Mishna

Gallery: Round The World

ruudee81 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:15:00 GMT

Living in Sydney!!

ruudee81 — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 15:02:00 GMT

After leaving Western Australia we decided to head for Sydney where jobs would be aplenty!

We'd seen sharehouses advertised in British Balls (backpacker magazine) so we gave them a ring the night before we arrived. We were lucky enough to get into one straight away even though it was the token "party" house (our flipflops stuck to the liviing room floor when we viewed it and there were a million beer bottles everywhere). They told us (challenged us)that if we could put up with the mess and noise for a week and a half we could move houses and get our own ensuite room!! woo hoo!!

http://www.sydneyterraces.com/

We lived in the terraces for just over 2 months and had a great time. The houses are so much nicer than a hostel and it's a great way to meet people. They are situated in Newtown which is only about 20 mins out of the CBD by bus. It's a great area full of quirky shops, cafes and plenty of bars!!

Whilst in Sydney I worked in admin for an International Educational Institute. It wasn't the most exciting job but it paid and I wasn't in a call centre!!

I'm really glad that we gave Sydney another chance, we hadn't been too impressed before but it's actually a great place to live!!

WARNING! - Personal Opinion Only - Never take a road trip to Broome....fly if you must go!

ruudee81 — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:04:00 GMT

Note 24/05/2014 - I wrote this almost 6 years ago and it was not intended to be a formal review. It was my personal experience of a not so great road trip. In hindsight I do not think lack of planning was the problem, we actually planned quite a bit, it was the fact that we hardly had any money left. The amount of times I heard myself saying, 'it's be nice to return here without a backpack'. Backpacking is an amazing experience but I wish I'd had more money when I was trvelling. Then I could have experienced all those amazing things that people do on holiday. Western Australia does have nice scenery, good weather and would probably make the perfect (Australian) honeymoon destination. I guess Australia just was not one of my favourite places.

We decided that we should see some more of Western Australia while we were here so we planned a 2 week road trip to Broome and back. The reason for us driving back to Perth was because the car hire company wanted to charge us a relocation cost which was more than the car hire itself.

We set off early and after managing to find ourselves on a road that suddenly ended we ate McDonalds and headed off on a more successful journey to Kalbarri. It took us over 9 hours to get there including a stop off at the pinnacles along the way (a very strange sight). The last bit was through a pitch black national park without phone reception, we realised later that this is normal in Western Australia. We managed to miss our check in at the YHA so instead we stayed at a lovely B&B called Lola Rose - I recommend it highly and she does a really nice breakfast too!

Denham - Another long day in the car, the roads here are so incredible boring. It's what I imagine driving across another planet would be like, all red sand and small bushes. The highlight of our journey was guessing what the piles of bones on the side of the road used to be and the dead cows are truly fascinating, they seem to inflate like a blown up balloon right after they die. We did get to see the shell beach which as the name gives away is a beach entirely made of shells, personally I think I found the cows more interesting.

Coral Bay - We woke up at 6:30am and went to Monkey Mia to feed the dolphins. They are wild ones which come into the bay to be fed every morning. It was actually a nice, free (we couldn't work out where you paid as everythnig else was closed) experience. The dolphin people talked a little too much (there's only so much you can take in at 6 in the morning) but in the end we were able to hand the dolphins some dead fish. We drove for the rest of the day only stopping for a Chicken Treat (WA's favourite fast food), when we arrived at the YHA in Coral Bay we found out that we couldn't take our beers in so instead we smuggled them in like teenagers and then drank the rest on the beach...there's really not a lot to do here but it is very pretty!

Exmouth - On the way here we saw a massive (and I mean massive) bird eating a Kangaroo, it's wingspan was ridiculous!! Surprisingly enough, there's not a huge lot to do in Exmouth either but they do have wild emus walking around which is always fun if not a little scary (Rod Hull's was a little violent, we weren't sure if these would be!!).

Karratha - Another day in the car......we arrived in Karratha where's there's nothing, but there was a hostel with a tele! We chatted to some lads at the hostel and their highlight of living there was visiting Woolworths!

Broome!!! - Yes we finally arrived in Broome which we had heard nice things so we were hoping we'd like it. Our hostel was a really nice resort with a great pool and bar area. The rooms are a little odd. We were lucky to get one upstairs with air con, the only problem with this is that the walls don't join up to the roof which means you can hear in detail what everyone in the other 3 rooms are doing. I really did feel sorry for the guy next door desperately trying unsucessfully to persuade a girl to sleep with him and the family with the small children the other way that had to listen to the drinking games from the furthest room.

Broome really didn't get any more interesting than that, we attempted to see the staircase to the moon twice but the moon didn't actually appear. We also tried to see the dinosaur's footprints but couldn't find them. It's a nice enough place to go to but so is Hull and I'd never recommend anyone to drive across Europe to spend a few days there!

The drive home was a different route, we stopped at Munjina (hehehe) where Lucy made friends with some local miners and then we had a very scary stop at a nice little place in Nallan. We stayed in the shearer's quarters on our own, the lights went off at 10pm so we sat in the pitch black trying to stop the bugs (millions of them) from crawling in our ears. The scariest part was the fact that it looked like the set from a horror movie, I kept expecting someone to pop their head over the wall chainsaw in hand!!

