TravelStream™ news feed for member gary_cailin on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/gary_cailin en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:20:28 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1254359170/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1254359170/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1254359170/tpod.html Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:20:28 -0400 One more wee trip!

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London, England, United Kingdom

Well it's back to Blighty once again, but before I go on home to Belfast I'm spending the weekend here with Michelle. It's museum time again, and first port of call is the National Portrait Gallery.

There's some absolutely jaw-dropping pieces of artwork here, everything from official royal portraits of Henry VIII to modern day paintings of celebrities. Paintings so good that even from a few feet away they look like photographs. They only thing this does is confirm my theory that I'm actually pretty shit at art.

The National Gallery did pretty much the same thing, especially seeing Madame Moitessier by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Makes me sick.




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Colombo, Sri Lanka

Ok, I've got an eight hour stop over in Colombo airport again, but this time it's in the evening, so I'm thinking I can sneak into the city for a few hours, check out some of the sights and get another stamp in my passport.

The only thing I'm worried about it is being allowed to leave the airport because I've been booked right through to London and Sri Lankan security is tighter than a camels arse in a sandstorm. So I go up to the girl at the desk and I'm about to explain to her my situation when she takes my ticket, and walks off. Standing there scratching my arse wondering whats happening, she comes back a minute later with a form for me to fill out and tells me once I go through immigration a taxi will take me free of charge to a hotel where I will be given dinner and a room I can rest and shower.

I kept my mouth shut just incase they got me mixed up with someone else.

Turns out the hotel was a five star resort with swimming pool and private challet. :) Unfortunately because I wasn't expecting this little detour, I didn't even have a change of clothes with me let alone swimming trunks, so I couldn't go for a dip in the pool. I did enjoy the enormous dinner laid out for me though. :)

The taxi picked me up and brought me back to the airport (free of charge again) I checked back in, got on my flight and left Sri Lanka with a big smile on my face. :)

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Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia

Down to Phillip Island for the day to see the world famous Penguin Parade. I never got the chance to see this the last time was here, so it was definitely on my to do list. This really is one of those weird natural things people flock to see. Little Penguins (and I'm not insulting them, thats their official name), come ashore every night at dusk in their hundreds, at the same beach at the same time. The wee buggers get washed in on the surf, then waddle up up the beach in wee groups and disappear into the dunes to have very noisy sex.

Earlier that day we went to the Koala Conservation Centre, and got to see koala bears up close and personal. This was actually a lot better than I thought it was going to be. It's basically a fenced off section of forest with raised platforms and walkways (not unlike the Ewok Village from The Empire Strikes Back), where visitors can walk among the trees and almost touch those cute wee shites.


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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Well you fucking well do now! Ok, not struck, but almost. It was my final day in Melbourne, and I was visiting my cousin in a hospice in the city. It had just started to rain and I was leaving the building. I took ONE step into the car park and there was an explosion. You know how your brain works when something suddenly happens? A thousand thoughts race through your mind in a second? At first I though it was kids letting off a firecracker, but I was surrounded by an orange light, and I thought a firecracker wouldn’t have that effect, it must be something big. I was in a car park, so I thought it was a car-bomb. My mind was racing so fast, I actually thought how ironic it was that I come to the other side of the world and be caught in a bomb blast. It was only a second later when I realised I was still in one piece that I realised what had happened. Lightening had struck the ground about 10 feet in front of me, and I've never felt anything so powerful in my life. I was shaking for about 5 minutes afterwards, my heart still racing. I suppose it could've been much worse; I could've shit myself.













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Buchan, Victoria, Australia

Buchan (pronounced Buckin’ in Australia) is a wee small town about 5 hours drive from Melbourne. It’s just on the edge of the Outback, an hour drive north and you’re out in the middle of no-where surrounded by forest. The scary thing is you can keep driving north for another week before you come across anywhere else. Australia is a BIG place. A big, EMPTY place.
I’m out here with staying with Lynelle, a friend of Barbara’s. Linneys husband Ray just happens to be Buchan’s police chief, and the family home is the old town police station. :) The new station is attached to the house. This may seem strange, but Buchan is the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. There are only 200 people here, mostly famers, and Ray is the only cop in town. All that changes though once summer comes, because Buchan has one of the biggest tourist attractions in Victoria; The Buchan Caves. These are vast underground cave networks filled with underwater pools, stalactites & stalagmites, and every year over a million people come to this little town to see these caves. Linney works as a tour guide in them, so we were lucky enough to have a free, personal tour at night when they were closed which was pretty sweet. Well, once we got past the dozens of wild kangaroos hopping about outside.

The next morning Waz took me deer hunting at 4am. When I say hunting I mean we walked about for hours looking at various types of animal shit and then set up a couple of targets and shot them from a few hundred yards. I’d told Waz I would never shoot a deer (I don’t hunt anything that can’t hunt me back, much like the Predator), and luckily I didn’t have to because we didn’t see any. It really was beautiful up there, the Snowy river cutting through the forest with nothing and no-one for miles and miles. And the stars at night! I’d forgotten just how clear you could see everything at night in Australia, the Milky Way stretching across the sky with a billion stars shining down on us. I’d forgotten how much I missed the Southern Cross, and how strange it was seeing Orion upside down. :) Man, I missed Oz.
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Berwick, Victoria, Australia


The last time I was here, they were building a skyscraper, and people kept telling me when it was finished it would be the tallest building in Melbourne. Well, it’s finished now and the Eureka Skydeck certainly the tallest building in the city.

