TravelStream™ news feed for member jonandfay on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jonandfay en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Mon, 25 Jun 2007 03:29:35 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1181109900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1181109900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1181109900/tpod.html Mon, 25 Jun 2007 03:29:35 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

Off to Cambodia!! We took a bus from Bangkok to Poipet on the border, we then changed buses in Cambodia, and this bus made the bus to Chaing Mai seem like heaven! The road between Poipet and Siem Reap is the worst road in Asia - there's actually an airline that pays the Cambodian government not to mend the road, so that more people fly! It was such a small bus and was like being on a rollercoaster for 7 hours! We arrived in the evening and went straight to sleep!! We were given a tuk tuk driver for our time in Siem Reap, who took us all around Angkor Wat! We began our day in Angkor at Angkor Wat itself. It's absolutely beautiful, stunning and huge! This was our favourite temple, especially after seeing sunrise there! Secondly we went to Angkor Thom where we saw the Bayon temple, this is amazing with faces all carved in to the rocks! We then went to Baphuon which was just really a pile of rocks as it had been destroyed in the 70s by the Americans dropping bombs on it! A Cambodia man attached himself to us here and took it upon himself to walk us around the temple telling us all of the history - we didn't ask for him and when we gave him some Cambodian money at the end to say thanks, he got all arsy with us for giving him that currency instead of Thai Bhat! We then visited the Elephant Terrace, which is really cool and has elephants subtly engraved in to the walls with their trunks hanging down! We finished our day watching sunset at Phnam Bakheng which is the highest temple! There were SO many people there and loads of steep steps to the top - basically an accident waiting to happen, so we left quite early to avoid the stampede!! To be honest, we didn't really stay for the best bit and as we drove away in our tuk tuk, the sunset looked amazing! There are so many children everywhere selling stuff and they just do not leave you alone, you have to show absolute zero interest, otherwise they just will not leave you alone! Jon didn't quite master this, and always ended up with a million children around him! There's also loads of families of monkeys around, which also hassle you, but aren't quite so demanding! We had an early night that night, ready for sunrise at 5am the next day! It was so worth it - we watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat, totally breathtaking, especially with the reflection of the temple in the lake - stunning! Only problem was, getting up at this time meant we were exhausted, so we just visited a couple more temples - Banteay Kdei, which was really eery as we were the only ones there, Srah Srang, which was kind of a ruin overlooking the lake and finally Ta Prohm, which was awesome! It has loads of huge trees growing amongst the temple and the roots are enormous - it makes the temple look so unique, which made it one of our favourite temples! It's hard to put the wonder of Angkor in to words, so we'll just let the photos do the talking!!
That afternoon we took a bus to Phnom Penh - not quite as terrible as the Siem Reap bus journey, but the 2ft man in front of me obviously needed to have his chair right back for the whole journey and don't ask me why, but Cambodian Karaoke isn't my first choice for entertainment on the TV for a 5 and a half hour bus journey! We got picked up by 4 guys on motorbikes to take us to our hostel! We feared for our lives and the hostel was so so gross! Phnom Penh is really not nice, so we decided to stay in a nice hotel for the night, which turned in to 2 nights! All of us couldn't stop smiling after checking in here and we had the most amazing buffet dinner!! Stayed in the comfort of our hotel and watched the Roland Garros final between Federer and Nadal and Nadal won - woo hoo!! We did all the tourist things in Phnom Penh in one day - we hired a tuk tuk and went to the killing fields and the toruture museum! The Killing Fields were so sad and harrowing. There was a wall of skulls of all the people who had been excavated from the mass graves and all of their clothes too. There were signs telling you where buildings used to be and where all the horrible things happned. There were huge holes from all the mass graves! It was so hard to imagine that such a horrific thing happened right there and not even that long ago! Next we went to the torture museum. It used to be a high school, but was used as a prison and place of torture during the Pol Pot regime. Some of the classrooms just had a bed in the middle of the room and pictures of the tortured inmate on the wall, others were used for mass detention and others divided in to TINY little cells! There was a photo gallery of lots of the victims and stories told by relatives - so of the victims were so young, and even babies. We watched a video of relatives talking about victims and one guard who used to work at the school was talking about all the things he used to do to the prisoners - he showed no remorse at all. A very morbid day in Cambodia, and our last day too. But all of us agreed, it's definitley something that everyone should see in Cambodia, if only to understand the severity of what actually happened.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1181716440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1181716440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1181716440/tpod.html Mon, 25 Jun 2007 03:23:42 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, Vietnam

