Back on the Road

Where to begin!? I am in Perth right now having just met up with Briony for the first time since she left Bundaberg about 5 months ago. I have finished working and have saved enough money to travel now so let me fill you all in on my happenings since my last blog nearly 6 months ago (hard to believe it has been that long).

November and December passed with little note. Christmas was fantastic. Had a brilliant lunch out and some drinks on the beach. We got really lucky with the weather as it rained for about a week before and after Christmas day, but not on Christmas itself. We had a game of football between all the lads in the hostel: France vs. Rest of the World. France think it finished [FR 7 - 6 RotW] and Rest of the World think it finished [FR 6 - 7 RotW]. This caused arguments-a-plenty and towards the end of the game was rather vicious. All was forgotten after as we sat on the beach and into the night drank the many eskies of beer we brought along. New Years was excellent also. Had a party in the hostel involving drinking games that originated practically all over the world. This led to no-one knowing the rules of any game and proceeded to just drink a lot anyway.

January took its course and created possibly the best room friendship the hostel has ever known. Room 9: Ian, Andy, Bernie, Matt, Mark and Krystiana. I don't think we really left the room throughout most of January and I don't think one group has ever had so many inside jokes! Late January I got bored of my "Jenga stacking" job and worked on a mango and lychee farm for a short while. Soon enough a permanent job came about and at the start of February I was working on a sweet potato farm for the nicest farmers you could ever meet. The work, though difficult, was very rewarding and at points very fun! Occasionally they would give us a post-work beer or pie, while talking about football and the hostel.

I worked a lot from this time until the end of April when I eventually left Bundy. Pedro, Carole and Mick took me and Andy out for dinner a couple of weeks before we left, which was really nice of them and they even through a little party on the last day of work. It was a little sad to leave them and disappointing that I hadn't tried to get on that farm earlier on. Having seen everyone I had made friends with in the hostel come and go it was a very strange experience for me to leave also. Matt and Mark had left a week before us, Krystiana a few weeks before that and Bernie a day after Me and Andy. The group had finally been split up. Saying goodbye to everyone at 3:30am with no sleep whatsoever was a very odd experience. Like it was happening to someone else. Even on the bus it still felt like I wasn't actually leaving Bundy.

The bus was taking us to Harvey Bay where we embarked on a 3 day trip to the infamous Fraser Island. We had a fantastic time at Fraser and got to see the best attraction there- Lake McKenzie, the day before it was due to be closed until September. McKenzie is a huge freshwater lake surrounded by the finest, whitest sand in the world. The water is so blue and the whole scene was beautiful. Driving around the island was fantastic fun. I had driven a lot of big 4x4's around Bundy and the farms, but this was completely different. I was a bit disappointed we didn't get stuck in the sand though. Everyone who had been told us you get stuck a lot and that's half the fun! Driving along the beach was cool as well. The east coast of Fraser is just one huge beach that is used as a highway to get to all the attractions on Fraser Island. We stayed at an Aboriginal owned camping ground and had some drinks with a few other groups doing a similar trip. The second day we visited Indian Heads, the highest viewpoint overlooking the sea at Fraser. We caught glimpses of fish, stingrays, jellyfish and just as we were about to leave we spotted a school of about 7 dolphins! The third day we walked over some sand dunes to another lake not quite as exciting as Lake McKenzie but still very nice.

We stayed a night in Harvey Bay before going to Brisbane where we met up with Josh and Paul. It was brilliant to see them and a stark reminder of just how long I have been away from home for. I hadn't seen Paul since the day before I left home a year ago March and Josh a year ago January!! We had an excellent time in Brisbane and visited a couple of art galleries, a Chinese festival, a man-made beach next to the river, and went on a couple of nights out with the boys. It was a really good few days out and a great way to get out of a working mentality and into a traveling mind frame. On Sunday evening we flew to Perth and met up with Briony yesterday. Looking forward to a few days chilling out in Perth (it really is chilly over here, but that could just be because I am used to the heat of the east coast now). We fly to Bali on Thursday and I shall keep all my avid readers continually updated on everything I am doing and seeing. Sorry I have kept you waiting so long, but I haven't had too much to chat about in 8 months of living in Bundy!

Wish me luck!
x

Work and Play... and Work

G'day readers. I know you're probably all terribly sick of hearing about Bundaberg and the like but I have some time on the internet and I know you're all missing me so much...! I have a new job. One that doesn't involve having to wake up at stupid o'clock and break my back in the heat. I'm working in a packing shed lifting boxes all day long, a bit like setting up a giant version of Jenga, but you're not allowed to pull it down... unfortunately. It is mightily dull but I'm making a bit more money and I'm not tired all the time now. It can get really depressing too since no one there talks. I don't think it's against the rules or anything but we just listen to the radio all day long. Any of you who have heard Australian radio you'll know it's not a particularly good thing. Lot's of faces have left the hostel now, meaning that Me, Andy and Briony are possibly the longest serving hostel members. This means that we could apply for the night managers position! The job is simply clean the kitchen and lock the doors at 9pm. We get one persons free rent so every third week I don't pay rent.

