Back home!

Apologies for the late update, but I've been home for a few days now.. wandering around in a daze trying to get everything in order. I never updated our days in Siem Reap or what I did in Phuket but big dealio, thats then now!
Coming home: I met the other 3 in K.L. after a smooth flight down from Phuket, and for them a not-so-smooth bus ride from the city to the airport. The 7-8 hours flight was bearable, even though I was sitting on my own, with the knowledge of coming home being a pretty good motivator! We got in at about midnight but only got to Ez's in Mill Park at 2am because of a long wait for luggage and a slight issue for Dave & I bringing our 'snake whiskey' through customs.
We had an amazing time for the past 4 weeks but now it's time to get serious again- work towards a house, job, funds and car! Until the next time some exciting travels can fill this site again... thanks for following :)

Thailand- Phuket

One cramped ferry ride, a coach, two tuk-tuks and a hideous bus ride later and here I am in Phuket at Fabian's house! What should have been a 10.30pm arrival in Phuket became a massive waiting game in Surat Thani, and Fabian and his girlfriend Kay were so lovely to pick me up when we finally arrived at about midnight. It's so nice and quiet here, I can hear birds chirping in the distance and the wind is blowing a sweet breeze in through the window. It's far from the craziness of Koh Phangan and a wonderful way to wind down after our almost month of travel. It's weird not being with the others but great to have a chance to catch up with Fabian- a cousin from Germany that I have barely known other than by word or Facebook for the past 21 years! Unfortunately the two of them are both quite sick, but for the next few days I plan to just wander the streets of Phuket Town and check out Patong beach, the latter mainly out of curiosity rather than to join the thronged streets, bars and beaches of tourists. Absolutely loving the homely feel and break from our power-travelling.. take a breather then home in only three days.

Thailand- Koh Phangan

Two nights in a town focused on partying, drinking and partying.. hmm what to say?
On our first night we discovered that our guesthouse (Anan) backed onto Haad Rin Nok, the 'sunrise beach', aka Full Moon Party beach. We also discovered that Haad Rin does not only party on the night of The Party but apparently goes off every other night, with a New Moon Party, Black Moon Party, Half Moon Party, Shiva Moon Party and Full Moon warm-up and after-parties. None of us got much sleep (except damn Mick who somehow managed without even his earplugs to get some shut-eye) the night before Full Moon because of the revelry, but it's what we had to expect with our prime party location.
On the day of Full Moon (the 30th) we decided we had to get out of town (away from the hectic tourists + beach + alcohol = mayhem vibe) and went to discover another beach to the east of the island and the 'Food Fair Festival' on Thongsala Pier. Nothing special but a nice change from the doof-doof-doof. We came back to discover that it was pouring in Haad Rin, the power was out and the whole place was relying on generators. It would have been an interesting Full Moon Party with candles and a few generators but thankfully (?) the power came back on and the place kicked into gear. We had a fantastic night of painting ourselves silly (Dave and I may have had a face-painting war in front of the UV lights!), drinking the odd bucket from Emma's bucket stall and dancing the night away -to what I would probably normally refer to as 'hideous trance crap'- but was quite succinctly AWESOME. I can see how any people would totally lose it, what with all the fire twirling, mushroom mountain and constant propositions, but we had a fabulous night of good clean fun! Dave loved it so much that after Mick, Ez and I went to bed, he kicked on a little longer and may have fallen asleep on the beach.. only to return to our guesthouse when the sun was well and truly shining through our window. A quick and dirty visit of Koh Phangan was all we really needed though, and the others headed to Koh Samui by boat (which I heard did not go down too well for any of them) and I headed to Phuket on my own.

