We have arrived back in Auckland, which means only one thing.. we are leaving the country tomorrow and arriving back at Heathrow sometime in the next 48 hours WOOHOO. Not that we really want to leave but we're so excited to see everyone and the no money situation kindof sucks really.
So since Rachel last posted we have been travelling around the North Island, we've only had 2 bus drivers on this island, one of which we had for over a week and he was absolutely amazing; "Sandra" as we named him as he kept changing his name everyday to keep us on our toes, which really confused a lot of dim people on our bus, bless.
We've visited quite a few film locations now on our travels, quite a few from Lord of the Rings of course and also a place called Cathedral cove which is a beach that they used to film a scene in Narnia's Prince Caspian.
Both of us absolutely loved this little placed called 'Waitomo' which has loads of really cool caves both above and below ground. We decided this was the only activety we would limit our budget to as this has been the thing I really wanted to do in NZ before we left home. We had to go for the cheaper option to enter the caves which was a 2 hour walk (we could have gone black water rafting but that was waaaayyy out of the budget!) But the walk was absolutely amazing! You go really deep under ground, I felt a bit like i was in the Mines of Moria but Rachel had no clue what I meant so I am forcing her to watch LOTR when we get home. You get to see glow worms and there are so many stalagmites and 'tites, Rach put it well: "It's like an absolutely amazing Wookey Hole without the tacky witch!"
Probably the most bizzarre place we have visited is a place called Rotorua which absolutely reeks of egg and has steam coming up through the ground. It's a really big hotspot for underground thermal activity, we visited a place called Te Puia where a lovely Maori took us round bubbling mud pools and geysers and taught us about Maori culture.
Oh and now we can safely say we have sailed on top of a volcanoe. No I'm not confused in the slightest here we actually have. Lake Taupo has a giant volcanoe under it and we have sailed on top of it to go and see Maori carvings and basically get absolutely soaked! It is an active volcanoe by the way and if it blew to it's full potential it would wipe out all of humanity... I almost had a heart attack this morning waking up in Taupo and looking out of the hostel window to see what looked like the lake covered in smoke. Have no fear it was only the creepy low cloud that seems to skulk around the country but I was almost considering flying out of Taupo there and then. What a loser!
We had a lovely relaxing time in a place called River Valley which literally is right smack bang in the middle of a valley. We went in the sauna that the y have there which was so nice but the public outdoor shower experience in the freezing night afterwards was not so good!
We've also been to the capital but literally only to sleep there. Oh and visit the new world supermarket to but broccolli yay!
I can't remember if we'd already been or we're just going when Rach last posted but we've also been to Paihia in the bay of islands which was very pretty but not an awful lot to do there unless you empty the contents of your wallet.
So now we're in Auckland for the 3rd time, it's not that nice here and even the rest of New Zealand agrees that it's not that great.
Flying home tomorrow and I don't think it's even sunk in, but not looking forward to the very long plane journey but WE'RE COMING HOME!
sweet as.
Friday, 9 April 2010
Thursday, 1 April 2010
New Zealand
So we arrived in Christchurch around 10 days ago, which is apparently supossed to be 'more english than england' because of the architecture but we really didnt feel like we were at home at all so whoever said that quote was wrong! The weather here is very different to Australia - you could tell we were newcomers on our first bus when we turned up in shorts and flip flops and everyone else was in jeans and hoodies. We started the very next day on our Kiwi Experience buses. Because of our very short amount of time we're booked onto a new bus everday apart from one, so we knew before we came here that NZ would involve lots of travelling around. The landscape here really is amazing, every time you turn a corner it looks totally different to the last. Theres hills and mountains everwhere covered by everything from huge pine trees to massive dusty rocks. The colour of the rivers and lakes are actually unbelievable - the best way to describe it is that its so blue that it looks grey. We've found that we've wanted to take photos of everything we pass, and the photos so far dont do it justice. The whole land seems to be deserted and 'towns' are literally made up of one street with a couple of hostels a few shops and a handful of houses - nobody lives here i swear! Theres basically one road running through the whole of the south island (where we started our trip) so you cant go wrong if you're driving! We've filled our time with plenty of forest walks and wanders around the small towns we've been staying in, as well as visiting the coolest cinema in Wanaka where everyone sits on random sofas and armchairs and they have an interval in the middle so you can get hot food!!
We're currently in auckland (the north island) but getting here was a whole other story. We had a 8 hour kiwi experience bus ride from Queenstown up to Christchurch (where the flight left from) then the same evening we had to catch the flight to Auckland (after 6 hours waiting at the smallest airport ever). We arrived in Auckland at around midnight and grabbed a shuttle bus to our hostel, we got there at 1am, found that 1) the girl on the bunk below becky had took it upon herself to use not only her own pillow but becky's as well - nice - then just handed it to her and expected her to use it. And 2) my bed had obviously been slept in (no pillow case and the covers were scrunched up as if someone had just woken up). 3) My hair mousse had exploded all over my stuff during the flight. So at 2am becky went downstairs to complain, while the man basically got funny with her as if it wasnt his problem (we were both VERY tired and just wanted sleep) and i went into the loos and had to wash everything in my bag because it stunk of mousse - nice. We eventually got to bed at around 2:30am (i used my towel as a duvet) and had to then get up at 5:45am to get our 7am bus. We werent in the best of moods. But apart from that minor glitch everything here has been fine! Lots of bus journeys but also lots of free activities which we're very grateful for at this skint stage in time - we're living on the bare minimum of expenses coming out of our purses!
