A catch up!

Okay okay. So this little blog sadly died along with the laptop but here's a little update incase you were wondering was ive been getting up to...

Oh, and there won't be any photos either :(
I don't know if the computers we've been using the past 3 weeks could handle uploading... they are so old, half of them don't even have USB connections!! It's going to be a long and tedious job when we get home to upload and back up all the photos. There are thousands of them! oops...
Anyway, here we go...

Thailand: Lots of gorgeous temples, haggling at Kao San road and MBK, bungalows by the beach, full moon party, cocktails at sunset, escaping the monsoons.

Cambodia: Cycling the temples of Ankor Wat, learning about the khmer rouge, nightly electric storms.

Vietnam: amazing food, Halong Bay and Monkey Island, long weather delays, homestay in Sapa, amazing Hanoi and it's 1000th year birthday

Laos: we decided to give it a miss cause of all the weather delays we were experiencing :( next time

Singapore: museum of toys, awesome Zoo, impressive architecture and amazing shopping. If only we had a credit card to play with...

Sooooo, our first few weeks in India we explored Mumbai where we tried to get used to the constant staring and gawking, dove right into trying out the beautiful food, battled the heat in full length clothing and wandered the sights. While we took photos of landmarks and cows strolling down main street, the local took photos of us! We did some serious relaxation at one of the quieter beaches in Goa. Cows and goats joined us on the beach and we cleared out the mini bar in our guesthouse! We visited some gorgeous ruins in a tiny village called Hampi. The place was full of tourists but it was still pretty amazing. A rickshaw driver drove us around all the ruins and we took a billion photos. We watched snake charmers, monkey fight over bananas, cows dressed up and the locals let tea lights float down the river on the first night of the full moon. And now we are back to relaxing on a beach down south in a region called Kerala. Things are moving a lot slower than the past seven months, our money is finally going somewhere and we have loads of time.

And seeing as life is so nice and relaxed down here, the plan is to spend the next four or five weeks travelling around the southern part of India and sampling some of the things that the locals are good at. Yoga, massage and food are all on the list. There is so much fish down here even Brian has finally been converted to a fish eater! Big news really, if you know him. We had a lobster, calamari, tiger prawn banquet last night!! yum! So along with eating everything on the menus, we might try our hand at a cooking class or two. There is also lots of elephants to visit and wild tigers to find. Kerala is also famous for its backwaters, lots of channels cris-crossing the region and a lazy cruise to enjoy while visiting some small villages. So THEN, after Christmas comes and goes (hopefully not too insignificantly), our plan is to head up the east coast as far as Calcutta and then inland to visit the Golden triangle (Taj Mahal and the likes) and finally Delhi.

Eek, not long to go really!

uh oh!

So on our last day in Australia, I plugged in the laptop as I was about to steal a couple of series of the Inbetweeners from another guy in our hostel and it just never started up! And thats been its state ever since. Brian thinks its a software problem and that the hard drive is ok so hopefully when we get home some computer god can save our photos but for now I've to work from internet cafes I guess.

So, I'm sitting in one right now as the rain pours down outside on Kao Sang Road in Bangkok. It's day four now and I'm absolutely loving southeast Asia so far. Lots to see, do and... eat :-) Woo hoo!
Sadly this internet cafe doesn't have somewhere to plug in my camera but i'll chose more wisely in the future! Hopefully I can keep this up. Don't really like posting stuff without photos... just seems too boring! But we'll see.

So over and out for now but fingers crossed I'll have photos up soon :-) x

Oz time is coming to an end

Hi all,

So, I'll have a new update within a few days on my adventures getting to and exploring Sydney. I've completely run out of camera memory (that's about 11 gigs since we left) and Brians camera is acting up so it'll be another few days before the Sydney photos are ready.

But this is just a little update to fill ye in on what's happening next.

The plan was, before we left on this trip, was to stay in Australia for 6 months and find a job. But after doing all the East Coast touristy stuff over the past two and a half months, I can't imagine stopping travelling to work again. Come on like, it was only four months ago when I finished working my ass off in Ireland!! It's definitely not time for me to get back to that.