Some exciting times to share as well. Lee and Amy - remember, the couple we met in Russia who were on the train with us - rocked up in Bundy a few weeks ago. They were only passing through but they stayed a couple of nights and it was awesome to catch up and share traveling stories as well. We had no idea they were coming here and they didn't know we were in Bundaberg either, so it was quite exciting. Also, at the same time, Phil - remember, Phil, the guy who was on the Halong Bay trip with us in 'Nam - also showed up! He stayed for a week but got offered a job up in Melbourne so decided to take that up instead of boring farm work here.

I still don't know what my Christmas and New Years plans are. It'll certainly be strange to have Christmas in Australia. I may still be here. I have decided that I don't want to save money for ages to go and blow it all in a week on booze and expensive accommodation. I'm still having fun here. Works okay. Playing football and basketball all the time is cool. Some of you may have heard that me and Andy are looking into going to South Africa for the World Cup. We havn't got any real plans for what's going to follow Bundaberg but we are hoping that if we get tickets to a game or two, the decision will be made for us. Otherwise we might see more Oz or NZ, or go back to Asia. It's all pipeline stuff for now. We have a mental list of what we want to do and see, so eventually, when we have money, these things may come to fruition. For the meantime, sit tight. Keep following the blog. If you aren't too bored obviously. I hope you are all keeping warm in the harsh weather (for the record I don't think the weathers changed a bit since I got here... in winter! Seriously, it may have got slightly warmer and a bit windier but that's it!) One last thing: I started putting some pictures on Facebook, only done the first month or so but I'll get them all up soon.

I miss and love you all. Especially you.

Bundaberg Backpackers

Still rocking it out here in Bundy and thought I'd give a quick update. I've finally started making some money by being a world class zucchini picker. So much so that in fact the hostel wont move me to a better job because they are scared off pissing off the farmer since I am "his best picker". My hard work is apparently my own demise. Never mind though since I plan on staying here a while and I am making money - last week alone I earned AU$718! So I'll stick it out and when the job eventually ends I will try and get something slightly less back breaking. I think working from a hostel you often find that people constantly complain. When you havn't got work in a place like this you get bored and frustrated. Yet a lot of people expect to get work and make lot's of money quickly, without having to put much effort in... and when they find themselves on a massive farm where you can't even see the end of the patch of zucchinis you are supposed to be picking, they find the work too hard and quit. It's quite funny really. The place is full of people who simply don't know what it's like to do a hard days work.

Last week was particularly hard. I was working from about 5.15am until 2.30pm every day. I bet none of you believe I am fine with getting up at 4.10am every morning either! Bed by nine... who'd have thought. It's starting to get very hot here, though the evenings/mornings are still pretty cold. I also have the responsibility of driving everyone to work in the mornings. I drive a 10 person trooper with dodgy brakes, terrible steering allignment and a choke so old I have to hold down what they call here a glow plug for 20 seconds before it'll start.

The other thing about this hostel is falling into patterns and rhythms day by day. Obviously when working it's a case of up early, breakfast, work, home, lunch, tv, dinner, bed. But we've got a few others thrown in too:

- Tuesday was 'Cheap Pizza Day' and has no evolved into 'Pizza and Horror Movie Evening'.
- Four o'clock in the afternoon is time to go to Coles and find what's on offer (normally donuts and cakes).
- Saturday afternoon we play football.
- A day off will often account to going to the swimming pool, especially if it's a weekend and the inflatables are up.
- Drinking copious amounts of tea.
- Queueing up for the internet (took me the best part of an hour to get on this morning).

As mentioned previously, between all this we bitch and complain about work, bosses, hostel management, sleep deprivation, Bundaberg, locals, prices, crap beer, heat, internet unavailability, etc, etc.

Congratulations are due to Paul and his friends for flying out to India. I am really looking forward to meeting up in Australia. I have finally remembered to sort out my medicare and now have free health care! This is lucky since it coincides with the running out of my travel insurance. Only other news is that I received a parcel from mum with some excellent presents! There aren't any pictures to show you from Bundaberg as we don't have a camera. To be honest there's not an awful lot to see. The beach is nice, but I've still only been there once.

I guess that's all for today. Sorry it's not very exciting. Check out Paul's blog, it's pretty good (though an obvious attempt at plagiarism... hehe). If anyone wants me to ring them, send me your phone numbers and a good time to call. Or just come out to Australia and find me. Take care. x

Brisbane and Bundy, Australia

It has been a while since I've posted anything so sorry for all the avid fans who are crying in desperation to hear the next chapter in the adventures of travels and beyond. I'm sure you've found other ways to amuse yourselves in my absence. So Australia is nice. It's full of Australians though. Never mind.

