The Big Trip.

Final Destination: Thai Islands

thebigtrip — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:40:00 GMT

The South of Thailand is our last destination of our trip. With three weeks until it came time to return to the real world and cold rainy Ireland where better to finish up than on the tropical Islands of Thailand.

Koh Samui was our first stop after a very long and painful journey from Cambodia. Koh Samui is a well developed very touristy island. Its got all the comforts a westerner could want on holidays, Mac Donald’s, Starbucks, Tesco’s and Boots chemist. Koh Samui was really nice but as its full of high end resorts it’s a bit over prices and over developed. Its also full of bars that are full of Thai ladies (and lady boys) just dying to show men a good time. All a bit tacky and sleazy. After four days here we got the ferry to the next island.

Koh Phangan is only 15 miles from Koh Samui on boat so it was a short hop and a truck ride to our accommodation. We were in Koh Phangan two days before the famous full moon party and so accommodation was expensive and scarce so we decided to stay about 10 mins drive from the main beach in Had Rinn and in the end we were glad we did. Our digs was beautiful beachside cottages on a quite stretch of amazing beach which also had a pool. It was one of the nicest places we have stayed all year. We has come for the full moon party so on the night after some drinks in the bar we piled into the back of a pick up with four others just after midnight and headed for the party.

The full moon party is huge… thousands of people all over the beach and the small town.

The beach was lined with stalls selling beer and buckets, there was fortune tellers, tattooists, face painters, people selling Thai lanterns as well as loads of different DJ’s. it’s a huge crazy beach party that happens every full moon and it was fun.

When we entered Thailand over land from Cambodia we only got a 15 day visa and so had to find some way to extend it. We had planned on doing it in Phuket until we found out we could go back to Samui and get a visa extension there. We got the 7am boat over to Samui and got a taxi to the Immigration office and queued up for an extension with loads of other westerners. After filling out the forms and paying over a small fortune we were told that we could only get a 7 day extension… we needed 10. There was nothing we could do and we were told that we would have to pay a fine of 500 bath for every extra day we stayed when we were at the airport flying home. We were very pissed off and adding it all up we realised that including transport to get to the immigration office we would be paying out almost 100 Euro each just to stay in Thailand for 10 extra days. The Thai Government sure do know how to rip people off.

We spent six days on Koh Phangan before setting off west to the island of Koh Phi Phi.

Koh Phi Phi is beautiful and very different to the other two islands. There are no roads on the island and most of it is uninhabited and only accessible by boat. The main village is a small maze of narrow streets and lanes lined with little shops and restaurants and guesthouses. There is no high rise hotels, no cars and no motorbikes bikes which was bliss. The bay was surrounded by high limestone cliffs and beaches with soft white sand. We decided to do a boat trip around the island and the other island. The trip took us first to monkey beach. This is a tiny beach which is home to lots of local monkeys. The guide on our boat had told everyone to be careful as the monkeys can bite and have rabies but we didn’t expect them to be as evil as they were. They were out for blood and chased peoples along the beach nipping at ankles and sending them running into the water to escape. They were obviously sick of the sight of tourists and who could blame them!

We went on to more beaches and coves stopping at cove for some snorkelling and kayaking. The water was crystal clear, blue and green…!

Me and Stephen decided to go snorkelling to the nearby coral reef first while James and Sinead grabbed a kayak to head into the cove. While they were kayaking a long boat (traditional Thai boat) came full speed out of the cove and straight for them. They first thought nothing of it and paddled out of its way thinking the driver would see them and go around but soon realise that the driver didn’t see them and was heading straight for them. James waved his oar around trying to warn the driver but it was no good so James jumped out and turned the kayak over knocking Sinead into the water. Lucky they did jump out because seconds later the boat hit the kayak at full speed leaving James and Sinead bobbing in the water. The driver turned round and helped them back into the kayak but never even said sorry even though he could have killed them. If them of any of the other 10 or 15 people snorkelling in the area had been in they way of the board someone might have been killed. Last stop was Maya Bay. This is the beach from the film “The Beach”. Its an amazing beach but was so crowded it was hard to enjoy.

We spent seven days on Koh Phi Phi and loved it.

Phuket was the next stop. While we were in Phuket it was Thai New Year celebrations.. and this means only one thing.. WATER FIGHT!!

Thai people take to the streets with huge water guns, buckets of water and hoses and spend all day and night soaking each other and everyone that comes into sight. After innocently walking five mins down the street for breakfast on the first morning and arriving soaked we decided we better arm ourselves and join the fun. And it was great fun!

Most of the way through Cambodia and since we arrived in Thailand we had been keeping an eye on the red shirt protests in Bangkok. The night after we arrived in Phuket all hell broke loose in Bangkok between the protesters and the army leaving 20 people dead. We had intended on spending a couple of days in Phuket and heading up to Bangkok for our last few days but because of the violence we decided to give Bangkok a miss. We got a 12 hour buss to Bangkok on the day before our flight and stayed in an airport hotel for one night completely avoiding the city.. But little did we know that the Red shirt protests were the least of our problems.

While on the bus from Phuket we got a text from home telling us that London and Dublin airports had closed because of an ash cloud caused by a volcano in Iceland. At the time we didn’t think it was too serious and assumed things would be back to normal the next morning. This wasn’t the case, It wasn’t until the next morning that we started to realise that there was a very good chance we would not be going home than night. We assumed we would get a flight in a day or two… we never thought we would be stuck in Bangkok for 12 days!! A lot of flights had been cancelled and so we could not get booked onto another flight for 12 days, we were gutted. We asked around and were told that it was relatively safe to go to Bangkok so we headed to Koh San Road and found some very cheap digs. As the week went on the protests went from bad to worse with violence and grenade attacks in the city. It wasn’t really safe to move around the city so we were confined to three or four streets around Koh San Road. It was a long and pretty boring week which included a trip to Cambodia to get a new Visa… for some reason they couldn’t just stamp our passports in the immigration office in Bangkok. By the end of the 12 days we were counting the hours until our flight and really looking forward to getting home at last.

As I write this we are getting ready to set off home. After one full year of none stop travel to 15 amazing countries, 19 flights, over 100 different hostals, hotels, huts, tents etc, countless hours of pain full bus and train journies and a million amazing memories its time to get back to the real world. Although we are all looking forward to seeing our family and friends its sad that its over and its going to be hard to get back to normal everyday life. We all agree that this year has been the best year of our lives, the best decision we have ever made and even if we go home with 5 Euro to our name its was worth every minute and every hard earned and saved penny, we have had the time of our lives... as the song goes..haha.

Thanks to everyone whos been reading our blog and following our adventures over the past year we hope you enjoyed it, see ye all soon.

Photos: Thailand.. Islands!!

thebigtrip — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:28:00 GMT

Cambodia

thebigtrip — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:39:00 GMT

After our relatively short bus journey (at this stage an 8 hour bus journey is short) from Saigon and an easy hop across the boarder we arrived in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. When we stepped off the bus outside the central market the first thing that hit us was the heat, in the 40s most days it was hot, the noise was another thing it was chaotic the market was huge with people everywhere everyone seemed to be selling something. As usual the minute we stepped off the bus there were hordes of tuk tuk drivers offering their services there were so many all talking at one time it was overwhelming and annoying. We finally agreed on one to take us to a hotel, so off we went. A couple of air conditioned hours, and a shower later we set out to see a little of the city and look for some food. We discovered that the street out side our hotel was home to many Korean restaurants and 'massage' parlours and other dodgy looking places. I would assume this is the part of the city you come to if your looking for a happy ending... If you know what I mean! Further down the city along the river is where we found all the bars and restaurants.

Up early the next morning so we could spend the day seeing some sites we negotiated a price with a tuk tuk driver for the day. Our first destination was the Killing Fields. For those who don't know, in the mid-70s a party called the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, and their reign ultimately led to a genocide. The killing fields are a very blunt name as that is exactly what it was. This was where they brought their prisoners (women, children, academics, high ranking officials, anyone who posed a threat to their reign) after they tortured them at a prison located in Phnom Penh, known as S-21. There are over 120 massive grave sights which held up to 400 people in a single plot.

Only 80 of these sights have been excavated. In these graves the remains of men women and children were found many had been beaten to death so precious bullets could be saved. One of the most disturbing sites was the Killing Tree. This is a huge old tree which the solders used to beat babies and children’s skulls against before they were tossed into the huge mass grave near by.

At the centre of the grounds, the government has since constructed a 17 level monument containing the skulls, bones, and clothes of the victims who were discovered in the excavated graves as a memorial to those that died during the genocide. Walking around the grounds which contained the remaining graves was where it hit us the extent of what happened here with pieces of bone and clothes sticking out of the ground. There was also a small museum that outlined in very graphic details of how people and small children were tortured and brutally murdered, sparing no details.

The entire place just felt horrible and the sadness and shock could be seen on the faces of all the other tourists, it is impossible not to be effected by a place like this but despite all this it was worth seeing and we were very glad we went.

The next place we were brought was the S-21 prison. This was originally a high school, which the Khmer Rouge transformed into a prison and used to hold and torture people before they were taken to the near by killing fields.