Our first day in Ho Chi Minh we just spent wandering around and trying to stay alive crossing the roads - really cool city! The next day we went to Cu Chi Tunnels! It turned out to be the most irritating tour - we went an hour and a half past the tunnels to go a temple called the Caodai Great Temple. It was really colourful and looked kind of cartoon like! There was some ceremony going on while we were there and was a mix of 3 religions - Buddhism, Islam and Christianity! It was a waste of time as there were about a million tourists inside the temple and we stayed there for about 15 minutes - very unimpressed, a waste of 3 hours of our life! Finally, we reached the Cu Chi Tunnels! We watched some propoganda film made in the 60s when we first arrived - lots of bad mouthing of Americans! We walked around the whole Cu Chi area and saw the entrances to the tunnels, fake entrances, traps, rooms and model soldiers! The actual entrance to the tunnels was so tiny and the traps were so gruesome! It's amazing that the Vietnamese won using such basic, guerrilla warface, while the Americans had all the technology. There was a huge hole in the ground where the Americans had dropped a B52 bomb! We had the chance to walk through one of the tunnels, it was so narrow and dark, we got a bit in, but claustrophobia struck and we got out fast!! God knows how they spent such long periods of time underground in the tunnels - they even gave birth down there! Such an interesting day!
We decided we were quite pushed for time as we had to travel at Will and Caroline's pace as they were leaving on 24th June, so we flew to Hanoi! We spent the evening checking out Hanoi, which is so crazy, but really cool! Bangkok seems like a little village compared to Hanoi! The next day we had our suits fitted at the tailors - very snazzy! We had a very interesting meal that night - the translation on the menu was so bad that no one knew what they were ordering, so we each picked something from the menu and hoped for the best! The next day we were picked up early to go to Halong Bay! Drove to a city called Haiphong, which is the 3rd biggest city in Vietnam. We got on our boat and went to an amazing cave - it was enormous and had loads of sculptures inside! After that we sailed around the islands for a bit - there are 1,169 altogether and they are stunning and so dramatic! We got dropped off on Cat Ba Island which is the only island you can stay on - we planned to spend a couple of days here for some chilled out beach time! The drive from the port to the town was so pretty and showed how green and lush the island actually is, but the town itself - oh my god! It looks like Southend - very tacky, loads of rude people everywhere, murky, dirty water - I actually think Southend is nicer! We had a really fun day at the beach though playing in the sea, except me and Caroline got scratched by being dragged along the sea bed because the sea was so rough! The final straw was when Caroline got peed on by a little boy - we decided one day on Cat Ba was plenty and decided to head back to Hanoi - we left the next morning and sailed back to Hanoi through the islands - it started to rain which made the islands look so eery - awesome! We miraculously arrived back in Hanoi after the worst driver ever tried his hardest to kill us at every opportunity! We stayed in the Old Quarter again and went out for some drinks! We went to a bar called Le Pub for "a couple of drinks", but everyone from our Halong Bay trip drifted in and we ended up being there for ages and having such a fun night! We loved Vietnam! The countryside is beautiful and the cities are crazy - exactlty the balance that a country should have!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1179639360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1179639360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1179639360/tpod.html Mon, 25 Jun 2007 02:30:29 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

We left Koh Tao to go back to Bangkok - very sad day for all of us as we had such a great time diving and Koh Tao is so beautiful! Only bad thing is on our last day I found out I had been frauded and someone had taken over 800 pounds from my account - turned out to be some Italian person - cheeky bugger, luckily all worked out OK and I got the money back very soon! Had another 2 very uncultural days in Bangkok! We left for Chiang Mai the following day on a 12 hour bus - the most uncomfortable bus ever! We were sat on the top deck at the back, so any sort of movement that happened, affected us about 10 times more than anyone else - not a very enjoyable experince, especially for 12 hours! Anyway, we arrived in Chaing Mai at 7am and our Thai visa ran out on that day, so after our mammoth bus journey, we had to do another 12 hour journey to Mynamar to do a visa run - just what we all wanted!! To make it worse, it wasn't just a visa run, it was a visa run incorporated in to a huge tour of the surrounding areas of Chiang Mai. Despite our tiredness, we tried to make the most of it - we stopped at a hot spring which stunk of sulphur and we were asked if we wanted to cook an egg in it and then eat it - erm, no thanks! Then we went to Chiang Saen, some ancient city, which is over 650 years old - lots of temples, buddhas etc here! The coolest part of the tour was when we went to The Golden Triangle - this is when you are stood in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, all at the same time! We crossed the border and got another 30 days on our visa, then on the way back to our hostel, we stopped at one of the Hill Tribes, the Akha tribe, which was really interesting, but we were already booked in for a 3 day hill tribe trek for the next day, so we weren't really too bothered about seeing it after 20 hours straight travelling!
