Return to Sydney

Everything seemed to happen so quickly as soon as we got back to Sydney. Within a month, we had moved into our new house with Roxie and were back at work. It was very difficult for me to adjust to being back in a normal routine, but since we had been gone for over a year, things almost felt new. We've spent the last few months catching up with friends, going to the beach, camping and enjoying our favourite restaurants. We even had a Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, which helped to make it feel more like the holidays. The past few weeks have been hectic with all the birthday and Christmas festivities, and we're looking forward to celebrating the New Year here in warm, sunny Sydney. :)

Bali

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Bali
Spent 6 days at Kuta Beach on our way back to Australia. It's really beautiful! Didn't really do much else. Kai went surfing every day, and I laid on the beach getting some sun. :) A great way to end our trip before going back to the real world. We're back in Sydney now, very busy trying to get everything together….start working, find a house, etc. I'm so excited to see all of my friends again!!! We're going to run in the City to Surf 14km race this weekend. Not sure how we'll do, since we've just been beach bums lately, but it will be fun. :)

Berlin - July 2010

Had a great time in Berlin the past few weeks...watched the World Cup games, went to the beach, and had picnics in the park. Turned out to be a beautiful summer in Germany.
Going to spend a few days on the beach in Bali now, on our way back to Sydney!

Berlin, Krakow and Budapest

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We were back in Berlin just long enough to go to the Pearl Jam show with Kai's cousin, and then we left on the overnight bus. We went on a short holiday to Krakow and Budapest. Both cities were very nice. Krakow is a little bit smaller, but both had beautiful castles, churches, and old buildings. We watched Germany vs. Argentina at an outdoor public viewing park in Budapest. What an amazing match!

So now we're staying in Berlin again. Kai's working, and I'm back at my German language school. We're just going to enjoy Berlin for the next few weeks until we leave for Bali later this month. It finally feels like summer here...I'm so excited!!!

Florida & Virginia

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spent almost 4 weeks back in the States. I had so much fun visiting family and friends again!! We went to the beach, Busch Gardens, wine tasting in VA...lots of great times!

Germany & Sweden

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Germany - May 2010
We decided to take a break from traveling for a bit and got an apartment in Berlin. We're living in a shared flat that has 2 other bedrooms, and a common bathroom and kitchen. It's in a great location…only a 30 min. walk to my school, and 5 min. by train into the city centre. There's also a huge park nearby were we can go running and have a picnic when the weather is nice. Kai was able to find a job, and I started taking my language classes.
This May was apparently the coldest May in history, and there were only 4 days in the whole month when the sun was shining. Despite that, we really enjoyed our time in Germany. We took a weekend trip to Dresden, a cute little town with beautiful old buildings, and another trip to Potsdam. My school turned out to be great. Every Wednesday was Kulturtag (Culture Day), and we had "field trips" in Berlin to learn more about its history. We also had get-togethers at pubs and restaurants on the weekend. It was great to make so many new friends from all over the world - Romania, South Africa, Italy, Brasil, Finland, Poland, etc. We went up to Wismar one weekend to see Kai's family, and I was able to test out my German. I think I did ok. I was actually able to carry a conversation with Kai's mom without him translating for us, so that's definitely progress.

Sweden
I went to Sweden for 5 days at the end of May to visit a friend that I met while traveling a few years ago in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand. Karin lives and goes to university in Linkoping, about 1.5 hours from Stockholm. I spent a few days going around the countryside with her to Soderkoping and Norrkoping (where her parents live). It's so beautiful! Back in Linkoping we had a great bbq with Karin's friends for her birthday.

I spent my last day in Sweden walking around Stockholm. Lots of churches and old buildings to see. Old Town was my favourite. Stockholm was smaller than I had imagined…most of the sights are within walking distance of each other. It's a really cool city though. If I had more money and things weren't so expensive there, I would have done a lot of shopping! :)

One of the things I loved about Sweden is that it stays light outside for about 21 hours out of the day, like Iceland. It starts to get dusk around 11pm, and then the sun comes back out at 2.30am!