Thailand- Snorkelling around Koh Tau

Totally buggered after a fantastic day of snorkelling! Just a quick one about today... Out on a big boat with about 30 other people, we stopped at three different points to jump out and snorkel around. Ez and I weren't so sure about using the masks, especially when they filled up with water every 5 seconds, but the boys lapped up the opportunity to dive down with the beautiful coloured fish and coral. We missed out on seeing sharks cos it was too choppy but we spent about 4 hours in the water all up.... amazing, but so so tiring. Tomorrow we head to Koh Phangan to prep for the Full Moon Party on Sunday, but not before a nice bit of shopping and sunbaking on the gorgeous Thai beaches! Now to join the boys for a beer...

Thailand- Koh Tau

Blue water, expansive beaches, a chilled out vibe and great people.. what more could you want? Thailand tummy?? Hooray!
The others are out today exploring the island's many beaches while I have decided to take a rest day, the perfect chance to let you know where we are! Koh Tau is stunning but very much a place for partygoers.. full of lively bars and late opening times. We got here yesterday after a short 6 hour bus trip and then 1 1/2 hour boat ride, only to find most gueshouses are booked out. Luckily we found a great little place called Mr J's where the 4 of us are sleeping in one room (Dave on the floor) for only 1200 baht a night. It's cosy but considering the price of most other places it's definitely worth it. Hopefully we can book somewhere for Koh Phangan from here cos it will be PACKED when the full moon party's on. Tomorrow we plan to go snorkelling off a longboat which will be cool and then we head across to Koh Phangan. Not much to report til then :)

Thailand- Bangkok

Long time no blog!
Since tubing, we have been to many places, none too adventurous or exciting, so I'll just briefly sum them up.
Vang Vieng- on our last day it was bucketing down so tubing again didn't seem very enticing. We swam into this amazing cave that was pitch black, with a DRY dry bag and head torches for light. There may have been a snake or bat or two in there, but we didn't see them so no stress just amazing darkness and stillness! We also saw a really massive and really cool cave with plenty of 'mites' and 'tites' :)
Running out of internet so will have to finish this tonight..
Vientiane- smelly, dirty, creepy men. Yuck.
Nong Khai- relaxed but not touristy, boring un til we found a crazy sculpture place.
Now in Bangkok!

Laos- Vang Vieng

Sitting in an internet cafe on the main street of Vang Vieng, definitely the weirdest town of all we've been to. I don't mean to be rude when calling it weird but this town has kooky and kitsch and crazy. From all directions I can hear the theme song and several episodes of "Friends", playing out of almost every bar and restaurant in town. Every now and again we'll be lucky to pass a "Family Guy" bar, a nice change from the canned laughter and mixed up seasons of Friends (as much as I do love the show normally!). Our guesthouse is decorated with all kinds of funny cartoons (think Hello Kitty and Disney) and the bed linen is wonderfully colourful but not matching at all and they've gone a bit overboard on the pink! The same goes for the interior decoration of bars and cafes too, all quite happily mismatched and set up to lie for hours watching TV after a big day of tubing.
Tubing! Possibly the most fun and least healthy activity ever. The reason that I can be spending so much time on the internet today is that yesterday we had a massive day of: waking up and having a lazy breakfast at our guesthouse's Friends bar, heading over to the tubing station to pick up our big grey rubber tubes, getting a tuk-tuk to the river, having a beer while watching people (including our crazy Dave!) zip line and jump into the river from a godawful height, floating downstream about 30 metres to bar number 2, drinking many a beverage/bucket (most of them free thanks to Dee's new friend Simon who owns the place..), stealing some Finnish guys sunglasses and having them stolen right back, jumping off a 10 metre high wobbly wooden platform (by everyone but me, not so good with heights and jumping from them), being written all over in blue permanent marker and then floating downstream for the next 2 hours trying to find the end! Dee and I lost the other three somewhere down the river when I ran into a friend from Howitt but managed to meet back up with them at the guesthouse safe and sound but not prepared to do much today but sleep in, eat and be lazy. Lying in a rubber tube and trying to paddle your way across the river takes its toll on your muscles and bare feet on sharp stones are never a good combination. Oh well, a good day had by all, for those who can remember it!