So, after a nice sleep we began our 3 day trek in the hills of Pai. First we visited the village of the Lisu tribe - about a million children gathered around us and very forcefully put bracelets on your wrists and then you have to give them money for them - Jon ended up with about 20! We then started our trek, which was only an hour and a quarter, but it seemed like a lifetime - it was so hard in the midday sun, and plus the fact our guide had just had a huge intake of Opium, so he was bouncing up the walls, or should I say the hills, and it was very hard to keep up with him! Our walk finished in the village of the Lasu tribe where we stayed that night! On the walk, one of our guides saw a cobra - still very grateful that I did not witness that!! All the blokes in our group played a game of football against all the Thai guys who lived in the hills! It was a draw, but it started to rain and being Western, all our guys ran inside, and the Thais carried on playing - it has been agreed that it was a draw! We had some amazing food and then entertainment from tribe (traditional dances etc) and then all 13 of us slept in this room - rock hard floor and so many gaps in the wall - all I could think abuot was snakes! The next day we trekked to a waterfall, where we had a very well deserved, refreshing swim! We had lunch at the village of the Akha tribe, where there were the cutest pigs! We were supposed to do our elephant trek after this, but, because it was raining, the elephant keepers had fallen asleep (of course) and had lost 4 of the elephants??! I'm still trying to figure that one out - the guy said it so matter of factly, that I guess this must be common practice when it rains in Thailand! We had to walk to the next village of the Karen tribe, and it rained so much for the whole of the walk, which turned out to be really fun, once you got passed the stage where you couldn't get any wetter - it was brilliant! The blokes got really drunk that night and me and Caroline weren't drinking, which turned out to be a priceless experience - you couldn't have paid for that sort of entertainment! On our last day, we went bamboo rafting, which is definitely the most un-fun thing I have ever done to date! Our driver man was awful, everyone else was cruising leisurely down the nice brown river but we were off somewhere totally different, crashing into things, then our raft snapped, so we were quite submurged, with little bits of poo in the water floating past us - lovely, and to think we paid for this! Then, one of our guides, an absolute idiot, who called himself Beckham (serioulsy, who does that) decided it would be amusing to crash in to us - as he did this, it was like someone had taken my legs out and I crashed on to my back, which left me with a massive graze down my back - I tell you, a succession of so many bad words have not come out of my mouth towards an individual before! He didn't seem to mind though, and just laughed, which added to my fury! Finished our trip with elephant trekking, which was a perfect way to finish - someone else doing the hard work, and Beckham no where in sight!!