We're currently in auckland (the north island) but getting here was a whole other story. We had a 8 hour kiwi experience bus ride from Queenstown up to Christchurch (where the flight left from) then the same evening we had to catch the flight to Auckland (after 6 hours waiting at the smallest airport ever). We arrived in Auckland at around midnight and grabbed a shuttle bus to our hostel, we got there at 1am, found that 1) the girl on the bunk below becky had took it upon herself to use not only her own pillow but becky's as well - nice - then just handed it to her and expected her to use it. And 2) my bed had obviously been slept in (no pillow case and the covers were scrunched up as if someone had just woken up). 3) My hair mousse had exploded all over my stuff during the flight. So at 2am becky went downstairs to complain, while the man basically got funny with her as if it wasnt his problem (we were both VERY tired and just wanted sleep) and i went into the loos and had to wash everything in my bag because it stunk of mousse - nice. We eventually got to bed at around 2:30am (i used my towel as a duvet) and had to then get up at 5:45am to get our 7am bus. We werent in the best of moods. But apart from that minor glitch everything here has been fine! Lots of bus journeys but also lots of free activities which we're very grateful for at this skint stage in time - we're living on the bare minimum of expenses coming out of our purses!
Last week of Australia!
(Sorry this is a pretty late entry)
The final week of Australia was the BEST! (This is rach by the way)
We went to a place called Byron Bay which would be best described as an old hippy town which was really nice. We ventured into our inner hippy and had aura photos done and eveything. We also went to see Alice in wonderland at the cinema there which was amazing!!!
Then came my favourite day of our entire trip i reckon - Surf camp!! We both stood up, which was pretty amazing, i thoguht that i wanted to do well so badly that id fall flat on my face every time and fail majorly (although i got smacked ibn the head by my board twice - painful) but it was the most fun. So yeah i fulfilled something that ive always wanted to do and to do it on a privately owned beach is a pretty good way to do it i think. Then came Sydney, my favourite place that we've visited, it was just the most amazing place. We spent our first evening walking along sydney harbour bridge as the sun set (how very romantic) and the views of the harbour were stunning (we agreed that this is one of our favourite days of the whole trip). We then wandered down to the opera house once it was dark which looked incredible with the lit up skyline surrounding it. On our final day we visited the infamous Bondi beach for our last day in Australia! We did a 2 hour coastal walk along the sea and saw some amazing looking beaches on the way. Most of the beaches around the area were full of surfers, we have the surfing bug and were extremely jealous of them. Long story short we definately want to surf again, asap.
And so was the end of Australia... I want to go back for sure, especially Sydney!
The final week of Australia was the BEST! (This is rach by the way)
We went to a place called Byron Bay which would be best described as an old hippy town which was really nice. We ventured into our inner hippy and had aura photos done and eveything. We also went to see Alice in wonderland at the cinema there which was amazing!!!
Then came my favourite day of our entire trip i reckon - Surf camp!! We both stood up, which was pretty amazing, i thoguht that i wanted to do well so badly that id fall flat on my face every time and fail majorly (although i got smacked ibn the head by my board twice - painful) but it was the most fun. So yeah i fulfilled something that ive always wanted to do and to do it on a privately owned beach is a pretty good way to do it i think. Then came Sydney, my favourite place that we've visited, it was just the most amazing place. We spent our first evening walking along sydney harbour bridge as the sun set (how very romantic) and the views of the harbour were stunning (we agreed that this is one of our favourite days of the whole trip). We then wandered down to the opera house once it was dark which looked incredible with the lit up skyline surrounding it. On our final day we visited the infamous Bondi beach for our last day in Australia! We did a 2 hour coastal walk along the sea and saw some amazing looking beaches on the way. Most of the beaches around the area were full of surfers, we have the surfing bug and were extremely jealous of them. Long story short we definately want to surf again, asap.
And so was the end of Australia... I want to go back for sure, especially Sydney!
Sunday, 14 March 2010
it's been a long time people!!
hello everyone!! we've been told on the phone that everybody's been desperately awaiting the next update so here it is! sorry about the delay we've either had no time at all to go on the computer or, when we've had time there is no computer in sight!!
Currently we're sat in our hostel in a place called Rainbow beach. I'm going to put our itinery on here before i (Becky) blabber on so that you all know where we've been and where we are going in the next week.
2nd. Cairns
3rd. Cairns - Townsville
4th. Magnetic Island
5th. Magnetic Island
6th. Townsville - Airlie Beach
7th. Whitsundays
8th. Whitsundays
9th. Whitsundays
10th. Airlie Beach - Kroombit Cattle Station
11th. Kroombit Cattle Station - Rainbow Beach
12th. Fraser Island
13th. Fraser Island
14th. Rainbow Beach
15th. Rainbow Beach
16th. Rainbow Beach - Byron Bay
17th. Byron Bay
18th. Byron Bay - Surf Camp spot X
19th. Surf Camp spot X - Sydney
20th. Sydney
21st. Sydney
22nd. fly to New Zealand!!
right so i'm going to give a very basic rundown of what we've done as that's a whole 2 weeks of stuff there!!
On our way to our first destination we stopped off at a crocodile farm where there was a bunch of crazy men inside the corc cages basically dancing with death, oh and we got to feed kangaroo's who are a bunch of crazy critters, their front legs are so funny they just hang there, it's so hard to describe but they are amazing!
Magnetic island was really cool, i very small island where we actually got to watch the moon rise which was amazing we'd never seen anything like it. We also got to hold a koala and a wombat which are possibly some of the sweetest creatures ever, especially when the wombats name is wombalina!! we also went on a walk around forts from a war which was spooky and oh so very hot. We also experienced the most scary thunderstorm ever in existence, not even joking people, the walls were shaking!! but apart from that it was all good fun!!