PS. My phone is out of action as it appears that a 'dry bag' is only dry if you seal it right, so best to be contacted on Facebook.
PPS. Apologies to any parentals who may not find the idea of tubing amusing, but the moral of the story is still that we are having fun and safe.. right??

Laos- 3 maaassive days!

I've been weighing up whether to write on here or in my diary for the last couple of days (because they both take so much time when we've been doing so much!!), but because I know there are actually people reading this now and because my fingers are sore from today, the blog has won.. enjoy!
----
Phew! Where to begin? The last time I wrote we had only just arrived in Luang Prabang.. it seems so long ago now! Our last three days have been incredible- tiring, inspiring, surprising, HECTIC.
Thursday- was a rather lazy day. We wandered the town a little and sussed out what we would like to do with our time. A friendly Canadian couple who were staying in our guesthouse suggested that we should 'cross the bridge' and get some fondue on the other side of the river.
Excited about the idea of dipping things into cheesey goodness, we found a bamboo bridge that was a little bit rickety and climbed a nasty hill to find a beautiful secluded restaurant. We had a big deck with table and cushions to sit on all to ourselves, with a beautiful view of the Nam Khan river. It was quite amusing to find that we were very wrong about what a 'fondue' is in Laos. We were presented firstly with rice and a huge basket of raw vegetables and dry noodles and two plates of raw thinly sliced meat. Our waiters then proceeded to pull the middle tile out of our table, replacing it with a funny shaped pan/cauldron/thing with a fire under it (I wish I could draw it, that would make this description so much easier!). It seems that a Lao fondue is nothing like a fondue, but more like a steamboat-cross-BBQ. The meat is fried on the top bit over the fire, and the vegies and noodles cook around the outside in hot water (like a moat to the BBQ?) to make a rather amazing soup. It took a while to cook but it was definitely worth it for the flavour! This was pretty impressive and we were so glad to have 'crossed the bridge' to try something new.
Friday- (Happy Birthday Ross!)
I'm not sure how mentally prepared we were for today! Taking Mick's advice that it was definitely worth it, we set off on Friday morning for a 35km bike ride to the Kuang Si waterfall outside of Luang Prabang. To be fair, he didn't tell us it was going to be easy, but we're not the fittest bunch around! The ride was tough, up some pretty huge hills and long stretches of walking, but it was definitely worth it. Kuang Si itself is not the biggest or loudest of waterfalls, but its defining feature is this most spectacular aqua-blue water that seems to glow when you look at it. The water was freezing but after the long slog of the day's ride we jumped in (off a small cliff might I add- a big feat for me who is a bit afraid of falling off things since that damn horse in Zimbabwe!). We may have been laughed at by other tourists who passed us from their tuk-tuks on the way there, but they could not have appreciated that cool blue water like we did. Awesome. For dinner I had the best meal I have had yet while away.. the boys and I went down a small side street to the 'food market' which has tables on both sides of rice, noodles, vegies and BBQs with delicious smells wafting from all directions! Most stalls sell chicken and fish on a stick so that's what we had.. SOOOOO GOOOOD!!! Both were just being cooked as we approached the stall so were fresh as can be and just tasted amazing. KFC pales in comparison to the crispy chicken we ate there. And the fish, falling off the bone.. SCRUMPTIOUS.
Saturday- (Happy Birthday to Dave's Mum!)