Turkey

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We arrived in Istanbul and were immediately in awe of the modern conveniences that we used to take for granted - clean air, clean buses, clean-smelling people, and parks in the city (that are not inhabited by criminals or con-artists). We actually felt bad for the way we smelled...Our clothes never got properly washed in Africa, so everything we owned was still very dirty. We met Sara (the sister of a friend in Sydney) and went back to her apartment which is inside the old walls of Constantinople. The streets are narrow and winding and beautiful!
We visited lots of sights in the city...so much to see and do! We went to Taksim Sq, Istiklal Caddesi, Spice Bazaar, Grand Bazaar, Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, Topkapi Palace, Basillica Cistern, and the Istanbul Archeological Museum. The bazaars were huge, much bigger than most markets we've been to. The Aya Sofya was amazing! It was built around 500 AD and was first used as a church, then converted into a mosque when the Ottoman Empire took over Contantinople in 1453. The dome was a great feat in architecture at the time because it was built without any columns to support it. A bit of trivia that I found interesting: The dome is so big that the Notre Dame or the Statue of Liberty could fit inside! The Basillica Cistern is an underground structure that was used as a water source for the city. It has 2 columns with the head of Medusa - one upside down and one sideways. Very cool. The Archaeological Museum had sarcophagi, friezes, sculptures, and ceramics. There was even a mummy on display! There was so much history and culture to take in.
We had a great time staying with Sara. She took us to a great place for a Turkish breakfast - lots of cheeses, bread, salad, and olives. She even cooked us a delicious dinner with salmon, mashed potatoes and salad. I couldn't remember the last time I've eaten so good! We also ate at some of the local restaurants. There were so many new things to try and so little time! I think since we didn't get a lot of good food in Africa, we went a little crazy here. :)

Off to Berlin now...We're going to have an apartment and a semi-real life for the next 4 weeks. :) I'm taking a German language course during that time, and I'm really hoping to learn a lot. Maybe I'll even be able to hold a real conversation! :)

Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya

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Malawi
We took the overnight bus from Livingstone to Lusaka (Zambia). It was cramped, had no air-con, and was very smelly. We got there at 3am and had to change at a dodgy bus station for another bus that went to the Zambia/Malawi border. It left hours late, naturally. Then it broke down about 5 minutes into the trip, and we had to wait for the drivers to make a poor attempt to repair it. They finally called for another bus which we all transferred to, and actually left Lusaka at 8am. A great start! Finally arrived in Lilongwe, Malawi at 6pm after a long, frustrating 22 hours of travel.
Had to leave early again the next day, at 6am, for Monkey Bay on yet another slow, smelly bus. Arrived at 1:30pm and had to wait 3 hours for the truck to pick us up to take us to Cape McClear. Would it actually leave then? Of course not. After we all crammed on the back of the truck, along with tons of luggage (these people seem to be moving entire households!), we stopped at the petrol station to examine the tires for 30 minutes. Then we drove around the very small town for another 1.5 hours to pick up more people. I don't understand how they managed to find any space. Probably the most uncomfortable, smelly ride we've taken. We finally arrived in Cape McClear at 6pm, 12 hours after we started. It's so frustrating that it takes so long to go such a short distance. Also, the conditions are horrible - no space and everyone smells so badly it's hard to even explain. I guess I need to get used to travel in Africa.
Stayed at two very nice hostels in Cape MacClear, Geckos and Gaia's. We spent two days enjoying the chairs by the lake, reading mostly. If you walk down the street, you're hassled about buying something or taking boat trips, so that's not very pleasant. We didn't actually dare to go into the water. From our nice comfortable view, we could see people washing clothes & dishes and basically using the lake as their bathroom. Not very inviting to say the least. It is beautiful to look at though.
Took the early bus back to Lilongwe, but we had 7 hours to kill before our next bus left so we spent it at Mufasa Backpackers again, a great hostel and very friendly. It was nice to have a real meal and a shower before we left.
We had to walk about 100m to our bus once we were at the bus station, and during that time someone tried to steal something out of my bag. He had moved quickly & unzipped my bag (which was right in front of me), but I could tell he was up to no good from the moment I saw him, so I was quick to react and turned away from him yelling obscenities at him. Luckily it worked, and he didn't actually get to anything inside my bag.
The bus ride was a nightmare. This was definitely the worst by far. We were crammed onto a smelly (this seems to be a theme for buses in Africa), roach-infested bus with stinky people for 35 hours. Two nights of no sleep and one day of sweating in the heat because there was no air conditioning, just to make everyone smell even worse. To top it off, the constantly crying baby next to me spit his juice up on me. The last 10 hours of the ride or so, I thought I was going to yell and scream at everyone. Both Kai and I felt like we just wanted to get off of the bus and walk the rest of the way...We didn't care that it was hundreds of kilometers away. We thought we'd never make it, but we did indeed finally get to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

