TravelStream™ news feed for member dacraic on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/dacraic en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:17:45 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1236934980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1236934980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1236934980/tpod.html Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:17:45 -0400 Ailbhe and Grechy on tour

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Langkawi, Kedah, Malaysia

There were only eight people on the firefly flight from Penang to Langkawai - that's including the air hostesses - one  looked like she was going to vomit taking off and landing. Grechy booked a Hotel 'close' to the airport. When he asked on arrival if we could get a taxi there, the lady at information told us we could walk. Fair enough. So, we set off from the door of the airport, turned left, walked about 100 metres to a footbridge which brought us into the hotel. So weird! We became the equivalent Tom Hanks in Terminal - eating, checking mails, buying coffee and chocolate there. There was practically no other guests staying in the hotel. If Michael said 'how do they make money?' once, he said it forty times. We had the pool to ourselves everyday, creating lots of new games with the complimentary tubes/donuts. Great fun! Hired a car (normally 100RM a day) but Mick talked the dodgy rental guy down to 50RM. Think he may have given us his own car in the end! Did a tour of the Island. The main town Kuah is nothing to write home about. We visited a park where 'history was made' with the first coconut climbing competition. Michael had a go. There's a big eagle in..Eagle Square..(wow!) as Langkawai is famous for eagles and named after them. Didn't hang around Kuah long. We went onto Galeria Perdana where the former Prime Minister has all the gifts he received in the job on display. It was quite interesting. Australia gave him a plate, Ireland a Waterford Crystal bowl. We headed toward the seven wells which is a waterfall with seven pools. You can slide from one to the other. An Indian guy took a fancy to Ailbhe at the top - which Grechy thought was hilarious. It's quite a steep climb to the wells so it was nice to cool down in the water. There are lots of monkeys on the Island. We had plenty of encounters. They ran after the car, climbed on the car, another one followed Grechy because he was carrying a Sprite bottle (which was filled with water and of little interest to the monkey once it discovered the lack of lemonade), we witnessed another one put a slice of sponge cake into his mouth whole which was fairly impressive! Did a boat hopping tour. Cut out the middle man and got it for 40RM as it wasn't worth the advertised price of 65RM. Visited Dayang Bunting (Lake of the Pregnant Maiden) Legend has it that any 'childless maiden' that baths in the lake will conceive afterwards. Then we watched some Eagle feeding and got to hang out on a beach for an hour. Food in Langkawai isn't as good as Penang , but the island itself is somewhat more picturesque. That said, you can't see the island without renting a car or a bike as there is no public transport so there are pluses and minuses. There are no minuses to having tubes in the Hotel Pool...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1236161040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1236161040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1236161040/tpod.html Sun, 08 Mar 2009 05:18:00 -0400 Ailbhe and Grechy on tour

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penang, Malaysia

Penang has a reputation as a great place for shopping and eating. The shopping there is questionable, Needless to say eating was higher on the priority list (check out how many photos there are of us with some form of food in front of us! -- they have yet to be added!). Penang is home to more than 1 million inhabitants. Malays make up 32% of the population, the chinese 59% and the indians 7%. So you can only imagine the great food on offer, and that's what many visitors come here for. You can pick up amazing food on the side of the road for under 2euro. They sell rice fried rice in banana leaves, apparently the banana leaves have digestive qualities even though, you don't eat them. That was simply an appetiser for Michael!We were based in Georgetown, which is the main city on the North East of the island. It was awarded World Heritage status last year, so they're fairly happy about that! We did a good bit of touring around the town throughout the week. There are Jetties which are named after Chinese clans who settled here hundreds of years ago. Descendants still remain. The jetties are like little communities - both sides flanked by shops, houses and places of worship.We visited the House of Dr. Sun Yat Sen. He organised the Chinese revolution from that very house in Penang. Our tour guide produced a movie about him a few years ago and sat us down to watch 15 minute snippets from it. She was a really great tour guide, so great Grechy bought the DVD - someone in Ireland is going to get a very nice present! She recommended a place to go to for fish ball soup..so we thanked her and raced to the next eatery..any excuse!We visited the old fort in Penang. Light (the guy who arrived and said, i'll have this Island thank you very much) was the one who got locals to build it. It's restored now and we had great fun. It ain't got any touch screen monitors to inform you of it's past but it has got costumes that you can dress up in! Great fun! We also went up Penang Hill which overlooks the city. It used to be a holiday destination in the past. We took the wrong bus to get there but ended up in a nearby town where a little Indian kid told us where to get off...that was after he and his three friends asked us for our autographs. They were tearing pages and firing pens into our hands with such a frenzy, it was hilarious! Very cute. Walked to the bottom of the hill, despite protests from the locals that the walk was a long one. Then, it's a big trip up on Swiss trains which were imported during the 70s. It was a bit cooler up there and quite forested. We ate (surprise, surprise!) when we got to the top.We rented a car one of our final days in Penang. Took a trip around the island. We were told the beaches weren't 'swimable' but they're not all that bad..if you go off the beaten track. Visited Penang National Park where we did a one and a half hour trek - Ailbhe inappropriately dressed in white and wearing flip flops. We got to our destination Monkey beach and awaited a water taxi back to the car. One young entrepreneur spotted us and offered to bring us back on his jet ski..we didn't hesitate to say yes. No life jackets - just threw us on and took off! It was great! We ate after that..eh again! Going for Indian tonight!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1235957880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1235957880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dacraic/1/1235957880/tpod.html Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:39:57 -0500 Ailbhe and Grechy on tour