Flight from BKK to KL to OOL was uneventful. Never been so nervous before a flight before. It didn't help that every day I checked the news another plane somewhere had crashed. When I arrived in Coolangatta airport I got a taste of the overboard customs Australia are known for. They even cleaned my walking shoes! Brilliant. Coolangatta - what a stupid name. Australia is full of stupid names. I swear they just grab 3 or four consonants at random and roll a couple of dice to see how many vowels it needs. Whether you're headed up Yeerongpilli or Moorooka or Wooloowin (real places around Brisbane, check if you don't believe me) you get the feeling that naming places is a bit of a joke to Australians. A very unfunny joke. At the airport we met a man who desperately needed to get to Brisbane so took a taxi for an astronomical price, we told him we'd taxi share if we pay the same as we would if we took the train. It was pretty handy since we got there 2 hours earlier than we would have.

Brisbane is a nice city. It was incredibly sunny and felt like an English summer day. Being as it was winter gives some impression as to how different the weather patterns are over here! We constructed a plan of action: job, car, accomm. This changed to: accomm, job, car, which in turn changed to: job, accomm, train/bus. Eventually we stopped at around plan r1.v2.327a which was to get a train to Bundaberg, find accommodation, stick with it until we find work. After contemplating staying in Brisbane, heading south, heading north, heading inland, and just about every other possible scenario- we had a night out and drunkenly settled on Bundy.

So we got the train there and as we arrived at such a late hour... 7.30pm... nothing was open. It was upon arrival we realised that this town is a little backward and on a Tuesday night, with nothing open except for one hostel, we could be in for a bit of trouble. So we stayed a night in a place called Cell Block. An old converted prison, with a swimming pool. Everyone was absolutely wasted and it didn't take long for us to decide that we didn't want to stay here if we are trying to save money. So in the morning we walked over to another backpacker hostel, which sounded very encouraging the the work line. He told us that soon there's going to be too many jobs for the number of people staying there. This turned out to be a lie.

The hostel is nice enough but there's not a lot to do both there and in town. Things get pretty boring when you aren't working. It took 6 days before I got my first job. During that time I went out on standby a few nights. Going out on standby means waking up in the very early hours of the morning (usually around 3am) to wait until the buses arrive to take people to work. If a farm needs any extra people, or if people don't turn up for work, you get a job. It's freezing bloody cold in the evenings though! I didn't get my first job on standby but being out there does show your intentions and you're more likely to get a job before other people who don't go out. My first job was 2, 9 hour days lifting heavy planks of wood onto a tractor. The work was incredibly tough but at $17.60 an hour was very much worth it. You are so tired and worn out in the evenings that it doesn't matter that Bundy is so boring - you don't have the energy to do anything anyway.

A day off and then my second job, planting courgettes - they call them zucchinis over here. Much easier job but that only lasted one day. My third job was picking zuchhinis, which lasted 2 days and after that I was bucket boy for zucchinis. Bucket boy is a great job because picking is awful. There's not an awful lot to pick at the moment so you get more money being on an hourly rate. It's $2.50 per bucket or $17.60 per hour, so it works out good for me. I did 3 days of bucket boy but then they gave me 4 days off! Not very good seeing as the shifts are really short anyway so not earning very much if it's just 3 days a week.

I've met some great people at the hostel as well. It's crazy just how many backpackers are in Bundy, and funny just how much all the locals hate us! Most of them are on the doll and refuse to work, however some are known to start fights with backpackers. It's best just to stay the hell away from them. So it's been nearly a month since I came to Australia and I am yet to see any popular sights. The beach round here is nice though I've only been once, and I do get to play football here. I bought this laptop to give me a bit more entertainment, so hopefully I wont get too bored being here. I just hope the work picks up a bit.

I miss you all and hope that you are all doing well and that you have had an excellent summer! I'll try and write more frequently though I doubt I'll have much to say at this rate... working... not working... bored... having fun... etc. xx

Full Moon

After wasting a day in Bangkok walking around and generally doing nothing, I got my bus and boat to Koh Phangan the following afternoon around 1pm, 4 hours after I was due to arrive! Since I didn't know where the others were and we'd made a plan to meet later that evening, I had a stroll down the beach and a beer or more. The place is a bit like Vang Vieng (Laos) wherein everywhere there are many - mostly naked - people running about drinking and every restaurant/bar is playing either Family Guy, Friends, or The Simpsons. That evening was Pre-Full Moon and it turned out to be incredible. There were some 15,000 people on the beach in preparation for one of the worlds biggest raves. I had an excellent night though drank far too much.

Hence the following day I was very hungover. I consolidated this by eating a big greasy fry-up and spending the day watching the above programs. That evening was the actual Full Moon party, and although I was still feeling pretty rough I stayed out playing drinking games until 12am and stayed at the beach until 3am. However, as soon as I got back to the room, I fell fast asleep! The party was incredible, and I am very glad I came down for it.