Whitsundays was possibly one of the best things we have done. We can both say we've benn snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef and Rachel can say she's dived (lucky bugger). I can't even really describe how fun this was so you can ask us when we get home!
The Cattle Station on the other hand wasn't so good, this is a compulsory overnight stop as otherwise we wouldhave been on a bus for more than 24 hours. I personally didn't like it as they were quite cruel to the animals but seriously, they say people from Bristol are country bumpkins then these people seriously need to go to Kroombit! Oh and the highlight was when a grasshopper decided to fly into my nose and hang on with it's nice pointy claws, charming.
I should at this point mention #3 who was at this point our driver from the Oz experience for 3 days, Rachel likes #3 just a little bit and had a dream that his real name was Stan Fernandez. Oh on the subject of Rachels dreams she keeps waking up in the middle of the night thinking she is covered in bugs or has to be somewhere, apparently in the whitsundays she tried to wake me up in the middle of the night panicking we were light to watch tv (ooookayy) but luckily i was out like a light.
Back to what we've been doing next was Fraser Island where it absolutely chucked it down, standing on top of a cliff in torrential rain and strong winds isn't the most pleasant of things to do. But we did get to see a real life shipwreck and the lakes are pretty amazing (when it's sunny). In one of the ones i swam in i was surronded by those fish that you pay to sit with in Spa's that eat off your dead skin. Fraser island by the way is a really big sand mass apparently the island is 98% sand and one of the harshest environments to be in. oh and we got to see wild dongo's which is cool/
We're currently in Rainbow beach which is litterally nothing more than a beach and our hostel. Yesterday morning we fed a wild dolphin which was pretty cool.
Which brings me up to today, i have to be quick the internets going to go soon, but we've just tried to organise the kiwi experience for NZ and basically STA didn't tell us but we can't do our bus pass the way we planned so we're going to have to catch yet another flight in the middle of our trip for us to be able to do it properly. bugger.
i'll explain more when i have a chance but i really have to go, ruddy internet.
Hope this is a decent enough post seeming as we've been pretty crappy with keeping it up to date recently!! Bye everyone!
Currently we're sat in our hostel in a place called Rainbow beach. I'm going to put our itinery on here before i (Becky) blabber on so that you all know where we've been and where we are going in the next week.
2nd. Cairns
3rd. Cairns - Townsville
4th. Magnetic Island
5th. Magnetic Island
6th. Townsville - Airlie Beach
7th. Whitsundays
8th. Whitsundays
9th. Whitsundays
10th. Airlie Beach - Kroombit Cattle Station
11th. Kroombit Cattle Station - Rainbow Beach
12th. Fraser Island
13th. Fraser Island
14th. Rainbow Beach
15th. Rainbow Beach
16th. Rainbow Beach - Byron Bay
17th. Byron Bay
18th. Byron Bay - Surf Camp spot X
19th. Surf Camp spot X - Sydney
20th. Sydney
21st. Sydney
22nd. fly to New Zealand!!
right so i'm going to give a very basic rundown of what we've done as that's a whole 2 weeks of stuff there!!
On our way to our first destination we stopped off at a crocodile farm where there was a bunch of crazy men inside the corc cages basically dancing with death, oh and we got to feed kangaroo's who are a bunch of crazy critters, their front legs are so funny they just hang there, it's so hard to describe but they are amazing!
Magnetic island was really cool, i very small island where we actually got to watch the moon rise which was amazing we'd never seen anything like it. We also got to hold a koala and a wombat which are possibly some of the sweetest creatures ever, especially when the wombats name is wombalina!! we also went on a walk around forts from a war which was spooky and oh so very hot. We also experienced the most scary thunderstorm ever in existence, not even joking people, the walls were shaking!! but apart from that it was all good fun!!
Whitsundays was possibly one of the best things we have done. We can both say we've benn snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef and Rachel can say she's dived (lucky bugger). I can't even really describe how fun this was so you can ask us when we get home!
The Cattle Station on the other hand wasn't so good, this is a compulsory overnight stop as otherwise we wouldhave been on a bus for more than 24 hours. I personally didn't like it as they were quite cruel to the animals but seriously, they say people from Bristol are country bumpkins then these people seriously need to go to Kroombit! Oh and the highlight was when a grasshopper decided to fly into my nose and hang on with it's nice pointy claws, charming.
I should at this point mention #3 who was at this point our driver from the Oz experience for 3 days, Rachel likes #3 just a little bit and had a dream that his real name was Stan Fernandez. Oh on the subject of Rachels dreams she keeps waking up in the middle of the night thinking she is covered in bugs or has to be somewhere, apparently in the whitsundays she tried to wake me up in the middle of the night panicking we were light to watch tv (ooookayy) but luckily i was out like a light.
Back to what we've been doing next was Fraser Island where it absolutely chucked it down, standing on top of a cliff in torrential rain and strong winds isn't the most pleasant of things to do. But we did get to see a real life shipwreck and the lakes are pretty amazing (when it's sunny). In one of the ones i swam in i was surronded by those fish that you pay to sit with in Spa's that eat off your dead skin. Fraser island by the way is a really big sand mass apparently the island is 98% sand and one of the harshest environments to be in. oh and we got to see wild dongo's which is cool/
We're currently in Rainbow beach which is litterally nothing more than a beach and our hostel. Yesterday morning we fed a wild dolphin which was pretty cool.