Sooo... now the plans have changed, the flights are booked and we are off to Thailand. Next Tuesday.
Woo hoo :-)

So excited to be moving on and keeping on with the travelling. So yes we are leaving 3 and a half months early but it's all good. Still got a few days left here in fantastic Sydney - Bondi, the Blue Mountains, Summer Bay and a few other things are still on the to do list - so i'll talk to ye all soon.

Busy doing nothing!

Since my last post Brian and myself have gotten used to doing a whole lot of nothing.

We wake up early cause the tent has turned into a nice big glass house. We sweat our way over to the pool side and enjoy the sun on our skin (It's not getting any browner, or reder I should add.) We relax in the cool waters of the swimming pool. We find it in ourselves to peel off the sun loungers and into the car and head for a stroll around what ever town we happen to be in. We might enjoy some beans on toast and a cup of tea under the shelter of the kitchens roof as we stare out at the cloudless sky. Or we might enjoy a nice, quiet drink and a chat with some friends! Tough really.

So...

.....

   ...after the Whitsundays we hung around in Airlie Beach for another few days. We bumped into girls from college and we all caught up as we lazed by the man-made lagoon by the sea. Every day the same spot. We had a daily visitor to our spot too, in the form of Flo a lovely local bird. She was very friendly and liked a good old snoop around at all our stuff. She got a bit too close to Brian one day, stealing a sandwich right from his hand. He's not too happy with the birds here. A bush turkey pecked a hole in our tent too....

Airlie Beach

Flo, snooping

It was hard to drag ourselves away from gorgeous Airlie but after a cool ten days of relaxing we thought it about time to move on.
But we didn't get far.
Two hours north we reached Townsville and after a quick sleep we headed out on a boat over to Magnetic Island. The place was, again, absolutely gorgeous! We managed to stay away from the beach and the pool and decided to rent bikes for the day. Magnetic is a small place and had decided that, because we'd only planned two days here, we would get out there and see the place. But no one told us about the many, many steep hills the island possessed! And after daaaays of doing nothing it was a bit of a challenge. But even though they were a pain to get up, they were a thrill to rush down. AND we got to see a wild koala, so all was forgiven. And back to the misbehaving birds... a kookaburra stole Marguerites breakfast right from her hands too.

The bikes

Our reward after the cycling

AMAZING mexican mush enjoyed in Magnetic

After Magnetic Island and another stop over in Townsville, (where some nice person, in the dead of night,  broke into the car, which was two feet from the tent, and stole my cheap ass Australian phone but managed to miss the iPhone and a sat nav), we headed to Cairns. Here the temperature sky rocketed and I sadly started to melt! Seriously. And it's only spring!! Again we got into the lovely routine of doing absolutely nothing. Which is great really. Can't be straining ourselves. We got into such a state of melting and over heating it got too much for me to even get the camera out. Shame really. Place was lovely. I did manage to get a picture of the HUGE bats that kept us company at night however. They were like Batmans in the sky.

The Bats!

Our woodland campsite

A sign located in the mens bathrooms at the campsite

Cairns was where we also noticed the big hole in our wallets and now our mission is to find jobs or we will be off to Thailand very, very soon. Don't know if that's a bad thing really. Can't imagine working now after all this relaxing. I need to get back to travelling!!

Life on the road

It's not very hard when your tent is the size of a fort!

Just a few pics to show ye all how we're getting around and how we're living it up, tent style.
Enjoy!

Sheila enjoying the bush in the sunshine.

The upgrade!

Breakfast in bed.

Enjoying an afternoon beverage and some bean dip!

Charging all the electronics at dinnertime.

Presents for Sheila.

Now you know :) x

Sun, sea, sand and snorkelling

We left the stable land at Airlie Beach to live on a boat for three days as we explored the Whitsunday Islands. Spank Me, a racing style yacht, brought us around a few of the 70+ islands to many bays where snorkelling became the norm and Brian got to test run scuba diving along the great barrier reef. We swayed to sleep in our tiny bunks and got the help hoist the sails. Whales, turtles and hundreds of fish welcomed me to their world and I'll definitely be going back for more.