This prison contained four different buildings in which all the class rooms had been turned into cells, all of which had their own horrifying purpose. Thousands of people were tortured here. Torture devices are still to be seen, as are blood stains on the walls. Hundreds of pictures of victims were on display. Many were mug shots of the prisoners taken when they arrived and some were pictures of tortured victims. It is so difficult to believe that something so tragic and gruesome occurred only 30 years ago. That night a few drinks were had.

The next day was time for fun, we decided we wanted to shoot some really big guns. We got a tuk tuk to an army base. When we arrived to a yard full of tanks we were led into a seating area and handed menus, yes a menu of guns, rocket launchers and grenades. we were all drawn to the rocket launcher, you get to shoot a rocket into the side of a mountain, however the $300 price tag had us thinking again. Finally me and Laura decided on M16, James decided on an anti aircraft gun and Stephen a handgun and K 60 automatic gun. Laura and I went first, then the boys followed. James and Stephen were like kids at Christmas.

That done we returned to the city to visit the Royal palace, except when we got there me and Laura were refused entry because we didn’t have our arms and legs covered… who knew shoulders were so offensive. So we decided to leave it for another day.

The next morning we first visited the national museum and then the Royal Palace, covered in all the right places this time.

The royal palace is huge with stunning buildings and gardens. On the palace grounds is the silver pagoda. The floor is tiled with solid silver tiles and it houses a huge gold Buddha encrusted with diamonds.

The next day we left Phnom Penn and headed to the sea side town of Shannoukville for a few days. When we arrived we booked into bungalows near the beach with no air conditioning just fans, which did noting just blew hot air around the room which is just torture considering the heat and humidity in Cambodia. Not surprisingly after a few days we left and decided to splash out on an air conditioned room. We stayed in Shannoukville nearly a week enjoying the outrageously cheap drink in the lively beach bars. We celebrated St Patrick’s day with green beer and shots hired some scooters and relaxed on the beaches.

Our last destination in Cambodia was Siem Reap. Siem Reap was a dusty little town until a few years ago when the nearby temples of Ankor Wat were discovered by the world. Now Siem Reap is a town filled with flashy resorts, hotels, bars and restaurants for the million or more tourists who visit every year. The Ankor Wat temples are made up of hundreds of ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples which are thousands of years old spread out over many square miles of thick jungle.

he temples went untouched and undiscovered for many thousands of years but are now considered one of the wonders of the world. You could spend many days going from temple to temple and still not see them all. We arranged a tuck tuk to pick us up at 5 am and take us to the temples to see sunrise after which we spent the whole day travelling from site to site visiting the most popular temples. The heat was almost unbearable, well into the 40’s with no clouds and no breeze it was hard work with lots of climbing over fallen rocks and to the top of temples. Gallons of water was drank and we even got a guy selling us ice creams to give us a huge chunk of ice from his cool box which we used in an attempt to cool us down.

At about 10 am we stopped at some make shift restaurants for some breakfast. As we ate our driver went off to have a sleep in a hammock. When we finished eating and went back to the tuck tuk and began to climb in as our driver headed our way. One moment everything was fine next thing the motorbike at the front crashed to the ground knocking over the tuk tuk. We jumped out not knowing what had happened and next thing we were surrounded by about 15 Cambodian people who were looking at us as if we had just killed someone. The driver began inspecting his bike then he detached it from the tuk tuk on the back and rode off leaving us standing there not knowing what the hell to do. Eventually someone told us that something had broken and he had to go back into town to get it fixed so we waited for over an hour for him to return. What happened wasn’t tour fault but we still felt bad and at the end of the day we gave him an extra $5 anyway.

By the end of the day we were sweaty, dirty and exhausted but it was worth it. The temples are amazing, more so than we had expected. Many of the most impressive ones are buried deep in the jungle and have been taken over by huge trees which just grew up through walls. It really was like a lost world. The detail, the sculptures and carvings were amazing and it was not hard to see why this place is considered a wonder of the world.

The next day was Sunday so we chilled out had a very overpriced but very tasty Sunday roast in an Irish pub. Stephen and James treated themselves to a fish foot massage. This involve sitting with your feet in a tank full if tiny fish and letting the fish nibble at your feet. They said it tickled like mad and were in hysterics for the first 5 mins.

Cambodia was without a doubt one of our favourite countries so far. Its very poor and some parts are horrible, smelly and dirty but some parts are amazing beautiful, full of old royal buildings, temples an monuments. The people are so friendly and helpful. The saddest thing about this country is the street children. In no other country have we seen anything like the child poverty like in Cambodia. There are children begging and working on the streets everywhere… they are at every street corner, every tourist attraction. There is about 20,000 children living and working on the streets in the capital alone. They beg or sell books, water, souvenirs or just hand made trinkets some of them only babies and often with no parents at every hour of the day and night. It is so sad and impossible to escape. There are many charities working with street children in Cambodia and we decided to donate some money to them.

We booked a bus to Bangkok and headed for the boarder. After a marathon journey which lasted 25 hours and involved 4 buses, a tuk tuk, a car, two taxies and a boat we finally arrived on the Thai Island of Koh Samui.

The Vietnam adventure continued...!

thebigtrip — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:43:00 GMT

Hoi An was our next stop. Hoi An is well known as the place in Vietnam for tailor made clothes and suits as well as silks. Hoi An is also a UNESCO world heritage town. The old town along the river is a maze of tiny streets with lovely little old French buildings which are lit up at night with hundreds of lanterns.

As cars and bikes are banned from the old town it can be really nice and peaceful… sometimes! There are hundreds of tailors and cobblers in Hoi An not to mention people selling souvenirs, books, etc so there is a lot of competition and every where you go and all day long people shout things at you like, "wanna buy a suit", "buy shoes buy shoes", "come into my shop" or just "buy something buy something". So you spend all day saying no thanks, no thanks!!

Despite all this Hoi An is every girls dream!! Cheap clothes and shoes tailor made to fit and for half nothing as well. Needless to say the lads soon got sick of being dragged round all the shops looking at dresses. Stephen picked his suit and was measured in about 10 mins flat, I on the other hand was a different story. You can get anything you want made here and the shops have piles of magazines, catalogue and the like for you to choose from or just bring your own picture. In the end I got three dresses made, a coat, two pairs of sandals and many silk scarves. Sinead got two dresses, a coat and two pairs of sandals. James got a coat and Stephen got a suit! We had to buy a few extra bags before we left.

Hoi An hasn’t got the most happening night life but it is only a few kilometres from the beach where there was a beach bar with a pool. After a few drinks in town we got the free transfer to the beach club and drank into the early hours. Stephen and James at some stage decided to strip off and take a swim in their boxers.

When the place was closing they gave us and a couple of other people a lift back into town… or so they told us. We were left off in the middle of no where and had no idea where we were, walking wasn’t really an option so we had no idea what way to even go. Lucky for us there were a few guys working on a construction site and said they would give us a lift to our hotel… so off we went. On the way James decided to dry his wet boxers by putting them on his head (he was very drunk) they didn’t stay on his head long and so James was a pair of boxers short lol.

Very hung over the next day we collected the last of our clothes and booked some bus tickets out of Hoi An for the next evening.

Another overnight bus later we were in Nha Trang. Nha Trang is the big beach town of the south of Vietnam. It was getting hotter and hotter the further south we went so a few days at the beach was just what we needed. First thing on the agenda though was to find a bar to watch Ireland kick England’s ass in the Rugby… and that’s exactly what happened. Great game but James was not so happy… aw well.

While in Nha Trang James manages to loose two more pairs of boxers when they fell off the hotel balcony onto the neighbouring buildings roof where there was no way to get them. James had to head off to the local market in search of some underwear as he was running seriously low at this stage. All he managed to find was a couple of pairs of very figure hugging fake Calvin Klein‘s…. very figure hugging!!

We decided to do an island hopping cruise… It was really cheap and we soon realised why. It was a bit shit and bizarre! The boat was a basic wooden boat with rows of benches inside there were about 50 people on the boat. Basically there was snorkelling but the snorkels and masks were like something from the pound shop and there were no flippers so snorkelling was just crap and then lunch was cold. On the funny side after lunch the crew set up what is possibly the most old and rusted guitar and drum set I have ever seen and with an tambourine they started to play and sing, it was very cringe worth stuff.

But it got worse… They started trying getting people to sing and dance. I've never seen so many people trying to make themselves look invisible. If one of them had come near me to try get me to sing I was jumping out of that boat. Truly weird. After this one of the crew jumped into the water with a floating tray of plastic cups and few bottles of wine. And the floating bar was open! Everyone grabbed a big rubber ring, jumped into the water and made for the bar. It was great fun floating around the middle of the sea drinking wine.

Next we stopped at a island beach for some relaxing time. We are still wondering why its called a four island cruise cause we only stopped at two islands.

In Nha Trang we found a bar and restaurants right on the beach with a pool and sun lounges on the beach where for 25 cent we could use all the facilities all day. We spent a lot of time here and it was fabulous, pool side service, cocktails, massages and the pool and beach only a few steps away, bliss.

The overnight bus thing was getting to be a bit of a pain but we had to do one more to get to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) our last stop In Vietnam.

Saigon is a much nicer city than Hanoi. It is more modern and cleaner but still as crazy. Its crazy, loud and busy with thousands of scooters and motorbikes… They out number cars in ridiculous numbers. On our first day we walked twenty minutes or so to the War Remnants Museum. Its was freaking scary and crossing the road near impossible at times… We decided to get a taxi back to our hotel later.