Tanzania
Dar Es Salaam
In Dar, we were hungry, tired, grumpy, dehydrated (because they don't make bathroom stops on the buses very often), and fed up with everything, so we paid the 5 extra dollars for the 1st class seats on the boat. :) All that really included was air-conditioning and not having to sit in the regular, disgusting, smelly room where they pile people in on top of each other like animals. It was so nice to have our own space again - definitely worth it.

Zanzibar
We really enjoyed the island. The people were very friendly, nice, and helpful. We haven't come across many people like that so far in Africa so it was a real treat. We also found the best restaurant in Africa so far, Lukmaan. Cheap and delicious rice, curries & naan bread. Finally no more spaghetti! :) The streets in Stone Town are narrow and winding and the houses are very old. It sort of reminded us of Spain or Italy.
It's the rainy season now, but we got very lucky with the weather. Apart from some heavy rains in the mornings, the days were clear and hot....perfect beach weather. One day we went to the nearby Bububu beach, but it wasn't the nicest beach. The next two days we went to the east coast of the island to Jambiani beach. It was gorgeous! Of course, there were annoying children asking for money and people trying to sell you stuff, but for the most part it was quite peaceful. The public transport situation remained the same though....overcrowded, smelly, uncomfortable rides....but there's no other way to get there, so you just have to hold your breath for 2 hours. :)

We took the overnight ferry back to Dar. At least we got the 1st class tickets again for the boat. I was amazed that we actually had enough room to lay down and sleep. From Dar, it was another 10 hours on a bus to Moshi. There we met the guy from our tour agency and prepared for our big trek to Mt Kilimanjaro the next day!

Mt Kilimanjaro
We did the 6 day Machame trek to the top of Mt Kili. The first couple of days were pretty easy. Then on Day 3 we went up to 4600m to help acclimatize to the altitude, and both Kai and I got very sick. Severe headache and nausea. Some ibuprofen and a few hours later, though, and we were feeling much better. Day 4 we reached Barafu Hut and went to sleep early so that we could start the ascent to the summit at midnight. It was hard walking up the mountain in the middle of the night. Very dark and cold. It was also snowing most of the time. We were not feeling well from the altitude sickness again, and there were times when we didn't think we could make it. But after 7 long hours, we finally reached the summit - Uhuru Peak at 5895m! There was a gigantic glacier next to the peak. It was so beautiful - I've never seen anything like it!
Overall, we really enjoyed the hike. It wasn't a hard trek at all, aside from the altitude sickness. It was really beautiful to see the changes in vegetation, from the rainforests at the bottom of the mountain to bare land with only rocks at the top.

Back in Moshi, we were very grateful for a hot shower and a comfortable bed to sleep on again. The next day we went to Arusha, where our safari would start from.

Serengeti Safari
Our safari was for 4 days, going to the Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park, and Lake Manyara National Park.
We saw so many animals every day! It was unbelievable! We got to see lions, gazelles, zebras, wildebeests, buffalo, flamingos, elephants, warthogs, black rhino, white rhino, hippos, hyenas, giraffes, dik diks, impalas, leopards, baboons, and monkeys.
We came across a pride of 23 lions at a waterhole and were able to drive up very, very close to them! We also got to see lions lying in the trees, and we even spotted 3 leopards which is very lucky and very hard to do! It was also the time for the wildebeest migration. It is an amazing thing to see! So many wildebeest running across the plains of the Serengeti. Thousands of them! During our sunrise game drive in the Serengeti, we saw a few lions eating a buffalo they had killed earlier. A bit gruesome but interesting. :)
At our campsite in the Serengeti, we had to cook and eat in a large caged enclosure so that the animals wouldn't come for our food. That night, we could hear lions roaring close to our camp. They didn't come too close thankfully, but the sound was still a bit scary.