Which brings me up to today, i have to be quick the internets going to go soon, but we've just tried to organise the kiwi experience for NZ and basically STA didn't tell us but we can't do our bus pass the way we planned so we're going to have to catch yet another flight in the middle of our trip for us to be able to do it properly. bugger.
i'll explain more when i have a chance but i really have to go, ruddy internet.
Hope this is a decent enough post seeming as we've been pretty crappy with keeping it up to date recently!! Bye everyone!
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Singapore!
On our first day in Singapore we went to one of its many shopping malls and somehow ended up watching Percy Jackson & The Lightening Thief, so bad that it was actually rather good. But dont waste your money on it. We were basically knackered the whole time we were in Singapore, it just felt like it was the same as Kuala Lumpur with the same things to offer. Apart from the Singapore Zoo which we did on our final full day in Asia! After about an hour in the soarching heat on a wild goose chase looking for a shuttle bus we were both in pretty bad moods and gave up and went back to the hostel to order a taxi. But the waiting around was worth it, the zoo was really good, it had a polar bear - dont know if we agree with it being kept in such a hot country. Afterwards we made our way over to the world's only Night Safari, which was amazing! Basically you get on tram rides and walk through sections of a seperate zoo full of nocturnal animals, which I think was the highlight of Singapore for the both of us. We're now in Cairns in Australia!! We're both exhausted, we only had about 3 hours sleep because of our 2 night flights so hence why this is so short! We start our Oz Experience bus trip tomorrow morning, so spent the day working out where we'll be staying along the way. Its boiling here. We'll update this soon!
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Borneo and our day of airports.
So I (Rach) am writing this from Sinagpore! Between the last post and now we've been to Borneo!
We arrived at our hotel (yes, hotel very posh) and it was amazing! It reminded me of the hotel that we stayed in in Bangkok, although we were the only backpackers we saw then entire time we were there, everyone else were business men. So we put our bags down and went on a search for the post office (I had loads of postcards to send and becky had a package to send home) the area (Sandakan) where the hotel was wasnt the nicest, we were also trying to look for a restaurant to eat in that night but couldnt find 1 restaurant anywhere. So we were walking for waht seemed like ages and finally gave up after not finding it and went back to the hotel for tea. Then next morning we had our FREE breakfast then got in a taxi to take us to the postoffice (which turned out was literally around the corner from where we'd walked to the day before) and then onto Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (apparently there was a documentary about it on tv last year). We got there at 11:30am not knowing that it didnt open until 2pm, so went on (yet another) jungle walk to kill time. We then bought our tickets at 2pm and were able to go onto a platform to look at some orangutans - they were amazing, it felt like we were watching tv but at the same time it didnt. They moved really weirdly like they didnt have any bones, we got to see a mother and baby too! We spent over an hour watching them before leaving at 4pm and getting in the taxi (who'd been waiting all afternoon for us) and went back to the hotel to have a very unsuccessful Chinese meal ('does this have meat?' *checks with the chef* 'no, it doesnt have meat' *brings out noodles, with chicken*) they wont be asking us back. Then the following day we left for Turtle Island. We were driven to the jetty where the speedboat! left in the morning (very james bond) and we arrived at the island at 10:30am. Only a maximum of 50 people can take part so we were really lucky to get a space. We spent the morning on the beach, where I went into the sea, washing my suntan lotion off and proceeded to burn my entire body, what an idiot. The beach was amazing it looked like something from a film - it was deserted with warm water and white sand (jealous?) then went for lunch and spent the afternoon on the beach too. (Our first beach day since we arrived) Then in the evening we ate then had to wait until the ranger shouted 'Turtle Time!' about an hour later, meaning we could go down onto the beach to watch a mother turtle laying eggs, which was really strange to see, I didnt realise how big the turtle would be. The ranger then gathered the eggs and took them to be buried in the turtle centre until they were ready to hatch (they do this to save them from predators on the beach taking them). We were then able to see them realise 45 newborns - they were so tiny and cute! They were all in a basket and then ran into the sea (they wouldve only been born about an hour before!) Then we slept in our (rather nice) chalet and we up at 5:45am to have breakfast at 6:30 to get onto the speedboat again at 7am. We were then taken to Sandakan airport where we then flew to Kuala Lumpur airport, had to wait for 3-4 hours before we then got on another flight to Singapore! Which is where we are now, staying at a really nice hostel called 'Hangout @ Mount Emily.' We have 3 full days here before we fly to Australia on monday!! Time is going so quickly!