We were back Perth way a day early due to rain so we drove East to Hyden. We stayed in a really nice cabin in the Wave Rock national park. The rock itself is actually a really cool sight, it literally looks like a wave.

After a quick visit to Bambu and a pizza from our favourite dominoes we went to the airport to catch our flight to Sydney. Western Australia has been nice (all 6500k of it that we saw) but I'm not sure I'd recommend anyone to go out of their way to go there. The beaches are lovely and Fremantle and Perth are nice towns but you really are far away from everywhere and if someone asks me again if I've seen the film Wolf Creek (which incidently is not far from Broome) I'll scream!!! no I haven't and I never will!!!

West side!! - Perth

ruudee81 — Sat, 1 Mar 2008 13:18:00 GMT

We flew into Perth knowing that every hostel in the city was booked up, we just thought that if all else failed we'd sleep at the airport. We flew from Hobart to Perth via Melbourne and Adelaide (I'm really glad we didn't stop there longer than an hour as there really wasn't much to see). Suprisingly when we arrived in Perth we managed to find a hostel with spare beds (we should have wondered why!) - the place was an absolute dump so we left and after begging Scarborough YHA to take us in we were a bit happier.

Scarborough was nice enough but no way as fantastically tacky as Scarborough at home!! We stayed at the YHA until we were able to move into a hostel in the city, it was nice enough but a little boring, except for the night our roomate threatened to knife someone....always fun...

We moved into Bambu, a somewhat trendy hostel in Northbridge. Northbridge itself is a slightly dodgy area but the location is great for all the bars nearby having free bbqs! There is one everyday of the week and you get a free drink! what more could a poor backpacker want?

My favourite bar (not that I probably realised it at the time) was the Shed, conveniently nextdoor to our hostel. You could hear the music through the wall of our room and it always made me want to go for a drink. On Sundays the place is packed with the local Irish who are all legless by noon....fantastic!

We stayed at Bambu for just over a month, and it has to be one of the friendliest hostels I've stayed in! They have a bar area with BYO and a DJ on weekends, it's really well designed. Typically while we were there, we befriended a group of English lads (as you do) who were always up for a laugh!

Perth is nice but I preferred Fremantle as a place to visit and actually worked there for a few weeks at a bank who's manager randomly used to be an actor! On one of those day I was lucky enough to see the QE2 dock on her final voyage.

Western Australia is such a massive state so we decided to take a road trip to Broome....probably not the best idea we had!

Tasmanian Devils are really bad at crossing the road :o(

ruudee81 — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:07:00 GMT

Huge apologies for not keeping up with my updates!! I've managed to borrow a laptop (thanks Sophia) so I can do a bit of a catchup!

After leaving Melbourne we headed for Tasmania which kind of resembled home, which made a nice change!

Hobart - After an hours flight we arrived in Hobart, it's nice here but there really isn't a lot to it. It is very small!!!!! We stayed at the Pickled Frog hostel which once upon a time had been a british pub, unfortunately the bar was missing now! The best part of Hobart was meeting up with friends of a friend, we met them at a bar in town and without wearing flowers in order to be recognsed, it took us a while to find each other!!

Dover - Complete with hangovers (thanks guys!) we drove to Dover and found a fantastic hostel in the woods. It's eco friendly and you get to stay in log cabins. The weirdest part of my time there was getting pooed on by an owl in the ladies bathroom!! I really had wondered what had been staring at me while I'd been getting my shower!!

Richmond - On the way to Richmond we stopped at Hastings Caves which were an amazing sight. We took the tour for only $25 (worth the money compared to some of the other attractions) and our guide was so passionate about the caves and their lighting! Short on options for accommodation we ended up staying in a cabin park which was actually a bit of a treat for a change!

Eagle Hawk Neck - We continued north towards Port Arthur and stopped at a Tasmanian Devil sanctuary, the only devils we'd seen prior to this had unfortunately been dead on the road (they have very interesting road kills here). Our hostel tonight was incredibly random and eco friendly!!! they even had a worm toilet and all the water they used was rain water. Outside our window were parrots and wallabies roaming, a really nice place with slightly crazy owners.

Swansea - Before heading to Swansea we stopped at Port Arthur - an amazingly pretty prison from back in the day. It was really interesting to walk round the grounds and we also got a walking tour and a boat ride round "the island of the dead". It was pissing it down by the time we got to Swansea and we ended up in another cabin park, this one a bit posher! It was nice to have a room to myself for the first time in months!!!

Bicheno - Another day of rain (which was good as Tasmania seemed to have been suffering from a drought) we checked into a cool wooden hostel and headed for the local pub. As per usual we were the only females and the only people drinking pints! We had an interesting offer of going to some guys house where they were going to play guitar, we declined, nice people but a tiny bit hickish!!

St Helens - Here was nice but there wasn't a huge lot to do, due to the rain we were unable to see wine glass bay but we did get to go to "the pub in the paddock" for lunch where they apparently have a beer drinking pig!!! fantastic!

Launceston - We timed our trip to Launceston with the food and wine festivale, so our first day here was spent relaxing in the park listening to bands, drinking food and wondering what we were going to eat next! we even got our picture in the local paper! The next day we met up with more friends of a friend who were fantastic and really took good care of us (thanks for the recommendation kelsey!!) we ended up stopping with them for a couple of nights and were treated to a massive room each with double beds (a treat believe me!). The took us to Cradle mountain, gave us beer and had a bbchu (bbq) for us, thanks guys!!! a great ending to a nice trip!