The next day I was lucky not to be feeling ill at all, so Me, Briony and Annie got a taxi-boat along the island to a secluded beach to do some snorkeling. It was great fun and really nice to get off the Haad Rin beach since after a week of party's it got kinda scummy. After a few hours a storm started to kick up, so out boat driver took us back over to Haad Rin. It was a cool way to spend an afternoon, and nice since it was so quiet too. We got the bus back last night and arrived this morning around 6am. I've caught a few hours sleep and I am now sorting out some accommodation for Brisbane.

Tomorrow we fly to Kuala Lumpar and then change a few hours later to arrive at the Gold Coast the following morning. I am really, really excited to get to Australia now. Looking for work may be difficult, but I'm hoping for a speedy solution.

So next time I blog, I'll be in Australia!!! Speak soon. x

Chang Mai

I've had an amazing time in Chang Mai. It's a relatively quiet place and most of the bars, etc, close around 12ish. It's such good fun just walking around the city - mostly getting lost! - and just stopping here and there for a coffee or beer. Obviously its main attractions are outside of Chang Mai. I didn't get a chance to do a trek but I have good reasons. Firstly, the trek seems exactly the same as what I did in Kachanaburi with the walk/elephant ride/bamboo raft, so it didn't seem worth forking out the money for. Secondly, from what I've heard about the trek, you can do a 1, 2, or 3 day outing, which apparently are all exactly the same just spread out over more days or compacted into one. It wasn't cheap either. There were loads of other things I'd have liked to do in Chang Mai had I the chance. You can rock climb, white water raft, bungee jump, all sorts. Also, everyone in Chang Mai is either Dutch or French (or French-Canadian but that's the same thing really).

The downhill/cross-country mountain biking was fricking awesome! It was a lot lot harder than I anticipated and I fell over many a time. We were first grouped up for the different routes. There was one easy route that was being taken by the French family that showed up. This filled me confidence because they were kids, so I was sure I'd be fine on an intermediate level. I can ride a bike! So I met all the Dutch people on my group and the one other English guy,,and we got a tuk tuk to the top of the mountain. We all got on really well, though I was getting a bit worried when I found out all of them had at least some experience in the sport. When we got to the top we had a lengthy safety session and a talk about the technique behind downhill mountain biking - put your arse back as far as you can! We set off on the 'Smokey Hill Route', which was a road to start off with. It was quite slippery but all downhill so we whizzed through that bit. We got onto the first downhill bit and I found it really easy, picking up loads of speed and throwing my bike over fallen branches and rocks, it was so cool.

Then we stopped off at an amazing viewpoint where there's a little hut which grows and sells its own coffee. After a quick coffee break we started a cross country bit. It started off okay then the rain hit us - hard. It got so slippery that you couldn't get any grip trying to go uphill at all so I and most of the others had to push our bikes up. When the downhill started again I found it much harder. It was single track, which basically means no space whatsoever. With all the rocks, tree routes, and slippery mud I was falling over every 10 minutes! Most of the time it was a simple "Ah shit, BAIL!" and I was fine. At the end I was so tired and had managed to twist my ankle, was covered in cuts and bruises, and was still pumping with adrenaline. The end of the ride was at a big lake that had some awesome scenery around it. We were caked in mud so, fully clothed, dived straight into the lake to cool off.

It turned out I had sprained my ankle and by the next morning I was finding it really difficult to walk. I was supposed to be doing a motorbike ride of the north but decided not to risk it. Instead I chose to leave for Koh Phangan to find Briony and Andy for the full moon party. Arrived in Bangkok this morning. I forgot how much it smells. It has a sort of rank, stale, piss and vomit smell pretty much all over the city. I decided to waste most of the morning going on a long walk, which was cool but its so hot.

I think I'll get a massage this afternoon.

Central Thailand

Hello again. Thanks for reading still after all this time. Over four months have elapsed since I flew from Gatwick to Poland and I'm still having such a brilliant and exciting time. For anyone worried about me traveling alone: you have nothing to worry about. I've met some fantastic people and it's really pushed me to try new things. For instance tomorrow I'm trying a downhill mountain bike trip in one of the toughest places in the world! Should get the heart pumping.

Enough of north Thailand and let me tell you about my time in central. As you may be aware I spent a couple of days in the quiet and history enriched town of Kachanaburi. During this time I put myself on a tour of the surrounding places. Firstly we went to the Erawan national park to see it's famous 7-tiered waterfall. We only had 2 and a half hours there and was told it would take around an hour or so to reach the summit. So me and Roman (Ukrainian guy) paced it to the top as quick as we could, reaching it in about 45 minutes. The waterfall was awesome but the walk was hard. It was a sort of mix between the waterfall at Luang Prabang (Laos) (what with the tiers) and the hike up from the river at Tiger Leaping Gorge (China) (what with the ladders going up parts too steep to climb). It was excellent fun and on the way back we had some time to jump off waterfalls, swim around, and get bitten by the fish. The fish are weird. They sort of nibble at your toes. It's kinda funny.