We arrived at our hotel (yes, hotel very posh) and it was amazing! It reminded me of the hotel that we stayed in in Bangkok, although we were the only backpackers we saw then entire time we were there, everyone else were business men. So we put our bags down and went on a search for the post office (I had loads of postcards to send and becky had a package to send home) the area (Sandakan) where the hotel was wasnt the nicest, we were also trying to look for a restaurant to eat in that night but couldnt find 1 restaurant anywhere. So we were walking for waht seemed like ages and finally gave up after not finding it and went back to the hotel for tea. Then next morning we had our FREE breakfast then got in a taxi to take us to the postoffice (which turned out was literally around the corner from where we'd walked to the day before) and then onto Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (apparently there was a documentary about it on tv last year). We got there at 11:30am not knowing that it didnt open until 2pm, so went on (yet another) jungle walk to kill time. We then bought our tickets at 2pm and were able to go onto a platform to look at some orangutans - they were amazing, it felt like we were watching tv but at the same time it didnt. They moved really weirdly like they didnt have any bones, we got to see a mother and baby too! We spent over an hour watching them before leaving at 4pm and getting in the taxi (who'd been waiting all afternoon for us) and went back to the hotel to have a very unsuccessful Chinese meal ('does this have meat?' *checks with the chef* 'no, it doesnt have meat' *brings out noodles, with chicken*) they wont be asking us back. Then the following day we left for Turtle Island. We were driven to the jetty where the speedboat! left in the morning (very james bond) and we arrived at the island at 10:30am. Only a maximum of 50 people can take part so we were really lucky to get a space. We spent the morning on the beach, where I went into the sea, washing my suntan lotion off and proceeded to burn my entire body, what an idiot. The beach was amazing it looked like something from a film - it was deserted with warm water and white sand (jealous?) then went for lunch and spent the afternoon on the beach too. (Our first beach day since we arrived) Then in the evening we ate then had to wait until the ranger shouted 'Turtle Time!' about an hour later, meaning we could go down onto the beach to watch a mother turtle laying eggs, which was really strange to see, I didnt realise how big the turtle would be. The ranger then gathered the eggs and took them to be buried in the turtle centre until they were ready to hatch (they do this to save them from predators on the beach taking them). We were then able to see them realise 45 newborns - they were so tiny and cute! They were all in a basket and then ran into the sea (they wouldve only been born about an hour before!) Then we slept in our (rather nice) chalet and we up at 5:45am to have breakfast at 6:30 to get onto the speedboat again at 7am. We were then taken to Sandakan airport where we then flew to Kuala Lumpur airport, had to wait for 3-4 hours before we then got on another flight to Singapore! Which is where we are now, staying at a really nice hostel called 'Hangout @ Mount Emily.' We have 3 full days here before we fly to Australia on monday!! Time is going so quickly!
Friday, 19 February 2010
The past week
Hello again! At the moment we are in Kuala Lumper, the capital of Malaysia; we've been here for 4 days and have one day left before we fly to Borneo for a few days. It's really strange, me and Rach are both experiencing the need to move on even though we both like KL, we think it's because this is the place we have stayed at longest and it now feels weird to be somewhere for so long!!
(back to Penang:) On our last day in Penang we discovered that it actually is a nice place once you get out of the capitol of Georgetown! We went to the national park which was really cool, there were monkeys roaming around and this weird lizard thing in the sea. We went on a bridge walkway in the trees which was pretty cool (like flight of the gibbon without the flying). Oh yeh and the day before was Chinese new year, a bit of a disappointment really seeming as we had to starve ourselves (okay a little dramatic.. eat only bread) because of it. Just some dancing on a stage which after the flower festival in Chang Mai seemed not too good.
Ohh and our trip from Penang to KL was an experience! We couldn't catch the train as all of the tickets had sold out so we bought a coach ticket after an annoying trip back on the ferry to the mainland as we've only now learned too well.. Penang shuts down completely at new year. When we had to catch our coach the next day it turns out our ticket was a fake and the company didn't exist so they put us on a school bus which took an extra two hours on the four hour journey because we were going under 30 the whole way! Oh and the driver was lovely.. even after being pulled over by the police he didn't get off of his ruddy mobile the whole way. Let's just say me and Rach were very happy to get off of that bus!!
So now we are staying in a hostel called Green hut, we had a lovely cockroach in our room which was nice! So far we've had a really good time in KL (with the exception yesterday when a crazy woman stole our fruit). We've been to visit an aquarium where sharks swim above your head, a planetarium which was actually really cool! We watch a film in this big dome room which made it look 3d, weird. The worlds largest aviary turned out to be the worlds largest poo park when my foot got absolutely covered (whether it was bird or human is questionable) but the butterfly farm we went to was really good. Yesterday we went up the petronas twin towers (we had to wake up at 6 to be able to get a ticket) but it was worth it. You're only allowed ten minutes on the sky bridge but it's a really surreal feeling being suspended above a city between two of the tallest buildings. Oh and because we've discovered our inner nerd we went to a science museum which was so good and so funny, not what you'd expect of a science museum. To get into it we had to ride inside this big ball thing (which Rach informs me is like the cocoa bean in cadbury world at home) in the dark whilst spinning and watching tv, weird but amazing. Then in the evening we went to a cinema to watch Valentines day, it had malaysian subtitles which was strange and it was weird to do something 'normal'.
I think thats everything, we've done so much between now and our last post I can't really remember everything. Our brains are officially mushy.
(back to Penang:) On our last day in Penang we discovered that it actually is a nice place once you get out of the capitol of Georgetown! We went to the national park which was really cool, there were monkeys roaming around and this weird lizard thing in the sea. We went on a bridge walkway in the trees which was pretty cool (like flight of the gibbon without the flying). Oh yeh and the day before was Chinese new year, a bit of a disappointment really seeming as we had to starve ourselves (okay a little dramatic.. eat only bread) because of it. Just some dancing on a stage which after the flower festival in Chang Mai seemed not too good.
Ohh and our trip from Penang to KL was an experience! We couldn't catch the train as all of the tickets had sold out so we bought a coach ticket after an annoying trip back on the ferry to the mainland as we've only now learned too well.. Penang shuts down completely at new year. When we had to catch our coach the next day it turns out our ticket was a fake and the company didn't exist so they put us on a school bus which took an extra two hours on the four hour journey because we were going under 30 the whole way! Oh and the driver was lovely.. even after being pulled over by the police he didn't get off of his ruddy mobile the whole way. Let's just say me and Rach were very happy to get off of that bus!!