The War Remnants Museum is entirely dedicated to the Vietnam war. It was had by far some of the saddest and most disturbing images we have ever seen. The museum is very anti American and controlled by the government. It had articles, war artefacts, weapons and photos of the war and victims of the war which were very interesting but what they showed was disturbing.

We booked a tour to the Chi Chi tunnels a few hours north of Saigon. These tunnels were used during the Vietnam war by the Viet Cong who fought against the Americans. The tunnels are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. The tunnels were used by Viet Cong as hiding places during combat, as well as housing, hospitals, food and weapons and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. The original tunnels are tiny and narrow and made for the tiny Vietnamese solders and the solders would have had to drag them selves along the tunnels on their elbows. We had the option to get into the smaller tunnels, Stephen had a go but unfortunately James was to big.

Some tunnels have been made larger to accommodate the larger size of western tourists, while low-power lights have been installed in several of them to make travelling through them easier. Stephen, Sinead and James went into the tunnels but I chickened out at the entrance and couldn’t make myself go any further it was just too small.

Also on display were some of the booby traps that the Viet Cong set in the area around the tunnels. They looked painful. There was a small shooting range and the lads had fun shooting big card board cut outs of cows with AK47.

Also on the tour we went to see the centre of the religion known as Coadaism. This is a religion bases loosely on the Buddhist and Christian religions. It has about 2 million followers in Vietnam. In the north of Saigon is the centre if the religion in what is known as The Holy See. This is a huge compound made up of many fabulous temples and religious buildings and the main Temple of worship, which like the other buildings is beautifully and colourfully decorated.

We were there in time to be able to watch the midday service of worship. The worshipers dress in white robes and the more important members wear different colours robes, they kneel and pray to the music.

The real surprise of the day was our tour guide. He used to be an English teacher so had excellent English but he also knew an amazing amount of Cockney rhyming slang much to our amusement. As soon as he realised James was from London he was non stop with cockney rhyming slang. For example when we were going for lunch he said to James "are you hank Marvin? Because were going for a ruby murry now." In English that’s James are you hungry, we are going for a curry now. He was also able to speak a bit of Irish… more than I can actually.

Next stop is Cambodia. Cambodia will be country number 15 on our trip so far and also our last country as after this we head back to Thailand to spend our last few weeks on the Islands.

Crazy Vietnam... part 1

thebigtrip — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:48:00 GMT

We arrived in Hanoi on new years eve (the Chinese new year) otherwise known as Tet in Vietnam. This is the biggest holiday of the year for Vietnamese people, for most the only holiday of the year. After we got to our hostel we headed into the city to watch the celebrations and the huge fire works display over the lake. The first thing we realised when we landed was it was fucking cold… after leaving Laos where it was in the high 30s we were not prepared for the cold, misty dull weather.

Vietnam is the land of motorbikes if you do not own a motor bike you are no one. Cars are relatively new to Vietnam and with a 200% tax are very expensive so only the very wealthy have cars! Scooters and motorbikes dominate the streets with thousands of them on the roads and the footpaths. Hanoi is a crazy city and it was always entertaining watching the city in action. Scooters and motorbikes are used for everything, they are used as people carriers

to transport whole families we saw motorbikes with 4 and 5 people on them, they’re used as delivery vehicles to transport things you could never imagine could be carried on the back of a bike. For example we saw washing machines, trees, animals in cages, chairs, TV’s on the backs of bikes. People even sleep on their bikes.

The city is mostly old, with narrow streets and ally ways and crumbling buildings. We soon discovered how the city operates! The footpaths are for parking your scooter,

driving your scooter, its where people set up there make shift restraunts and where people sell anything you could think of, its where Vietnamese people sit on tiny baby sized tables and chairs eat noodle soup and socialise. Its for these reasons that most of the time we had to walk on the streets along with the motor bikes, scooters, cars and busses. Traffic is non stop, there seems to be no road rules, people drive on the wrong side of the road, run red lights... There is no pedestrian crossings. Crossing the road was a whole new kind of extreme sport for us and often terrifying and exciting. On our first morning we sat on the balcony of a cafe and watched the locals. Its was here that we learned how to cross the street in this crazy city. Its very simple really...just walk. You just have to go for it and hope for the best, walk out onto the street amid the hundreds of bikes and non stop honking of horns and hope that the bikes and cars will go around you. Crazy I know, but it worked.

The worst thing about arriving in Hanoi during the New Year was that all the tourist attractions were either closed or unbearable over crowded with holidaying Vietnamese people. So on a wet cold day after spending a few hours walking round the city dodging scooters we came across an Irish Pub. It was about 4pm when we went in to have a drink, almost 10 hours later we left the bar having paid our 2.5 million Dong bill! Back at the hostel Stephen and James made some drunken skype calls home while myself and Sinead went to bed. Needless to say much of the following day was spent in bed. The following day we did do some stuff. We went to see Ho Chi Minh's body on display which was interesting. His body is kept in a special building (on display to the world despite the fact that he requested a quiet cremation when he died) watched over by many very uptight guards who demanded we not talk, laugh, smile, put our hands in our pockets. This guy is a big deal in Vietnam. After this we went to the "Hanoi Hilton". This is the prison where many American solders including John Mc Cain were held by the Viet Cong during the war. Its also where many Vietnamese were held by the French after they took over Vietnam. The prison museum was very interesting but completely one sided propaganda controlled by the communist government. Basically it tells of how badly the Vietnamese were treated when they were held by the French and how when the American were held here they were treated like kings and had everything they could want and need. A bit one sided we thought.

The plan after Hanoi was to head south so we booked bus tickets to Nimh Bhinn a few hours south. The bus was at 6pm and the day before this Sinead had left a huge load of washing to the hostel reception she was told it would be back by 12pm the day were due to leave. Were were out all day so when we got back to the hostel at 4pm she went looking for her washing. The problem started when the kid who is about 15 years old and had been left in charge of the hostel speaks no English so just getting him to understand what she was asking for was a task. After three hours, many phone calls and a lot of shouting from Sinead the laundry still had not shown up and we had to leave for the bus. Sinead had no choice, pretty much all her clothes were missing she could not leave without them so just me and Stephen got on the bus. Sinead was so pissed off the poor kid in the hostel was almost in tears when we left... it was actually quite funny for the rest of us. Loosing her temper and almost making the kid cry did pay off how ever... she managed to get a free night in the hostel, free laundry when it did show up and a free ride to the next day to Nimh Bhinn.

Nimh Bhinn is a shit hole... It looks like the war just ended there yesterday. Its dirty, gray, filthy, loud and busy! Thankfully we weren’t here to see the town. We spent a day in the surrounding country side... went for a boat trip in Tanm Coc which is made up of huge limestone formations surrounded by paddy fields and water ways.

The boats are small row boats each boat takes 2 tourists. In the boat was a husband and wife team. The husband rows while the wife does the small talk and points out stuff. At the end of the river there are dozens of boats which have basically been turned into a floating shop with drinks, beer, fruit etc and basically pester you until you buy something and something for your guide as well.. On the return journey the woman in the boat pulls a big bag out from under her seat full of embroidered table clots and doilies and starts the usual guilt trip and doesn’t let up. Eventually James caved and bought something. She wasn’t happy, after much pestering and sob stories about how much money we have (Yea right) she gave up not before giving James an ore and making him help row all the way back, id say she wanted to get us back fast so she could get us out of her boat! Despite all this the scenery was beautiful and worth the trip.

After the Tamm Coc we climbed some hills and many steps to see temples, pagodas and amazing views of the paddy fields and visited the floating villages. As soon as this was done we got the hell out of Nimh Binn.

We got an overnight bus further south to Hue. The busses in Vietnam are like none I have ever seen before. They actually have bunk beds in them which are pretty comfy except on this occasion we got ripped off.

We were among the last people to get on the bus and were forced to sleep two in a bed. The beds are very narrow and tight and with two of us in a bed the journey was unbearable long and uncomfortable. Nothing new there then. Thankfully we had invested in some Valium so this helped make the journey slightly more pleasant. It was needed as seems that all drivers epically bus drivers in Vietnam are wanabe formula 1 drivers on a mission to get to their destination as quick as possible by overtaking every vehicle in their path; even when there is on coming traffic and honking there horn as much as they possibly can.

Hue was a quick one day stop on our way south. Its a really nice town and one of the towns which was worst hit during the Vietnam war. On display in one of the parks was some of the American tanks and weapons captured during the war. Boys being boys, Stephen and James had a great time playing around in the tanks.

We also went to have a look at the old city. This was the old capital city and home to Vietnam royalty in the past. Its was damaged during the war and when we were there they were in the middle of restoring the city. The bits that were restored were beautiful but there is a lot of work to do.

By this point in we discovered a few things about Vietnam First of all it’s a huge rip off of a country. There is always one price for locals and one price for tourists and much of the time the tourist prices are ridiculous. Everyone is out to sell you something and rip you off because they assume your rich we always heard the same thing “but this is very cheap price for you” Prices for some things were higher that what we would pay at home. We were pretty quick to cop on to this so we didn’t let ourselves fall for the ridiculous prices, lots of haggling was done. Although at times we had no choice. Also people in Vietnam are tiny, James is a giant and I at a pretty small 5ft 2in am well above average which is nice for a change. Vietnam is also the land of counterfeits. Counterfeit books, DVD’s and Music among other tings is available everywhere and not just on the street from some dodgy fellas, its widely available in big posh department stores and government buildings as well.