Back in civilisation was amazing! We went out that night because it was Dan's (a Candian guy in our group) 21st birthday! The next day we just wandered around and had a great massage! We thought we had better do something cultural in Chiang Mai, which is a great city by the way, so we visited the main temple, suprisingly called The Grand Temple! It's right on top of a mountain and as with most temples, involes a lot of gold and buddhas! Had some great views of the city on the way up! Left Chaing Mai that night to make the trechourous 12 hour bus journey back to Bangkok, where we had lots of fun on Caroline's birthday... we think!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1179717780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1179717780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1179717780/tpod.html Mon, 28 May 2007 00:01:20 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Koh Tao, Thailand

Now to our favourite place - Koh Tao!! When we arrived there, me and Caroline stayed in a bar with all of the bags, while the boys went to find us a good deal on diving! They were unsuccesful, so we just got a taxi to an amazing resort called Coral Grand Resort, and this turned out to be the cheapest for our Open Water Diving Course! Our first night we watched the F.A. Cup Final between Chelsea and Man U - after Man U's loss, Jon was distraught, and I had to remind him of the significance of football compared to everything else in life! As Jon had already done his Open Water, he was just doing fun dives with some dive masters! The first day of our course didn't start until the afternoon, so we had the morning chilling by the pool and the afternoon was just orientation and theory - quite boring! We had more theory the next morning and then spent 4 hours under water in the swimming pool learning skills etc! Day 3 was our first day in the sea, we went to a dive sight called Japanese Gardens, which didn't have great visibility, but we were only really practising skills anyway! Our second dive was at White Rock and we saw a WHALE SHARK!! It was so amazing, it was only about 6 metres, so just a baby, but it was so beautiful and graceful! We were so lucky, there are people who have been diving for more than 18 years and that was their first time seeing one, and we saw ours on our first day diving! Second day in the sea, we went much deeper at a place called South West Pinnacle, where we saw loads of trigger fish! Next we went to Shark Island, there are no sharks here and we didn't see a great deal, but the whole of this day, we were being filmed for our DVD! The camera man was such a moody South African, but he did such a great job, the DVD is brilliant! He filmed us jumping off the boat, dancing underwater wearing sunglasses and generally swimming around! In the afternoon we did our final exam and got 98% - alright!! So we are all now qualified divers! That evening we went to celebrate with our instructor, Jonas and the 2 other people in our group, Matt and Kim! We only lasted a while, because diving really takes it out of you! We had 2 very nice days chilling by the pool and then on our last day, we did 4 dives! We went diving at dive sights called Chumphon, White Rock, Twins and then White Rock again! At Chumphon, we did our adventure deep diving, where we dived to 30 metres. You could really feel the temperature change and we wer supposed to see sharks, but the visibility was very limited, so we didn't see any! But we saw loads of mory eels, stingrays and loads of other fish on those dives! On our last dive, the day I have been dreading my whole life came - we had just reached our depth and I looked to my left and there it was........a sea snake!!!!! I wasn't scared at all, I pointed it out to everyone and they were all very impressed! It just goes to show, these things are never as scary as you think! The highlight of this dive, other than conquering my fear, was a fish called Juvenile Harlequin Sweet Lips - it hasn't quite grasped the idea of swimming yet, so it just sort of wiggles it's body like it's grooving, and just goes up and down - it's brilliant! It amused us no end, and we spent a good few minutes grooving around it! Had such an amazing time here - we're all addicted to diving now, and are already planning our diving holiday together next year!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1178420160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1178420160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1178420160/tpod.html Sun, 27 May 2007 23:44:12 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Koh Samui, Thailand

We caught a boat from Phi Phi to Koh Samui and caught a taxi to North Chaweng and stayed at a place calle Your Place Bungalows! Really nice place, right on the beach! We had dinner on the beach and it was exactly how we imagined it - lanterns being set off in to the sky everywhere and lights lining both directions of the beach from all the bars and restaurants! We were pretty tired that night, went to a couple of bars, but then decided it was probably best just to go back to our place for a couple of games of cards! The next day we hired a jeep to drive around and check out the island! First we went to a look out point overlooking a lot of the island, which was really pretty. Second, we went to Grandmother and Grandfather rock, which, to put politely, resembles the anatomy of men and women - delightful! We went to a waterfall, which was so trecherous to walk to, and half way up, some German man told us not to bother because it didn't even resemble a waterfall, so we cut our losses and retreated back to the car! Jon fell down on the way back, and was not happy, he threw his flip flops - he tends to do that a lot recently whenever he hurts himself - he narrowly skimmed my head yesterday with a flip flop after stubbing his toe (think it fair to mention at this point, that this was not done in a wife beating sort of way)! We went to another 18 metre waterfall called Na Muang, this was much more like a waterfall! The boys went swimming, but me and Caroline thought better of the brown coloured water and decided to just take photos. There were loads of kids in there egging Jon and Will to jump off a rock into the brown water, but considering they could already touch rocks at the bottom of the pool thing, they decided it was not a good idea! We drove to the very North of the island to the Big Buddha - is was big and very cool! Caroline drove us back to our hostel - it was hilarious, she got very in to the Thai way of driving, beeping at anyone in her path and beeping to signal she was overtaking - very humorous! Had another night of party times that night. We found ourselves in 2 huge clubs, I don't know where they came from, but they were mighty fun! The boys played pool against 2 lady boys - the boys won and the lady boys were not happy! Another day of recovery on the beach the next day, except this didn't really work as the heavens opened! Me and Jon had a massage and it was amazing!!
