Flaming gala

The flight into Melbourne was not too good it was 8 hours no sleep and lots of cross winds and to top it off as per usual I was sitted next to a bloody Indian who was practically sitting on my seat....until I asked him if he wanted me to sit in the isle so he can have my seat. Of all the buses trains or planes ive always had a ticket next to the Indian or worst possible person ever, never ever the girl! The decent was harrassed by cross winds and there were a few moments where the plane dropped and people actually shouted 'oh my god' I must admit my arsehole was flapping during a few moments especially when it seemed the landing gear was not coming out but alas we touched down and I now have the knowing of not having a flight for a while.

Lucky for me I met a great Australian in India and he picked me up from the airport and he also put me up in his flat in Southbank then his flat in Preston, the only problem with this is that you dont get to meet the travellers. Australia straight away was not like travelling Asia its not all on a plate for you and everything is so far apart. I went and done the whole tourist thing going around the art galleries going round the city and I must say it is a really cool city and with a big population of WOGs its quite an attractive city (WOG is an Italian). Geoff took me to some places that the tourists would not know about, I saw kangaroo's and Koala's in the wild and took a dip in the local river, the sun stays out till 21:00.

I decided to go out on my own to St Kilder which is where the backpackers and English go but I have not travelled on my own for a long time so it was good again to be aproachable so I met some people on the tram and invited myself to the pub with them, unbeknown to me it was busier than it should have been and it was not until the dykes on bikes went by I realised that it was Gay Pride ha ha ha ha I must admit it was a good day all things considered.

Aus is 15 years behind england and is so much more expensive, beer can only be sold in licenced places not like we sell in 90% of every shop although they do have drive through off licences called bottle-o come to mention it everything is shortened with an O at the end of it. Slavo (second hand shop), Ambo, Derro (hobo). Beer is so expensive too in a bottle-o a 6 pack is about 11 pounds.

So going from rice and noodles to normal food has once again taken its toll on my guts and has taken a week for the gurgle gurgle sounds to disappear.

Not too much else to say really I have a Ball to go to in the country up in Elmore which will be trashy and messy I have to get a shirt and bow tie so that it can be ripped off and food dye poured on me so that should be fun. I also am planning to do a road trip up the great ocean road then go up the gold coast we every other backpacker. Not sure whether to buy a car or get the greyhound bus.

Hope the English weather is not getting you all down but to make you feel a bit better rest assured that I have not had a day less than 28 since september nearly 5 months of sun and nice weather, also rest assured that I am having the time of my life.

Eye of the storm

So Phuket was spain with ladyboys we missed Koh Pi Pi and headed to Koh Lanta where the pace came down to a snails pace, expensive hotels were replaced by bamboo huts with the owners usually stoned by midday this was a much better island where everynight there was a party but you needed to be in the know...........of course I was. This is my favourite place in Thai it was cheap(er) to stay and drink there the hut owners let me plug my ipod to the sound system and there were lots of hammocks to laze around in. We met quite a good crowd including 2 english girls one from Bromley who's accent made me feel slightly home sick. I planned to do my advance diving course here but as I have learnt nothing ever goes to plan. We went to some great parties here and slept a good portion of the day.

We all booked our flights out of Thailand so it was time to go to Pi Pi which has been ruined by tourists the only good thing is the island is not motorised. We headed to the look out point to get pictures of both the bays, I have to admit this is a gorgeous place but has been ruined with all the tourists and the thai's looking for the $. We only had one night here and that was spent partying on the beach and I have learnt that partying with Jay and Ed every night is full of laughs and stories. It amazes me that with a bit of booze and a flamming skiping rope people want to try it, still it amused me. The next morning after the night before was horrid even though they had put a curfue on the island due to someone being shot at xmas I had a major hangover but without this I would never have learnt the best cure.......Soda Water this has now become my drink of choice to battle the hangover! Thanks to the jumping girls from England we found a way to see Maya Bay without the multitudes of tourist boats that pollute that area....we decided to sleep on the beach!! Maya Bay is the same place Leo Dicaprio found in the film 'The Beach' so once this hit the screens in 2000 everyone wanted to see paradise! Unfortunatly our group of 25 was polluted with the type of people other travellers from Europe mistake me for, they were there to drink themselves silly starting with the boat out to Maya they polished off a 1.5 ltr of smirnoff and it didnt make a dent. They continued to drink through the night, these were the type of people why I wanted to leave England, the same happened in Lanta where someone said they were from Bexleyheath I just didnt want to speak to them. Eddy Jay and I stayed away from them had our food a few beers and headed with our sleeping bags to grab the best spot on the beach, it was quite an experience sleeping under the stars like that and I saw 3 shooting stars but this has now become common place when I look up at the sky like seeing blues and twos in Newcross. The sleeping trip was expensive but worth it to get the photos of the beach deserted (the english cu*ts didnt even take pictures) and the beach was truely beautiful it was pure white sands none of that claiming they are white these were white with crystal clear water teaming with life. There were some rats on the island and some guy had left some food in his bag and the rat decided to knaw through it and take the chipsticks other than that only crabs disturbed us on the beach. I woke us up at 0600 to see the sunrise over the island but this was not that great so we headed back and after everyone was up we headed on the boat back to Pi Pi, the English were hungover and it was quite satisfying to see them at the harbour all throwing up : ) This is where we said goodbye to Eddy he was off to Hong Kong while me and Jay boarded the plane to Malaysia.