After the safari, we prepared ourselves for our last long bus ride in Africa, from Arusha to Nairobi. It took 7 hours to go approx. 200 km. It is incredible how they can make such a short journey last so long. It ended up not being as uncomfortable as most of our other rides, but we were still happy to be done with bus travel.

Kenya
Nairobi
Arrived in busy Nairobi and instantly felt unsafe and paranoid of everyone. Kai almost got arrested our first night here, because he wanted to go to the store next door for a cold Fanta. He wasn't carrying his passport with him (because everyone tells us not to carry your valuables while walking in the city), and 2 sketchy policemen (one with a huge gun) stopped him and started to harass him, asking him over and over "Why are you here?'" and "Where's your passport?". They insisted they weren't corrupt, but all they wanted is for Kai to go to a bar with them so he could buy them some Vodka. They wanted to take him to the police station, but luckily he convinced him to let him come back upstairs for his passport and more money since he didn't have enough on him for a bottle of Vodka. Once he came back into the hostel and showed them his passport, we were able to get rid of the vile men with the help of the hostel owner. Assholes. Not a good way to start our visit in Kenya.
We stayed in the hostel for the next two days, only venturing out for food and internet. Nairobi is a scary city, and we were just happy to be leaving. Africa has been a very hard place to travel, and after 6 weeks we're looking forward to the next part of our journey.

South Africa, Namibia & Zambia

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South Africa
Cape Town
Arrived in Cape Town from our long flight and went to Long Street where most of the backpacker places are. Everything is so expensive - food, accommodation, transportation. The cheapest dorm bed was 15 USD. Quite a shock after coming from Vietnam.
We spent a few days around Cape Town. We walked down to the waterfront and pier, walked along Camps Bay beach to Clifton Beach. The coastline is really beautiful. It reminds me of Australia. We took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain, and then spontaneously decided to walk 2 hours down in our flip flops without water. :)
One day we went cage diving with great white sharks. It was so exciting! There were 5 people in the cage at a time, and the crew would lure the sharks in with bait. We saw sharks up to 7 meters in length. They came so close to the cage, but I was surprised at how nonaggressive they were. The best part was when a shark got tangled up in the rope and started thrashing around. He was right next to me and Kai. It was really scary!
We hired a car one day and drove down to the Cape of Good Hope. It's part of a huge national park and is really nice. We walked the beautiful trail from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Point. The cliffs and the water looked amazing. It was so windy, though, that it nearly pushed me over at times. We also walked along a nice trail on the beach to see an old shipwreck. We got to see a few animals on the drive as well - dassies, baboons, ostriches, and penguins.
I really enjoyed Cape Town. Some areas are not safe at night, but other than that it is really clean and modern and has lots of nice people.


Namibia
Took the overnight bus to Windhoek. Finally found our hostel after being led in the wrong direction for almost 30 minutes...not so much fun with the backpacks. :) The tours around the country were way overpriced, so we decided to hire a car and do it ourselves. We drove around Namibia for 7 days. It was amazing!
The first couple of days Kai and I spent in Sossusvlei. We camped in Sesriem and woke up at 5:30 to drive into the park. We got to Dune 45 and climbed up just in time to watch a gorgeous sunrise over the sand dunes surrounding us. Must be one of the most unique, beautiful places in the world. We walked up and down sand dunes to Deadvlei, a dried up water pan. Then we climbed up another massive sand dune and just laid up there enjoying the peacefulness and beauty around us. Drove back to Windhoek on the gravel roads again. Dust was literally everywhere in the car by now. My hair was covered by the dust as well. It looked like I had grey hair! :)
Met up with two guys from our hostel in Windhoek, George and Dominik, who were joining us for the second part of the trip. We drove up to Etosha National Park and spent two days on our own little safari. Even though it was the rainy season, which is not the best for spotting animals, we were able to see so much - elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, ostriches, rhinos, springbok, jackals, wildebeests, turtles, gemsbok, kudus, oryx, and lots of birds.
After Etosha, we drove to Henties Bay, stopping at the Rock Finger (Vingerkliff) and the Brandberg mountains to see the White Lady rock painting along the way. In Henties Bay, we were disappointed that we could find any reasonably prices rooms, so we continued on to Swakopmund, another 70 km away. Finally got there and found a backpackers at 10pm. Exhausted, dirty, and hungry, we were just relieved to be there. The next day, Kai and I took a Spaziergang on the beach after breakfast, and then we all went to Walvis Bay. There were so many flamingoes there! I had fun chasing them so that they would actually fly, and Dominik had fun wading the water to get a better photo. :) We started on the last leg of our trip back to Windhoek. We had done so much driving in the past few days and were looking forward to being back.
Oh, our car was a little VW Golf with no air-con, which is pretty much unbearable in the desert heat. It got up to 48 C (118 F)! It was also taking a beating on the poorly made gravel roads, but somehow it survived the journey.
Back in Windhoek, we didn't have much to do but wait for our bus to leave for Zambia in a couple of days. We spent a day at Zoo Park trying to read, but it's full of weirdos and druggies. People kept approaching us to sell us something so it wasn't that really that relaxing. The next day, we found a much quieter park behind the big church. Windhoek is a strange city. It tries to be modern, but there's so much poverty and crime. Another oddity is that a lot of people still speak German there, held over from when they were a Germany colony back in the 1910's.