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Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia

The flight to Kuala Lumpar from Perth is worth a mention. We flew Air Asia and there was a chat room service on the touch screen in front of every seat. Ailbhe was mad for it, chatting all the other passengers. 31D and 49F were her particular favourites. There was no stopping her, even during turbulance! The bus took an hour and a half to get into Kuala Lumpar from the airport. There was a lightening storm and it was raining so traffic was heavy. Eventually found the Hostel where we were greeted by Andy at reception - from Dublin! Slept like babies that night and didn't get going the next day until about midday. Walked to the square where the flag signifying Malaysias independence was hoisted in the fifties. On to the Central Market which has (like most markets in Kuala Lumpar) a fish spa. Basically you stick your feet into a pool of little fish and they eat the dead skin off your feet.They LOVED Michael's feet..the rest of the customers were void of nibblers after he stuck his clobbers into the water. After about 10 mins a refreshed Grechy was ready to do more walking so we went to the National Museum which was really interesting. Then we went to the planetarium which was closed (they're closed on Monday's Clare), there's also a bird zoo thingie in that area but we decided to skip it and went into Times Square which is a huge shopping complex. Next day we got up at 7am to get tickets (free) to the skybridge of Kuala Lumpars famous Twin Towers (strange, I know but that's what they call them). Tour groups go up every 15 mins and only 800 people can venture up everyday - we managed to get on the 9.30am tour.  That was after we donned ridiculous looking glasses for a '3D movie' (a 7 minute 2D ad) about the towers (about Petronas; the oil company that financed the towers). The word Petronas must have been said about 40 times and shown visually about 39 times. The longest 7 minutes of the day.  Anyway, we got to the skydeck and were told 'ok, you've got 10 minutes to look out...tick tick tick. Ok, thank you for coming, bye bye!  It's the thing to do in KL..really! But something more exciting than the skydeck was due to happen downstairs in the shopping mall about 40 mins later. Michael bought a pair of original Everlast runners for 8 euro. Like a pig in...muck.   
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Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Stayed with Michelle, Michael's mate in North Perth and her crazy cat Mango. Her fella Blair was busy at the mines. We all had award winning Pizza from, Delizioso Cafe in Subiaco. It was recently voted the best gourmet pizza in the world. Was really good. Then we went to Freemantle to stay at Paul and Niamhs warehouse apartment for the night. Pretty amazing place and good to see they guys. The last time we crossed paths was in Buenos Aires almost a year ago. Hooked up with Margaret Strong Smith and Kierans bro Joe the following day and went back to a BBQ at Mags' place which ran so late we missed the last tram back to Freo. The only Aussie at the BBQ was Michael, everyone else was Irish and there must have been 30 people there. He cooked!  
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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Said goodbye to Melbourne. Troy and Jean had their engagement party where we saw most of the gang. The following day people popped into the Standard Hotel to say goodbye. For the benefit of Irish people - Hotels are pubs?!! There was  dinner with the Grechs including Anna Grech who has questioned why she hadn't featured in the Melbourne part of the blog thus far! There you go Anna Banana! Heeee!   PS: Lots more to come on our time in Melbourne by Michael.
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Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Northern Territory, Australia