Next stop......Perth!!

Living in Melbourne..

ruudee81 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:28:00 GMT

Moving to Melbourne for work was definitely a good idea!! The day after we arrived we interviewed at a temp agency and then started working for a vodafone call centre the following day. The first night we were in Melbourne we were determined to have a night out, what we didn't realise was that King Street where our hostel was situated is actually known for it's strip and lapdancing clubs!! We had a beer in what looked like a relatively normal bar and got talking to a few guys who had just been at a football match. They asked us why we were in that bar (which turned out to be a gentlemans club upstairs) and then offered to take us to Brunswick Street where there are a lot of bars. It was definitely an improvement there and the first bar that we went into would have been great if they didn't have their tvs on, Unfortunately our first day in Melbourne was also the first day of Australia having a new Prime Minister and weirdly enough, all the 20/30 something year olds in the pub were all watching the news and debating amongst themselves. It was the strangest sight, people at home really wouldn't care!! there again, it's against the law here not to vote so I guess maybe they all get caught up in it a bit more? After spending over a week living in the hostel, we managed to find a room to rent in a house in Albert Park (a posh family suburb). You may notice I wrote room, unfortunatley being incredibly poor backpackers, we could only afford the one room but at least they'd only be the two of us and not 16 of us like our first room at the hostel! Our housemates were really nice and our second night there were persuaded to go on a santa charity pub crawl (not much persuasion needed). We were lucky enough to have the house to ourselves for christmas as both housemates where away at their families, it was just nice to have the tele to ourselves!! Our contract at Vodafone came to an end (luckily after the christmas party which involved a bouncy castle, karaoke and then $5 jaegerbombs) we managed to stay in the same building but moved to AGL's call centre which wasn't the nicest job but we met some nice people. It's now time to move on, Melbourne has been nice and Albert Park and St Kilda are great! but I'm really excited to be going on the road again, this time to Tasmania!! For Australia photos copy and paste link: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2133366&l=5b5cf&id=724065102

The Great Ocean Road Trip!

ruudee81 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:01:00 GMT

After working in a call centre for the past 2 months!!! The prospect of going on a road trip for a whole 2 days was incredibly exciting!!! We hired a car which didn't work out as cheaply as I would have expected but it did mean we had more freedom than on an organised trip and a lot of the organised trips didn't visit all of the sights. Lucy did the driving (I'll be doing the majority of it in the U.S) the only scary part was driving through Melbourne!! Due to the tram lines motorists have to do some really crazy manouvers at junctions!! The company we hired the car from kindly drew us a route to the freeway which avoided most of the tram lines. After driving over the Westgate Bridge, it really didn't take us long to get to Geelong and then onto "The Great Ocean Road". Our first stop was at the largest Surf Museum in the world which was actually quite interesting as well as slightly amusing!! We continued onto Bells Beach where they hold the famous surfing competition every Easter. Our next stop was at the Split Point lighthouse were the kids TV show "round the twist" was filmed. We had a hot chocolate at the tearooms there, even though it's currently summer it was incredibly windy and cold!!! Driving along the "Great Ocean Road" is a very scenic drine on the most windy roads (I'm so glad I grew out of the motion sickness I used to suffer from), the scenary really isn't too unlike that at home unfortunately here they are missing the quirky B & Bs and country pubs!! Some of the buildings they have built along this road are the most hideous things you'll ever see!! We came across a few walks along the way, one advertised as a 40 minute walk through the rainforest actually took us 15 minutes! Weirdly enough it was so real, it actually felt pretty fake! like something out of a Rainforest cafe or Disney World (I've really spent way too long working for that company!!) Another took us to a waterfall. We decided to stay in Apollo Bay for the night, we booked in at a motel and unfortunately didn't notice the kooky eco YHA round the back until we were leaving. The motel was a nice bit of luxury for us, though! We ate at The Great Ocean Hotel on the corner and they did the most amazing food in enormous portions!!! I definitely recommend them to everyone!! The next day we drove to Port Cambell and stopped off at the 12 apostles along the way which are incredibly photogenic!! We broke up the 5 hour drive home by stopping for food in Lorne, we went to the Salty Dog fish and chip shop and I got the best loaded jacket potato!! (fish and chip shops sell everything here...) It takes so long to upload photos onto this site so instead I've put them on facebook, please click on the link to view!! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2133366&l=5b5cf&id=724065102

Australia - Sydney and Coffs

ruudee81 — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:12:00 GMT

I should probably start writing 'Dear Mum' at the beginning of these entries as I reckon she's probably the only one who's not gotten bored of checking for updates!! hahaha

I've now been away for 4 months and time has actually flown (except for these past few weeks working in the call centres for Vodafone and AGL.....yawn!!!!) We're still in Australia until August but are planning on taking a trip across to New Zealand for a few weeks. We didn't include New Zealand in our round the world stop offs as it's so easy and conveniant to get there.

We landed in Sydney after spending the night in Singapore airport, where we found out we'd been delayed 4 hours!! So understandably we were feeling a little knackered when we arrived at the YHA hostel that w'd stayed at previously. We then found out that they'd closed the cafe for refurbishment which was the only reason we'd decided to go back as they did fantastic breakfasts and pizzas!!! The guy that checked us in was really friendly so we asked him what was going on in the bar that night, he said that we didn't need to go as he'd give us some wine instead!!! very random. We went back to the reception to see if he really had wine and sure enough he did!!! and chocolate! (Normally we wouldn't have accepted this unusual offer but he was very nice and friendly and it turned out that there were a few of us) He let us out onto the roof and we watched the city drinking wine, it was a very good end to a slightly crappy day!!!