I woke up at 6am this morning to see the daily procession of monks that passes right outside our guesthouse. It was rather on the cold side, sitting outside in the dark while the others were still all snuggled up in bed, but it was pretty cool. Around 300 monks all dressed in their bright orange threads walk in single file along the street to the temple not far from where we are staying. The oldest are at the beginning and they get continually younger as they go along, the youngest who look about only 10 years old- I'm not really sure what the custom is. They each carry a big pot thing over their shoulder and take [what seems to be] offerings of rice from the local women (who might I add must have got up at like 5am to make the bloody rice as well! No wonder everyone goes to sleep so early in this town!). Just one pinch of rice for every monk, who take the offering with a bow and continue on their merry ways in silence up the street. Fascinating and also worth the effort :)
A few hours later the others were up and we were ready for our big adventure- an exciting combination tour of trekking, elephant riding and bathing, homestay in a village, elephant feeding and kayaking. We met our guide Suk ("Sook") at our guesthouse and were driven by tuk-tuk to a small Lao village out of town (via the Chinese market where we picked up a massive satellite, TV and set top box- not sure where our money is going now, bit dodgy maybe?). We crossed another rickety bamboo bridge, which Suk explained has to be built again every year after the rainy season because the river rises so much. For half the year the locals use the bridge to cross and the other half they have to take big longboats to and fro. To make 12kms of hiking brief- we passed through a few villages, stopped to eat some raw palm sugar (bit too sweet sucked straight out of the stick), said 'Sa Bai Dee' to the cutest little children and got pretty pooped climbing steep steep hills. After the day before's ride we were pretty buggered. Finally we hit the river again (we'd done a bit of a loop) and were taken across on a longboat to the village where we were going to stay the night. Lunch was interesting.. soup, rice and buffalo skin (a common local jerky). To steal from Dave- "did it go tweet tweet, or neigh, or mooo, I think it went ruff ruff." Unknown meat- curiouser and curiouser...
Here was where we met our elephants. While they are beautiful creatures and a joy to be around, I still am really unsure as to how ethical their treatment is. Tied to a chain in the forest at night, our two ellies spend almost dawn to dusk carrying tourists like us around a same-same track through shallow water and trees.
************************************************************************
Because I'm only updating this now (Wednesday) I'll be quick.. but the rest of our tour goes as follows....
Elephant riding- our first go we sat on seats on their backs, Mick sat on the neck and then the next time we rode bareback.. which was really fun but slow and hurt like nothing else.. elephants have a very uncomfortable spine!
Elephant bathing- what I thought would be us just squirting the ellies with a hose turned out to be a highlight! We rode them bareback straight into the river where the trainers had them squirting US with their trunks and tipping Dee and mick right over into the water (while Ez held on tight!). Highly entertaining!
Homestay- we slept in a modern Lao home with a family who cooked us a delicious but very spicy dinner and a brilliant rice noodle soup breakfast. Sleeping on the floor may not have been a highlight for some of the others in the group but I loved the chance to step out of my comfort zone and use a 10cm hard mattress on the floor in the open-air second storey with the grandma. It wasn't the worst sleep I've had and is exactly how the rest of the family was sleeping too. When in Rome...
Ceremony- although still unsure why this was done or if it is done for all the tour groups who pass through, we were ceremonially wished 'Good Luck, Good Health and Good Travels" by the locals. This was done with a lot of chanting by some men, the tying of bits of cotton to our wrists and the drinking of Lao Lao (rice whiskey which is particularly potent!).
Elephant feeding- having banana leaves snatched out of our hands by the beautiful big animals was pretty cool.. the way they eat is amazing!!
Kayaking- 15km down the Nam Khan back to Luang Prabang was good fun. I was in a kayak with Dave, Ez and Mick went together and Dee had a nice lazy time sharing the kayak with Suk. It was an easy trip cos the river is strong and there was some fun little rapids as well.
An awesome tour and a great way to end a fabulous stay in Luang Prabang!