The top is plated in 22 carat gold, so it kinda stands out a little. The observation deck on the 88th floor of the building is the highest viewing platform in the southern hemisphere and as you would expect it has excellent views of the city, especially at night, but the really cool thing about the Skydeck is The Edge. This is a special room made of glass that extends out the side of the building. When you go inside the windows are all opaque, and as the room slides out there’s crunching & smashing sounds, and the sound of glass breaking like the room is being pushed out like a giant Jenga block. When it stops moving there’s a low hum and a pulse builds up, getting faster and faster, louder and louder, building the anticipation and excitement, until with a bang, the walls, roof and floor all become clear and you find yourself floating 1000 feet in the air, looking down at a ground that’s surprisingly far away.

Then your cousin Barbara simultaneously vomits, pisses and shits herself.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1251210958/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1251210958/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1251210958/tpod.html Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:47:54 -0400 One more wee trip!

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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

I arrived in Australia at 1 o'clock this morning and my aunt Florrie kindly picked me up at the airport. I hadn't seen her in about a dozen years or so, and she didn't recognise me when I walked out of the arrivals gate.. :)

The next day I made it up to Berwick to drop in on my Aunt Kathleen and Uncle George. Hopefully I'd be staying with them for the next 2 weeks, but I wasn't sure because they didn't know I was coming. Hoping the were even home, I knocked on the door and got the lovely response of "What the hell are you doing here?" from George. :) When I walked into the kitchen Kathleen looked at me, thought "Oh, there's Gary." and then carried on making biscuits. Only after a second it clicked that I wasn't supposed to be there.

I was looking forward to seeing my cousin Barbara out here, and the night before I arrived I text her and told her I'd found a cheap flight to Bali from Kuala Lumpur for a few days, and asked her if I should go. Jealous as hell, she said yes, of course, but she then helped me out by texting my name and number to a taxi driver in Bali and telling him I needed a tour guide for my time there. I got a text from him the next day asking where and when I would like to meet, and then I had to apologise and explain I was actually in Australia and had no intention of going to Bali!

Anyway, no-one knew I was coming and everyone was surprised, especially Emily who nearly fainted. She actually didn't speak for 20 minutes, and if you know Emily, thats something amazing.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1251210902/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1251210902/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1251210902/tpod.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:20:15 -0400 One more wee trip!

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Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia

Back to Kuala Lumpur for a night! I wasn't expecting much here, maybe just go to the Chinese market, take a few photos of the twin towers, then get an early night. Obviously it didn't work out that way.

I got talking to an Australian girl in the hostel called Sandy, then English guy called Sam joined our conversation. Then Sam's friend he was travelling with, Adam, then another English guy staying in their room, Adil, then a Swedish girl, Jasmin, and then an Irish guy called Christian.

So long story short we ended up going to a bar on the 32nd floor of a hotel facing the Patronus Towers. It's the kind of bar where you realise that the rich and famous live a life you fucking well don't. The kind of place where a beer costs a tenner, where the waiters don't bother giving you your change unless you specifically ask for it, and where they have a swimming pool in the middle of the room. Yes, a swimming pool.

I had one drink (thats all I could afford) and we took photos of the stunning view while we had the chance. The lights of the Towers went out at 11pm, much to the annoyance of Adam who never bothered getting the shot when he first arrived. Then we walked around KL for about an hour trying to find another bar we'd heard about which was on the roof of another building, but by the time we found it, it had closed. Who would've thought you couldn't buy alcohol at 2am in a muslim country?

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1250424984/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1250424984/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gary_cailin/3/1250424984/tpod.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:51:07 -0400 One more wee trip!

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Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

With time running short, we could only choose to do one more thing. The girls went off to the tropical island they filmed the first series of "Survivor" on and I went to Brunei for the night. We'd been told there wasn't really much to do there, and thats why the girls didn't join me, but I wanted to go and see for myself and really just to visit another country more than anything else. I've only 4 blank pages left in my passport, so every stamp helps. ;)

Well, what we had been told was true, there really was nothing to do. There's a great big mosque in the centre of town, and then the Sultans Palace, but thats about it. The mosque is pretty cool though, the floor and walls made from Italian Marble, the stained glass windows were cafted in the UK, and the carpets were flown in from Saudi Arabia. Tasteful!

Brunei is one of those random places that everyone's heard of (the sultan was the richest man in the world for a long time until Bill Gates overtook him), but no one knows where it is. It's one of the smallest countries in the world, and it was about to be completely enveloped by Malaysia, until oil was discovered in 1929, turning this little country into one of the worlds economic powers overnight. The current Sultans father decided to throw his lot in with the British and remain under their protection instead of becoming part of Malaysia, and this is what helped keep all that oil and money in this little country.

How one man can have so much money (about $35 billion at last count) is because he shares the wealth. Brunei has a 94% literacy rate (higher than Portugal), life expectancy is 77 years (higher than Scotland) and there are free pensions for all, free schooling, free health care, free sport & leisure centres, cheap loans and no income tax. As long as the Sultan keeps it real for his homies, they won't have a revolution and hang his ass on live TV.

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Tenom, Sabah, Malaysia

Four hours from KK on a bus and then another hour on a train and we were ready to go White Water Rafting. I did this before in Peru, but I was very disappointed by it, the rapids weren't very rapid, and I spent most of the time pissed at a French guy in my boat that just annoyed me. Thankfully this time it was pretty awesome. The rapids were rapid and our boat was full of cool people, all non-french.

When the river allowed it, we all jumped in for a swim, (or thrown overboard by our guide) and then had to climb back in when it because too shallow and we risked having our legs broken by the rocks underneath. Once again safety is a big player in Borneo. :)

It was a great day, we all enjoyed it, and it was a nice end to our time in Borneo. :)

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