We only spent a few days in Sydney as we'd been there last time we visited and we'd already done the major attractions like climbing the Harbour Bridge!! - Which I definitely recommend, it's amazing!!

Next we flew to Coffs Harbour where we had the luxury of staying in a real house with a TV!!! Yes I know that sounds pathetic but it was really nice to feel normal for a short while and we got to watch the entire season of Heroes!! We also got to visit the famous Big Banana!!!!! The gift shop was definitely amusing and possible a little rude!! More importantly I was able to see my old friends and spend time with them and their son! We'll definitely be heading back there before we leave Australia (Lucy left her backpack there on purpose for the perfect excuse!!)

Unfortunately were didn't find it very easy to find work in Coffs, we had hoped to be there over Christmas but realised after not hearing from the 20 temp agencies we'd applied to that this would not be realistic! Instead we decided to move on to Melbourne.....

Duck Tours!!!

ruudee81 — Sat, 8 Dec 2007 20:14:00 GMT

After almost 2 months of travelling through south east Asia we finally reached Singapore, our last city before Australia.

We only spent 2 days there and wished we'd spent longer. When everyone tells you that 2 days is enough and that it'll be really expensive, don't listen!!!!! Compared to England and Australia, Singapore is still a cheap place to be!!!

I quite fancy heading back in a couple of years time as they are currently building a lot!!!!! Also, somewhat excitingly for all those brought up on F1 racing like myself, they will be holding a race on the streets of Singapore early 2008!!! they've already done all the markings.

As you've probably realised I am now actually in Australia and have been since the beginning of November! Unfortunately internet cafes are a little less common on the streets of Melbourne and I'm currently utilising the 10 free minutes I get on the computer at work! I do promise, however, to use them more wisely in the future and actually update this journal properly!!!!

Keep checking!!! xx

P.S I forgot to mention the Duck Tour we went on!!!! It's was a great way to see the city but unfortunately wasn't quite as good as the one I went on in London recently or the ones that they have in America!!!! Still, it's definitely a more interesting way to see the city!!!

Kuala Lumpur & Melaka

ruudee81 — Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:26:00 GMT

After our experiences in Georgetown we were eager to get to a major city, Kuala Lumpur was only a few hours away so we headed there.

The Petronas Twin Towers are quite an amazing sight and bloody difficult to photograph!! We read that you can walk across the skybridge for free so we headed there early one morning and queued for the tickets. It was a bit like a fast pass telling is what time we had to go back. We spent a while in the mall underneath (crazily posh!!) and then walked across the sky bridge which was quite cool, we weren't really that high up but we got a good view of the city. The towers actually look their best at night when they are uplit, though typically at that time I didn't have my camera with me.

While we were Kuala Lumpur we kept coming across funny little Chinese Christmas shops that sold all kinds of random things, we ended up buying some dodgily translated chritmas cards.

Our last stop in Malaysia was Melaka which was a nice, pretty place with a lot of history.

We didn't spend a huge amount of time in Malaysia, we had previously wanted to see some of the islands which apparently are amazing but unfortunately during rainy season a lot of the ferries don't run and there's obviously the chance of bad weather!!! ah well maybe another time!

Mmmmmmn Indian Food!

ruudee81 — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:54:00 GMT

Penang a.k.a Georgetown, Malaysia - We took a mini van to Malaysia as we got quite a good deal and there was less chance of us being left behind at the border!!

Our driver was a little crazy (driving wise) but in all seriousness he had to be to survive on these crazy roads!!!!!! The roads in Malaysia actually look very much like ours at home, same signs and road markings I guess. At one point we were on a 2 lane motorway with a car either side of us and one directly infront......arriving alive in Georgetown was actually a blessing!

Georgetown in writing sounds nice and first impressions are it is nice, however we didn't really enjoy our stay here and that was purely because of the local men. They stare and hiss at you, and look at you like you're a piece of meat. Even in broad daylight on the main road we didn't feel safe. Georgetown is famous for its mix of religions, on one street you will find a temple, mosque and a church. Even though they are currently all living together in 'harmony' it really does feel like a ticking time bomb. The fact that Georgetown itself is divided into areas according to religion doesn't really mean that the people here are actually living together at all.

Good things about Georgetown:

1) Love Lane Hotel/Hostel - run by Jimmy and Amy. Jimmy is an older man with plenty of knowledge which he's always eager to share and also has slightly strange pets including his pet (carnivore) fish who he actually strokes by sticking his hand into the tank! Amy is a lovely and ever so slightly crazy, she's very persistant in making everyone drink the free coffee every minute of the day!!

2) Indian food!!!!! Mmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnn because there is such a high percentage of Indian people in Malaysia, there is Indian food available everywhere and it tastes amazing!

Southern Thailand!!

ruudee81 — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:15:00 GMT

I have now attempted to write this 3 times!!!! Argh!! only slightly frustrating!! As you know, I am completely cursed when it comes to computers!!

So instead of writing it all again, I have decided to tell my story with pictures!!!