This was my second visit to Malaysia and I done pretty much the same thing, petronus, kl tower and reg bar. I also bought a notebook here which I wish I had done on the first visit, needless to say my bag is busting at the seams like an American trying to fit in her prom dress 20 years and 4 kids down the line.

Time for another plan change was going to go to singapore but they are not so poor and it costs a lot to stay eat and drink there so we got a flight from KL to Bali in Indonisia. Instantly this place annoyed me as the street is only wide enough for max 2.5 people to walk down but you have scooters shooting down there at breakneck speed then you have all the people trying to sell you Bintang tops, skirts, bottle holders, stubby holders bingtang everything! Bali (Kuta) is spain for Australians and they are the same as the English who flood spain but the term in Oz is Bogan. Every 4 feet you get "Traaaaansport", "Massssage", "Hey mate" (in an awful Eastenders way), "Brother", "Friend". The beach here is awful the sea is cloudy and the beach full of sand flies and rubbish the only good things here are the waves but seeing as I dont surf we headed out after a few nights of partying.

We had a choice of a slow boat which is 11 hours but costs nothing or the fast boat at 2 hours costing too much, seeing as time is now becomming my most valuable item due to Melbourne on 3rd Feb I opted for the go-fast-boat and headed towards the Gilli Islands. This was like Lanta but with white sands and crystal clear waters where you can see turtles and mantas snorkling, this place also had a hint of Jamacia about it too. One thing I under estimated was the strengh of the sun here we are only a few miles south of the equator and the sun was a bastard, one guy I met had a 2nd degree burn on his shoulder, the humidity was also at breaking point too I have never sweat so much ever and considering we didnt have aircon I think we done rather well although the sheets went yellow and the room stank of musty men and booze. There is not really much to do here we cycled around the island and hit a few of the beaches where we snorkled and lazed around which is where we coined the word lazepackers doing nothing but being a beach bum. There are no police on the Gilli Islands so they are flooded with Shrooms and partys going on till sunrise. The food on these islands are not so good some of the dishes were straight out of Gordan Ramseys Nightmares!

So it was time to say farewell to Jay who I had spent 3 weeks with travelling and only the second group of people where I would travel to another country to meet.....The first was in Palolem that doesnt mean that other people I had met and travelled with were not my friends but there are the odd few who you feel like you had made a great friend it was good timing as well as the day before 500mm of rain fell in just over an hour. I got the fast boat back to Bali to pick up my flight to KL the boat ride was a fitting end to the Asia trip, taking my 'seat' on the sun deck above we hit a storm and that was the best ride of my life ipod in listening to some music hitting massive waves in a go-fast and litterally flying through the air with every 5 mins one of the 3 crew asking if I was ok up there I felt like Lieutenant Dan (Forrest Gump) on the Bubba Gump Shrimp boat with rain pellting me like sheets of water with the ship trying its best to speed over the waves!!!!!. Storms in Asia are not like that in England you have so many and they can rip the sky apart, we were hitting 6ft waves and getting some serious air but the best part was seeing in the distance the eye of the storm it was about 1 mile sq and it was a pool of calm water with the water around it crashing and breaking into it, when we sailed through this patch it was one of the most memorable moments of my journey it looked like the sea was from a cgi movie, the water was rolling but the rolls had no texture it was like we were sailing on mercury when we got through the eye the waves on the edge are indescribable like nothing I have ever seen before.........................no I didnt have my camera!

