TravelStream™ news feed for member kyliebruce on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/kyliebruce en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:27:45 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227508080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227508080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227508080/tpod.html Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:27:45 -0500 South East Asia

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Ko Chang, Thailand

Finally, time for a beach! To get there we caught public busses, from Ayutthaya to Bangkoks bus station, and then to Trat. We stayed the night in Trat and then caught the car ferry over to Ko Chang and then set about finding somewhere to stay. We had been recommended to head for Kai bae beach, so we did. We lucked out in finding a bungalow almost on the beach, that was affordable (relative to all the other accommodation we found there!). Our resort also had a very cool restaurant built out over the sea. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, a bit grey and overcast. Not to be put off, we joined all the other tourists chilling out on the beach and swimming.

The next day dawned still grey so we decided to book our elephant trekking trip for that day. We were collected from our resort and taken back around the island and a little into the jungle to meet the elephants. We were given pineapple on arrival, and then walked down with the elephants to the watering hole in the river. It was quite surreal to turn around and discover an elephant walking right behind us. At the water the elephants hop right and, and we all got to swim with them. Bruce and I were towards to the end of our group and were both on one elephant. I was scrubbing the elephant, and she kept on filling her trunk with water and giving Bruce a shower (he was sitting on her neck). He got off so that I could scrub her head, and the next thing I new she was getting out of the water with me still on her back. I didn't realise just how tall she was until we were out of the water! We walked back up to the camp with me sitting on her neck, quite a vunerable feeling really. Once back at the camp we all got onto elephants with seats for the trek. On each elephant there were 2 people and the Mahout. We trekked through the jungle for about an hour, Bruce got the chance to sit on her neck for a while too. Once back we fed the elephants bananas and then were taken back to our resorts. A swim in the sea was very much needed to feel clean again!

The last day we finally got some sun! We spent the day chilling out on the beach, making the most of some time to relax!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1228230000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1228230000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1228230000/tpod.html Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:24:54 -0500 South East Asia

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Ko Phangan, Thailand

Another catamaran ferry, another bumpy ride and more seasick tablets to get through it. I'm not sure why we keep putting ourselves through this (except for the good beaches at the end of course!)

We arrived on Ko Tao to find the taxi promised by our resort hadnt shown, and all the taxis were quoted ridiculous fares! Eventually we managed to find one that was part reasonable and headed out to our bungalow. The road to the bungalow went up and over the mountains in the middle of the island, and the road was only partly paved. For the rest we just had to hang on as we went flying over bumps and around corners!

Our resort was right on one of the quieter beaches, and we were staying in a bungalow just a few minutes walk from the beach. We had some lunch overlooking the sea, and then chilled out on the beach and on our bungalow balcony (that was equipped with a hammock). That night we had a couple of happy hour cocktails, and then discovered that the restaurant at our resort closed at 7pm (that would have been nice to know earlier!)

Again, our time in Ko Pha Ngan was relaxation! We spent all our time either on the beach, swimming, relaxing in our hammock, or eating and drinking. The only thing that was still worrying us was the unstable situation in Thailand, and the lack of helpful information we were receiving from our embassy. We ended up deciding to book an earlier flight out of Phuket to ensure that we would be able to leave Thailand (not fancying having Christmas in Thailand!)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227970800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227970800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227970800/tpod.html Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:57:22 -0500 South East Asia

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Ko Tao, Thailand

Finally, after a couple of days travelling we were back at another island. We had spent a day travelling back to Bangkok, and then the night in Bangkok and then a day train to Chumphon. The train to Chumphon was interesting - the air con was on so strong that it was like travelling in an ice box! Everyone in the carriage spent the whole journey putting on more and more clothes. Luckily for us the overhead shelf for bags was too small for anything other than the smallest bags so we could get to more clothes. We stayed a night in Chumphon and were picked up at 5.30 the next morning to get to the ferry.

The ferry was grim. Yet again we were on one of the catamarans and it was rough! Luckily for me I had my seasick tablets on me, which I took as soon as the boat left and they started handing out sick bags! With the Ipod up loud (to drown out the sound effects of others), I managed to sleep some of the journey.