Please click on (or copy and paste) the links below to view:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=58179&l=650fa&id=724065102

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70001&l=8a239&id=724065102

Only kidding!!!! I will write more. Just watch this space!........

.......So, we arrived back in Bangkok early on the Sunday morning (not that we knew it was Sunday at the time, we wondered why there was hardly any traffic!!!) we headed straight for Khao San Road but this time stayed round the back of the temple, not far away but definitely a lot quieter!!!

Later on we went to the Grand Palace as we didn't get chance to go last time. The Thai people really love their royalty, you see hundreds of people in yellow and pale blue polo shirts. At first I thought it was a work uniform and then found out that infact the yellow shirts signify the King and the pale blue are for the Queen. I'm really not used to people loving their royal family, and trying to imagine people at home wearing curly wigs and glasses because they love the Queen so much does seem a little absurd!! The palace is very beautiful, dissapointingly the royal family do not actually reside there any more, but we got to see the temple and statues.

The following day we decided to travel to Ban Phe (where the random american had recommended us to go) it only took a few hours but when we arrived we realised that it wasn't quite the quiet fishing village originally described to us. We wandered up and down the main street (in the peak day sun, not timed well at all!!) and were unable to find any hotel within our price range the average there being between 800 and 1000 baht.

Feeling a little peeved we got a sawngethaw to the next town, Rayon, in hope there would be a bus that we could get which would take us south. Typically the buses there travelled in every direction excep where we wanted to go. By now we were quite pissed off!!! We got a bus to Bangkok and luckily managed to get on an overnight bus from Bangkok to Chumporn, our next destination.

Chumporn - Our luck (or lack of it) seemed to continue when we arrived in Chumporn. We were woken up at 6:30am and dropped off in the pissing down rain on a road similar to Holderness Road (for those of you in Hull) except without buses or taxis. It turned out that we were 8km out of town so we started walking (with backpacks) until we came across a motorbike taxi rank (still not a huge amount of help). One of them took pity on us and gave us a ride in the back of his pickup truck the rest of the way, we must have looked incredibly pathetic in our rainbow coloured ponchos as we didn't get charged a thing!

We found Farang (nicely means foreigner hmmmmmm) Hotel which literally looked like the only place in town. The over priced food did taste good, though, and we got a room for the night out of the pouring rain. At 6am the next morning we woke up 6" deep in water, Hazel literally had to fish her phone and camera out of it. We decided to leave the room and sit in the bar as the electrics in Thailand are extremely dodgy (you can hear the pylons as you walk by) and the combination of the electrics, metal beds and water probably wasn't very safe. We had planned on getting the ferry to Ko Tao (an island) that night but due to the flood we reluctantly had to stay at the hotel for another night so all of our belongings had chance to dry out. With some persuasion we managed to get the room and laundry for free. The bad weather continued so we decision to travel on further south.

Krabbi - Getting the bus to Krabbi was a huge sigh of relief! I would like to see this place again someday. In good weather it is famous for kayaking around the bay and islands. We only stayed here for one night but we did find one of the best pancake stalls and, amusingly to them, went back twice in one night.

Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta - Everyone says that when you visit Thailand you have to visit some islands. I actually wasn't that fussed as I reckon the Caribbean islands are probably the most beautiful in the world and the Isle of Arran is a close second.

We caught the boat to Ko Phi Phi, it wasn't a long journey at all. When we arrived I was surprised how touristy it was, the path leading away from the dock is full of travel shops, diving shops and shops in general! We walked away from it and managed to find more reasonably priced hotels. The area we stayed in is actually still majorly under reconstruction after the Tsunami. Standing on the beach you really can't imagine a massive tidal wave coming towards you, it's crazy! We travelled to Ko Phi Phi at the best time of the year (well not best weather wise, being rainy season) but best because it was very quiet and the prices hadn't started doubling!!!

I will continue this another day, it's Sunday today and our hostel in Melbourne is about to serve free pancakes!!!! perfect when saturday night and early sunday morning was spent consuming beer!!!

I'm sure you're as bored reading this as I am writing it!! so to cut a long story short......

Our last few days in Thailand were spent in Trang and Hat Yai, neither place we desperately wanted to visit but they definitely made the journey to Malaysia a bit more bearable!!

Northern Thailand...

ruudee81 — Sun, 4 Nov 2007 00:11:00 GMT

Chiang Mai - We'd originally planned on going to Chaing Rai first but decided to head straight onto Chiang Mai instead. Typically we still had a 4 hour wait in Chiang Rai but without judging a book by it's cover we decided we'd made the right decision (later on everyone we met told us we should have stayed there for a few days....ah well).

Chiang Mai is a lovely city that's far nicer, friendlier and laid back than Bangkok!!! There are a maze of back streets and alley ways (Sois) that have great budget hotels, cafes, restaurants and bars playing live music. Our hotel, Malak 2, was cheap and cheerful with lovely owners, a great rooftop garden and free internet!

Whilst out shopping for clothes in a nearby market we met a funny lady who took great pleasure in describing how nice our chests were "like coconuts!?!" (I guess it's because they are quite a small chested nation??) - she was very funny, though!!

P*a*i - I loved this place so much that I hardly want to talk about it in fear of it becoming a top 'lonely planet guide' destination over run with tourists and concrete hotels.

Incredible people make this place feel like home within 5 minutes of arriving. I remember spotting an aged 'hippie' when we got off the bus and wondered if he'd arrived there in the 60s and suddenly 40 years and passed him by!!