Next stop is Hoi An.

Photos: Vietnam

thebigtrip — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:39:00 GMT

Its all just fab-Laos..!!

thebigtrip — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:45:00 GMT

So we made it to Laos alive. I have to say that I have a slight fear of flying but after that journey I am now a true believer in the fact that your far more likely to be killed on the road than on a plane… esp. on the roads around here. Its all part of the adventure….

After a long boarder crossing we arrived in Vientiane in Laos. Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world, the economy relies mostly on agriculture, there is little development, infrastructure and for the most part the it has been untouched by the western culture of fast food, shopping malls, big business and commercialism. People here work to live, life is simple and so its all very chilled. All this makes for an amazingly beautiful country. Outside the few small towns people live in small villages in their very basic, small thatched huts, there are very few cars but it seems like despite the poverty everyone has a motorbike or a scooter or some kind of contraption that will get them around.

What we loved about Laos is that it’s a culture so far removed from ours that everyday we found ourselves seeing things that either shocked us or just made us laugh. Like the tuk tuk drivers who shout at you from where they lie in the hamocks in the back of their tuk tuks.

Or like watching the women from our hotel wash her little puppy under the kitchen sink tap over a sink full of dishes and baby bottles. What was made this even more strange to watch was the fact that the kitchen sink is attached to the back wall of the outside of the hotel as is the rest of the kitchen. Or seeing a family who lived in the one room that was also the shop that they run.

Pretty much as soon as we got to Vientiane in Laos myself and James got dodgy stomachs. We had to get our Vietnam visas in Vientiane anyway so we stayed here a few nights. There is not much to do here so we just chilled out, slept, the lads went out to watch football on TV. We got our Vietnam visas and booked a flight from Luang Prabang, which is in the north, for the following week. Next we headed to Vang Veng which is about 5hrs north so we booked a VIP bus… it only cost 4euro. VIP my ass… the bus we ended up on was a rickety old 24 seater chicken bus with no air con and the seats were so tightly packed together even me at 5ft 2in had to sit with my knees jammed into the back seat in front. Poor James was stuffed into the seat and his legs took up half the isle.

With our bags strapped to the roof we set off. The roads are dusty and bumpy, it was hot and cramped…. Not a very nice 6hrs.

We got to Vang Vieng and found ourselves a fab little guesthouse and got two double rooms with shower for less than 2.50 euro each. We came here for pretty much one thing… and that was the tubing. We had heard about tubing from loads of people on our travels and they had all said the same thing, that we have to do it! Basically tubing is when you float down the river in a huge inflated tube, stopping at the bars along the way.

So here we were. Vang Veng is a small town that has been taken over by the tubing phenomenon. Its full of hotels and guesthouses, restaurants and bars, stalls and shops selling everything a backpacker could want. Its over run with backpackers who come here for one thing… to go tubing and get pissed. If you want to see the real Laos your not going to find much of it here. It’s a nice place and great fun but at times you feel like your in some Spanish holiday resort with girls walking round the streets in their bikinis and guys in their board shorts.

There is not much to do in this little town but drink and go tubing… so that’s what we did. Beers are cheap and vodka comes in a bucket so how could we resist The day we decided to do the tubing we set off to rent the tubes at about 12.30pm. We thought this would give us plenty of time to get down the river and back to town before dark… we were so wrong. We got our tubes, paid the deposit and got a tuk tuk to the starting point on the river which is 3km from town. The first bar was here, we didn’t even have to get into the water. There are hundreds of backpackers doing the tubing every day, and there are almost as many bars to choose from as you go down the river.

They all want to get you to stop so they have people standing on the banks throwing bottles tied to a string at you so you can be pulled in. The bars have everything you need for a good time, drinks,

music, sun, hammocks,

slides,

swings and zip lines over the river.

Even a drugs menu. Yes a drugs menu! They openly offered hash brownies, shakes and magic mushrooms in all different forms (don’t worry parents we didn’t try them).

It was the best fun we had had in ages, such a laugh. Pretty soon we realised it was getting a bit late and we hadn’t made it very far… in fact because we kept stopping at every bar we had only managed to make it less than 1km down river. There was still over 2km of river to go before we were back in town and we had already lost some of our deposit because we hadn’t got the tubes back so we just waited till it was almost dark and got a tuk tuk back to town. It was off for a shower before we headed out for a much needed meal and some more drinks.

Next afternoon we got mini van to Luang Prabang 6 hrs north across the mountains. The road goes over the mountains and is a narrow twisty road that passes through loads of mountain villages. The scenery was worth the trip but once again we noticed that the driver was having trouble staying alert or at least we think that was the reason he slapped himself in the face a couple of times towards the end of the drive. What can ya do but laugh..!

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage town. The town is a really beautiful charming place with its French mansions, tiny side streets with beautiful wooden houses and orange robed monks roam the streets under their umbrellas. Its also got some great markets. We love a good market and the hand crafts here were amazing…. Money was spent and the backpacks are getting fuller by the day. We spent 3 days here.

Tuk tuk or truck is the way to get around here. We were going for a late breakfast on our first morning when we were ambushed by tuk tuk drivers wanting to bring is somewhere. Being nice we said yea maybe later to one poor tuk tuk driver and headed to the café. Sitting outside the café having breakfast and we realise that the tuk tuk driver is standing across the road waiting for us. Every time we looked over he was waving at us. Feeling a bit guilty we decided we were doing nothing else so we would make the poor guys day and hire him for a few hours. He was delighted and after some haggling we agreed a price and set off to the Pak Ou caves. We were only a couple of hundred meters down the road when his tuk tuk broke down in the middle of the road, the poor guy didn’t know what to do. We decided pretty fast that we were not waiting around so we jumped out and headed off up the road. A few minutes later the guy comes running round the corner after us all out of breath and sweaty, in very poor English he explained that his friend was coming to get us. So a few minutes later we were back on our way. The Pak Ou caves house hundreds of old, new and broken Buddha statutes and is considered a place of worship by Laos people. Forhundreds of years Laos people have been comming here with there budda statutes. There are maby thousands of them in all sizes all over the two caves.

Have to say we found it a bit strange. We also spent a day at Kouang Si waterfalls which are about an hour from Luang Prabang. There is about seven waterfalls in thick forest with amazing pure blue water lagoons and beautiful pools to swim in. We started at the bottom fall and made our way up the hill to where the falls start. Chilled out and cooled down in the pools.

On Saturday we got our flight to Hanoi in Vietnam. We decided not to get the bus to Vietnam as wed heard so many bad things about it. We had heard it referred to as the “hell bus” and “the death bus”. The bus takes anything from 24 hrs to 30 hrs so we decided to pay a bit extra and fly. The only issue with this is that the only air line we could get was Laos Airlines which apparently has questionable safety records and some governments advise against travelling with them. On the other hand we had also heard that they had a whole fleet of new plains and were very safe. We decided to take our chances with the flight considering some of the bus journeys wed had lately its was hard to know which was the safer option. Thankfully the 50min flight in a turbo prop plane went very smoothly and we made it in one piece to Hanoi in the north of Vietnam. We got off the plain to realise that its pretty bloody cold in Hanoi. Quite a shock since we left Laos and it was a sweltering 36 or 37 degrees and arrived in shorts to 10 degree, rainy, grey weather in Hanoi.

Photos: Laos

thebigtrip — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:40:00 GMT

Thailand Part 1, treking, elephants, tigers and more

thebigtrip — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:19:00 GMT

After four days on the paradise Island of Boracay it was time pack our bags and move on once again. So after a trike, ferry, minibus, plane, another plane and a taxi and about 18 hours of travelling we finally arrived in Bangkok and at 2am we crawled into bed after a very long day...

Finally we made our minds up about our next destination and the next morning we headed straight to the train station to buy our tickets to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Tickets for the sleeper train bought we waited some more and treated our selves to some KFC for dinner before boarding the train at 6pm. A couple of hours and a few beers later it was time for bed the porter set up our beds and myself and Laura were delighted to find that the bottom bunks were huge, nearly as big as a double bed with soft mattress fluffy pillow and clean linen. The boys however who agreed to sleep in the top bunks were not so happy especially James, when they discovered that they were half the size of the bottom bunk and not made for tall people.

It was one of the best nights sleep I have had in a long time, I don’t think James would say the same. At 8am the next morning we were in Chaing Mai.

Our reason for visiting Chang Mai was to do some trekking, along with every other tourist who comes to Asia. Which means there are hundreds of tour agencies offering all kinds of trips so with the help of the lovely woman who managed the hostel we managed to settle on doing a 2 day trek into the mountains to stay overnight with a hill tribe called the Lahu, with some elephant trekking, white water rafting and bamboo rafting included. And an overnight stay at an elephant park to spend a day as a Mahout. That done we decided to go see some temples, while at one temple we met an English guy who asked if we wanted to share a taxi to a temple outside town which is the most important in Chiang Mai.