Next day we caught the boat to Koh Pha Ngan! Got sucked in by some silly Thai person to go to North beach to stay at a "really nice resort"! Needless to say, it wasn't and it was the worst place, so we caught a taxi to Haatrin - the party place! We stayed in some lovely bungalows on Haatrin Nai beach (the quiet end)! We went to the other end of the beach and ended up having such a great night on the beach! There were fire juggles, limbo, tug of war (of which Jon and Will were the champions, even against some huge Israelis)! There was some really gross competition where someone from each country had to drink 3 drinks asap and then smoke a cigarette as fast as they could - I did not envy the people involved in this! We spent the next day playing beach tennis and sunbathing. We decided to go to another part of Koh Pha Ngan, so we went to Bottle Beach. This was a beautiful, secluded beach with nothing but accommodation! It was really quiet and we spent the days trying to beat each others frisbee and beach tennis rally records! After Bottle Beach, we went to Thong Nai Pan Yai. This is the quieter of the 2 beaches in Thong Nai Pan. Both Bottle Beach and Thong Nai Pan are only accessible by boat, so they really are peaceful! On Thong Nai Pan Yai, we stayed at a place called Dreamland resort - our time here was spent sunbathing, playing more beach games and having massages! The evening were spent chilling on our balconies listening to tunes! In Thong Nai Pan, they had the coolest frogs ever - they were even smaller than a 5p coin - I couldn't get enough of them!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1177986660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1177986660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1177986660/tpod.html Sun, 27 May 2007 23:19:49 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Krabi, Thailand

We got to Thailand overland from Malaysia, via the border at Sungai Kolok. From here we took the bus to Krabi. On the way to Krabi during the mammoth bus journey, we stopped for some free food at a place called Trang. I began eating what looked like a harmless curry, and then it hit me and I thought my airwaves were going to close up and I was going to die - it was so hot!! I tried to warn Jon of this, but I think he thought I was just being lame, so he gobbled up a few mouthfulls - obviously, it took a while for the effect to hit him, but then he was clearly hit harder than me, as he had eaten loads more and he looked like he'd just been given the worst news ever and looked on the verge of crying for a good 10 minutes - so that was our first intro to Thai food! We stayed at a great hostel in Krabi called KR Mansion, and that night made the most of the cheap booze with a guy we met called Dean! Krabi is a pretty average town, with loads of markets, restaurants etc!
The next day, we caught the bus & boat to Koh Phi Phi, this is where the film, The Beach was filmed. We didn't do much on this visit to Phi Phi, but we returned again a few days later! On our first trip, it rained like nothing else most of the time, we stayed up in the mountains and had a huge storm that night, where I was convinced our little hut was going to blow away - fortunately, we're still here to tell the tale! We visited a place called Long Beach, which was a really nice beach and generally just scoped out the island. It's amazing to think that Phi Phi was hit the hardest by the Tsunami - they've done so well at putting everything back together, that really, unless you looked really hard, you wouldn't really notice. The only down point is, Phi Phi is quite expensive - obviously, not by English standards, but definitley by Thai standards!
The place we visitied next, Koh Lanta, looked more like it had been hit by the Tsunami, and they didn't really get it that bad! We could have gone straight from Phi Phi to Koh Lanta, but we owed 124 baht to the people at our hostel in Krabi, so we thought we should go back, so we don't give the British a bad name! So, off to Koh Lanta we went. We stayed at a really nice resort with a pool called Lanta New Beach Resort, and that night we arranged to meet up with our friends, Will and Caroline, who we met in America. We have travelled all through Thailand with them, and we've decided to spend the rest of our travels with them too, through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam! So, our 2 days in Koh Lanta were spent just messing around in our pool and catching some rays! There really is not a lot to do in Koh Lanta, so people tend to stick to their resorts. On our last night there, we went to Will and Caroline's resort to watch Arsenal v Chelsea. Their resort was owned by a really nice Thai lady who spoke great English because she was married to a German. They had opened up their resort for 15 Burmese orphens to stay there! These children have nothing - they have no papers, the Burmese government wants to get rid of their particular race, and they've never even seen the sea or anything before. So, needless to say, they were all very excited, despite the fact they had all been cooped up in a tiny van for 3 days! Fire jugglers and football games etc had been set up for them and they loved it! They were lovely!