It's a 5 hour drive from Alice Springs to Uluru, something people fail to factor into their trip there. Anyway, the tour guides talk for the majority of the journey explaining the history of Central Australia. They also give you sweets/lollies which kept us happy! We did the Olgas first. You can walk part way into a gorge between two of the formations. Not many people make it the whole way cue to the time constraints. The tour guides were very strict on time in order to get everyone from from A to B. Michael and I raced through the gorge to the end. We made it and the flies loved us for it. They were over us perspiring fools.  Gross? - yes. Annoying? - yes. Did we have a fly net? - no.  Moral of the story? Invest in a fly net. By the time we got to Uluru it was 40 degrees and our winged companions had multiplied ten fold. They don't bite so we kind of got used to them 'hanging out'.  The guides explained to us about the rock, telling us the aboriginal stories behind all the crevices. We were warned early on not to ask too many questions about the aboriginal community and how it's incorporated (or not) into Australian society. Right.  Aires Rock can still be climbed by visitors but thankfully it was closed due to heat when we visited it. The Aboriginal Community request people not to climb it out of respect..but people still clamber up when conditions are suitable. We watched the sunset over Uluru. We all (that includes the flies) had BBQ for dinner and a glass of bubbly. A perfect end to a class day..   ...well, kind of..there was the five hour bus ride back to Alice Springs which included a rendition of Waltzing Matilda by the tour guides. What can i say? The old French Gentleman sitting opposite who clearly had more than one glass of bubbly loved it.
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Alice Springs, Australia

We were minging after the bus ride from Adelaide to Alice Springs and it was roasting in Alice when we got in. Rang the Alice Lodge where we had booked a room and we were collected by the guy running the Hostel who is from Limerick in Ireland. Settled into the Lodge and then took a walk.  Following a tip off from Michaels mate Dave (eh that's Bricko, not you Hogie!) we went up to the war memorial which is on a hill looking over the city that evening to watch the sunset along most of the other tourists in Alice! Back to the Lodge for an early night ahead of the trip to Uluru.
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Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

We were no sooner back in Melbourne than we were off again. This time to Adelaide and Alice Springs. Took a flight to Adelaide on a Sunday and the city was dead. Everything closed. Despite that it was really hard to get accommodation. We were sorry we hadn't pre-booked..eventually got the last bed at the YHA. Took an old tram (which apparently only runs on Sundays) to Glenelg and discovered where all the 'adelaidians' (is that plural for people from Adelaide?) hang out. Glenelg is a lovely spot by the sea and a great place to people watch. There's a Marina there too. Then, Michael found a buy a meal get one free on the back of a receipt so we hopped back on the tram to get North of the City for Mexican. We walked about 50 mins for food which was great in the end but all receipts with the word 'free' were going into the bin from here on in if Ailbhe had anything to do with it. Anyway, The city council in Adelaide is keen to get people cycling so there's a place opposite the bus station where you can hire bikes for free, which we did that the following morning. Spent most of the day touring around the city by bike (bike lanes disappear like in Dublin so it can get a little dangerous on main roads). That evening we returned the bikes and crossed to the road where we boarded for a 20 hour bus journey to Alice Springs.  
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Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia

Back to Hervey Bay. We had the same room at the Hostel and weren't in the door 10 mins when Ailbhe discovered she'd lost the key. The mystery of the missing key still remains a mystery to this day. No idea. Despite that the owner of the Hostel trusted us enough to give us bikes to explore the Hervey Bay coast which was good fun. There's a Shark Museum there..we just hung out outside acting like ejits with the plastic sharks. Took the bus the following day from Hervey Bay to Brisbane which was quite a hike but it was lashing so it didn't bother us. Flew from Brisy to Melbourne and got in relatively late. East coast = tick!(Special mention to the Friendly hostel... well worth a stay!)
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Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia

We did the two day tour of Fraser Island. Michael didn't want to do the self drive (you can hire a jeep and self tour the island with a load of other backpackers) which was fair enough, so we did a bus tour which has a driver. Warning: It's very BUMPY! The price inluded the tour, an all you can eat buffet (Mick's favourite!) and accommodation. Fraser which is the largest sand island in the world and used to have thousands of Dingos but that population has been reduced to a few hundred due to people feeding them. Everytime a dingo eats from the hand of a human they are killed, which has resulted in many dingo deaths. Awww. Lots to see on Fraser including sand..lake meqenzie (which has exfoliating - guess? - yup sand! A rain forest..sand..marine life - sharks!..sand..a ship wreck and more sand. Awesome! Oh and we took a plane ride too so we could see all that from above. Brilliant!      
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