So back in Malaysia for a 3rd time now and every journey has a beginning a middle and an end and this is the end of my beginning I have had such a great time in Asia and everyone you meet always asks the same Q. Where is your best country you have been to. A. Sometimes the people you meet spoil things and sometimes the people you are with make a shit place truely memorable but for me to put a answer on this I would have to say Laos it was such a relaxed place and the locals dont bother you for anything they have only had their doors open 15 years so have not got into the tourist scene so to those of you who have not been there go before they get $ signs in their eyes.

India - Malaysia - Vietnam - Laos - Cambodia - Thailand - Malaysia - Indonesia

Goodbye Asia

Hello Oz

Costa del Phuket

Xmas was a wash out due to some mystery illness and was close to going to the hospital due to breathing problems but after a few minutes of sitting down I was ok and was fresh as a daisy the next day where as my friends were not so...........

Next plan was New years eve so we me, hally + Nea who I met in India and their friends Tony and Jess who are now my friends from Melbourne headed to Kampot which is a quite seaside resort in Cambodia to do some trekking and see the caves. The journey was around 4 hours on a coach and when we got there we had the usual 'tuk tuk, taxi, hotel' being shouted at us so we followed this guy who could get us a room for 1$ a night......well it was 1$ for a reason, the walls were honestly made out of cornflakes boxes and they didnt even go all the way up, the bed looked like it was from a prison and 2 rooms had to share a light ha ha this choice was a no brainer we headed to another hotel and paid 4$ a night. In Kampot we did the Bokor trek through the jungle to see the ghostly ruined palace and church. The trek took 6 hours in total and I done this in new shoes with a 2mm sole, my feet were in bits and I felt every rock, tree root and bump add this to my fitness level of a coma victim and you guessed it I hated it. Tony and Jess had proper shoes and loved it and some people had flip flops on but I held up the British tradition and moaned the most!!! We visited some caves and went to the fishing village of Kep and had crab there which was nice. In the caves were bats but I could only hear them but not see them which was annoying.

2 hour journey on a bus to shianoukville which cost more than it would have cost from the capital 6 hours away to celebrate NYE. We got there a few days before as we feared not being able to get anywhere or have to pay big bucks but it was good and we all found places quickly. The beach was lovely and the bars were cool, it was not as mad as the famous full moon party in Ko Pan Nagn but our place went off big time, I described it as the Gaza strip as everyone had hand held rockets and was letting them off which made it look like the Isreales and palastines were fighting each other. NYD (Happy birthday dad ooops I forgot) was one of the worst hangovers ever!

Me Nea and Hally then headed to Siem Reap where we made friends with some guys living in Papa New Guinee and hung out with them in the bars. We also went to see the incredible Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples which was tiring as we had to get up at 0400 to see the sun rise. The best was the one which was in Tomb raider where the trees are growing over it.

I then headed to Thailand (Bangkok) and spent one night there as it was just a shit dirty city where package tourist twats drink and buy clothes thinking its cheap.........well its not its bloody expensive compared to the rest of asia (bar mayla and singapoor) also no one wants to talk to you or be friendly as they are with their groups of people so this has been the worst place I have visited. I did see Avatar in the cinema which has been the first time since I saw cloverfield that I have paid to see a movie. Sorry no ping pong shows for me mr tuk tuk driver I left my pad at home ha ha ha.

From Bangkok I travelled to the little island of Koh Tao which took 16 hours including 4hours 0300-0700 waiting for the ferry trying to sleep on the floor like some homeless guy. My reason for Koh Tao was diving, it is the cheapest place in the world to learn to become padi trained and yes its PADI not PADDY this cost 170 pounds with free accomodation, it took 4 days and 5 dives and was completly worth it. I dived Chumpon Pinnacle where I saw a 3 meter Bull shark which is in the top 4 deadliest sharks and I dived twins and white rock where the coral was amazing. The worst part of the course was taking the mask off underwater and putting it back on. I would of stayed there to do my advanced course enabling me to go down to 30 meters instead of 18 but I didnt want to be diving on my birthday hindsight says I should of stayed as it is double expensive everywhere else also Koh Tao is another place where people dont want to say hello.

I got the refuegee boat to mainland and then a bus to Phuket (19 hours) where I celebrated my birthday with a sweedish guy and a german both whom I am now travelling to Koh L;anta. Phuket is basically spain but with ladyboys, its expensive and touristy but people think its cheap I can assure you you are not missing anything here.