So, as I said, we returned to Phi Phi with Will and Caroline, and had a wicked time this time! We stayed right in the centre in a hostel owned by a lady called Lee - she was hilarious, she remembered everyones' names and had quite a thing for Will! We caught a long tail boat to Phi Phi Lay, which is the smaller of the 2 islands - it's a National Park and uninhabited, so you can't stay there, and this is where The Beach was filmed! We went to a cave called Viking Cave, which was so eery with loads of formations hanging down, and people even lived inside it! We went to a beautiful place called Loh Samah Bay, which had beautiful clear, green water and we just swam around in it for a while! Finally, we went to Maya Bay, which is "The Beach". We went snorkelling first and were absolutely surrounded by fish! Then went on to the beach - it's not quite as idyllic as in the film, firstly because of all the tourists there, and secondly, the Tsunami gave it quite a beating I would imagine! That night, we watched The Beach, and it was so cool to think we had been there earlier that day! Had a big party that night, so the next day was spent recovering on one of the beautiful beaches on Phi Phi Don! Will and Jon invented a game called "Palms" (I named it), and I think it's fair to say, they've been quite obsessed with it!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176732780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176732780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176732780/tpod.html Fri, 04 May 2007 00:19:55 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Jerantut, Malaysia

We went with Jon's friend (who we stayed with in KL) to an island that her family owns and we had 4 very nice, free days on an amazing island! We had a really cool beach hut all to ourselves! On the first night we had a bit of a party cos it was one of the guy's birthdays who worked there - lots of very strong cocktails and tunes and all for free - brilliant! The rest of our time there we didn't do a great deal - we went snorkelling and saw stingrays, nemos and loads of other pretty fish, sunbathed and just generally chilled! It was wicked - I think it was my favourite place in Malaysia! Only complaing was on the bus there and back, it's supposed to take 6 hours, but it ended up taking about 7 and a half cos the bus driver stops at every single persons house to drop them off - bloody liberty! We returned to KL for a day and not a lot happened, except some monk came up to us asking us for money and gave us both bracelets and some badge thing, we gave him 3 ringgitt each (about 50p) and he wanted us to give him 50 ringgitt from us - whatever monk! So, he quickly snatched back Jon's bracelet (which he's still going on about) and probably put some kind of curse on us! We left KL to go to Taman Negara! It's of the 7 natural wonders of the world cos it's the oldest jungle in the world - over130 million years old! To go there you first have to go to Jerantut, which is horrid! To make it worse, Jon fell into a 3ft drain between the road and the pavement - he got mad and shouted and threw stuff! It wasn't funny at the time, but is was afterwards because people kept coming up to us saying "Excuse me, no offence, but are you the guy that fell in the drain"? It was so funny, everyone knew, and people even asked him 2 days later when we returned from the park! So, we caught the local bus to Kuala Tahan, which is the village in front of the National Park. We had dinner on a floating restaurant, which was gross, but fun to be in a floating restaurant. And the next day we went into Taman Negara and did the Canopy Walk above the jungle! It's 50 metres above the ground and is just a series of walkways made from ladders and suspended from the trees with rope! It was brilliant and we saw monkeys, tree shrews, wild boar and a monitor lizard! It was such a cool way to see the jungle and avoid the snakes!
Our next port of call was the Perhentian Islands! We decided to take the "Jungle Train" to Kota Bharu. This is supposed to be some amazing journey with all sorts of crazy stuff going on. In fact, it turned out to be the most average train journey ever! So, not a great deal to report from the Perhentian Islands, the main reason being it rained for most of the time we were there, so we just ended up watching loads of films and football and I even read 3 books, one of them was huge! But the 2 days it didn't rain, it was so pretty and we just lounged around on the beach topping up the old tan!
So, we enjoyed Malaysia and it was cool for Jon to see all the stuff from his childhood! One huge issue I have with Malaysia, and probably the rest of Asia..........SPITTING! I mean, I know it's a different culture and bla bla bla, but spitting is not part of a culture, it's just disgusting! We're all humans and therefore all made in the same way, therefore, Asian people have no more reason to spit than we do - it's just gross and not necessary! The worst time was in our hostel in KL, I was happily showering away and the man in the shower next to me was making the most disgusting sounds pre-spitting, it actually made me heave and when Jon went in the shower after me, he was still going and Jon was equally as disturbed! We thought he might of been ill or something, but when he came out of the shower, he started having a perfectly normal conversation with us - bizarre!