We ended up getting to the wrong resort on Ko Tao, checked out the rooms there and the rooms in the place we had planned on staying, and then going back to the first place. We spent the first day checking out Ko Tao, finding somewhere to watch the ABs play England, and chilling out by the pool for a while. That night we found ourselves surrounded by Kiwis and English to watch the game, a good evening helped along by a great result!

We had another 2 days on Ko Tao, and spent the whole time relaxing. The weather was generally pretty good so we made the most of the pool, and tried to keep up with the news on the Bangkok airports.
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Bangkok, Thailand

Sadly it was time to leave Ko Chang already. We had booked a boat and bus combo to take us back up to Bangkok, meaning we were booked onto the 10.30am ferry. Unfortunately we were not told that to make this ferry you had to be on the 9am taxi to the ferry terminal. We worked this out for ourselves at 9.10 when not one taxi would take us to the ferry! We ended up missing the ferry, luckily however we were not the only ones and the bus was waiting for us at the other side! This did however mean that we ended up stuck in the back corner for the whole ride!

On arrival at Bangkok we found a hotel in Chinatown, as that is close to the station for our early train the next morning. We had a fairly quiet night, checked out Chinatown and had Chinese for dinner (it's a while since we have had chinese!)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227276000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227276000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227276000/tpod.html Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:27:23 -0500 South East Asia

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Ayutthaya, Thailand

We had an early start to get to the train station this morning, it was meant to be peak traffic and take about an hour - it only took 10 minutes! Still that gave us time to source some breakast before we boarded. We arrived in Ayutthaya at about 7pm, found somewhere to sleep and went for some dinner.

The next morning we decided to hire bikes and cycle around the temples for the day. First we sussed out where we had to go to catch the bus to Bangkok, and then we were off. We didn't go into most of the temples, we are a little templed out for that, but we cycled past and checked them out from the outside. We did go into the temple that is most famous - Wat Phra Si Sanphet. This is the temple that is on most of the postcards, etc and is famous for having 3 large bell shaped towers. We also went to the lying down Buddha that is covered in what looks like a large gold duvet cover. It was good to get some exercise though, and a nice way to see a new city.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227072240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227072240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227072240/tpod.html Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:21:10 -0500 South East Asia

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

So it was back on another bus and back to Chiang Mai. The journey back was slightly scarier than the one up, the driver did not understand the concept of not overtaking in blind corners, and didn't seem to like using the brake. Still, we made it back in one piece.

We booked our tour for the next day to take us to see the local tribespeople. The tour started with a visit to the long neck Karen tribe, the people who have long coils of copper coiled around their neck. Unfortunately there were not many people there, they had all gone to the hospital(?). Still we got to see some of the ladies, and got an understanding of why they believe that they need to make their necks longer. We also saw the tribe of ladies who have big ears (not being rude, they actually put earings in and keep making them bigger to make the holes in the ears bigger. Apparently the bigger the ears the more attractive the ladies are seen as being.) We visited another couple of villages also, but it was all a little tourist oriented for me. Pretty much everywhere we went we were seen as walking money, and were put under alot of pressure to purchase from them. We also went to the cave temple, 400 metres into the cave there is a temple. Not entirely sure why they put it there though? We also stopped at an orchid and butterfly farm. The flowers were quite impressive, but not the favourite place I have been too.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227016800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227016800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1227016800/tpod.html Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:23:59 -0500 South East Asia

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Pai, Thailand

More goodbyes this morning. This morning we lost our travelling companions Cam and Lauren, we were headed to Pai and they were leaving from Chiang Mai the next day. They are moving back to NZ though so hopefully we will manage to catch up with them when we get back.

The trip to Pai was fairly uneventful, we sorted somewhere to stay and then went and checked out the town. We were looking at the prices of tours, which turned out to be considerably more expensive that from Chiang Mai. We took an afternoon walk to a temple in the hills and then chilled out in the hammocks by the river. We decided to head back to Chiang Mai the next day and do a tour from there.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226700000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226700000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226700000/tpod.html Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:05:02 -0500 South East Asia

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

The journey to the Thai border was another one of those stories we can laugh about now! The bus was not a sleeper bus so we we just sitting in seats, trying the best we could to sleep. Unfortunately it was freezing, seriously freezing! Not helped by the fact that the drivers kept opening the front door to have a smoke. Possibly the most surreal moment was waking up in the middle of the night to find the bus bunny hopping down the dirt road. We think that the second driver was a learner driver, and was practising with a bus full of passengers! Once he had woken the entire bus the other driver then went back to driving.