So off we went, what we saw amazed us but also showed us just how touristy Thailand is. There are about 100 steps which lead up to the temple but if your unable or just cant be bothered to walk theres a lift. Once you get up to the temple theres an ATM, coffee shop, gift shop, monks on mobile phones everywhere, collection boxes for donations at every turn, most made of glass and full to the top with money and stalls selling everything from Buddha statues to paintings. Seems being a monk is a profitable business. In one of the temple buildings we saw a big group of Americans who had bought lovely wrapped hampers at the gift shop to present to the monks in return for a blessing, so we thought 'wow that’s cool' until we saw a guy collect the hampers and bring them back to the gift shop for the next gullible tourist to buy. Despite all this it is a beautiful temple but it is a shame that Thai people allow holy places like this be turned into such a tacky tourist attraction.

That night we explored the night market and found some yummy looking Thai food…

The next morning was another early start we set off on out 2 day trip collected in what is the most popular mode of transport in this part of Thailand, a truck with a roof welded on the back and two benches along the sides. Altogether there were 11 in our group 4 (very loud, rude and smelly esp since they didnt wash once in the two days) French, 2 lovely German guys and a guy from Taiwan. First stop was elephant trekking. So we did the touristy thing and hoped on the back of an elephant for a 15 min walk in a circle, a disappointing start to the day. After lunch it was time to start the trekking, our guide said we would be walking about 8km through the jungle up the mountain to the village where we would spend the night. After a pretty easy start, the 33 degree heat was the hardest part, we stopped half way at a waterfall to cool down. Then it got hard, very hard, the next two hours was a steep up hill climb it was one of the hardest tings I have had to do I can only describe it as torture, even the really fit people in the group found it tough.

Finally we arrived at our accommodation for the night which was the most basic of bamboo stilt houses.

A squat toilet and a barrel of ice cold water to wash with.

On the upside they had a well stocked bar with nice cold drinks, not very tribal, but then there’s money to be made from some thirsty tourists. The village women and some very cute kids came to the hut and offered massages and sell some of there hand made jewellery and bags at very expensive prices...!

A lovely lady who was very old and wrinkly and had no teeth offered to give James and Stephen massages... for some reason they wernt interested. We passed on the massages and instead enjoyed the sunset with some beers then enjoyed a fab meal of Thai yellow curry which our guide whipped up for 13 people with just an open fire and a few pots in the hut, most people myself included would find it hard to cook for 13 with a fully equipped kitchen at hand. That night we were treated to some music by our guide and a guy from the village who played mostly popular western songs like Oasis and the Beatles which was very entertaining as neither of them new very many words to any songs they just sang the chorus over and over and hummed a lot. That night when everyone else had retired to bed James and Stephen and the two German guys in our group decided they wernt going to bed until they drank all the beer. So they stayed up and talked what most people talk when theve had a few drinks 'a load of shit'. But because the hut was so small and made of bamboo their noise kept everyone especially me and Laura awake all night. When they did finally come to bed at 4am, after drinking the village out of beer.. yes really, I was forced to endure James’s snoring...

The next morning with half the group still drunk and the other half severely sleep deprived we started out for the downhill part of the trek. The relief of not having to walk up hill like the walk the day before was short lived. The walk down was worse it was so steep and uneven staying upright was a challenge my legs turned to jelly about half way, they were obviously not made for trekking. After 4 hours of walking we finally reached the river where we would do white water rafting and after a very quick briefing it was in the raft and down the river. After we passed the rapids we exited the raft and climbed onto a traditional bamboo raft for the rest of the journey definitely a good end to the trip. After lunch it was back in the truck for the short drive to the elephant camp where we would spend the night. We said good bye to our group and guide and were shown to our rooms, the happiness that we felt when we were shown to two lovely rooms whit huge double beds and hot showers was indescribable. That night we were the only guests staying at Bann Chiang elephant centre and after dinner a bomb fire was lit for us to enjoy, and the owner had some fire lanterns for us to realise. Fire lanterns are traditional lanterns that Thai people realise into the sky during festivals and in memory of those who have died we each had one to realise and make a wish after the lantern is realised it rises high into the sky until it looks like just another star. They also prepared some buffalo skin for us, strips of hard dried skin with the hair still attached were thrown into the fire and burned then taken out and beaten with a hammer then you break off a piece and chew on it, needles to say it was disgusting.

The next morning after breakfast it was time to meet our elephants. First was feeding time, we hand feed bananas and sugar cane to about 11 elephants ranging from huge adults about 18 years old to a baby of only 2 months.

After feeding it was time to become a Mahout. Mahout is the Thai name for elephant controller, we learned how to get the elephant to lay down so you can climb on and off and sit on his neck and the commands for left, right, forward and stop. After lunch we trekked through the nearby jungle sitting bare back on our elephants, mine and James was called champoo. At the end of the trek it was back to the park where still sitting on the elephants backs we waded into a huge pool of muddy water for a nice refreshing bath for them anyway, with lots of huge elephant shit floating around it wasn’t so nice for us. The elephants loved the water and rolled around and splashed away while we scrubbed them down.. definitely and experience we will remember.

That evening we returned to Chiang Mai where 3 days of trekking and riding elephants caught up with us and the next morning we could barely walk. When we eventually struggled out of bed we decided to visit Tiger kingdom outside Chiang Mai. Tiger kingdom is a centre where Asian tigers are breed in captivity and hand raised by humans, this means that the tigers are accustomed to humans so visitors can pay to spend time in the enclosures with the tigers. Some people think that this is wrong but governments in Asia don’t do much to protect these endangered animals and as there number in the wild are falling fast, it is places like this that is keeping these animals from extinction. We chose to see both the adult and young tigers. The young tigers were 4 male tigers all about 3 to 4 months old and the adult tigers were about 2 years old. The keepers encourage you to sit next to the tiger and stroke them and even lay down next to them that its ok but I couldn’t help feel a bit nervous.. but being so close to such beautiful endangered animals was an amazing experience and the animals are very well cared for unlike some zoo's iv been to.

That night we boarded our transport which would take us 10 hours to Vientiane in Laos... a 10 seater mini bus.. well a transit van with seats in the back more like and no seat belts. Since we have been on allot of over night journeys at this stage we were prepared for it to be rough but is was worse. After only a few hours the driver started to fall asleep we made him pull over at a shop but instead of getting out and walking around to wake up he lay down and went to sleep... there was only one ting for it red bull and lots of it... The rest of the journey was awful, more than once we ended up on the wrong side of the road facing an oncoming lorry, the poor guy in the front next to the driver had front row seats and spent the next ten hours watching the driver making sure he didn’t fall asleep thus keeping us all alive.. At 7am we reached the boarder and after many bus changes and waiting we crossed into Laos exhausted and happy to be alive.

Photos: Thailand... part 1

thebigtrip — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:56:00 GMT

Philippines...!!

thebigtrip — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:02:00 GMT

After Borneo the original plan for South East Asia went out the window altogether. We decided to head to the Philippines. Flights were not expensive so we thought why not. From Borneo we flew into Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Manila is a huge sprawling city that was overwhelmingly loud, busy and for the most part not very nice. The nicest parts of the city were around the amazingly huge new shopping centres where the rich people spent they’re time and they’re money. There are quite a few rich people in this city but there are even more poor people. People live on the streets everywhere and we saw children washing in the filthy smelly bay.

It was heart breaking to watch and very tough having to pass all the begging children everyday. Makes you realise how lucky you are.

We got a bus from the airport to the city centre where we were to get a taxi to the hostel we had booked. We had been told that the taxi should turn on its meter and the journey should cost about 200 pesos. Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well it didn’t work out like that. Once we got to the city we mobbed by taxi drivers but all of them were asking for 4 or 5 times what we should pay and they weren’t interested in using the meter. None of them would budge… we soon realised that as westerner in the Philippines it is almost expected that you get ripped off… as one taxi driver pointed out to us “you get lots of peso for your money, very cheap, very cheap”. After trying a few drivers who had obviously agreed that none of them were leaving unless they got what they asked for we eventually ended up back up with the first guy and went with him. Taxi drivers in Manilla are very similar to the taxi drivers in a lot of South America.. They think indicators are just for decoration, a road with three lanes is really a five lane one and always assume the other car will stop first. Always an exciting journey!

We stayed in Manila one night and the next morning we got a short 40 minute flight south to Donsol. This is the only place in the world where you can swim with rare whale sharks. Donsol is a small fishing town which until the whale shark swimming started in 1998 has nothing to offer tourists. The town is small with basic facilities and accommodation. Most people live in basic houses built from palm leaves and branches. There are pretty much no cars so people get around by tricycle. A tricycle is a motorbike with a side car bolted on to it. The four of us were able to get around, two on the back of the bike behind the driver and two in the side car.

We found a pretty nice guesthouse and booked in. We were showed to our room which was ok. The only thing was that to get to it we had to walk through a building site. They were putting in a small swimming pool and some more rooms. The walk was pretty dodgy as they don’t exactly have the best safety regulations in the Philippines. The builders wore shorts and flip flops while they laid blocks, the scaffolding was made out of tree branches tied together with some kind of rope and they guys just took a piss where ever they wanted even if I was walking past. Not a high vis jacket or hard hat in sight. Oh and the showers were cold as they were every where in the Philippines. That afternoon we got there we went straight to the whale shark centre to sign up for the swimming the next morning. We headed back to the guest house to the small restaurant had some food and decided to have a few drinks. The staff in the guesthouse were so nice and gave us free drinks including free marguerites. Donsol is a small town and despite the whale sharks there are not a lot of tourists here so were greeted with a lot of curious looks esp. from the kids who were so cute and would wave and say hello to us and then go get their friends to come have a look too.