Now we're in Thailand, but haven't really done anything yet, so we'll save those tales for another day!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176386220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176386220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176386220/tpod.html Fri, 04 May 2007 00:02:10 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Our first stop in Malaysia was Melaka. Really cool place with loads of Dutch Influences. We were very touristy and saw lots of the sights; the Town Square, which has really pretty teracotta colour buildings and a nice fountain! Saw loads of other things, like St Pauls Church, The Stadthuys and Porto de Santiago - most of these things are ruins, but was still really cool to see them! Also saw the Maritime museum, we didn't go in because we were a bit sighseed out by then, but it's a massive boat and the museum is inside - pretty cool stuff! We thought we best go in a rickshaw as there were so many of them following us around, and they're so cool - they're all pimped up with flowers and tinsel and crazy tunes blaring out! We took one to a buddhist temple called Cheng Hoon Teng Temple and I felt so sorry for the little man - he must have been older than my grandad and so small and skinny, I thought he was going to keel over, fortunately he didn't! Spent the evening in a really cool bar - we both think it is the best bar ever - it had such old, cheesy tunes AND free internet - brilliant! Had the yummiest dinner too - we went to a Satay restaurant where you have a massive pot of satay sauce cooking in the middle of the table and you just buys sticks with chicken and cuttlefish and then you dip them in the satay to cook - it was delicious!!
So, we only really spent one day in Melaka, it's pretty small, so it was enough, and then we caught a bus to KL! The bus station in KL is like hell, it's so hectic and in a really gross part of town, so, initially, as soon as you get there you want to leave, and once we had seen our hostel, we wanted to leave even more - we ended up not staying there cos it was horrific! We hung out in KLCC shopping centre - the Petronas Towers are literally the coolest building I have seen in my life - I love them! We met up with one of Jon's school friends and went out for the evening in an area called Bukit Bintang and Heritage, was really cool, but the alcohol is a bit on the pricey side! We checked out Merdeka Square, which just has loads of pretty buildings and the tallest flag pole in the world! It's very significant because it's where Malaysia first signified its indepence! Moving stuff! We spent the afternoon in Time Square shopping centre where there is an indoor theme park! It was brilliant, the rides were wicked - slightly on the nervy side, but really cool, and to add to the nerves, as we were watching one of the rides, it got stuck upside down, naturally this filled us with confidence and we decided to steer clear of it! Had a back massage and reflexology - very painful, it was like paying to be beaten up! That evening went out to a club, but didn't stay too long, it turned out to be a bit of a brothel! We went to stay with one of Jon's friends in her flat - she was working, so we went to see Batu Caves which are a very holy place and you have to walk up a million steps to get to them, but worth it, it's really eery and there's monkeys everywhere! Caught the bus back to KL - I'm amazed we're still here to tell the tale! Did some bartering in Petaling Street - all the stalls pretty much sold the same thing, but Jon got himself a pretty cool fake Man U shirt, so not a wasted trip! So, all in all, KL was cool!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176180360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176180360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1176180360/tpod.html Wed, 11 Apr 2007 01:15:46 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Singapore, Singapore

We arrived in Singapore 2 weeks earlier than expensive, purely because we found Oz really expensive and we were ready to see something other than beaches! We've basically just been sightseeing since we've been here. There's a bus you can get for $3 for the whole day which takes you round the city. We started our day walking down Orchard Road to see all the shops etc, it wasn't as exclusive as we expected! We went to the Botanic Gardens and then had lunch in Little India, which was so delicious and cheap! We had a Singapore Sling in Raffles hotel - so expensive and not really that tasty, but hey, it was the experience that counted! We went to Marina Bay and saw the Esplanade and the Merlion. We walked around the Lau Pa Sat Festival Markets and has a delcious dinner in China Town! Also seen loads of amazing temples, all so detailed and all so different - The Goddess of Mercy Temple, Sri Krishnan Temple, Thian Hock Keng Temple and Sri Mariamman Temple. We met up with our friend Jeremy who lives here and also met up with Jon's dad who took us out for a delicious chinese meal at Boat Quay - had black pepper crab which was amazing! Sorry to just list all our activities, but nothing really eventful has happened here, we've just seen sight after sight! Getting a bus to Malaysia tomorrow - can't wait!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1174191420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1174191420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonandfay/jonfay_2006-07/1174191420/tpod.html Wed, 11 Apr 2007 01:05:37 -0400 The wrong way around the world