After the waterfall we headed to the elephant park. Me and Roman were on the biggest elephant there as we trekked through the jungle. The rider appeared to have a really good relationship with Pet (the elephant) and upon instruction could get him to roar. I was really quite surprised at how loud elephants can roar. It's quite incredible. The trek was really cool and we went through a camp of the local people who take care of the elephants. When we got back to the elephant camp I was taken aback with how many elephants they keep. And breed. I didn't expect to see so many in one place. They seem quite well looked after, though you can never really tell.

From there we took a bamboo raft down river for about 20 minutes. It was really peaceful and a pleasant experience though I have been on many boats in the last few months so nothing new to spot. We then took the minibus over to a famous spot on the death railway, aptly named due to the number of deaths of the original workers on the site. Some 70% died and were treated or buried in a nearby cave that stank pretty bad. The scenery around was quite spectacular and after a short while our train showed up taking us through the country side to the bridge over the river Kwai. We walked down it and back and went around the nearby museum. I'm interested to watch the movie about it now where it was bombed in WW2. We got back on the minibus to go to the guest house and booked ourselves to go to Ayathaya the following day. We had a few drinks and although we've spotted, and been approached by, many prostitutes in Thailand, I never thought I'd see anything so blatant as the bars around there. Every bar is desolate and all the girls that work their are quite literally throwing themselves at the Westerners. Needless to say I didn't accept their illustrious offers.

So we went to Ayathaya, Thailands ancient capital before Burma came and ruined it. It's ruins are one of the most popular attractions though I didn't think they were particularly exciting. The night we got there we looked around a ruin in the dark with some big lights on it. This was pretty cool but I realized the next day the temples aren't that ancient or even extravagant. They are all extremely similar and all made of red brick with the stone and plaster being burned off. What also didn't help is that the night before some Thai's plied me with lots of Chang and Samsong whilst I tried to drunkenly teach them English and me Thai! So other than having a hangover in the intense heat and being bored by the "ancient" temples I didn't really do an awful lot. However, I took an amazing boat trip. Ayathaya is set on an island since a river runs all the way around it and along the river are some fantastic temples. The first we saw was an active monastery, one of the biggest I've seen. We watched the women there making the monks robes and watched the monks meditate and study in different rooms around the monastery. It also housed a huge golden Buddha.

The second and third weren't quite as amazing but still a whole lot better than the ruins held within the city. It was a really nice boat trip and I was glad that I managed to leave Ayathaya satisfied that evening. I left Roman in Ayathaya as I went up to Chang Mai on the train at 9.30pm. I arrived at 10.30am today and met a Dutch guy, Ruud, who is going to do this mountain biking thing tomorrow. Should be good if not incredibly tiring!

Thai Fun

Firstly, very sorry I havn't posted in such a long time. It's not even that I havn't been online so I have no excuse. Please forgive me and I'll tell you about my time in Thailand from Bangkok.

The "sleeper" bus from Bangkok coupled with a boat got us to the island of Koh Samui around midday. The girls had arrived their a couple of days before us and we had no idea where they were. The most recent message we received went something like this: "this beach is really quiet so we're heading to another beach called chakeng, i think!". Later we found that there is a beach on Koh Samui called Chaweng Beach Resort so we threw in our cards and headed there. We found an expensive guest house (I only say expensive in relation to what we paid in the rest of SE Asia) and threw down our stuff. After we got some food we went on a mission to find the girls and, as expected, they were chilling on the beach.

Koh Samui was a nice island but there wasn't an awful lot to do there other than the beach. So we relaxed and just enjoyed a bit of worry-free time. Next we caught the boat to Koh Tao. It's a much smaller island than Samui and is well known for its prestigious diving at cheap prices. I was very much tempted to put myself in debt with my credit card and fork out to get an Open Water PADI. In the end I decided that when I have more time somewhere to dive, I'll get my PADI. Maybe in Australia if I have time and money. We had 4 nights in Koh Tao and we were blessed with some pretty good weather too. Since it's wet season at the moment it's quite difficult to determine the weather and sometimes it gets so muggy you're praying for a massive storm to hit - inevitably it does! We had time in Koh Tao to try some real Thai food (though I'm lost for their names right now) and have some nice walks up along the beach. We stayed in a small bungalow right near the beach, which after a day was covered in sand and smelt of eggs. (The eggy smell could be explained what with a stream right outside extruding the same smell... or it could have just been me drinking too much coffee and eating eggs again!!) The sea in Koh Tao (or at least our beach) was a bit disappointing. It was incredibly shallow, even when the tide is in and simply isn't as fun to mess around in. AND, and, there are no waves! Booring.