Pictures from cambodia not thailand.

Actually no pictures as I cant be arsed and I have the shits.........laters

Best Laid Plans

Not sure how long this entry will be as I am tired from an 8 hour trek and also the keyboard is stiffer than a body at the morgue.

After leaving Vang Vien I went down to the capital of Laos Vientianne which was quite boring but they had the 25th Asian games (Sea games) taking place so it was a little more lively, everything there can be seen in a day so I hired a tuk tuk driver and went to Buddah park and went to the main Wat (temple) which looked exactly like every other Wat or Pagoda I have seen in Asia. I also obtained my Cambodian visa here. From here I got a sleeper bus down to 4000 islands, the sleeper bus was double beds and you had to sleep next to strangers, I was at the back with 4 other strangers on the one big bed, lucky for me 2 people decided they could not do that so left leaving 3 people to 5 beds, I thought this would have been ok but the person next to me had to sleep like a star and take up all room and he even tried spralling over onto my part until I pretended to stir and áccidently' elbow him. I could also tell the people who had never been on sleeping buses as they were eating and drinking lots, school boy error as they were complaining that they could not go toilet.

I went to Don Khong the main island and I cylced round it on one of those push bikes with no gears, I should have taken the oppertunity to get a semi auto bike and learned to ride that as the roads were empty. There was nothing to do here so I left the next morning on a boat and headed to Don Det where there were more backpackers, I done a kayaking trip to see the dozen Irrawaddy dolphins left in the river, it took 4 hours and we stopped off in Cambodia (Illegal) for lunch. Lucky for us we saw the dolphins as I would not been pleased to have kayaked that far (20km) for nothing. After making some more friends (have litteraly met hundreds of people) we got the bus to Pnom Penh in Cambodia, the first stop however was a rest station where kids had bags of tarrantuals where they would put them on you if you wanted or didnt want them, heart attack does not even come close.

Pnom Penh or Sean Penn as we called it due to convincing some girls because he was concieved there thats how its pronnounced was a bustling dirty city that remdinded me in parts of Bagdad, this was the only place in Asia where I have felt weary. I visited the killing fields where you get to see where the khamer rouge killed over 8000 people in the mass graves, bones and clothing still sticking out the floor where the mass graves havent been dug up. Themagic tree where they beat cambodians heads against to save the bullets. There is a monument there of skulls which goes sky high. I also visited S21 detention centre where a former school was turned into a torture centre where cambodians were tortured and killed so this was not a cheery day. I did plan to shoot an AK-47 but due to illness this didnt happen.

The plans I made have not gone to plan I never intended to go to Laos or Cambodia but here I am, now im thinking about on the way home, I am thinking South Americas would be good before England but who knows, all I know is that I will never have a normal beach holiday again as travelling is so addictive. Russia, China, Mongolia who knows where.

Everyone have a great New Years

Apocalypse now and then

Headed on a excursion to Halong Bay which included a nights stay on a boat and a night in a hotel on Cat ba island. Well tourist is not the word, the whole place was swammped with boats and tourists doing the same thing however I had a plan as I knew that they would charge top dollar for alcohol so we nipped to the shop and bought some vodka and decantered them into water bottles. I was right! They had the cheek to charge over $2 for a small 300mm can of Tiger beer comapre this to the 40cents in certain places and you can see why we were all becoming smugglers! Well that night inclueded many a rendition on karaoke even thought the machine was 'retarted' as one peson described it and we also had to get the deck hand to choose the song even though we gave him this anallergy - Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, give a man the means to catch his fish and he can feed his family for a life time. Give us the means to choose our song and we can sing for a lifetime! Needless to say the next day we had to be up at 0730 to go for a trek and I had 8 loo visits before 0900 so the trek was a make 0r break for my hangover!!! The trek took 2 hours and was well worth it. We went to some caves on one of the 1600 islands in Halong bay and walked around the caves to which we learnt that Halong bay means decending dragon and our guide also pointed out some features of the caves that looked like buddahs or lions, none of them looked like what he said apart from one that was lit up red and orange that could of been E.T's finger or male genitalia. I found the caves boring as it was too easy to walk around and there was not much adventure. We also had some time to kayak which we kayaked to a floating village, this was the same place that Top Gear went on that classic episode, it was amazing to see the people living on this island, they make there money by loading up their boats with all manner of things that the tourist would want, like Oreo cookies, booze and more booze, they row up to the larger boats on the sneak and sell tourists contraband. Halong bay was nice but it was far to touristy for my liking as we had to be regimented with our movements e.g. get up 0730, breakfast 0800 and so on....with this in mind we ditched the trip to monkey island (monkeys after India have lost there effect on me) and opted to explore Cat Ba Island where we ended up on the beach. We headed back to Hanoi to where we lost Peter who went into Laos but after being over priced on the Halong bay deal we decided to get to Sa Pa by ourselfs. We got the overnight train to Lai Cai which is about 1mile from China and got a transfer up the mountain to Sa Pa, immediatly it was bloody cold and wet and visability was about 12ft so we could not see the beauty of the place. We hired a kid to take us on a trek to her village, this trek was 25k in total and took the best part of 4 hours and cost me my trainers. We could not see much and I would have been really annoyed if we spent the $140 that most places were charging for the trips lucky our whole trip cost about $50.

