TravelStream™ news feed for member angelajones on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/angelajones en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 13 May 2008 13:19:57 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/angelajones/1/1205681820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/angelajones/1/1205681820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/angelajones/1/1205681820/tpod.html Tue, 13 May 2008 13:19:57 -0400 Angelas around the world adventure!

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Melbourne, Australia

I arrived in Melbourne on 16th March, the end of the Australian summer. It was therefore, very hot! Somewhere around 38 degrees in the daytime if I remember rightly! All that has changed now though as it's Autumn so it's erm, well much the same as Autumn in the UK! The weather here is very changeable though. somebody said to me "if you don't like the weather in Melbourne just wait a few minutes & it will have changed" thats probably quite true!
I don't know what I expected of Melbourne really, maybe something quite small, some older buildings maybe... Melbourne was established in 1835 (named after the then prime minister Lord Melbourne) so I expected the architecture to be mainly Victorian or Georgian. This is largely the case in some of the suburbs but in the CBD where we are living it's huge sky scrapers, mainly belonging to big banks, so you have to look quite hard to find the smaller, older buildings. On my second day in Melbourne (after a very long sleep) we went for a barbecue by the river Yarra which runs through the middle of the city. We had lovely views of the river & city on one side of us & the botanical gardens on the other. I have also visited Melbourne jail since I've been here which was very interesting. Some very famous Australian criminals such as Ned Kelly, the infamous bush ranger were hung there. The whole place is very creepy, even in the day, not so much scary, it just really makes your skin crawl. I didn't take any photos there.


ANZAC (Australian & new Zealand army corps) day in Australia is kind of like rememberence Sunday in the UK, except that it's a public holiday & here it is observed by alot of people.
The date, 25th April marks the day that Australia first joined in the second world war effort. It is marked with a dawn service, followed by parades.
We went to the Melbourne service in the botanical gardens (6am eek!) it was also lovely to watch the sunrise afterwards.
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Phillip Island, Australia

Phillip Island is named after the first Governor of Victoria & is around 2 hours drive from Melbourne.
It is now home to the only protected colony of little Penguins in the world. These cute little creatures are the smallest of the Penguin species & grow to between 30 & 40 cm tall & weight around 1kg. We went to Phillip island to watch the Penguins when they come ashore in the evening & go waddling to their little burrows.

On the way the Phillip Island, our first stop was a Winery. Victoria has many vineyards & is one of Australia's main wine producing regions. We tasted some different wines & also Port & Sherry that are produced at that particular Vineyard. After the Winery, our next stop was a wildlife park where we met lots of native animals.
We first met a baby wombat called Wilma. Wilma was 18 months old & loved having her tummy tickled. In the wild you wouldn't tickle a wombats tummy as they would probably try to crush you. They have a hard plate in their back to protect their burrows from predators, this will also be used to crush anything that does manage to get into the burrow.
Next we saw some Koalas who, unlike the Koalas in Queensland & the other states, you are not allowed to touch as they are slightly larger & have bigger claws so it is actually illegal to touch one! Strange I know but I'm sure they have their reasons!
The stars of the wildlife park had to be the kangaroos & wallaby's who we were allowed to feed & were so cute & friendly! They just come up & eat out of your hand! The baby ones were slightly more nervous but they were so cute & fluffy & they hold onto your hand with their little claws (that aren't sharp) in order to keep their balance when they're standing up! The big Kangaroos are alot more bold & a little bit cheeky! When we went into their Field, as soon as they noticed us (and the food we had) we had around 8 Kangaroos bouncing across the field towards us! It was really cool though! In the wild they are considered to be a pest but they are very cute & they have, after all, been here in Australia for a lot longer than we have! There were also animals such as Emus (a bit scarey) and Ponies, goats & Geese but we get those back home so I think everyone has seen those before.
Our next stop was Smiths beach. Smiths beach is very popular with surfers in the summer, it is however, also one of the most dangerous beaches in Australia! On a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being the most dangerous, Smiths beach scores 8! In the summer, there are lifeguards manning the beach & our guide told us that if you swim between the flags you'll be OK. No one has ever drowned between the flags. In the words of our guide though, if a rip tide gets hold of you then you can be half way to Tasmania in 10 seconds! It was however, a very beautiful beach & not to far from where the little Penguins come in to next. When we visited it was definitely not sunbathing weather but still a very nice place to stop. Just along the coast, we visited the Nobbies,
2 big rocks which, in summer are home to Seals & also, the little Penguins!