So when you are chilling out at a nice beach resort and soaking up the sun the last thing you'd expect, especially considering all the stuff we've done in the last 4 months, is a bad accident. We rented some motorbikes and drove north to a beach with some spectacular views and great snorkeling. We got there in good time, though the hills were a little scary. After a drink at the bar we went down to the rocky beach, accessible by a rickety bridge made of twigs and the like. The rocks were quite spike so I lowered myself in slowly. Andy standing atop a boulder about 6' above the water asked me how deep it was. I told him it was just deeper than me and should be fine to jump in so long as he clears the rocks below. Don't know what happened next except that following a pin drop into that water and a hard landing of the sea's surface, Andy had cut his foot open in two places and had to go to hospital to get stitched up!

So that was... fun (sorry Mum's). We all went back to Bangkok and had our last day with Alice before she had to fly home. We arrived in Khao San at 4am with the road a rife with prostitutes and lady-boys, so we went to one of the few 24hr places in Bangkok... McDonalds! We waited until 5am for breakfast to start and after some food went out looking for cheap guest houses that had opened early. By 7am we got ourselves in a room and I figured that instead of going to sleep I'd stay up and try and get an early night that evening since we were getting up at 4am to take Alice to the airport. It was a nice day, though a very tiring one, and it became very difficult to sleep even with the fatigue setting in. Since we stayed actually on Khao San road this time, and above a club at that, it was incredibly noisy.

It was time for Alice to go to the airport. We took a minibus there and stayed with her until the last minute to say our farewells. She wasn't as upset as I thought she'd be, but there was one moment after Briony went to find her friend who'd just landed in Bangkok where Alice didn't want to go up the escalator back to the departures area. Eventually we got her up and after saying our prolonged goodbyes she left us to leave our world of traveling and back to England. It was very sad and I really miss having Alice around. So Briony's friend, Alice's replacement, Annie had been drafted in. She was knackered after her flight from England and she pretty much passed out as soon as we got her to the room. We also met up with a friend from uni, Phoebe and her friend Manda who also just arrived in Bangkok that day. We decided to meet up to have some drinks and then to head off to a Ping Pong show. Although I don't regret going, I will never, EVER, go again. It's hard to describe without leaving out any gory details but I can just say that I didn't realize so much could fit up there... seriously. They were pulling out colourful sting with bells attached to it for a long long time. And the noise of that banana being fired 10' in the air will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The next day I went out to visit the Royal Palace and the Emerald Buddha. It is a fantastic and huge complex that's extremely bright. We had the sun out all day and it lit up the golden spires and colourful mosaic glass amazingly. It took a long time to walk around and it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be. I'd heard it was comparable to the Forbidden City in Beijing, but it definitely wasn't as ridiculous as that! Also went around the National Museum, which was really interesting in relation to all the dynasty's and kings the country has had in the last several hundred years, but dragged a bit toward the end with ceramics and pottery. We also read about a king who had completed many great feats. One of which was he dreamed he was victorious in defeating a crocodile - his astrologer made the connection that he would in fact defeat the Burmese. There was a lot of random captions like that!

Next day I visited Wat Pho. A slightly less busy temple renowned for it's 75m long reclining Buddha. Picturing that in your mind isn't as easy as just "Yeah, another big Buddha". 75m is funking huge!! My camera screen is still bust but I tried to take as many pictures as possible so as to give some image of how big this thing was. The rest of the temple was really nice, though not quite as spectacular as the Royal Palace. It was, though, a lot cheaper to visit, and I didn't have to wear long trousers.

That afternoon an incredible thing happened. Mother of all that is random... we happened to bump into Owen, another friend from uni!!! It was really, really weird. I remember reading on Facebook a couple of months ago that he'd come to Thailand but by now had completely forgotten about that. So after a reunion we all went to the weekend market to buy some tat. We went out for some drinks, mostly reminiscing uni times and talking utter crap. We went out to a bar with a live cover band, which played an odd mix of songs ranging from You Spin Me Right Round to Bohemian Rhapsody to Killing in the Name of (RATM). It was very strange.

I didn't want to get too drunk though since the next day (today) I caught a minibus to Kachanaburi, a couple of hours north of Bangkok. Andy remained in Bangkok since he can't really walk on his foot and is yet to see a lot of the sights in Bangkok and Briony and Annie caught a train this afternoon to Chang Mai. So I'm here on my own for the first time since coming away. At first it was a little daunting, but actually it's really exciting. I was chatting to a Ukrainian bloke in the minibus and we decided to go tomorrow on a tour which includes Elephant riding and trekking and walking up a 7-tiered waterfall (one of the best in Thailand apparently) followed by a visit to some caves and a trip along the famous Death Railway, which goes over the 'Bridge Over the River Kwae' (let me know if you've seen the film). So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I promise I begin posting more regularly now.

Sorry again. I miss you all and wish you all the best!