We arrived at the Laos Thai border a little tired, to find the most chaotic border I have ever come across. There was no structure as to where you had to go to get stamped out of Laos, and the people arriving where all in the same area. From there we caught a little boat across the Mekong to get to the Thai border. Again, it didn't seem like anyone was actually making sure people had been through immigration.

We caught a public bus down to Chiang Mai, again rather an odd experience. The bus had 3 seats on one side, and 2 on the other. All the seats were rather narrow, we got on thinking it was really nice that they had booked us all 3 seats, only to find out further down that actually the bus was very full and there was someone assigned to sit next to us. Once in Chiang Mai we wanted nothing more than a shower and a bed!

The next morning we decided to move guest house, and then headed out on a little walking tour. The walking tour came to an abrupt holt when we stumbled across an English Pub owner telling us that he was showing the Liverpool game at 2.30. We stayed there for a while until we worked out that the game couldn't be on at 2.30 (due to the time difference). The next priority was to find a place that would be showing the ABs playing Ireland that afternoon. Once that was sorted, we went back to the walking tour and trying to sort out some tours. That night we ate from a street stall (25 Baht for a meal!) and then headed back to the Irish Pub to watch the Liverpool game, the Aussies v England rugby, and then the ABs walk over the Irish! The ABs game was on in the middle on the night so we found ourselves in a Thai lock-in. All the doors and windows had to be closed and we weren't allowed to make any noise (The Thai Kings older sister has recently passed away and we were still in the period of mourning. It seemed that the Thai police could walk in at any point and demand that people stop enjoying themselves. Luckily that didn't happen!)

We slept through our alarm the next morning, that must be the 3am getting to bed catching up with us. I got quite a fright when our friends knocked at the door to see if we were awake. We went out and found some lunch (burgers!) and then wandered around Chiang Mai. The evening was spent checking out the Sunday Markets that Chiang Mai s famous for. We managed to resist spending too much money, our bags are starting to feel heavy again!

The next day we did a trip to Tiger Kingdom. This is a fairly new (from what we understood anyway) attraction in Chiang Mai where you get to go and play with the tigers. Cam and Bruce decided to sit it out and let Lauren and I got and play with the cats. We chose to go in with the 3-6 month old cubs, which were alot bigger than expected! We only got to spend 15 minutes with them and most of them were only interested in sleeping really, but we got to play with some, and pat and cuddle them. They are so cute! We were most jealous of the people who got to work there! Bruce and I then walked down to the train station to sort out tickets to our next stop and then we met with the others for dinner. Dinner that night was possibly one of my favourite meals so far, a really good green chicken curry and decent white wine! We ended up spending a few hours there and having a couple of drinks. It was our last night with Cam and Lauren so we splashed out a little.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226412000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226412000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226412000/tpod.html Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:16:41 -0500 South East Asia

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Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

After a fun start to the bus ride (the arranged tuk tuk forgot to pick us up), we were pretty relieved to make the bus. Unfortunately we were so late that the only seats together were on the backseat, not my favourite place to travel! The bus ride took most of the day, with a few stops. It was quite a scenic journey, I think the only way from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang is up and over a huge mountain range! We arrived into Luang Prabang to the usual chaos of a bus station - bags everywhere, tuk tuk drivers trying to get business, and tourists with no idea which way to go! We found a tuk tuk who dropped us in town and then set about finding somewhere to stay. Our first impression of Luang Prabang was that everything seemed to be full, and those that weren't were not interested in bargaining at all. Eventually we found a place that had the required rooms and seemed OK. The first evening was only about getting some dinner, and having a bit of a look around. The main road in Luang Prabang is closed and turned into a massive street market at nights, so there was some time spent looking for bargains.