From there we had to get a bus to Dien Bien Phu which is a boarder town and is really rubbish, we were there for only one night so we could get the bus into Laos (0500). One thing with these local buses is you cant prepare for the stuff that happens. I had one woman dry humping my leg for most of the journey and my friend had someone leaning over them to be sick out the window. Come to mention it I think that Asians must suffer really badly from motion sickness as thats all they seemed to do on buses. Some buses we had tourists wearing crash helmets as the boxes from above were falling on them frequently ha ha ha ha.

Now im glad that I have left Vietnam as I have picked up more viruses than an African hooker, it has now come to light the 1200 pictures I have I can not upload or download as the memory card is corrupted and picked up a virus. I can view them on the camera so I am hoping that all is not lost and I can some how restore the photos using some software. To say im livid is an understatement.

So the trip into Laos was a usual local bus trip, uncomfy, noisy and smelly but it is well worth it as we got off at a small village we were approched by 2 Australians and a French guy who had been there a few days waiting for some tourists who wanted to charter a boat down the river instead of getting a bus....this was music to our ears and we agreed so we chartered the sea vessel down to a sleepy picturesq village of Nong Khiaw which I could of stayed at for a week if only for the fact there is no bank or ATM there so I ran out of money very quickly. We stayed in bamboo huts overlooking the river surrounded by palm trees and friendly locals. Oh the worst thing about Nong Khiaw was getting a haircut and shave there, normally a wet shave with a cutthroat is a nice relaxing and generally quick affair, not in Laos where it was done with a single blade razor which went blunt after halfway and a drizzling of cold soapy water. Needless to say it was painful and even after saying dont be shy with that water she opted to shave some parts dry. I did have an audience as many of the locals came to see this wonderous performance. Next was the haircut and I knew something was up when she put lots of clips in my hair as this has never been done before.....how silly of me to think she would use scissors to cut my hair, it was a razor that looked more like an inmate at Belmarsh had constructed using a toothbrush and a blunt razor, again this hurt as the razor got blunter and blunter. Never before would I have had to think to ask a barbers if they have scissors but now in Asia that is my first question.

With money running out we got the bus to Luang Prabang and immediatly drew some kip out and headed to the night market. I felt like I was in some sort of twilight zone walking through the market no one hasseled us to buy at very cheap price or man handle us into their store the Laos people are the most laid back people in Asia which after India and Vietnam is very refreshing although trying to exchange something for a larger size was just pointless as she wanted 30,000 kip to exchange it I tried to tell her that was 10,000 more than I originally paid and she was reluctant to give me my original too small tee back so I snatched it off her and she said too small why want.....I replied so I could bin it just so you cant re-sell it. Just booked our bus to Vang Vien to take part in the legendary tubing! I have my beerlao vest although to wear it anywhere in SE Asia would be uncool like wearing a band tshirt to a gig but when I get to Australia (3rd Feb) in Melbourne it will be super cool!!! That is right I have booked my flight to Oz and I cant wait for sun sea and surf or is that spiders sharks and snakes either way im looking forward to it but I have a feeling that I will have to rush certain countries as I have only got Cambodia and Thailand left in Asia. I still dont know where I will be for Xmas and New Years so may not be contactable if I am in South Laos.

*ALL PHOTOS ARE NOT MINE DUE TO AFORE MENTIONED PROBLEM BUT ARE FROM FRIENDS ON SAME TRIP* Same memories seen through different eyes!

The pictures are from Hoi An, Halong bay, Sapa, and Hanoi, hopfully now I have new memory card it will not get a virus or corrupted but I dont hold my breath!