Zambia
Livingstone - Victoria Falls
After another lovely overnight bus, we arrived in Livingstone.
We went to Victoria Falls and got soaked walking on the bridge underneath the falls! The falls are enormous and spectacular! We really enjoyed walking around the park to see the falls from all different angles. There were lots of baboons in the park as well, and two of them tried to attack me to get to the plastic bag I was holding. I threw the bag on the ground, and they searched through it, smelling our money and passports. We had brought a banana in it but had eaten it earlier, so I guess they were going after that smell. Luckily they weren't interested in our other valuables and threw them back on the ground. I didn't know they would be so aggressive!
We spent the next day at the pool of our hostel, waiting for the night bus again. There's nothing to see in the small town, and it doesn't feel very safe, even during the day. We enjoyed the free internet at our hostel though. Everywhere else in Africa so far had been charging about $4/hour so we haven't been using it that much. Overall, we haven't been impressed by the prices here. It seems that over the past year or so, prices have risen greatly. The visa into Zambia cost $50, and we had to pay $20 to see the waterfalls. Crazy!

Vietnam & Hong Kong

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Vietnam
Ho Chi Mihn City
We few into Ho Chi Minh City the day after the Chinese New Year. The Vietnamese take one week holiday so everyone was still celebrating. I had been there before, but I was somehow still surprised by all the motorbikes, honking horns, and exhaust fumes. It's really a game of Frogger when crossing the street. :) We took a bus out to the Cu Chi tunnels to see the underground maze that the people made during the Vietnam War. It was really cool to crawl through the tunnels!

Mui Ne
We headed to Mui Ne beach. It was crowded, of course, because of the holidays, but we managed to find a place to stay. We spent a couple of days at the beach watching the wind surfers & kite surfers and riding bicycles around town. We got brave enough one day to rent our own motorbike....At least the traffic wasn't as bad as Saigon! We drove out to the red sand dunes and the white sand dunes. We climbed up the dunes and had a great view of the white sea around us. They're so beautiful!

Dalat
Because it was the off season in the mountains, it was relatively nice and quiet in Dalat. We found the best hotel room in Vietnam for $12 - cable tv, hot shower, fridge, and a huge room - about 10 times the size of most rooms we've stayed at! :) We went mountain biking out of the city around other villages. Some of the parts were really steep and rocky. I think Kai enjoyed it more than I did. We stopped for lunch at one house and had the whole farm watching us eat - chickens, pigs, and dogs! :)

Hoi An
We took the overnight sleeper bus to Hoi An, and I was surprised that it was actually pretty comfortable! There were little beds in the bus. They were made for short Asian people, though, so I was ok, but Kai was pretty cramped. :)
It's really popular to get tailor made clothes here because it's so cheap. Kai got two very nice suits, and I got one pair of pants, one black cocktail dress, and one casual brown dress. They make really nice clothes in only 1 or 2 days...It's amazing!
We stayed in Hoi An for a few days. We walked around the old centre where no cars are allowed...yay! We rented bicycles and went to the beach nearby. We also rented a motorbike again for a day. We went out to the temples of My Son. They are kind of like Angkor Wat, but only on a much smaller scale. In the afternoon, we drove out to Danang and the beaches around there, and then we went to Marble Mountains. These are several mountains clustered together that have temples built around them and inside the caves. They are beautiful!