We only spent 3 nights there and I honestly didn't want to leave, we made friends with a Chef/Drummer, Masseur, Bar Manager, Hotel Owner and a Flame Thrower. I even hired a motorbike and drove round town for a day!! Good times! x

Mai Hongson - Everyone told us this place would be boring but we decided to plow on hoping L.P was right about the interesting circuit back to Chiang Mai. Everyone was right. It's a very sweet little town with a lovely food market, however, we decided to leave for Chiang Mai the next day. We met a helpful? American man who highly recommended for us to visit Ban Phe - the port where you sail to Ko Samet. He said it's almost as nice, far cheaper and nicely quiet.

Mai Hongson > Pai > Chiang Mai > Bangkok (night bus)

to be continued........

Barbequed eggs.......

ruudee81 — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:22:00 GMT

Laos

The dreaded bus journey from Hanoi to Vientiane really wasn't that bad!! the fact that we made it the whole way was quite an achievement from other stories I've heard.

The bus itself was very pretty on the outside painted with Laos flowers, on the inside it was very crampd and packed with plenty of produce and boxes (to be delivered along the way). They put a VCD on for us before we left, blasting out Abba and Boney M - very strange!!! Lucy reckoned it was a scene straight out of a horror film! Our 20 hour journey only had air con for 15 minutes but we did get used to it, they seemed to prefer to drive with the door open instead.

We arrived near the border early so the driver pulled into a closed petrol station and parked up there for a few hours while everyone (except me!) slept! When the border opened it took about 1 1/2 hours to pass through, we weren't really sure how the process worked, everyone just seemed to be slinging their passports at the poor officials who looked pretty pissed off! After checking out of Vietnam we had to take a very scenic walk through "no mans land" to arrive at the checkpoint for Laos. In all the journey really wasn't that bad, we did stop along the way frequently to deliver goods (what type of goods i'm really not sure!!) but it did make the whole journey a little more interesting!

Vientiane - A quiet town considering it is the capital. There seemed to be street vendors everywhere selling barbequed eggs (I didn't even know it was possible to barbeque an egg). The accommodation seemed a little pricier than elsewhere but we found a cheap, very basic room in the end. Didn't do a lot here, had a wander and went to a temple.

Vang Vieng - A very random little town with lots of bars showing re runs of friends. The following morning we made a very last minute decision to go tubing (literally giving us 5 mins to get ready). Tubing involves sitting on an old tractor wheel floating down a fast flowing river!! We did the 10 km route, the first 5km are rapids (we had a guide on a kayak to take us through this bit as it's a tad dangerous, i did manage to get stuck in a tree but luckily and embarrassingly he rescued me!!!) The last 5km are bars and the river is a lot calmer, the bars throw out bamboo or tyres on ropes to pull you in! We stayed at one of them for hours playing volleyball in the pouring rain - so much fun!! By the end of the day we were bruised, sunburnt and covered in tyre burn but it was definitely one of our top days!!!

Luang Prabang - A very pretty and relaxing town! I would love to return here one day with more money and empty bags!! The night market sold beautiful and very buyable things. We spent most of our time here relaxing. I had an hour massage for $3 which was great! (just what i needed after carrying a backpack for weeks!!!) On our last night we went for food and to a bar with some random guys Hazel met whilst out and about, it's sometimes nice to have different people to talk to!

Pak Beng - We decided to sail the rest of the way up the Mekong river on a slow boat. Luckily we're not travelling in the popular direction so our boats were relatively empty, mainly filled with local people and produce. The boat was really basic with little wooden benches, they did have thin cushions on them but by the end of the day our behinds were aching!!!!

After 9 hours we arrived in Pak Beng, a quaint little town half way to the border. We had to literally climb and scramble up a muddy bank to get to the main road (track) not so easy with a backpack the size and weight of a small child on your back! There's not a lot to do in Pak Beng and at 10:30pm the power goes out in the whole town (so it's really pointless getting a room with air con!) The next day we climbed (rolled almost) back down the bank and back onto the boat for another days sailing.

Houei Xay

After sailing for another 8 hours we arrived in Houei Xay literally 15 minutes before the Thai border closed. We wandered for ages trying to find a cheap hotel, this place is really boring and over priced, people only seem to stay here when they've missed the border, purely not by choice! We ate at a nice restaurant where Hazel and Daniel (German guy we met along the way) had an interesting "cook it yourself" dish, a lot of fun!!

Looking across the river from here you're actually looking at Thailand which is a little odd but kind of cool!

Vietnam

ruudee81 — Mon, 8 Oct 2007 00:06:00 GMT

The rest of Vietnam really wasn't that bad. We travelled north through Na Trang, Hoi An, Hue and then Hanoi. The further north we got the more I liked the places.

Randomly in Hoi An I ran into a friend, I knew he was travelling south at the same time but I really didn't expect us to cross paths purely by accident on the same day, at the same place and time!!!! very odd!!! It pissed it down for the entire day so it was nice to meet with them later on, catch up and have a few drinks. Hoi An is beautiful during the day but by 10:30pm everything closes and the area becomes a ghost town!!!