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Cairns, Australia

We did a 3 day/2 night self-drive tour of Fraser Island. You get put together with 10 other people and given a suggested itinerary to get round the island, and then the rest is up to you! Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world and it has more sand than the Sahara Desert! We had a really good group - there were 9 blokes and 3 girls and we all got on really well. I accidentally put myself down as the 1st driver and so had to drive this huge 4x4 car first with 10 passengers in the back - it was petrifying for everyone involved! The first day we got there we decided to go to a lake called Lake Wabby - it's a huge green lake with a massive sand dune leading down in to iy. In 10-15 years the lake won't be there anymore because the sand dune is slowly engulfing it, so we were lucky to see it - what we weren't so lucky about was our walk back from the lake. On the way to the lake, we followed the same route as everyone else - a nice well formed track which took about 45 mins from where we parked our car, then, as we were about to leave the lake, one of the boys says he has just been talking to some guy who has told him a direct way back to the car over the sand dunes which is loads shorter than the pathway we had come by. So, off we went. Walking over the dunes was fine, then we got into the bush - at first it seemed there was a track, and then it started getting slightly thicker and we were treading over and under branches and trees and then it got really thick. It was obvious that no one had ever been walking here - EVER but by this time the bush was so thick and we had been walking for so long, that we couldn't go back because no one knew the way we had came, so we walked to the top of a hill to see how far we were from the beach - we were miles away! And the bush was so thick (at least knee deep) that there was no way forward, backwards or either side, we had no water between 9 of us and everyone was starting to get a bit anxious! I started crying because I thought someone said they had seen a snake (this place was definitley snake heaven)! We decided the only way to get back was to tread through the thick bush to a sandune we could see in the distance and just hope for the best, since, presumably this lead to the beach. Fortunatley, it did, and after 3 hours we were back at our car! I said to everyone how lucky we were that no one had got bitten, and one of the guys said that he had actually seen a massive black snake, but thought it best not to mention it as everyone was already very concerned - I'm so glad he didn't say anything! Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was a terrifying experince, one I never want to repeat! That night, to celebrate being alive, we set up our tents with all the other 4x4s on the island and we all had a massive party! Saw loads of dingoes, but they're not very scary, just kind of like big foxes! The next day we went to Indian Head where you can apparently see tiger sharks and turtles - we didn't! And the boys wanted to go to this place called Eli creek where you go to the top of the creek and apparently the current brings you back to the shore - I think this is a myth because when us girls returned from the loo, the boys were all wading their way back to shore, but, obviously none of them were going to admit that they were wrong about this! Had another party that night, the boys decided it was a good idea to drink 10 4litre boxes of wine between 9 of them - thank god I was too hungover to drink because it was so hilarious to watch and they had all thrown up by about 9pm - bless them. So, the next morning was a bit slow getting started and we spent our final day by Lake Mackenzie, which is an amazing clear lake - not much to say about this, the photo says it all!

After Fraser Island, we went to Airlie Beach to get on our yacht to go sailing around the Whitsunday Islands. Our boat was called Hammer and was very brightly coloured! There were 22 of us on board, plus the 3 crew members. We all got to get involved in the sailing, Jon helped with pulling up the main sail and I used the grinder. The boat was really fast, we ended our trip racing a really fast Maxi yacht, and we got up to 16.5knots and won the race! It was really great, we chilled out alot on the boat, even though it was at a 45 degree angle a lot of the time, and we got to go snorkelling every day, saw loads of cool fish, and coral! We were sleeping on the boat which was very cozy and slightly on the warm side! We had a really cool group, the food on board was amazing and the sunsets we saw were just beautiful since there was nothing in the way to spoil them! We visited Whithaven beach, which is supposed to be one of the top 10 beaches in the world, you can see why, and we saw a reef shark swimming in the really shallow water! So, all in all, it was a great trip!

Our last stop in Oz was Cairns. We were there very briefly, but spent our day snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef. We went to Saxon Reef and Hastings Reef. The coral was unbelievable - just in the middle of the sea, so all the water around was really deep, but suddenly really shallow where the coral was! We saw a white tip shark (I thought I would die when the day came I was in the sea and saw a shark, but I was so excited) and we saw a green turtle swimming about 2feet from us - it was amazing! I enjoyed it so much, it has inspired me to get my open water diving thing when we're in Malaysia!


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