Hue
We took the train from Danang to Hue. The train itself was really disgusting and dirty, but the scenery was beautiful! We rode along the coast line and saw nice cliffs and beaches.
We got to Hue in time to watch a great sunset over the river. The next day, we got up bright and early at 5am to take a tour to the DMZ (demilitarized zone). We went to the Vinh Moc tunnelsn (which are much bigger than the ones in Cu Chi), Doc Mieu Base, Dakrong Bridge, and the Khe Sanh combat base and museum. Some of the photos and statements from people in the war are so powerful.
The next day we rented bicycles and did our own sight-seeing tour of Hue. We went to the Citidel (a fortress with a pagoda inside), the Thien Mu & Tu Hieu pagodas, and the Tu Doc tombs. It was very dangerous riding bicycles with all the traffic, but we made it! We took the sleeper bus to Hanoi, and it smelled like shit...literally. I don't understand how some people can do the things they do...

Halong Bay / Cat Ba Island
Took the bus/boat combo to Cat Ba Island. Our hotel was a bit weird, but it only cost $6! We met some nice Aussies from Brisbane and decided to all go on a tour together to Halong Bay the next day. The boat ride was really nice. We went kayaking a couple of times around the rocks and into one of the caves. It was gorgeous inside! The water was so clear and green!

Sapa
A long journey from Cat Ba back to Hanoi and then directly to Sapa. The train from Hanoi to Sapa was really nice. We had a bed, blanket, and pillow! Met our tour guide the next morning, Mu. It was just us and a Dutch guy, Harry. The first day we walked to the villages of Ylinh Ho, Lao Chai, Tan Van, and Giang Ta Chai. The mountains are beautiful - full of rice terraces and rivers. We stayed overnight at the last village. We walked down by the river and watched some guys attempting to fish. Then we helped make some spring rolls for dinner...It think mine were the most delicious! :) There was so much food for dinner. It was so nice! The guest family was very generous and welcoming. We had about 15 shots of rice wine with dinner. It's impolite to refuse, so I just started taking half shots. :) It's really strong tasting liquor!
After breakfast we walked through the Hoan Lien Son National Park, full of bamboo forests, to Su Pan for lunch. The dog from the homestay the night before followed us the whole three hours. He was so cute! We got back to Sapa later in the afternoon. Our hotel was really nice, but we had no hot water. :( Also, something from lunch made us really sick. I couldn't get out of bed all afternoon and evening. It sucked. I took enough medicine though to feel a little better for our short walk the next morning to Cat Ba village and waterfall. We stopped and had a look at the Sapa market on the way back to the hotel. We stayed in bed, still recovering, all afternoon. I finally started to really feel better by the evening.
The next day, I walked a couple of hours to Ta Phin village. Kai still wasn't feeling up to it, so he met me there by motorbike. We went to the caves and climbed around in the dark maze. A little girl was leading the way, but she was so fast, we lost her sometimes! Then we drove out to Tram Ton Pass and the Silver Waterfall. We had been so lucky with the weather so far - sunny and hot. But this afternoon, the fog rolled in, and it was getting a bit chilly. It was good that we were going back to Hanoi that evening.

Hanoi
Spent a couple of days in Hanoi. We did our own city tour through the Old Quarter and to the Temple of Literature and the Prisoner's Museum. Busy streets, honking horns, people trying to sell you stuff, pollution - the usual Vietnam. I'm getting a bit fed up with all of that. I guess it's good that we're leaving soon.

I really enjoyed most of Vietnam, but I won't miss hearing "Hello! Motorbike?" every 10 seconds.


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Hong Kong
Flew overnight to Hong Kong via Singapore because it was the cheapest way. Didn't get much sleep though. :( We took a tram up to the peak and saw a great overview of Hong Kong! Then we walked through the parks and streets on the island. We took the ferry across to Kowloon and walked around there a bit...just window shopping. Next time we'll have to come here when we have some money to spend. :) For the first time in 3 weeks, we didn't have horns blaring in our ears and people trying to sell us something. It was so nice! We ate Subway for lunch and marvelled at how much we missed the taste of fresh veggies! We watched the light show at 8pm, then went back to the airport for another long 20 hour flight to Cape Town!