So now we are staying in a hostel called Green hut, we had a lovely cockroach in our room which was nice! So far we've had a really good time in KL (with the exception yesterday when a crazy woman stole our fruit). We've been to visit an aquarium where sharks swim above your head, a planetarium which was actually really cool! We watch a film in this big dome room which made it look 3d, weird. The worlds largest aviary turned out to be the worlds largest poo park when my foot got absolutely covered (whether it was bird or human is questionable) but the butterfly farm we went to was really good. Yesterday we went up the petronas twin towers (we had to wake up at 6 to be able to get a ticket) but it was worth it. You're only allowed ten minutes on the sky bridge but it's a really surreal feeling being suspended above a city between two of the tallest buildings. Oh and because we've discovered our inner nerd we went to a science museum which was so good and so funny, not what you'd expect of a science museum. To get into it we had to ride inside this big ball thing (which Rach informs me is like the cocoa bean in cadbury world at home) in the dark whilst spinning and watching tv, weird but amazing. Then in the evening we went to a cinema to watch Valentines day, it had malaysian subtitles which was strange and it was weird to do something 'normal'.
I think thats everything, we've done so much between now and our last post I can't really remember everything. Our brains are officially mushy.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Leaving Thailand
Ok, so Flight Of The Gibbon was amazing! It's basically loads of zip wires, bridges and absailing routes across the top of the jungle. We were picked up at 9:30am just after brekkie and when the guy opened the door Rach (me) said 'OH MY GOD there's other people in there!' (no jokes) this was the first thing that we've booked which actually involved other people taking part too!! How exciting. We drove for like 1 and a half hours to a jungle somewhere, with a maniac driver who kept gobbing all the way (nice), until we got to the site. Rach was scared (as per usual) and even more so after we were fitted with our rather atractive harnesses turning our shorts into hotpants. Our 2 guides were called North and Typhoon - im guessing made up names?! (although rach had thought it was North and Monsoon for the entire trip) who were really funny and spoke amazing English. The first zip wire was terrifying (oh, in all of the pictures we only look about 8 feet from the ground but we promise we were 50 metres up) but afterwards it was so much fun! It took about 2 and a half hours all together and we were driven to a waterfall on the way back which was lovely.
Next day we had to leave thailand forever, we got picked up at 8:15am to get started on our
more than 24 hour journey to Malaysia. (We've been in 5 modes of transport in one day - knackered.) The minibus dropped us to the airport, where we had a 50 minite flight back to bangkok where we started our travels, followed by a taxi ride across the city to the train station. Our train ride was 23 hours, we slept on it which was actually pretty cool and very comfy. But the food was horrible, well Becky liked the vegetarian option but mine was vile. We got some decent photos of the inside of the train and our seats/beds. We got to the Malaysian border at around 8am, had to take everything off the train just so they could look at our passports and stamp them and sort of search through our stuff but not really. We eventually got to Butterworth station at 2:15pm (exactly 23 hours after we'd started) and it was HOT, like really sticky. We got a taxi to our place, which is less than nice. We're in Chinatown in Penang. Chinese new year is tomorrow (14th) so all the restaurants and stuff are shut for 3 days so we were starving and went to get an Indian from this really weird place full of pervy old men. We've been to the 7/11 twice already to stock up on bread, Oreos and crisps so dont worry we wont starve! Oh and we're both craving our mum's mash potato. We havent had any potato the entire time we've been away. Anyways, so now we're looking at how we're going to leave Penang, and when, to get to Kuala Lumpur. We'll keep you updated when we decide what to do. Happy Chinese New Year!
Next day we had to leave thailand forever, we got picked up at 8:15am to get started on our
more than 24 hour journey to Malaysia. (We've been in 5 modes of transport in one day - knackered.) The minibus dropped us to the airport, where we had a 50 minite flight back to bangkok where we started our travels, followed by a taxi ride across the city to the train station. Our train ride was 23 hours, we slept on it which was actually pretty cool and very comfy. But the food was horrible, well Becky liked the vegetarian option but mine was vile. We got some decent photos of the inside of the train and our seats/beds. We got to the Malaysian border at around 8am, had to take everything off the train just so they could look at our passports and stamp them and sort of search through our stuff but not really. We eventually got to Butterworth station at 2:15pm (exactly 23 hours after we'd started) and it was HOT, like really sticky. We got a taxi to our place, which is less than nice. We're in Chinatown in Penang. Chinese new year is tomorrow (14th) so all the restaurants and stuff are shut for 3 days so we were starving and went to get an Indian from this really weird place full of pervy old men. We've been to the 7/11 twice already to stock up on bread, Oreos and crisps so dont worry we wont starve! Oh and we're both craving our mum's mash potato. We havent had any potato the entire time we've been away. Anyways, so now we're looking at how we're going to leave Penang, and when, to get to Kuala Lumpur. We'll keep you updated when we decide what to do. Happy Chinese New Year!
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
chang mai, trekking and possibly the weirdest experience of our lives!!
so we've happened (without our knowing) to be in asia for two festivals. The first being the flower festival which we went to see on our second day in Chang Mai.. basically it's what it says on the tin, a celebration of flowers! We went to see the parade in the morning which was really good, huge floats made out of flowers, people in costume and live music as they went down the street! In the afternoon we had booked a tour of the ancient temples around the city, we had a boat ride down the river and then a horse and carriage took us on a tour of the temples or ruins whichever way you want to put it, they had all been flooded hundreds of years ago so it is now known as the underground city. They then took us back to their house and gave us fruit (can't imagine doing that back in England!) but it was really nice sat outside on a makeshift boat/ table thing! We had med a dutch girl called Renatta so that evening we went into the night market with her.