Early the next morning we headed to the bay to get snorkel gear and a boat and head out in search of the whale sharks. There were about six boats with six people on each. The four of us ended up on a boat with an arrogant German guy in his 50’s and his very young Filipino “girlfriend” or so he said. He smoked non stop and insisted on throwing his cigarette butts into the water. His girlfriend never spoke just laughed and took a lot of pictures of him with his shirt off. The boats have a captain, a whale shark spotter and a guide. The spotter climbs up the mast pole and looks out for the sharks and when he sees one we all jump into the water and swim after it. After about two hours of nothing were starting to think that we weren’t going to see anything but thankfully we did. We jumped in and as soon as we looked down there was this huge shark. The sharks can grow to about 18 meters but the ones we saw were 8-9 meters… still pretty big. The don’t seem to mind the human contact but just swim around and then just swim away slowly and gracefully. There amazingly beautiful and seeing this huge animal so close up was a real rush. The second time we jumped in after the shark it was particularly close to us and poor James got a little scared. We later heard from a not very impressed Sinead that in order to save himself from the big scary whale shark (they only eat plankton by the way) James pushed Sinead in front of himself and swam behind her ha-ha. True love..??

We had a case for our camera and managed to get a few pictures although the shark is so big we only got bits of them. After about five hrs on the boat it was time to head back to dry land. After a quick shower we decided to head back to the main town of Legzepi where were to get an early flight back to Manila next morning. First we had to get a jeepney (a jeepney is like a big long jeep kind of vehicle which just seems to be some very badly put together metal sheets with two benches in the back for people to sit on. They are decorated in sometimes extravagant ways with lots of colours. These are the dominant mode of public transport everywhere in the Philippines) almost two hours to another town then change to another jeepney to get to Legzepi.

When we got there we got another tricycle to find a place to stay… getting round was always an adventure in the Philippines. We ended up that night staying in what was some of the worst accommodation in a very long time. The hotel only had single rooms left so we said feck it we’d take them. We didn’t want to waste anymore time looking. The rooms were fecking tiny… a lot like a prison cell. A single beds shoved into a tiny room with a small window and nothing else. Not very flash packer! Next morning we flew back to Manila.

Back in Manila we just had to pay a visit to the infamous Midget bar. The bar was apparently set up by an Irish American army guy who did some charity work with small people and decided to set up a bar to provide them with work. Anyone who knows James will know he has this odd fascination with midgets so he was adamant we pay it a visit. We had met a few people who recommended it so we headed for a drink.

Turns out the bar is a bit shit… way over priced, tacky and bit of a tourist trap. We had one drink and headed else where for the rest of the night. The next day we decided to take it easy and hit the huge Mall of Asia shopping center. Its huge. Its so big we had a hard time finding the entrance and kept getting lost. There was an I-Max theatre here so we thought we go see Avatar in 3d, and it was worth it… amazing movie.

Our last destination in the Philippines was the island of Boracay. Boracay is a tiny island off the coast of one of the Philippines larger islands. We took a short flight of 45 minutes to Catalacan then got a boat to the island. This island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. With long white sand beach backed with palm trees and lined with beach bars, restaurants and swish resorts! After dark the bars and restaurants move out onto the sand and the beach is lit up with disco balls and fairy lights. We decided to chill here for 4 days. We hit the beach bars for some cheap drinks and after a few bars we ended up in a party bar called Hey Jude! We had noticed since we arrived in the Philippines the huge number of old, grey and fat men who went round with young Filipino women (or girls). It was a bit disgusting to watch, especially when these guys were in bars trying to act like they were in there 20’s and not there 60’s or 70’s. This kind of thing is all over the Philippines. Anyway we all got a bit drunk and realised we were quite a bit of a walk back to our room so we instead of paying for a trike we found a wheelbarrow near the beach and took it for a spin.

A couple of days into our stay we rented some mopeds to tour the island. We got two and the lads took the wheel. Most of the island has narrow roads and dirt tracks which lead to some amazing beaches. Scooters were the best way to see it all. We found some of the most amazing beaches we’d ever seen which unlike the main beach were almost deserted except for the local people and kids. We rode round the island for a couple of hours seeing the sights and look out points.

Not long before dark when were thinking of heading back mine and Stephens bike got a flat. We were in the middle of the island and had no idea what to do when a nice local guy stopped to help us. He said he would show us where we could get it fixed if we followed him. Stephen wasn’t sure about riding the bike with a flat but we didn’t have much choice. Me, Sinead and James all climbed onto the one bike and Stephen alone on the other we followed to local guy. The first place he took us to wouldn’t fix it, not sure why. The next place was closed so eventually we found a guy who would fix it. It turns out there were two punctures and the air valve had broken off from riding it but he said it could be fixed. So outside his small bamboo thatched house and using what looked like prehistoric methods he fixed the wheel and were were on our way. It only cost us the equivalent of a couple of Euro so when we got it back to the guy we rented it off we said nothing.

After an amazing two weeks in the Philippines it was time to get a flight to Bangkok. We hadn’t got much idea where we wanted to go from here but we knew we didn’t want to stay in Bangkok. On the flight to Bangkok at 10pm at night we were still trying to decide where to go next… should we go straight to Laos and start there or should we start in Cambodia?? Or maybe go to Chaing Mai in northern Thailand? After all winging it got us this far…

Photos: The Philippines

thebigtrip — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:51:00 GMT

Singapore and Malaysia: South East Asia Part 1..

thebigtrip — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:50:00 GMT

From Sydney we flew into Singapore, our first stop on the South East Asia leg of our RTW trip. Singapore was a nice place to start our trip as it meant we would be easing our way into the Asian culture. Although it is in Asia, Singapore is pretty westernised. It’s a shiny new city for the most part with lots of gleaming high rises. It is immaculately kept and the wealth in the city is evident in the amount of huge shopping centres and high end designer shops. There is not much evidence of poverty here, most people have designer handbags and iphones and things are expensive!! We spend a few days seeing the city and getting used to the almost unbearable humidity. We were used to it being hot after being in Oz but this was different. It was sticky, clammy and hot. It was always a relief to get inside an air conditioned building. We hit China town in search of some fake goodies but unfortunately Singapore seems pretty strict on that kind thing so no joy there. We then went to little India which happens to be pretty close to a very Muslim part of town, all the women were dressed up in Burkas and there was me and Sinead in our strappy tops and shorts… Talk about feeling like you didn’t belong. The lads thought they’d be funny and demanded we walk two steps behind them. We were having none of it. Singapore also singled the start of a diet of noodles and rice for the next 3 months. So we decided to throw caution to the wind and go to a hawker stall, basically a restaurant on the sidewalk, we attempted to order something normal but ended up with what looked like squid tentacles. Not very appetising think well be sticking to chicken from now on.

After a few days we got a bus 6 hrs north into Malaysia and straight to Kuala Lumpur. The bus ride was fine but when we stopped for some food and went to use the toilet we knew we were in Asia. The toilets were “squat toilets”. This looks like a toilet bowl only its in the ground and so you have to squat over it to use it. I have no idea how they do it… talk about awkward. Some of them don’t flush so there is a big drum of water and a scoop to pour water down. They stink and there is no toilet paper because there is either what looks like a tiny shower head to wash your self or there is a bucket of water. We made sure to always have a pack of tissues with us. Thankfully in most big cities its not to hard to find a proper toilet.

We arrived In Kuala Lumpur and straight away they were trying to rip us off. A taxi driver wanted what turned out to be about five times what it should cost to get to our hostel and he was not happy when we told him where to go. The hostel was nice but the best thing about it was that it was only one block from the china town markets. This is literally hundreds of stalls and shops crammed together selling pretty much everything you could think of and pretty much all of it is of questionable legitimacy. It was fake everything… watches, bags, trainers, clothes etc.. Haggling was the name of the game. Myself and Sinead were crap at this but Stephen and James drove a hard bargain. As we still have 3 months of travelling to do we couldn’t buy to much because that means carrying it around. Me and Sinead bought a couple of things that we would use while travelling but had to leave the rest. Our only consolation being that we would be flying out of Bangkok where we can shop shop shop! One evening while we were having some thing to eat in a small restaurant right in the middle of all the stalls we spotted Mary Harney , the minister for health. Very random. We chilled in K.L for few days, went to see the famous Petronas Twin Towers by day and night. To continue our run of museum visits we went to The National Islamic Museum. Most of the museum was ok but the best part was the Photography exhibition by a guy called Steve McCurry. He had travelled around most of the Islamic countries and taken some of the most amazing photos. While in K.L. we had some decisions to make. We wanted to go to see the orang-utans which are only found in Borneo and Indonesia. We decided on Borneo and booked an Air Asia flight. Air travel is very cheap for the most parts in South East Asia.

After a 4.30am start we were on our way to Borneo. We flew into Sandakan which is home to the Sepilock Orang-utan sanctuary on of only 4 places in the world where you can see Orang-utans in the wild. The sanctuary takes in Orang-utans who have been hurt, kept as pets, abused and babies that have had there parents killed mostly by people or have been left homeless because of the destruction of large amounts of jungle for palm oil plantations. They care for the animals and then release them back into the wild. The Orang-utans we saw have all been released into the wild but they are fed small amounts everyday because it can take them some time to learn how to feed themselves. We visited the sanctuary to see the animals being fed and it was amazing, They’re such kind gentle funny animals and apparently share 97% of the same DNA as humans. The next day we went to Labuk Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. This is a similar kind of thing to the Orang-utan sanctuary. The Proboscis Monkey is found no where else in the world only Borneo. They’re not the most attractive monkey in the world. There were also Silver Leaf Monkeys.