Stuff happens in Cambodia

Plans went a little wayward from what I mentioned in the last entry. We figured we'd spend a week in the south, a week in the east and a week in the west allowing days here and there and head to Thailand at the end of the month. It changed from that to arriving in Bangkok yesterday, 12th July. All I can say is that things change and stuff happens, and stuff changes and things happen. Arriving in Kampot at the south of Cambodia we found out that Alice had been robbed on the bus, losing her camera, phone and some money. (I am now the only person who still has a camera). Basically our plans changed a bit and we decided to stick together instead of spending more time in Cambodia. Unfortunetly this meant that me and Andy didn't really see or do anything in the south and had to miss out the east entirely.

Anyway, first night in Kampot, I had a little accident involving a push bike, a broken chain and some tarmac, all with a little help from our friend gravity. I started picking up some speed on this rubbish bike and the chain completely snapped, throwing me and the bike to the ground and skidding along a little way. I tore up some of my arm, bashed in my knee, and took off a chunk of a big toe! The bike was in worse condition than I was. I bent it back into shape and walked back to the guest house. I forgot how much antiseptic wipes hurt as well. So there's me dancing around the room looking like I'd just had a fight with an electric sander. I was fine though, just walked like a cripple for a few days. Also I realised after that I had my camera in my pocket, of which the screen is now completely bust. (Now I'm the only person who has a camera... and that camera is broken!). Plus for some unknown reason my first aid kit Debbie made for me has completely dissapeared! Very frustrating, I was looking forward to finally using my Mr. Bump antiseptic wipes.

So we stayed with the girls as I mentioned before, relaxing for a couple of days in Sihanoukville. It was a cool place, though it doesn't really have much more to it than a nice beach and unfortunetly being as we're in the middle of wet season, it was a bit wet. We caught the bus back to Phnom Penh and being as we were now all together for Alices birthday we went for a nice meal, and even found a cake and a candle to sing happy birthday with. We were staying in a nicer area than last time too, right near the central market and the Royal Palace. The next day the girls left for Siem Riep whilst me and Andy stayed behind since we needed to get Thai visas and they take a few days to process. Not that I minded since it gave us some time in Phnom Penh to do what we missed out on before. We walked around the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, which were absolutely stunning. The buildings looked incredible. We also had a walk around the art streets and went over to the market. The weather was really good as well. We also worked out what the difference between Phnom Penh and other capital cities is (other than it's a small city): it's very green and not very built up. I really like Phnom Penh.

When we got our visas we jumped on a bus to Siem Riep to catch up with the girls. We didn't have the Lonely Planet and therefore couldn't research what we were going to do there. All we knew was that we wanted to see Angkor Wat and some of the other temples around. So the following day we got a guide from the guest house (I think he was called Suret) to take us round the temples. It was a fantastic day. We got up at 4am so we could get to Angkor Wat in time to see the sun rise. We got our spot by a small lake in the main complex and got some excellent pictures (at least I hope they're excellent. I can't actually tell now on my camera!). We got somer breakfast and spent a while walking around and inside the biggest religious building in the world and the mother of all temples. It was spectacular. A really unbelievable place. Next stop was Bayon. Bayon was quite run down, which was what I liked about it. There was no real temple feel to it. It is quite hard to explain. It's a sort of big building with steps going up to the top with loads of faces carved into the rock. There's tons of them and some are absolutely huge. We saw some more temples that were outside Bayon that were pretty cool but I can't remember their names.

We had enough time to go around the 'Tomb Raider' temple. I think it's real name is Ta Phrom or something. It's the place where they filmed part of the first Tomb Raider film. It's surrounded by jungle and is a really run down place with huge tree's literally growing through the remains of this temple. At the end of the day we got a sight of the last temple, which was also mostly in ruins. We had a guide for this one though not by choice. He just sort of jumped us and we couldn't stop him talking. It was good that we did though because we learnt a lot about this one. For instance it is filled with phallic symbols, that we would have otherwise not noticed, or noticed and thought it childishly funny and not knowing what they were actually there for. Also we found out it was built in the late 12th century, one fo the oldest temples in the Angkor area and in the 13th century the king there was Hundu and ordered all the Buddha symbols and statues to be removed. We paid the guy $2, which I think he was a little pissed about, but we didn't actually have any money on us. Mostly because we just bought more artwork that we'll struggle to carry around.

It was a really cool day but we came back absolutely knackered. We got some food and fell pretty much straight to sleep! We left for Bangkok the following day (yesterday) and once we'd sorted out a room we went out for food and a beer. A beer quickly turned into many beers and we stumbled back into our room around 2am, good night! So I'm feeling pretty hungover today. The girls went off to Koh Samui last night and we were going to head off tonight to catch them up but we kind of slept in too late. So we're gonna head off tomorrow instead. We have about a month in Thailand now, which should be great fun!!

