Farewell!

I am writing this on our last day travelling! We are now in Singapore waiting to go to the airport this evening. I really like Singapore - despite being really expensive - as it is so multicultural and a proper big city. There is quite a big Indian population, and we've been out for Indian twice now, and both times it has been amazing. We also went to Sentosa island, basically a huge theme park, and saw the Merlion there. I also really like the MRT system (underground) it is soo clean - so much better than the London underground!!
We also said goodbye to the rest of our tour group yesterday - aome of whom have been with us since the start in Hanoi - which was sad. But now we are both looking forward to coming home, and: 1.cider, 2. ipod (nick), 3. computer (nick again!), 4. sausages (yep still nick) 5.own bed, 6.MORE CLOTHES!!! That was me. Had enough of living in 2 pairs of shorts, 2 skirts, 5 tops and 1 dress.

Dr Fish Spa

In Kuala Lumpur at the moment, capital of Malaysia. Yesterday we all went to a huge shopping centre - it had absolutely everything in it, including cinemas, a theme park and a fish spa!

Unfortunately the shopping wasn't very good, but I did enjoy myself at the fish spa - you stick your feet into this tank of little fish, and they nibble your feet! They take off all the dead skin and eat it. Very very ticklish.

Also, i found a cool bank.

Nick's bday/Trekking in the Cameron Highlands

Biggest flower in the world. Smells rank!!

In Malaysia now!! Last week of the tour, feeling excited about coming home at last!

This is the facebook link to Nick's bday photos - they're on facebook so those with an account can see them, and those without, unlucky! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=277493&id=539040301&saved#/photos.php?id=539040301

We are now in the Cameron Highlands in Malysia, 2000 ft above sea level, so it is cool up here!! Actually needed a jumper last night - 1st time since Sydney. We went out for Nick's birthday, and I got him a cake made with strawberry jam - strawberries are produced up here, along with tea. It said 'Essentially for Nick, love Tucan Travel' on it, because he says 'essentially' all the time and everyone takes the piss out of him for it.

Tiday we had a really good day, went in a jeep up into the jungle on a mud track - I swear we almost went over at one point - we were tipping a lot! But it was really fun, if a little scary. We then trekked up into the jungle to see this massive flower - the biggest in the world. We then came back down and went for a quick swim in an icy waterfall. Coming down was fun - it was really muddy and slippy so lots of people fell over. I didn't, thanks to my shoes!! I was behind Annalisa and Anthony, the Canadian couple who joined our group in Bangkok, and they didn't have great shoes, so they slipped a lot, and in the end Annalisa gave up and just slid down on her bum. Was amusing to watch!!

We then went to a tea plantation, and had the first English tea in ages. Snunning views as well. Tried to take a panaramic shot - dunno if it worked though. We walked along the tea as well - I tred a leaf. It didn't taste so good - the aftertaste was like really strong tea, but the actualy taste was pretty rough.

Then we went to a strawberry farm, and had gorgeous scones and strawberry jam and strawberry milkshakes!

Elephant Trekking!!

Laos 3 Tubing!!!

this is without a doubt the cutest dog that has ever existed, we just wanted to take it home, to bad it lives in laos, it might end up as someones lunch :P

the after effects of lots of paint and alcohol while tubing... at the second bar we went to they decided (the bar staff) that we needed a good face paint, this kind of got out of hand, we ended up completely covered.

at another bar we were given this really bad wig, naturally we all had to have a go...

our fearless leader (oli), covered in paint and very hungover :D

these are the tubes we used, really comfy and a great way to travel :)

loads of the bars had different swings, or zip lines, one had a slide though, it was great fun!! thats me coming off the end, it was sooo fast i hit the water before id even realised :D

Laos 2

Some more photos of Laos!! Wil do a separate post on tubing in Vang Vieng though...