By this time, the sun was starting to set so we made our way to the little Penguin colony as they come waddling in just after sunset.
We were not allowed to take pictures of the Penguins as the flash scares them. They were very cute to watch though, they come in in little groups of around 10 Penguins at a time & waddle up the beach
together. They put on quite alot of weight when they are out catching fish, sometimes they can come back 1kg more than they weighed before they left which, when they only weight around 1kg to start with is quite alot. It takes them quite along time to waddle up the beach, they only have little feet & fall over quite alot. They definitely seemed a lot more agile in the water than out!
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Koh Lanta, Thailand

Koh Lanta is slightly larger than Koh Phi Phi & seemed a bit less commercial. We found this very charming, although at times, a little dangerous. Take for example, the roads. Or rather dirt tracks! They have proper motor vehicles here but I don't think they have any set rules! We saw whole families on motorbikes! One family even had their dog on there! So that's like, 4 people & a dog on 1 little bike! Seriously!
The Tuk tuks were slightly different too & (unlike bangkok where they have proper cars) were the main type of taxi service. They were like little motor scooters with side cars on & they'll just fit as many people as are there on & charge you individually! There were 5 of us in one one night! The driver had to get us to walk to the top of a hill at one point as the bike wasn't powerful enough to get 5 girls & the driver up there! On the last night, my friend & I found a business class Tuk Tuk! They all have their own individual selling points! There was a disco one too that played music & had flashing lights as we were going along the road! It's little things like that that make the night more interesting.

We stayed near long beach when we arrived at Ko Lanta, our choice was kind of made by the numerous people on the boat trying to get us to stay in their accommodation! Well, we didn't know any different so we chose one that was near a beach. Actually, it was practically on the beach, the accommodation wasn't that nice & we moved the next day but the beach was beautiful, huge, unspoilt & not very busy. Amazing!
The food on Ko Lanta was also very good & there seemed to be alot more choice than the other places in Thailand that we'd visited, without being too English! There were some lovely beach bars too which did lovely cocktails & had big cushions to lie on while we watched the beautiful sunset.

The next day, I had a very early start as I'd decided to go diving with my friend. We left Saladan at 7.30am so that meant getting up at 6! It was well worth it though as it was such an amazing day! The boat was nice, the weather was good & the diving location was like paradise! Clear blue (fairly warm) water, beautiful picturesque rocks & lots of colourful fish. We saw lion fish, box fish, eels & all manner of amazing underwater creatures! It was amazing but tiring. We fell asleep on the sun deck on the way back so even managed to top up our tans too!

The next day we spent at the beach as we had to leave the next day. I was very sad to have to leave such an amazing place.
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Bangkok, Thailand

After a flight that seemed to last for days, Hannah & I finally arrived in Bangkok (the new airport in case you were wondering) tired but excited about our new adventure.
It normally seems so simple getting out of an airport but not without sleep as we found out after queing for a while at passport control, only to find out that we were in the que for internal flights & that passport control was actually a 5 minute walk away!

After arriving at our hotel (we decided that we needed a reasonable place to stay, in order to ease ourselves into this whole travelling thing gently) we had a well deserved sleep before going out to meet my friends Ben & Nathalie who I haven't seen for almost 10 whole years! Ben now lives in Thailand so knows alot more about where to go (and we didn't go to the Khoa San road) not that night anyway! We went to a bar somewhere quite far away which, although it was a little bit cheesy, was fun & played what sounded like Thai Europop! Very amusing.

The next day we had a tour booked to go to some temples which we were quite excited about. We realised fairly quickly however, that this whole tour thing is really all about what people can make us buy! We did get to see an amazing temple though! When they built these temples, they have paid such attention to detail! They quite literally sparkle in the sunlight. There was a different Buddha in each temple. One seated, that was amazing, one reclining, (that was huge!) and one standing (we weren't allowed in that temple for some reason). Then it was off to a jewelery store. Hmmm. I wonder why?! We also realised on our "tour" that Bangkok traffic is actually worse than London!
The next tour we went on a few days later was alot better. We visited a floating market in the morning (the tour started at 7am which was very harsh!) that was definitely cool! I didn't realise you got traffic jams on rivers though! It was all the same kind of stuff that they sell in Bangkok but it was nice to be out of the city. Very peaceful & we saw some interested things from our longtail boat, such as a monkey & a Python! Arrgh! I didn't know Pythons could swim! (excuse my naivety!)

After the floating market we went to a Cobra show. To be honest, it was quite interesting but given the choice I wouldn't go again as I felt it was a bit cruel to the snakes. Now I'm not trying to pretend that I'm a big snake lover as snakes are DEFINITELY not my favorite animal, in fact I find them really really scary, but I felt that they were a little bit cruel to them. They had a mongoose there too, as they are one of only 2 natural predators that Pythons have & they got the mongoose to attack the snake which I found a bit disturbing.