Borneo is more developed than we expected with a lot of poverty, but as everywhere else wealth swell. The people were also some of the friendliest we have met every time we would walk down the street people would stare and smile at us wave at us from cars and busses, we felt like celebrities. Seeing as were in Borneo which apparently has some of the worlds best Jungle we thought we should do a jungle trip.

We set off at 8.30 and 2 hrs later our first stop was Gomantong Caves. These are home to millions of bats and Swallows along with every huge creepy crawly you could think of and lots of bat and bird shit. The cave is best know for the birds nest which are collected twice a year and sold to the Chinese who make it into soup and eat it.. Ew. On the way here it started to rain quite heavily… Little did we know that this would be the beginning the torrential monsoon like rain that would continue for the next two days. We stayed on the banks of the river in Kinabatangan national park area. The rain continued non stop for two days. We got to do a boat trip but this was cut short because a tree had fallen into the river. We also did bit of trekking where we walked in water and mud above our ankles and got soaked and covered in leeches even our guide was glad when that was over. On the trip you have a chance to see monkeys, crocs and elephants. We only seen monkeys. Later on the second day we heard that some of the other group had seen elephants… We were raging, just our luck. It rained non stop, we have never seen anything like it and the next morning it was still raining. We set out in the downpour for the boat (uncovered by the way) trip down the river. After a couple of hours drive we got a bus which would take five hrs to get to the city of Kota Kinabalu. The journey took eight long painful hours and to make is worse the bus had to drive through floods which meant that all our bags under the bus got soaked. We were not happy backpackers!

While we were in Borneo we decided we wanted to go to the Philippines so thanks to Air Asia after a day an Kota Kinabalu (doing lots of laundry) we flew to the Manila in the Philippines, hopefully leaving the rain behind.

The Oz Adventure

thebigtrip — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:16:00 GMT

We have been a little lazy the last while and haven’t been keeping the blog up to date. So to make it short and sweet here are the highlights of our (Stephen and Laura‘s) 10 weeks travelling the East coast of Australia.

After our two amazing weeks in Fiji we all started off our Aussie journey in Cairns where we did three scuba dives on the Great Barrier Reef. It was awesome, we saw lots cool fish and giant clams. On returning from the dives Sinead and James had left to start there trip. It was weird being apart after travelling for six months.

After a week in Cairns we rented a car, bought camping gear and headed north to Cape Tribulation. The first night we camped in Port Douglas. It was just awful. The kip mats were crap. We didn't sleep. We decided immediately to invest in a proper mattress when we returned to civilisation. We visited Cape Tribulation and then returned south to Cairns. Here by coincidence to camped in the same site as Sinead and James. This was the first of many times we would run into each other on our 'separate' journeys :).

Our next destination was Magnetic Island. We stayed in Base hostel and spent two days drinking. On the second night it was ladies night so I dressed in drag in order to score cheap booze. The highlight of the night was the drag parade. After the two nights in Base we moved to the YHA. Here there was a Koala Park. We got to hold a koala, croc, a few lizards and snakes.

Arlee beach, our base for the Whitsunday’s cruise, was our next destination. We put the cruise on hold for a couple of days while I recovered from a devastating bout of the 'Man Flu'. The weather was awful for the cruise. We spent our days cowering under a small canopy from the wind and rain. Night time was spent drinking cheap beer and goon. Goon is the Aussie word for cheap plonk which costs ten dollars for a four litre box. Fowl stuff but it achieves its purpose. The highlight was our time on Whitehaven Beach. The beach had the purest whitest sand. It was so fine it felt like flour. The water was sapphire blue. It was beautiful. The trip was great despite the weather.

On their way to the Town of 1770 by chance we stayed in Rockhampton on the night of the Aussie Rodeo Championship finals. It was just as you would expect. Bull riding, bucking broncos and lasooing cattle. Everyone was dressed in Wrangler jeans and pointy cowboy boots. Rhinestones are back in a big way in this little town, it was quite strange. The funniest part of the night was a rider getting broke up by and dragged along by a bronco. Fifteen to twenty people raced across to try stop the horse and save him. Oh how we laughed! On our way into 1770 we met a tour of 40 - 50 motor cycles touring around and found out that this was the thing to do in 1770. We decided we got to give it as try. First time on motorbike for us both and it was great fun cruising along the highway spotting Kangaroos.

Next up was Harvey Bay. This was the departure point for a 3 day self drive 4x4 tour of Fraser Island. Before we left, Kris a guide brought us into a room and showed us videos of crashes and basically scared the shit out of us. Then he handed over the keys and we were off... Or we would have been if the truck hadn't broke down so Kris brought us to the pub at 9.30 in the morning, great way to start our trip. Legend. The highlight of the first day was Lake McKenzie. It was a beautiful lake with gorgeous white sand and perfectly clean water. That night we camped on aboriginal grounds. We had a bbq and drank all night. Next day we headed to Indian head. I got to drive the truck. It was great fun. That night we camped in a National Park Camp ground. There was no noise allowed after nine so grabbed the beer and headed to the beach. We joined another group and were sitting around drinking and chatting. Suddenly there was a streak of green light through the sky. A meteor flew through the sky above us and broke up over the island. It was awesome. Next day we went to lake Wabi before we returned to Lake McKenzie before heading back to the harbour. I had the job to reverse the truck off the barge. On the ramp the truck popped out of gear. I couldn’t get it back into either H2 or L2. I was mortified as this blocked the barge from unloading. It turned out to be a gear linkage problem but that didn't spare my shame.

By now we were running behind schedule so we did a flying stop in Brisbane. We spend a couple of days and did the touristy bits. Then we headed for surfers. Schoolies was in full swing when we arrived so we didn’t stay. We went to the Warner Brothers theme park and on to Byron Bay.

Next we went to the Blue Mountains. It is a beautiful place. We did a couple of hikes each day. Then we froze each night. The sleeping bags we bought in tropical Cairns weren't worth a damn during the cold mountain nights.

The next destination was down the coast toward Melbourne. On the way we went to Phillip Island. The reason; every night around 1000 little Fairy Penguins parade up the beach just after the sun sets. Awesome.

Next up was the Great Ocean Road. The Weather was shit but the scenery and driving was great.
Melbourne was next up. Brilliant place. By far the best city we visited. We visited a couple of exhibits and the botanical gardens. I got myself a didgeridoo in the markets. We stayed out in St Kilda in Habitat. A really cool hostel. It was a great place to drink. We went to see Green Day play on Laura's birthday. They were excellent.

We spent our last two weeks of Aus time in Sydney. We spent the first three nights in Kings Cross. From there we did all the touristy stuff. Saw the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Tower. We then moved out to a hostel in Bondi on Christmas eve where we stayed over Christmas. Christmas day is a bit of a blur. It rained most of the day so any ideas of a bondi bbq went out the window. Myself and James dressed in Santa outfits for the day. We had Christmas dinner of salad, prawns and chicken (not very Christmas at all really) and then we set about drinking copious amounts of goon. Lots of drunken madness ensued. The following week followed closely the pattern of rising late, going for fast food and ultimately drinking copious amounts of goon until sunrise.
New years eve was the big date which every one looked forward to during Christmas. Like a million other people we headed to the city to get a spot to watch the firework show. We were lucky that we got a spot next to the Opera House with a good view of the bridge. We were unlucky because it was a drink free area. When we realised we decided it best to stick it out. The city was packed so finding another view was unlikely and we really had a great spot. At nine o'clock the first round of fireworks kicked off. I thought they were amazing. However the midnight fireworks were way better. Afterwards we headed into the city to get as much drink into us as possible. Then back to the hostel we went to grab goon and beers and head to the beach to watch the first sunrise of the new year. It was cloudy so we saw nothing but that didn’t bother us. We all fell into bed at around eight after a great night except for James. He slept on the beach until the afternoon.

After a further couple of days of goon the four of us packed the bags and boarded a plane to Singapore to kick off our next adventure.

our photos you can log onto Laura’s Facebook page at this address to see all the photos. The potos are public so you don’t have to bee on face book to see them.

Photos: Australia: Part1

thebigtrip — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:23:00 GMT

Fiji

thebigtrip — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:21:00 GMT

There are a few things it doesn’t take long to notice about Fiji… not only is it beautiful, hot and sunny but its got a lot of very gay men (and I mean very gay), its completely normal for men to wear skirts and the people are without a doubt the friendliest we have ever ever met.

We can all agree that Fiji without a doubt was one of our favourite places so far and we had the best two weeks there! Our first week in Fiji was spent doing the Feejee Experience. The feejee Experience is a hop on hop off tour where you have days full of activities and in between you can hop off at different resorts stay a few days and then get the next bus when you feel like it. It was brilliant and the resorts we stayed in were amazing.