The first photo is from the bus window, travelling from Vang Vieng to Luang Probang. I honestly have never had a bumpier journey!! I was at the back of the minibus, and I was literaly flying off my seat at times. Very windy road as well, and the journey lasted 6 hours. Some ppl managed to sleep, but with the bumping and the twisting most of us were limited to listening to music or talking. That evening we went out for a Laos bbq - really fun. Basically a flowerpot filled with embers with an upside-down colander on the top, where you cooked the raw meat yourself, using chopsticks. Not the most hygenic, seeing as the chopsticks were touching raw and cooked meat...Mrs Addison would not have been impressed! However we all got through without food poisoning, which was a result!

In Luang Probang, we visited a beautiful waterfal, and Gary, Nick, Val and I all swam in it. Very cold water, and there were fish that nibbled your legs if you stayed still for too long!

After Luang Probang we came to Thailand. We had to take a 7 hour boat journey down the Mekong river to the border crossing...

These boats were basically canoes with a speedboat engine attached to the back. They went soo fast! We all had to wear helmets and black life jackets, so we looked ridiculous, like riot police. And 7 hours in the sun = sunburn! There was no cover on these boats - they were tiny. We all managed to burn. Also, the boat was really bumpy and noisy, so on this journey we couldn't even talk or listen to music. I managed to doze off, but was woken when we went over an eddy and my head crashed back onto the backrest. A journey I won't ever forget!!

Laos

We are now in Laos! We took the overnight train from Bangkok to Long Kai, which is the Thai-Lao border, crossed the border on foot and took a bus to Vientiane, which is the capital of Laos. Cities in Laos remind me of NZ - they actually aren't big enough to be cities at all! We went for a motorbike tour around Vientiane to see the Golden Temple, the Buddha Park (basically a field with loads of Buddhas in it) and the surrounding coutryside. The further out we got from the city, the muddier the roads got, until it became really difficult to ride without slipping - there was a moment when it looked like both Rosie and Nick were going to fall off simultaneously! But they didn't.

The buddha park was really cool, we could climb up/around the Buddhas - we went inside one massive one where there were lots of statues of skeletons and demons...a little scary!!

Also in Vientiane was an amazing bakery that does lasagne - Rosie, Beck, Nick and I went there for lucnh and dinner it was soo good.

Crickets and maggots!

Ok - Rosie and I ate both crickets and maggots, and she is trying to convince me to try a scorpion next time we are in Bangkok! Dunno if I will though...

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat temple (above)

BTW Mum, this doorway was used in Tomb Raider - recognise it?? This temple was forgotten about during Pol Pots rule in the 70s, which is why it's all grown over.

Don't think Nick really did justice to Angkor Wat, so I've added some more photos!! It's not actually one temple, but a huge complex of about 10. The tickets were really cool - they put our photos on them! However, we all looked really rough in them, cos we had to get up at 4am to see the sunrise over the temple (which is meant to be really beautiful and worth doing) to find it was cloudy - saw nothing. Walked around various temples, which were really beautiful, and got accosted by a little boy selling postcards. The little boys are so cute in Cambodia - I can see why Angelina Jolie adopted a Kmer boy! Everyone is really friendly as well. We also got our photos taken by a random guy - thought it was because we were white, and we were all quite hot by then so scowled at him. About 5 minutes later two girls came up to us, with PLATES with our FACES on them!! I was shocked, and everyone found my face hysterical. The guy who had taken our photo had gone and printed themn off and stuck them on comemmorative (?) plates!! Very amusing - made my day!