Anyway, let's get to another nice bit! The Tigers! We visited The Tiger temple at Kanchanaburi & it was absolutely amazing! The sanctuary is run by Buddhist Monks so the animals are well cared for & all seemed very happy.
Most of the animals are allowed to roam freely around the grounds of the temple as they would in the wild, however the tigers need to be kept separately as obviously they would hunt the other animals.
Left aligned photo tag: We had our pictures taken with the tigers resting their heads on our laps which cost a little bit more but I would definitely recommend this as it's so amazing to be so close to a tiger! The reason we are able to get so close to these tigers, is because they are handled from when they are babies as the temple acquires them either from the authorities who confiscate them from poachers & don't want the responsibility of looking after them, or from villagers who had found them half starved after poachers had killed their mothers. Either way the tiger cubs would die if they weren't taken to the temple as most people don't have the knowledge or finances to look after a tiger cub! Although it is illegal to kill a Tiger in Thailand, poaching is fairly common as a poacher will receive the same amount of money for 1 tiger as a farmer would earn in a whole year, so although it doesn't make it right, I guess it would be appealing to some people.
The other animals in the sanctuary are also taken there either because they need help because they are injured or they have been abandoned by their owners who can no longer afford to look after them.
After our tiring but amazing day, we embarked on our very hot, 3 hour drive back to Bangkok!

I've still got so much more to write on Thailand even though I've been in Australia for a while now! I promise to get around to it! xxx
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Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

We arrived on Koh Phi Phi (after getting soaked & sun burnt on the boat) at around 11.30 so we still had most of the day left!
We went to look for some accommodation & met some people who had also just arrived on the same boat as us & arranged to meet in an hour at the Reggae bar as they do good English food. Hmmm. Sounds like the West end in Ibiza... It was. Well the nightlife anyway, but with Thai boxing rather than drunken sun burnt Brits. We went to the same bar later on in the day to watch some Thai boxing which was quite fun! They also sell buckets of alcohol. Buckets. Not glasses! Craziness! Hannah & I decided to share 2 (it was also buy one get one free). they lasted us all night! Unfortunately, some people aren't so sensible as we found later when a fat drunk guy came & sat opposite us & started being sick into an empty bucket. We went home.

Luckily the people on the island, the restaurants & the beautiful beaches made up for the tacky nightlife! There were some nice bars to go to in the evening too!

After having lunch on our first day, we went to the beach with our new friends & played in the sea with a ball until the tide went out. Phi Phi is very tidal, the beach we were on was one of the areas that was very badly hit by the Tsunami so alot of the buildings nearby were newly built & there is wasteland behind with foundations where hotels used to be. It still looks very beautiful though. I think the shallowness of the water is what gives it it's lovely turquoise colour.
The next day we went on a boat trip to Monkey beach, Phi Phi Lay (where the beach was filmed) and to some lovely rocks where we went snorkeling.
Unfortunately, there were no Monkeys on monkey beach (there were loads when my sis went) oh well, an excuse to go back I guess!
We went to the viking caves where they say Pirates used to hide things hundreds of years ago! We then went on to Phi Phi lay which was sooo beautiful and unspoilt. It is a national park even though it's only a tiny island so no one is allowed to build on it. The sand there is really soft & clean. It's only a very small Island but it has big cliffs & really feels like the kind of place you'd like to explore. Unfortunately, our shoes were still on the boat so although we went for a little explore, the rocks on the other side of the island were quite sharp so it was rather painful.
After an hour or so, we went back to the boat to watch sunset.

The next day was spent at the beach & then in the evening we went to a cool bar called Hippies where they had big cushions to lounge around on & fire dancers. They were amazing! I'd love to be able to do that! The staff were so friendly too & they did really good cocktails (not in buckets this time).
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Krabi, Thailand

We finally decided that we'd had enough of Bangkok (reluctantly) & flew to Krabi.
We arrived in Krabi tired & not to sure where we were going! Probably not the best idea! So we kind of chose a bus & off we went! The bus went to a few different places, Ao Nang being one of them. As Ao nang had a beach we decided to go there as we had spent the last few days in the baking heat in Beach-less Bangkok so felt that we deserved a nice day at the beach before we got the boat to the islands the next day.

Our day at the beach was not to be! After finding somewhere to stay, dumping our stuff & going to get some lunch, the heavens opened up & Ao Nang had the rain that they had been waiting for! Luckily Hannah & I were already in a restaurant so we didn't have to run anywhere fast! We just had some cocktails & then when the rain had stopped, wandered down the beach to go for a massage. Well, you have to make the most of it somehow hey? In the evening we couldn't really find much to do so had an early night although we heard from some people a few days later that Ao Nang is actually known for it's rock climbing & has a big social life based around that.
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