On our first morning visiting Nandi markets to buy Sulus which are like long sarongs or skirts Fijian people wear and we had to buy these because there are times when you have to wear them, even the guys had to buy them… Stephen and James just loved wearing them along with there sea shell necklaces we got when we arrived in the airport. After stocking up we headed for the beach for some sun and a BBQ which was followed by a visit to a traditional Fijian village and then sand boarding on the sand dunes. We hopped off the bus and stayed three nights in Mango bay resort. It was here on our first night that we were introduced to Kava. Kava is the traditional drink of Fiji, its made from the root of a pepper plant which is dried ground up and mixed with water… and its disgusting! It looks and tastes like muddy water and it turns your mouth numb. Kava is very important to people in Fiji and the drinking of Kava involves a ceremony where certain traditions have to be followed, Its mixed in a special bowl and served in a coconut shell and basically there’s clapping and chanting and drinking and so on. There’s no alcohol in Kava but people here drink it all the time and they say it can have some pretty strange effects if you drink a lot. It impolite to refuse Kava so we ended up having to drink quite a lot of the stuff in our two weeks in Fiji.

There’s one person who made our stay in Mango Bay so memorable.. His name was Ore. Ore was a complete nutter who went round singing the “wheels on the bus go round and round” most of the time, he brought us to a big Kava and beer piss up with the people from his village and he got pissed and he possibly seriously injured himself by insisting on carrying all of our backpacks which together weigh about 70kg to the bus on our last morning. The second days activity was a hike to a waterfall and after this we arrived in Uprising Beach resort. We stayed here three more nights. We chilled by the pool, treated ourselves to full body massages, tried horse boarding.

Our last night in Uprising was pretty interesting. After dinner we were drinking with some of the other people on the tour when we noticed a crowd at the beach, a bomb fire and some girls dressed in very skimpy outfits. It turns out that some reggae star who is apparently huge in the south pacific was making his new music video on the beach. Me and another girl got talked into joining a crowd of extras on the beach. Basaclly a load of us just stood arround and tried to look like we were having a great time dancing arround the bomb fire. It was an interesting experience. An so I now star somewhere in the background of a music video for a guy iv never heard of… how random. Make sure you look out for me on MTV…! The rest of that night was spent drinking until very early the next morning in out tour guides room while Willy our bus driver tried to sleep even though we kept jumping on his bed . When we got back to our dorm with only about two hours to go until we had to get up Stephen was not to happy to find some girl in his bed… he eventually found another bed. James spent the night snoring his head off, as he does when he’s been drinking but one girl in the dorm really didn’t like this and Sinead woke up at some stage in the night to find her standing over James with a shoe in her hand ready to wack him… luckily for James he rolled over and stopped snoring just at that moment. With a hung over guide and a driver who got feck all sleep we set off at 7am the next morning.

The highlight of today was visiting the school. The kids were so cute, friendly and so excited to see us they were running wild in the school. After a traditional Kava ceremony with the Chief of a village we got to our last overnight stop. Here the group drank, played some very funny party games involving dancing like fools and sexual positions, had more delicious Kava and then we stocked up on drink and had a bomb fire on the beach.

After a bit of a lie in the next day it was time for the mood pools and hot spring. We all stripped off and jumped into a natural pool full of hot mud. It went right up to our knees, was disgusting and slimy but we all covered ourselves in it and one or two of the guys made sure that all the girls had their hair covered in it too. To wash off we had to take a dip in the hot spring which was hot hot hot.

After one last night out with the gang and a very late night we slept on it the next morning at 7am and realised that the buss that we were supposed to get to the port for our transfer to the Islands was out side the hostel and it was broken down. We were so lucky, there was no way we would have made it unless we were lucky enough to have it break down out side our hostel. We made our boat on time and headed for Beachcomber Island where we were spending our last five days, we all had to go to bed as soon as we got there.

Beachcomber is a tiny Island of one resort, you can walk the whole way around the Island in less than 5 mins. The snorkelling was amazing so we did that quite a few times and seen some amazing tropical fish right off the beach. We also seen Reef Sharks and Manta Rays, both harmless. We decided to give diving a go but the day before the dive Sinead got a cold and wasn’t allowed to go so it was me, Stephen and James. It was one of the best things we have done so far. We dived 10 meters deep for 40 mins. The dive instructor brought bread down for the fish and when he took it out of his pocket we were surrounded by hundreds of the most beautiful colourful fish. Scuba Diving is something will be doing again. After five days on the Island it was back to the main land for our flight to Australia.

We are currently in Oz. The four of us have decided that even thought we have had a great time over the last six months and have gotten on really well that its time for a change. We have decided to rent two cars and split up for about seven weeks before meeting up to spend Christmas and New Years in Sydney.

Gallery: Fiji

thebigtrip — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:38:00 GMT

Sweet as....! South Island N.Z

thebigtrip — Mon, 5 Oct 2009 18:49:00 GMT

(Sweet as is a phrase we hear every where in N.Z, every one says it and it means, cool, great, excellent sometimes it means yes or thanks or your welcome etc. )

New Zealand is all it’s cracked up to be! Amazing scenery and non stop adventure…! The south Island is definitely the more beautiful of the two and we can now see why so many people kept telling us to spend the majority of our time here. Just about every activity that you think of is on offer here and so we planned to do it all in New Zealand. We got quite a few activities ticked off the list on the north island. Our first stop was Abel Tasman National park on the north of the Island. After our taste of kayaking in Brazil were wanted to try it again so we decided to take a full day kayaking trip in the Abel Tasman marine park. The park is absolutely stunning, with beaches of golden sand, lush green forest and the clearest water. If you didn’t know any better you’d think you were on some tropical island somewhere. We kayaked 15km along the coast and saw Seals, Penguins and huge starfish. It was great fun but I hurt my wrist about half way through leaving Stephen to do most of the paddling which he wasn’t to happy about.

After enjoying a few days of sunshine in the north we set off for the Franz Josef Glacier on the west coast, making a few stops along the way. In Franz Josef we decided to be a bit naughty and splash out and do the heli hike on the Glacier instead of the normal hike. It was a bit pricier but we think it was worth it…! The helicopter ride up the glacier can only be described as one of the most amazing sight we have ever seen. The glacier looked so small from the air but when your walking around on it you realise how huge it really is. We hiked around on the ice for over two hours, climbing up and down, through caves and tunnels of blue ice… really cool! It was all going great until Stephen posing for a pic put his foot in the wrong place and ended up almost knee deep in ice cold glacier water. haha. His toes were pretty cold for the rest of the day. We only realised later that night in the pub when we got talking to some people who had done a glacier hike as well that day how lucky Stephen really was. They said that a girl in there group hadn’t been listening when the guide was telling them not to walk and ended up chest deep in ice cold water…!

Our next destination was Queenstown. On the way here we stopped in a town called Wanaka. Beautiful town but not much to do so on our first night we headed to the cinema… not a normal cinema, this cinema shows all the films a normal cinema would show but instead of normal cinema seats this cinema has an array of mismatched comfy couches and chairs for you to sit in. It even has an old convertible VW Beatle people can sit in. You can have dinner in the cinema, wine, beer etc and freshly baked giant choc chop cookies at half time interval… it was the greatest cinema ever (Lisa, Mag, Sandra if ye are reading this ye would love it..).

The lads also went clay pigeon shooting here… but they managed to not hit a single pigeon between them ha-ha. How crap are they!? Queenstown is the adventure capital of New Zealand and the first ever bungy jump was done here so as you can imagine it is big business here and there are loads to choose from. Myself and Sinead had already decided that even after the skydive there was no way we could do a bungy, even looking at the promo videos I felt sick. Stephen and James on the other hand had spent much of our time in New Zealand trying to talk themselves into it. But in the end fear won out and we left Queenstown with not one bungy jump between us. We’re big chickens aren’t we…?? We did however do a jet boat, which was a bit extreme and left us a bit sore for a few days after. We thought we should learn a little about the Moari culture before we left New Zealand so we went to see a Maori cultural performance and enjoyed the luge one last time.

A cruse in Milford Sound is apparently one of New Zealand’s biggest tourist attractions so we thought we should give it a go…. It was a bit crap! The drive to the sound through the national park was nice but the cruise itself was very underwhelming. After this we spent about a week driving around the south coast then up the East coast. We spent our last weekend in Christchurch. We all loved this city. Its beautiful. Its got a great atmosphere, cool parks to hang out in (We were lucky enough to get great weather) good bars and some serious shopping. With Fiji only a week away we all needed to update our wardrobes in a bad way, not that I needed the excuse to go shopping. The shopping in New Zealand is really good and so cheap so some of us went a little overboard and now have some very full backpacks and have had our credit cards taken from us (Me) for our own good apparently …!

The last activity on our list was whale watching. We headed to Kaikoura. After three days of rain and cancelled whale watching tours we had no choice but to give up and leave in order to make it back to Auckland for our flight. So disapointing! Now we have a very long drive back to Auckland to get our flight to Fiji on Friday. We are spending two weeks in Fiji which we cant wait for. We are dying for some sun and sea and all the other great things that go along with tropical islands! Backpacking can be pretty stressful believe it or not so I think its time for a holiday from our holiday. Enjoy work everyone and we’ll be thinking of ye when we’re lying on the beach sipping cocktails in Fiji…!

Gallery: South Island, New Zealand

thebigtrip — Mon, 5 Oct 2009 18:30:00 GMT

Gallery: Kayaking Able Tasmin National Park and heli hike on Franz Josef Glacier... South Island N.Z

thebigtrip — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:21:00 GMT