Viet Cong Tunnels to Cambodian Killing Fields

It's been a good few days of depressing cultural fun. Our last full day in 'Nam was to head to Cu Chi and see the tunnels. It is a massive set of complex tunnels the Viet Cong used in the American/Vietnam war. I went inside a couple to see the living conditions of thousands of Viet Cong for around 20 years! The tunnels were a great experience and seeing examples of the types of traps they used only further added to the gruesomeness of what happened. We had an interesting talk with our guide about the war as well. He sums up what the Vietnamese people think of the war now in two separate categories:

1. The war never happened. He means that a lot of younger generation (18 to 30) in Cambodia now aren't focusing on the war. They have adopted many Western ways of living and enjoy themselves selfishly.

and 2. The war never ended. His example came from his Dad, who fought in the war. He suffered from shell shock and found it difficult to talk about his time there. He, as expected, holds many grudges and although he can see great change in his country; he still lives as he did the majority of his life, in a war.

It was really interesting and insightful not only to hear about what they think of the war now, but also what they think of us as Westerners. We learnt a lot of the Vietnamese way of living and it was a thoroughly enjoyable day out.

The following day we caught the bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the 10th country we've visited so far. We arrived mid-afternoon and set about finding a cheap place to stay. We got a room for the four of us for $10 with air con. Next day we had ourselves another cultural day. We went to a museum (can't remember it's name) that used to be a school, which was transformed into the infamous Prison S-21. The museum had an hour long documentary which we watched first. It was very powerful and told the story of a husband and wife who'd been split up and were forced to work in labour camps as slaves. It was very insightful and gave us a great introduction to the rest of the museum. We saw the different cells that were used. Tiny cupboards of rooms where prisoners were chained to the floor. There was an exhibit of skulls that were unearthed from the nearby Killing Fields and pictures of all the known victims. Another exhibition showed pictures from a Swedish tourist who came to Cambodia in 1978 under Pol Pot's regime, which turned out to be propaganda for the rest of the world. It was interesting to see his pictures captioned with thoughts at the time and thoughts now. He was clearly deeply sorry to be part of the propaganda and seeing what we saw that day, it's easy to see why. Obviously we know know that under Pol Pot's regime 2 million people were killed, but at the time very little was actually known of what went on. A lot of the pictures the Swedish man thought were staged for their benefit, such as schools and hospitals.

I really enjoyed the museum but with left with a massive sense of forboding but we decided to go out and see the Killing Fields. It's about 10km's out of town so we got a tuk tuk. The Killing Fields where were the men, women, and children of the work camps were brought for execution. The mass graves had been dug up with a huge collection of skulls, many with teeth still intact, were on open display. Walking around the dug up trenches I nearly trod on what I originally assumed was a rock and realised afterwards was actually a bone protruding from the ground. There was a tree with a sign next to it simply saying "This was where children were beated and executed" and had a pile of bones at its base. It was incredibly sad and upsetting.

We relaxed for the rest of the day, shocked at the days proceedings. That evening we chilled out at a bar which had an open live acoustic thing going on. This one guy was exceptionally talented on his guitar and another girl was exceptionally talented at singing. It made for a really relaxed and enjoyable evening.

The next day we celebrated Alice's birthday. We have decided to go our separate ways since the girls want to spend more time in Thailand and we want to spend more time in Cambodia. So in our last full day together we decided to have an early birthday day for Alice. We went out to the water park... it was pretty rubbish but we had a right laugh. Playing about on the slides and in the pool was a lot of fun. We had some lunch and for dessert bought Alice some chocolate from the Chocolate Shop and gave her her pressies. We gave Alice her card which was blank on the front as we decided we'd draw picture of the days proceedings as the days went on. We got back to the room after buying some cheap and nasty looking vodka to play drinking games, namely ring of fire. Many hours and drinks later we headed out to a bar to have a few more before going to a club. I didn't enjoy the club so much. I felt really awkward and uncomfortable. It was mostly occupied by lots of young Cambodian girls not wearing an awful lot trying to through themselves at you. There were loads of old men who had gone there to pick up young Cambodian girls and I didn't enjoy watching the girls competing over men, presumably for money. Prostitution is a big problem in Phnom Penh and it was really obvious what this place was. Incredibly seedy.

Today I have a hangover. The girls have gone ahead of us to our next destination Kampot. We're going to go tomorrow. Since we have more time in Cambodia and the fact that they left at 6.30am (bearing in mind we didn't get back in until 4.30am), me and Andy decided to allow this day as a hangover day. We're going to meet the girls tomorrow afternoon when we arrive in Kampot, but it will most likely be for the last time. In other, less depressing news, Me, Andy and Briony have booked our flights to Australia!! We fly from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpar Aug 10th and then Kuala Lumpar to Brisbane that evening to arrive the following morning. Now we just need to get work, accommodation and a car. I also sorted out my Australian bank account so that's another think out of the way. I'm looking forward to the rest of my stay in Cambodia but I know I'm going to miss having the girls around.