Thailand & The Philippines

Thailand
Bangkok
Arrived in Bangkok, a very familiar place for me by now. Needless to say, I was very happy to be back in some warm weather. The cold I had developed the last week in Germany went away instantly! :) We stayed on Koh San Road, so it was the usual bar scene. We went to the Silom area one night to try to see a ping pong show, but then got kicked out when we didn't want to pay 3 times the price of what they had shown us at the door. We ended up at a bar on the street watching all the weirdos....the lady boys, prostitutes, and the sleezy men with them. Hours of entertainment!

Koh Phi Phi
After a couple of days, we decided to head down to the islands. We went to Koh Phi Phi first. I had loved this place when I traveled Asia a few years ago, but when we arrived, I very sadly discovered that the island is not at all as I remembered it to be. There has been a lot of development on the island...new restaurants, new hotels. It is very overcrowded and loud, and there are not as many budget places to stay any longer. The cute, cheap bungalow on the beach that I stayed at before was replaced by an expensive resort. Even though I was disappointed by all the changes, we made the most of it. We went to some beach bars for the half moon party and had some whiskey buckets, of course! :) We took a snorkeling tour to a few of the nearby islands...Bamboo Island, Monkey Island, and Maya Bay. We also went up to the view point on Koh Phi Phi for sunset. It's still beautiful from up there.

Koh Lanta
We decided to move to Koh Lanta after a few days. We stayed a bit out of the main town, and it was much more quiet and relaxed there. The island is a lot bigger than Koh Phi Phi, so there's more places to escape to. We found a nice dive shop and went diving with them for two days. The first day we went to Koh Bida Nok, Koh Bida Nai and Fantasy Reef and the second day to Hin Daeng and Koh Haa. We saw two black tip reef sharks, leopard sharks, boxfish, moray eels, moorish idols, barracudas, blue and white seastars, trumpetfish, and lots of other fish!

We were staying in a cute little bungalow on the beach. Everything was great there until the last night when a mouse invaded our room! It was after some chips we had opened but didn't finish eating. I woke up at 2am from the creepy noise and then proceeded to see the ugly mouse scurry away. Disgusting! I saw that he was eating at the bag so I threw it outside, but he kept coming back. He would stick his head through the hole at the top of the bungalow, and then I would yell at him and move my arms to scare him away. This continued for the rest of the night. I was so relieved when the sun finally come up and we had to leave to catch our ferry out of there.

We went to Phuket and caught a bus to Kata & Karon Beach. They are really nice and expensive beaches, but we managed to find a hotel in our budget. We also found a great local restaurant away from most of the tourists. Very yummy and cheap Thai food...everything was $1! We ate there every day. :)

Singapore
I took a two day break from the beach life to go to Singapore to see Muse. Kai isn't quite as obsessed with them as I am so he stayed in Phuket. I had an interesting ride to the airport early in the morning that included a motorbike ride with a guy that might have been a bit tipsy still from the night before. But I arrived safely, checked into my hostel, and picked up my Muse tickets. I took the metro to Orchard St to have a late lunch. Singapore is so clean that you almost forget you're in Asia. :) I was happy to find a Subway, sushi, and vegetarian Indian food that I could eat while I was there. It's a rare thing when I find fresh vegetables!
I met a girl from Norway in my dorm room and another guy from Australia at the hostel who had also flown in just for the show. It helped me to know that I wasn't the only crazy one. :)
The show was amazing!!! I was in the seated area, and of course I would have preferred to be on the ground in general admission, but I still loved it! They played almost all of their new stuff, plus Stockholm Syndrome, Plug In Baby, and Sunburn....my favourites!
The next day, I walked all around the city since my flight didn't leave until 8pm. I went to Little India, Chinatown, and around the centre of town by the river. There were lots of decorations out for the Chinese New Year. As I was walking past some really expensive stores, Dom Howard (the drummer from Muse) walked right past me. I sort of did a double take, but I was so shocked I didn't have time to say anything before he disappeared into the store. I stood there, not knowing what to do. I knew if I just left that I would regret it, so I decided to wait until he came back out. He came out about 10 minutes later, and I stopped him and talked to him for a couple of minutes. He was really nice and even took a photo with me. It took everything I had not to ask him to take me to Matt Bellamy. :) After he left, I realised that he must be staying in the hotel inside the shopping centre. There was a nice courtyard with benches so I waited there for a little while, hoping Bellamy would show up but no luck. Maybe I'll see him at the next show. :)