The next day was the start of our golden triangle trek (we were slightly nervous), our guide was a man called Mr Tiger. That morning we were slightly unsure of what to expect but after a few stops at local markets and a long drive up to the Burmese border, we then got on a boat for a two and a half hour trip down the river. This was so good, we saw buffallo and a wild elephant, all on this little skinny boat! evntually we pulled up to the elephant sanctuary and the elephants were in the river which was so surreal! Rachel was a bit scared when she realised how big elephants are in real life! We had over an hour probably getting on two riding on the back of an elephant through the jungle and heading up the mountain. Mr Tiger and the mahout were singing to each other in Thai which made the whole situation even more strange! We had to get off the elephant eventually and were met by two people from the Lahu tribe (in normal clothes) and then had to walk up the mountain for half an hour)
When we got to the tribe it was a bit of a shock, little shacks made entirely of bamboo with animals running around everywhere. It was only the two of us on the trek so that made it even weirder (they didnt speak English or Thai but had their own language). We had dinner that night with the family we were staying with who were really nice, the young children thought we were really funny and kept daring each other to poke us!
The toilet was an experiance. litterally a hole in the ground, nice. oh and a diy flush, you had to be careful not to slip on the wee on the floor and fall down the hole!!
The next day we had to trek through the jungle\mountain for three hours all together. I didnt have a very good day for splinters and Rach kept falling over but it was really good (river island daps are not made for jungle treks). We stopped at a waterfall on the way which was amazing (and a relief). We had lunch wrapped in a leaf and tea in a cup made out of bamboo.
We arrived at the akha tribe at around 3ish, the older women were all wearing traditional tribal outfits. We sat with a little old lady who was showing us that she was making a bag (i think she wanted us to buy it but we didn't, although we did get an akha bracelt which she tied on our arm doing a weird chant!) That night we didn't get much sleep in our bamboo hut suspended over a drop in the mountain, we have discovered we don't like cockrels!!
Day 3 we left the tribe and took a van up to the most northern part of thailand and from there we went on to see the golden triangle and an opium museum. We then drove to the white temple which was amazing and the inside was decorated by a modern artist (it's really hard to explain what it's like). The last thing we saw on our tour was the hot springs which were so hot (don't know what we were expecting), they were actually boiling eggs in the water). It was such a good tour if not a little bizarre!!
Today we have been to the tiger sanctuary and cuddled huge tigers (oh and a lion). At one point i had to lie on the ground with my head on the tiger's stomach and it's paw on my chest (Rach flat out refused which was funny to watch her argue with thew thai people!) After we went to see the Karen long neck tribe who actually are long necked (they stretch it with gold hoops and look very odd)
And that ladies and gents is the past couple of days.. we're currently trying to sort out our accomodation in malasia. Will write again when we actually leave Thailand in a couple of days time. Tomorrow we have flight of the gibbon so i'm sure you will be hearing all about that!!
The next day was the start of our golden triangle trek (we were slightly nervous), our guide was a man called Mr Tiger. That morning we were slightly unsure of what to expect but after a few stops at local markets and a long drive up to the Burmese border, we then got on a boat for a two and a half hour trip down the river. This was so good, we saw buffallo and a wild elephant, all on this little skinny boat! evntually we pulled up to the elephant sanctuary and the elephants were in the river which was so surreal! Rachel was a bit scared when she realised how big elephants are in real life! We had over an hour probably getting on two riding on the back of an elephant through the jungle and heading up the mountain. Mr Tiger and the mahout were singing to each other in Thai which made the whole situation even more strange! We had to get off the elephant eventually and were met by two people from the Lahu tribe (in normal clothes) and then had to walk up the mountain for half an hour)
When we got to the tribe it was a bit of a shock, little shacks made entirely of bamboo with animals running around everywhere. It was only the two of us on the trek so that made it even weirder (they didnt speak English or Thai but had their own language). We had dinner that night with the family we were staying with who were really nice, the young children thought we were really funny and kept daring each other to poke us!
The toilet was an experiance. litterally a hole in the ground, nice. oh and a diy flush, you had to be careful not to slip on the wee on the floor and fall down the hole!!
The next day we had to trek through the jungle\mountain for three hours all together. I didnt have a very good day for splinters and Rach kept falling over but it was really good (river island daps are not made for jungle treks). We stopped at a waterfall on the way which was amazing (and a relief). We had lunch wrapped in a leaf and tea in a cup made out of bamboo.
We arrived at the akha tribe at around 3ish, the older women were all wearing traditional tribal outfits. We sat with a little old lady who was showing us that she was making a bag (i think she wanted us to buy it but we didn't, although we did get an akha bracelt which she tied on our arm doing a weird chant!) That night we didn't get much sleep in our bamboo hut suspended over a drop in the mountain, we have discovered we don't like cockrels!!
Day 3 we left the tribe and took a van up to the most northern part of thailand and from there we went on to see the golden triangle and an opium museum. We then drove to the white temple which was amazing and the inside was decorated by a modern artist (it's really hard to explain what it's like). The last thing we saw on our tour was the hot springs which were so hot (don't know what we were expecting), they were actually boiling eggs in the water). It was such a good tour if not a little bizarre!!
Today we have been to the tiger sanctuary and cuddled huge tigers (oh and a lion). At one point i had to lie on the ground with my head on the tiger's stomach and it's paw on my chest (Rach flat out refused which was funny to watch her argue with thew thai people!) After we went to see the Karen long neck tribe who actually are long necked (they stretch it with gold hoops and look very odd)
And that ladies and gents is the past couple of days.. we're currently trying to sort out our accomodation in malasia. Will write again when we actually leave Thailand in a couple of days time. Tomorrow we have flight of the gibbon so i'm sure you will be hearing all about that!!
