flights later we were touching down in Siem Reap. The countryside was breath taking - so flat yet the palm trees looks like fireworks against the sky. Loved it so much! We stayed in the Golden Banana - you guessed it, a gay freindly place where the male receptionist took a bit of a liking to Daire heheheh too funny!! We spent 3 days exploring the town and Angkor wat complex where we learnt so much of the history of the country and saw some of the most amazing temples - the complex is so spread out and includes 100's of buildings. We had one day with a tour guide but you could tour for 1 week and only just cover everything!! From there we 'boated' to Battembang - for the first hour it was lovely to see the floating villages etc despite being squished into the thinnest boat known to man with 20 other people. However after 8 hours we were releaved to finally get off the boat and find our hotel in Battembang. It was a small friendly town and we hired some bikes to look around.
Whilst we had been away we had toyed with the idea of going to Vietnam to see our friend Dave - it just so happened that our hotel was next to the Vientamese Embassy in Battembang so we decided to get visas incase we wanted to go. We only spent one night here and made our way striaght to Phenom Pehn the capital of Cambodia. It was an enlightening few days