The Philippines
After getting back to Phuket, we sat down and made some real plans for the second half of our trip. We booked a flight to the Philippines, Vietnam, and South Africa. It's very exciting when you have tickets and you know where you're going!

Manila
I don't have a lot of nice things to say about Manila. The entire city smells like pee. It is a very dirty place. There is prostitution everyone, and the people are pushy and aggressive. The first night we were out, we almost got arrested for having a beer in the street (which we didn't know was a law). The guy was a real jerk when we tried to explain, but luckily I managed to whip up some fake tears to get us off the hook. :)

Unfortunately we had to stay in the city for a couple of days because we were getting our visas to Vietnam processed. We spent one day exploring the city only to discover that there is nothing really to see. The Intramuros (a Spanish fort) was interesting. We were able to take a day trip to see the Taal Volcano. It's a couple of hours on the bus south of the city. We took a cute little boat over to the island/volcano, then we walked about 45 minutes up to the top. The crater is a huge blue lake and is really beautiful!

Legazpi / Donsol
We went overnight to Legazpi on another freezing bus! The town is quite small with not much going on, but there's a huge volcano nearby that you can see from the city that's really nice. We were there to get to Donsol, about 1.5 hours away. You can swim with whale sharks there! We were on a boat with 3 other people. We had a couple of "spotters" that stood at the top of the boat, looking for sharks. For the first hour or so we didn't see any, and we were starting to get discouraged. But then we finally spotted one! By the end of the four hours, we had seen 5 whale sharks! We were able to jump in and swim right along with them. We saw one that was 10 meters long! It was amazing to see these massive creatures swim by you!

Banaue
We took another overnight bus from Manila up to Banaue in the north. We met some German guys, Boris & Raymond, at the hostel before we left so we hung out with them for a bit on the bus. The hostel was great - Friendly's Guesthouse. They had lots of social events going on, and they even had a kitchen where we could cook! Boris and Raymond were crazy and fun. They were drinking whiskey and beer all night on the bus. :)
We ended up at the same hotel in the morning and met up with 3 other Germans and a Swiss couple. They were all very friendly and lots of fun. Boris arranged for a tour to the Hapao rice terraces and the Banaue view point and invited everyone to come along....for free! It was a great day. Boris bought beer for everyone at 10:30am. :) The rice terraces were beautiful! This area of the country is mountainous and green and beautiful. Such a contrast from Manila! That afternoon, Kai and I took a nap while the others stayed up drinking. I don't know how they did it. We were exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before. We joined everyone for dinner and had an early night.
Boris arranged for another trip the following day to Sagada to see the underground tombs. We got halfway there and ran into a landslide that was blocking the road. The other guys were determined to get there so they got another truck to take them on the other side of the landslide. It was only a short walk through the valley and up to the other side. We had to take the bus that night back to Manila so we couldn't join them since the tour was taking a lot longer than expected. It took forever to get back to Banaue on the public bus. We had to wait for 3 hours for enough passengers to get on before the driver would leave!

We had to spend another day in Manila because our flight wasn't until 11pm. We just spent most of it at the hostel so we wouldn't have to go outside. Then, the taxi driver took us purposely to the wrong airport so we had to pay again to get to the right one. Manila didn't make a good impression on us at all.

We're excited about our one month trip up the coast of Vietnam though! Enjoyed Saigon, and now we're in Mui Ne....I think Kai's going to try wind surfing!


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The Holidays

We took a little break from traveling to visit family over the holidays. We were able to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Florida, and then we went to Germany for Christmas and New Years with Kai's family. We also managed to see a few other places...New York, Washington D.C., Virginia, and Key West. We really enjoyed spending time with our families and friends, and we hope to see everyone again soon!

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