I think my favourite place was Hanoi (only the old quarter), we made friends with a Swedish guy (Bjorn) off our overnight bus and seemed to run into him every day! Right where we were staying there's a cross roads with street bars on it. You literally sit on tiny plastic chairs in the street and they pour you 2000D beers from a chilled keg!!! So good!!! I even had a kebab from over the road (never having tasted one before I thought it was pretty good!!) More traditionally we also went to a water puppet show which was good, the puppeteers stand waist high in the water and they have traditional Vietnamese music playing.

After 2 overnight bus journeys and a lot of country covered, we're next moving onto Laos! The journey itself can take between 18 and 24 hours, noone is really sure!

Gallery: Cambodia Basix

ruudee81 — Wed, 3 Oct 2007 16:22:00 GMT

Our tour of Cambodia

Saigon......

ruudee81 — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:03:00 GMT

Cambodia was fantastic and I definitely now have a case of city blues. Ho Chi Minh is crazy!!! There are motorbikes everywhere, even on the pavements. To cross the road we were told to walk slowly but surely and the bikes in theory should drive round you (definitely scary the first time you walk through the middle of rush hour!!).

I'm determined not to judge the country by one city but I'm definitely not feeling the love here!! My cough (I picked up in Cambodia) is far worse with all the smog, I'm coughing so much I'll end up with a hernia! nice!

We didn't have anywhere booked to stay and after wandering in a few overpriced hotels, a little old lady stopped us and asked if we were looking for a room. She led us down an alley way full of people cooking and socialising outside their houses. We followed her into one of them, through the living room and up the stairs where there was a basic but nice 3 bed room with an en suite bathroom for a bargain price!!! Result!!! She told us that she was the guide and lived next door, a lot of the homes in the community have rooms for rent but she is the only one who speaks English. I'm so glad she found us, we would never have found these rooms on our own, and a bonus too that we are living with the locals. What does baffle me a little is that the entire family sleep on the living room floor, yet there are so many floors and rooms in this house. Good money from tourists I suppose, it does mean that at night when we return we have to quietly tip toe round them!!

We went in search for the Laos Embassy today and ran into our friend Raj from our Cambodian tour!! While waiting for our visas to be processed we had a few games of pool and said goodbye to him again (he's flying tonight). We also accidently found the the Notre Dame Church, which looks pretty similar to the original but very new!

Tomorrow we're getting the bus north to the seaside!!!! I really can't wait!!!!

Cambodia Basix - Intrepid Tour

ruudee81 — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:26:00 GMT

A rundown of our Intrepid Tour of Cambodia!

Siem Reap

I love watching the motorbikes here, they can literally fit a whole family or a whole shop on them. You'll see newborn babies on them too but it all seems so normal.

We got to see the amazing Angkor Wat temples (there are actually about 8 temples but after a few you can get a bit templed out!) My favourite one was the jungle temple (Ta Prohm) this one has been taken over by trees and their roots! It's an amazing sight and was used in the film Tomb Raider (the boys enjoyed standing where Angelina Jolie had once been!) I also like Bayon which has an incredible amount of faces on the towers. Another great thing about these temples is that they let you climb them and wander around inside, they'd never let you do that in England!!

Another day we took a boat down the river to see the floating village. Everybody lives on or in the water, even the school floats and has a football field on the roof. I was amazed by the amount of house boats that had televisions playing and also amused when a 2 year old boy tried to sell me a beer from a passing boat.

Afterwards we went to a local bar, laid in hammocks and drank the local beer (heaven!). Hazel daringly tried a local dish of cooked water snake, eggs and all! Definitely interesting but I decided to stick with my beer!

Kompong Cham - by the Mekong River

We only spent one night here but it was nice to be staying somewhere peaceful! A few doors down from our hotel was a restaurant run by a british man, and they did the best fish and chips and fried breakfasts!!! Not quite traditionally Cambodian but nice for a rare occasion!!

Some of our group rented bikes but we took a tuk tuk to the man (Phnom Proh)and woman (Phnom Sray)hills. "A wide range of legends surrounding the building of these two hills exist, most of which centre around the men being stupid, lazy or generally slack, thus allowing the women to build a bigger hill" Around Phnom Proh there were a lot of local children and monkeys. I bought some bananas off a local woman and gave them to the children. Some of them ate them, some gave them to the monkeys and some threw them at the monkeys!! they looked like they were having fun and kept posing for photos! After climbing the 200+ steps to the top of Phnom Sray the heavens opened and the biggest rain / thunder storm began. We waited for a while but it didn't stop so we ran for it and ended up pushing the tuk tuk back up the hill through the mud!!! a lot of fun actually!!

Chambok Eco Village Home Stay

The drive to Chambok was really pretty as we were finally in the hills and everything began to look a lot more tropical.

We ate as soon as we arrived at a communal area. The food was basic but really nice consisting of meat, veg and rice. Afterwards we went to see which family we would be staying with (the whole community has space available for eco tour groups and study groups).

We sat outside and drank the beers we had brought with us, it was a really nice social gathering for our group. The host family were also there but did not speak a lot of English, even so, we shared our beer with the men (women do not seem to openly drink in Cambodia) which seemed to make them happy.

By 7pm it was pitch black, they gave us battery lamps which lasted a few hours and attracted many species of bugs!! The family went to bed about 8:30pm but it seriously felt more like midnight!! We had to share a torch to find the outside toilet as by that time the oil lamp had burned out, all fun and games, though!!! I think I preferred not knowing what else was in the toilet with me!!!