The next morning there was a power cut in our guest house (and in only our guest house it seemed?) so we had lovely cold showers! We asked around and no-one else seemed to have had problems so we decided to find somewhere else to stay. That sorted we hired bikes and checked out the city. We cycled out to the bus station to organise tickets to the border with Thailand, and then checked out some of the temples. In the afternoon we decided to get out of the city and take on some of the back roads. We cycled out of town until we were getting too sore to sit on the seats any longer and then started to head back. Then, as we had not done enough exercise, we climed the hill in the centre of town to watch the sunset - along with hundreds of other tourists! Not one of the best sunsets I have ever seen. The highlight of that was a massive butterfly landing on Bruces hat! That night we went to the markets for some serious shopping, well as serious as the reality of having to be able to carry it would allow.

The last day we hired a tuk tuk to take us to one of the major waterfalls. Lauren and I did the negotiations with a driver and we were off. We had been driving for about 30 minutes when we worked out the driver was taking us to the wrong waterfall! Cam and Bruce have still not let us hear the end of that one! So we then had to go back to town and get into another tuk tuk (we think that the first tuk tuk could not take us to a different place than what he had originally declared?) and then out to the waterfall. Luckily it was worth it! There were 3 pools that could be swum in, and at the top a huge waterfall. We had a picnic at the bottom of the waterfall and then decided to follow a path to the top. The path turned into a climb, to then find that there was nothing at the top. We went back to have a swim, but only Cam was brave enough to get it - it was a little cold for the rest of us. We also came across a black bear sanctuary in the middle of the forest. The bears are rescued from circuses and the likes and then bought to live in the forest. They are still in captivity but have a very cool looking cage to live in. They sleep in the strangest positions! From there it was back to our guest house to collect our belongings and then onto the bus station for our overnight bus (but not one with beds).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226239200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226239200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyliebruce/8/1226239200/tpod.html Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:57:44 -0500 South East Asia

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Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

We had a bus booked to collect us from our guest house and deliver us to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng was one of the places we had both been looking forward to getting to, everyone we had met had been raving about the tubing!

The bus ride up was almost an event in itself - the buses had all been overbooked, so some of us ended up on a mini bus. That wasn't too bad as the bus wasn't full, we had a bit of extra space, and there were a few other Kiwis on there. Part way through the journey the mini bus pulled over and we had to change buses into an even smaller bus, with a broken back seat - that Bruce and I ended up sitting on! It turned into quite a long journey, by the time we got to Vang Vieng I couldn't feel my butt anymore! We, along with another Kiwi couple found a guest house and then set about exploring. Our exploring uncovered a bar by the river with hammocks set up all along the river. We spent the next few hours chilling in the hammocks with a drink - is there a better way to pass a sunny afternoon? We watched the sunset, and then worked out that it was getting a little cold and we were starting to get bitten. Dinner was at the same pub, and was served on a little table put onto the floor. The four of us sat around the little table to eat, and make plans for the next few days.

The next morning was an early start, time for some breakfast and then off to one of the caves. We walked out to one of the nearby caves, climed a mountain to find the entrance and went in to explore a little bit. I actually made it quite far into the cave, quite surprised by that! From there we went to a spring at the bottom of the mountain for a refreshing swim. Refreshing it was too - it was rather cold! Needless to say it was a great way to cool down, and then really nice to sit in the sun afterwards to dry off. After walking back to town we sorted out some lunch, booked bus tickets to Luang Prabang, and finally got to the tubing! For those of you who haven't been to Laos, tubing is where you get taken up the river in a tuk tuk, and then sit in a tractor tyre inner and float back down the river. All along the river are bars that pull you in for drinks. The bars vary in popularity depending on the number of activities provided, they range from flying foxes, swings, water slides, and towers to jump off. We only stopped at a couple of the bars on the way down, but it was very entertaining to watch the very drunk people try to manage the tubes. We watched one guy fall asleep in his tube, I was just about to go over and wake him up when he jumped awake again. Near the end there are a few rapids, I managed to get stuck on the top of a mostly submerged rock, that took some creativity to get off! We were pretty cold by the time we got to the end so made the most of hot showers, and a hot meal! We had another bus ride the next day so none of us were keen to be hung over.
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