Laos- arrival in Luang Prabang

Enough of the lazy posts, we're in Laos!
We haven't seen much of the country as yet after arriving at LP airport yesterday afternoon but my impression so far is of a content people, in no rush at all (to say the least), a very hilly landscape and a much cooler climate. The main street is busy with foreigners but without the noisy, touristy feel of Siem Reap. French colonial-style buildings are in abundance and at times you would be forgiven for forgetting that we are in the middle of South-East Asia.
The plan is to stay here for a few days, maybe visit the waterfall 35km out of town, climb the hill in the centre of town to see the sunset and I'd like to take a cultural tour (maybe overnight) into a local village. There is one particular company that is said to be socially conscious and low impact which I'd like to look into for a tour.
The others are off at breakfast so I had better go join them, but will update on the fun on Luang Prabang sometime soon!!

Cambodia- Siem Reap by Bicycle

I hired a bike the other day and spent a day by myself riding around Siem Reap and out of town, seeing houses by the river and beautiful people who smiled at the white girl on the bicycle. More to come..

Cambodia- the Temples of Siem Reap

Hi all.. I've been meaning to write about our trip to see the temples but haven't got around to it just yet. For now I'll just say that they were awesome and there'll be more later :)

Cambodia- Siem Reap #1

Ah Cambodia, I'm still in love...
After a surprisingly comfortable almost 6 hour bus ride up here from Phnom Penh on Friday, we're in Siem Reap! A city created pretty much solely for the purpose of being a gatehouse to Angkor Wat, the areas we have seen of Siem Reap are very touristy and have a lot of Western influence. That said, it's awesome here. There is a great vibe about the place, pretty chilled and it feels safe to wander most places. We are yet to 'do the Wats' though, our plan for tomorrow is to get up at 4.30 to see the sun rise over Angkor.
Our first night was spent in a pretty schmick looking place from the outside with barely functioning aircon that made a massive racket all night, dirty towels, a dodgy tv and an early morning wake up from a wailing singing voice somewhere nearby. Needless to say, we have moved now- actually upgraded to a cheaper and much nicer place just down the road- air con is bril (after 2 room changes for the boys to get it going!), tv has a gazillion channels in various languages and for only US$6 we have the luxury of a pool.. great for a cool down in the stinking Cambodian heat!
We were all pretty buggered after our 'entertaining' bus trip, involving too many near misses with other traffic, playing cards on the floor up the front and a hideous Khmer karaoke soundtrack on the TV and had a nice lazy day yesterday to recuperate and check out the town. The markets here are nice and more my style with a good selection of happy pants and souvenirs with a bit more 'culture'. This is not to say that I didn't make use of the rip offs in PP but I'm loving the wooden trinkets, silk scarves and dirty silver jewellery. The three of us girls had a good trawl of the markets while the boys slowly got themselves out of the pool and into town for tea. We have discovered that it's almost impossible to pull Dave out of the pool here- he is seriously a FISH he loves it that much!
Last night we had a bit of a big night of beers and gooood food! We ate at the Khmer Kitchen which just won us all over with amazing pumpkin and coconut soup, fried pumpkin, great staple noodles and chili & basil fish. Seriously, I am putting food in the number one position for reasons why I travel. Learning, history, culture, language- they're up there- but the food, I could write a blog on just that! (Don't worry... I won't... unless someone wants to start paying me to do that, which would be way too good to be true HA)
A few too many drinks later and we were getting our feet eaten by fish! Weird at first, there are plenty of places here where you pay a few dollars to put your feet in a massive fish tank and these little nibblers just eat all the dead skin off! Dee was totally freaked out by even putting her finger in but the rest of us had a good go at it, and Dave and I stayed in for ages having a nice chat to some American travellers, one of which gets paid to write a travel blog (CAREER ENVY!)
We were all a tad seedy this morning but nothing a good baguette with (actual) bacon and eggs and a dip in the pool couldn't fix! Then us girls went and did a Khmer cooking class at the Temple Club, where we learned to cook 3 entrees, mains and desserts and made friends with a nice American family who are also heading to Luang Prabang soon. We were even invited to Mariah's (the daughter and definitely the coolest of the clan) sweet 16th 'party' sometime next week in Laos! Funny but nice to have made contact with some other travellers who will be there when we are. The class was just so good, for US$10 we got a 3 hour class, recipes, free t-shirt and an all-you-can-eat buffet of the food we had just made, even with some leftovers to come home and show the boys, LUCKY for them we are nice! I really am so excited to be learning more and more about ingredients and methods over here, dinner party at my house sometime... Amok, curry and mango salad anyone?
In case you hadn't noticed by the length of this blog, we have free internet at our guesthouse and are checking our emails/facebooks pretty much daily. I'm not sure how simple it'll be in Laos but there will definitely be another update sometime before then with a rundown of our big day of Wats (temples) tomorrow.
We are all safe, well and as much as I can't speak for others I know I can say that we're all loving this trip to bits.
Time to go upstairs and join the card game that is most likely in process.. :)

PS Rob and Richard- the many years of what Michael likes to call 'shits and giggles' have taught me well.. take anything he says with a grain of salt ;) he's a great guide for the most part but today when he came out with "Dave and I made friends with the President of Cambodia" we were a little unsure......