By 10pm the beers were empty and we all went to bed. The sleeping accommodation was a wooden room on stilts, we each had mattress and mozzie nets so it was really nice. I didn't sleep too well that night, the countryside is really noisy and it absolutely pissed it down all night!! At about 3am (I'm guessing) there was a loud noise in the yard of a pig squealing which made us jump out of our skin!! Then at 4am the cockerels started crowing and it definitely wasn't dawn. I finally gave up at 6am and went for a walk, it was nice to see the how locals started off their day. The squealing pig was now laid out by the gate in their make shift butchers and was making them some money (yes I was a little freaked out by this but I guess it's a different country with a whole different way of living!)

Sihanoukville

The seaside resort!! Just like home......it rained the entire time we were here!!! Even so, it's a really nice place and our guide's favourite! He's such a local here which was nice for us as we got to eat at the local restaurants, go to a restaurant opening and try and do the traditional Cambodian dancing!! (Mr T is the manager and they have the best Chicken Amok!! and did I mention there was also free beer for the entire night!?!)

We went on our first motorbike ride here, I don't think any of them are actually taxis and you don't get a helmet, even so, I grinned like a 5 year old the entire time!!! It was great fun!!!

The only downside to Sihanoukville was that I came down with something and felt rotten for a few days...

Phnom Penh

The first thing we did after arriving here was take a trip to the killing fields. A definite must when travelling in this country, but it didn't help me understand why? We stopped off at a prison on the way which had once been a school, innocent people of all ages were taken here and tortured. If they survived that ordeal they would then be taken to the nearby killing fields. A truly horrific sight to see the skulls stacked up in the monument, there are also shreds of clothing on the floor. I find it hard to understand that this all took place in the 1970s and that there really was no reason behind it.

I didn't take to Phnom Penh straight away as I'm really not a fan of big cities. Luckily, having a guide from Cambodia who was always keen to socialise, we got to see some areas that we probably wouldn't have come across on our own.

For Hazel's birthday we all went for a night out in the town and ended up at a Cambodian night club!! which turned out to be very popular with gay tourists!! Raj was wondering why he was getting so much attention!! hahaha

Our hotel here is a little odd but nice. Our room is kind of off the balcony, the weird thing is that there is a huge vent which goes through to our guide's room. Hmmmmmm not so nice if both showers are in use at the same time!

My favourite places in Phnom Penh were a restaurant and a cafe. The restaurant was a non profit one and run alongside one of the local orphanages. The older children helped out and the younger children performed amazing traditional dances. We were told they had just arrived back from Japan where a business man had paid for them to all go there and perform!! An amazing place and the children all looked so happy!!

The cafe, cleverly I don't know it's name or where it was, but we had to climb the fire escapes to get to the roof and then we sat on floor cushions, ate crepes and drank healthy ginger water!! bliss!

I miss Cambodia!!! xx

Maybe a slight hangover

ruudee81 — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:58:00 GMT

Travelling whilst feeling rough is really a bad idea....especially when you are setting off at 7am and not arriving until 7pm!!!!

We started the journey to the border in a nice air conditioned van so luckily it really wasn't that bad!! After stopping at a few lovely squat toilet service stations and the embassy to get a quick visa, we finally arrived at the border only 2/3 hours from Bangkok.

Arriving into Cambodia you can see a complete contrast to Thailand. Whilst waiting at the passport checkpoint we heard what sounded like a landmine going off, a reminder that this country still has millions of landmines everywhere!

We got on our new bus which I was hoping would have amazing suspension as we had been pre-warned already about the road to Siem Reap. It's not that far but due to the state of the road it can be a 6 - 8 hour journey (mum - it was like the pot hole road you don't like by brough station) It hasn't been fixed as Thailand fear that less people would fly.

Driving over here is definitely interesting, firstly vehicles trying to drive around the pot holes which makes everyone drive on the wrong side. Interestingly (well I thought so), they drive on the left in Thailand and on the right in Cambodia, I forgot to look at the border to see how they changed lanes!

We passed some of the poorest places on the way to Siem Reap, even so everyone looked happy, especially the children who took great glee in waving at us at every opportunity.

Finally arriving at 7pm I took my first Tuk Tuk ride (hugely fun!!!) into the town for dinner. The town itself is incredibly nice, like a holiday resort, it's a shame more people don't visit!

Bangkok!!!

ruudee81 — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:30:00 GMT

So arriving in Bangkok really wasn't as bad as everyone said, no culture shock at all! The temperature was a bit of a shock... a nice 32degrees but I'm sure we'll get used to it!

Lucy was incredibly impressed by the pink taxi taking us to our hotel which turned out to be the best hotel ever with the most amazing garlic bread!! (not a tradtional Thai cuisine I know but I had spring rolls too!!)

The hotel (Shanti Lodge Bangkok) is really tranquil with indoor fountains. As it's more like a home they make you remove your shoes before you walk in. Very nice!

12/09 - Tried to find Khao San Road by walking in the wrong direction but found it later on!! What a street, it really is like the Vegas of Bangkok!

13/09 - Moved hotels to New World Lodge, is ok but no way as nice as Shanti and probably costs twice as much!

Met some of our Intrepid group, so far a guy called Raj and a girl called Hazel - both from England. After eating out with our Cambodian leader Con we sampled a lot of the local beers!!! and randomly played pool with some Irish guys in an Irish bar.