Thursday, 4 February 2010
No more bangkok
We've arrived in chiang mai now, but more on that another day...
After our unexpected flight instead of the train to get up here, we had 1 less day in bangkok so we had to try to fit as much in as possible in 1 day. We had the floating market tour booked already before we arrived, so we had a nice early wake up call for that (7am pick up), our guide was called Joey and he looked like Jafar from Aladdin, beard and all! After a 2 hour minibus ride we stopped off at a street market and im not even joking when i say this - a train runs right through the middle of it! Like less than a foot away from you, it comes once a day then everyone got back to normal straight away. You have to see the pictures to believe it! Then we walked down towards the market and I (Rach) noticed a man with a huge snake around his neck, like huge. Becky thought it would be a great idea for us to wear it round our necks too!! She loves snakes so she was fine, but I on the other hand am petrified of them - although in every photo i somehow hid that. The market was really nice and relaxing, although they took us to a lovely wood carving factory on the way back - which is obviously what we've always wanted to do?! (Becky: "Rach managedto hide her disgust very well A FACTORY?!?!!!!"haha) Then we went to a temple which was alright...
then when back in Bangkok we made friends!!! only school kids doing a questionarre on tourists yet still human contact!! they fellinlove with rach whenshe gave them a magazine in English (only More magazine, i wouldnt give up Grazia for anyone) haha she makesme laugh!! the grand palace was closedso we went to the temple thing next to it, we obviously payed a lot of attention to the name!! but that was really good!! then it was our last night in Bangkok and ournice relaxing sleep ready to wake up at5 in the morning for our flight was rudely interupted by a warbling "irish gypsie" (basically an irish man who was a stereotypical traveller - thai wife, long straggly hair and a nice deep V neck linen shirt, singing really badly in a restaurant.)
we're now off to getour room(we haven't been allowedin yet) andto figureoutchang mai (the space bar doesn'twork)
until next time bye!!
After our unexpected flight instead of the train to get up here, we had 1 less day in bangkok so we had to try to fit as much in as possible in 1 day. We had the floating market tour booked already before we arrived, so we had a nice early wake up call for that (7am pick up), our guide was called Joey and he looked like Jafar from Aladdin, beard and all! After a 2 hour minibus ride we stopped off at a street market and im not even joking when i say this - a train runs right through the middle of it! Like less than a foot away from you, it comes once a day then everyone got back to normal straight away. You have to see the pictures to believe it! Then we walked down towards the market and I (Rach) noticed a man with a huge snake around his neck, like huge. Becky thought it would be a great idea for us to wear it round our necks too!! She loves snakes so she was fine, but I on the other hand am petrified of them - although in every photo i somehow hid that. The market was really nice and relaxing, although they took us to a lovely wood carving factory on the way back - which is obviously what we've always wanted to do?! (Becky: "Rach managedto hide her disgust very well A FACTORY?!?!!!!"haha) Then we went to a temple which was alright...
then when back in Bangkok we made friends!!! only school kids doing a questionarre on tourists yet still human contact!! they fellinlove with rach whenshe gave them a magazine in English (only More magazine, i wouldnt give up Grazia for anyone) haha she makesme laugh!! the grand palace was closedso we went to the temple thing next to it, we obviously payed a lot of attention to the name!! but that was really good!! then it was our last night in Bangkok and ournice relaxing sleep ready to wake up at5 in the morning for our flight was rudely interupted by a warbling "irish gypsie" (basically an irish man who was a stereotypical traveller - thai wife, long straggly hair and a nice deep V neck linen shirt, singing really badly in a restaurant.)
we're now off to getour room(we haven't been allowedin yet) andto figureoutchang mai (the space bar doesn'twork)
until next time bye!!
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
hello everybody!! right major changes to our plan.. turns out we can't get a train up to Chang Mai (north thailand where we're booked in to do the golden triangle tour) as its already booked unless we wanted to be seperated!! so we've been sat in a travel agents most of the day booking a flight up to chang mai with a return back to bangkok. this was a shock to our money belts (rachels slightly more as we thought her card wasnt working- turns out she was only trying to withdraw more than her limit would allow for an entire day) but on the plus side we've booked the day trip where we swing through the rainforest on a zip wire and as the name suggests litterally "flying like a gibbon" woohoo. right we better get off.. we've literally left the hotel once to get breakfast as we've had to sort out flights and hotels all day and seeming as we only now (because of the flight) only have tomorrow left in Bangkok for good we better be getting touristy soon. camera at the ready haha bye everyone (we're gonna learn how to say this in thai next time we post!!)
oh and were still very jetlagged. not nice. hilarious. but not nice
oh and were still very jetlagged. not nice. hilarious. but not nice
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Bangkok!!
we're here!!! had a slightly eventful journey but have arrived safely at our hotel. Our private driver was hilarious.. pulled up to the petrol station, got out, left the keys in the ignition and dissapered round the back of the garage for five minutes!! We've already discovered that Thai people are maniac drivers, it's really surreal over here. Hotel is posh, we even had our bags taken up to our room and everything which we needed seeming as rach can hardly walk in hers and i'm having lots of fun with the pacsafe device (lovely little thing)
our internets about to run out so we'll update this when we've actually done something!! byeee
our internets about to run out so we'll update this when we've actually done something!! byeee
Friday, 29 January 2010
Hello
This is where we can let you know where we are and what we're up to! We're not really sure how often we'll be near a computer but we'll try to update this as often as we can?! Neither of us are that good with computer stuff so it might take a while before theres actually anything decent on here... If we can figure out how to we'll even attempt to put some photos up if you're lucky!
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