Pictures from Cambodia!

the two above pictures are of us giving blood at a childrens hospital, it was the first time id ever done it, not as bad as i thought :D, the guy in the top picture is Gary another person on our tour.

this a picture of the temple that features in tomb raider.

this is not a good picture of me, my hair looks like a ducks ass! :P

Cambodia

Hello,

I haven't written in ages cos we are moving so fast through countries I barely have time to sleep let alone write a post!! Really enjoying the tour though, and seems scary that we'll be home in a month! We spent 5 days in Cambodia, which is an incredible country - I think my favourite out of the whole trip. The people are really friendly, especially the children who speak really good English, the scenery is amazing, there aren't very many mosquitos and the food is yummy!Especially fish amok and Kmer curry. Horrific history though - anyone know anything about the Kmer Rouge in the 70s?? Worse than the Holocaust. Anyway, I will add some photos later from Angkor Wat, a famous complex of temples that we visited.

Roz

Boat trip in Nha Trang (Vietnam)

Eibhlin (pronounced Eileen); Valerie; me
Gary and Nick

Rosie (short for Rosamund!! We were both excited when we found we had practically the same name)
The floating bar

Right

So, after Hue (pronounced who-ay) we took a day train (10 hours) to Hoi An (hoi as in 'ahoy'). this tiny town has over 200 tailors and is famous for making clothes; therefore we made a stop at the tailor Oli (our tour leader) uses and got some stuff made. Quite a few girls got dresses made; Nick got a shirt make and Gary spent 250 quid getting a suit and a seperate smoking jacket tailored! I got a pair of shorts made...i was running low!! There are no washing machines in the hotels here (in all the hostels we've stayedf at in CHina, OZ and NZ we've washed our own clothes. Only stayed at one hostel in Hanoi and that didn't have a washing machine) so we've had to go to laundry shops. Quality isn't great (our clothes came back from the last one smelling of damp) and sometimes they handwash so they don't do underwear. Also, I sent my silk liner to be washed and it didn't come back!! Absolutely gutted - it has been a lifesaver in soo many situations!

Anyway, after Hoi An we went to Nha Trang (naa trang) for two days. The first day we went on a boat trip in the bay to some islands and beaches. After lunch the crew got out a couple of guitars and a drumkit, and started playing for us!! They were actually really good. They pulled Rosie up on stage as she was English and sang Eternal flame...they got team Ireland up and sang the Fields of Athenrye, and sang a song i didn't know to the aussies - it was the same tune as 'tell me a story before I go to bed'...

They all got us dancing on this makeshift stage...as you can see there's not much headroom!

After this, they got out a floating bar - basically a foulmouthed sailor in a circle of rubber rings that gave out punch. It was nice for the first 3 glasses...goit a bit rough after that though! There was an American on the boat that managed to annoy our entire group by being loudmouthed and arrogant. One particular incident that sticks out is when he started a discussion about whether the seed was in a pineapple (we were eating pineapple at the time). Janine, an Aussie in our group) was telling him how thew green spiky bit in top was actually the seed, and that's what you planted to get the bush. He disagreed loudy, saying that pineapples grew on trees. He wouldn't give it up, despite Janine insisting that she knew, she was Australian, when had he ever seen a pineapple tree? Now, whenever we want to annoy Janine we start a conversation about pineapple trees!!

Our Bike Tour (Hue)

we arrived in Hue after a long train journey overnight, however we were only staying there for 1 night so we had to finish all the touristy things in a short space of time. our tour guide recommended doing a motorbike tour... a quick way to see all the major sites in Hue.



thies tour was great fun, we all had a chance to use mopeds on the vietnamese roads, it was soooo fun, we did it top gear style :P



getting used to the manual drive was a bit difficult, but great fun (for mums - we did wear helmets, as of last year its law in vietnam, before that about 37 people died a week on the roads)

Halong Bay!!!

as part of our tour of SE asia we went to Halong Bay, there we joined with a boat that toured us around the islands... it was brilliant, we were served amazing food at every meal, we had crab, prawns and loads of different types of fish...

the weather was gorgeous, so we went for a swim in the water (we jumped off the top of the boats). A local came round on a small boat selling cold beer, so i bought one for 70p, then drank it while floating in the sea :).

the water was so warm, but at the same time refreshing, we climbed to a lookout point to get some amazing pictures, then went swimming again