Cambodia- Phnom Penh

High five to myself for updating my blog again so soon!
We arrived in PP two days ago after a much more comfortable flight from KL and very smooth sailing seeing as Michael knows what he's doing here. We jumped straight into a 'Tuk-Tuk' (3-wheeled motorbike with carriage on the back) and head3ed to our guesthouse, called Number 9 sister, in the Boeng Kak area. It's stinking hot here which makes it a little uncomfortable at times, but I'm surviving with the heat. And the food! Meals here are somewhere between US$1 and US$4 for a big main and we've been eatinbg pretty much local rice and noodle dishes for every meal.. stomach is okay so far :)
I'm going to have to rush through what we've been up to cos the others have already nicked off back to the guesthouse for the day, but a quick run-down of yesterday and today.
Yesterday we went for a bit of a stroll into town, dodging motorbikes, cars and tuk tuks when crossing the road and trying to avoid stares and comments by the local men. We went to the central market, which has plenty of big brand name knock-offs and jewellery a well as food (but the food area is very stinky.. especially the fish!). I tried a fruit that I hadn't seen before, the woman just let me try some without paying.. Jackfruit! It's like a pineapple, mango and banana had a baby! Delicious! Then we wandered around to the river and down to the National Museum and Royal Palace. Some incredible stuff there, especially a big buddha statue with hundreds of diamonds on it. Everything here is just stunning, every effort put into beautifying the buildings and ornaments. And the people are just gorgeous, sweet and friendly. The feeling of safety here is so much higher than say, Mozambique where I wouldn't want to go places on my own.
So anyhoo.. today! We did our day of serious touristing today- Tuol Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields. Heavy stuff, and horrifying because it is such a young history, all of this happened not so long ago. We also visited an orphanage, suggested to us by our tuk tuk driver. He was with us all day and was a super cool guy with great english. We bought a big bag of rice before the orphanage and took it to them, which was a nice gesture I thought until we saw that plenty of other tourists had been brought to do the same. Still good I guess.
Tomorrow we're catching a bus to Siem Reap, bought our tickets already so we know that'll be okay. And Mick's done it before as well so that's comforting.
Wow been here for ages.. best be off now.
I got a 'condolences' email from monash south africa today, what a sad time it must be for my friends over there. It's a pity that I can't just go over there and give them a hug!
So time to go, shouldn't have ended on that note but on the lighter side, Cambodia is amazing. The people, food, history, everything.. I'm in love!
For Phnom Penh.. Yola out!

PS. No purchase as yet Dad, but plenty of beautiful women with airs of grace! :)

SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Just realised that I still have this and might as well use it right now as we travel through South-East Asia.
At the moment I'm already out of internet but haven't got much to say really.
Flight: Air Asia- small, bit stinky but overall okay and cheap
Hotel: Concorde Inn, nice but room not ready.. boring without the others, still a 2-3 hour wait!
Co-travellers- Dave, Deanne, Erin and Michael.. had a bit of a woopsies realising I was flying earlier than them
Tomorrow: Cambodia on Air Asia flight AK274
Bittersweet: finding out yesterday that a beautiful friend from Kenya has died in a car accident in Nairobi.. the world doesn't even know what a special person it has lost.. Mandela-Rhodes scholar and the next Desmond Tutu or Ghandi or whoever. She will be missed.
Best go, half hour was up 10 mins ago...
Yola OUT