I absolutely adored the snorkelling and can't wait to get the chance to get scuba diving. Would love to have had an under water camera too cause the amount of different types of fish and coral was incredible. From electric blues, to bright yellows and jet black and everything in between, even my memories are even starting to forget everything I saw. Pretty incredible feeling just floating around, with a huge shole of fish swimming past, and them not even noticing me and bumping into my mask. I burst out laughing underwater too while I watched some fish eating the coral and could hear their munching. Nom nom nom!

We visited Whitehaven beach with its ultra fine white, white sand that glittered in the sun and clear and shallow waters that merged into green waters was gorgeous. We enjoyed a relaxing morning strolling up and down the beach and bushwalking up to an incredible view of the whole bay. I relaxed in the waters and exfoliated my skin with the sand!

It was a very relaxing trip and with the fun of snorkelling and the gorgeous surroundings, it helped make these few days a few of my favourite in Australia so far.

Vegemite update

IT'S GROSS!

Tried some on our sailing boat around the Whitsundays. Had to spit my bite into the ocean. Sorry turtles and humpbacked whales if you happen to munch on it. It's Australias fault.

A few Ozzy musts

In the land down under around three weeks now and having a ball. Our first few days we flew into Brisbane and I got to catch up with a few realies! And got some serious relaxing time in too. Very nice. But it wasn't long before we got back into the swing of bring a tourist and headed out to experience a few Ozzie musts. That was just after we picked up Sheila, our lovely Toyota wagon, that will (hopefully) be taking us on a great adventure along the coast. Shes a beaut!

So our first... I should probably say my first must was to get to the koala sanctuary for a nice big cuddle from the cutest little natives. They actually look like teddy bears in a tree. Seriously! I love them! My cuddle came from little Crumpet and she was munching away on leaves as I held her. So cute and surprisingly heavy. At the Lone Pine Sanctuary we also got to see loads of other Australian animals including the amazing duck-billed platapus, talking cockatoos and some mental tazmanian devils.

We also visited Australia Zoo which may as well be called the Steve Arwin Zoo seeing as its on Steve Arwin Way and hes absolutley everywhere. Didn't expect it but felt very sad being there, they even had a huge memorial there for him. The place was pretty amazing though. So fun. Pictures of Steve on the walls and 'Crikey!' printed pretty much everywhere you looked. Loads of animals but it was the koalas and the tigers that stole the show for me. Think I watched one koala eating for about 15 minutes.

So our first trip in Sheila and we headed down south to the Gold Coast. Our first stop was Byron Bay and we pitched our tent in among the trees, the bush turkeys and the hippies! Peace and love everywhere in Byron Bay. And surfing. Took our first surfing lesson and actually managed to make it up onto the board and surf one wave. Oh yeah! It's very tough... especially when you've got arms made of jelly. Was aching for days after! Haha. Was great fun though. Looking forward to take two.

After after a few layed back back days in Byron we headed north up the coast to Surfers Paradise. And with golden beaches as far as you can see on both side of you, green-blues water and lovely white waves I really understood where it got it's name from! While in Byron we got to hang out with the hippies in our camping site, it was the grey nomads we were surrounded by in our caravan site in Surfers. On the day we arrived the were all sitting in rows enjoying the Christmas in July (!) barbeque. Very funny sight. Surfers was very relaxed but very different to Byron. We sampled some of the night life in Surfers going on a club crawl. One of the clubs even copied a club Sex and the City club and put beds inside it. Didn't trying Surfing again here but we did watch a lot of the locals kick ass in the waves.

Another must along the coast during the winter is to go whale watching so we jumped on a boat and headed out to find some humpback whales. And we bumped into some amazing, playful ones. My first sight was two of them jumping fully out of the watch and smacking back in. After such a spectactual start they got lazy but we saw lots of tails, blows, and they came right up to the boat where we were for a little look at the very end. Pretty amazing stuff. Didn't even bother having the camera out for the incounter. Didn't want to miss anything messing around with the settings!

Heading back to Brissy for a quick visit and then the big road trip up north begins. First stop, Noosa!

And one more Oz must I have to achieve, is to taste vegemite.... might be a while :S but I'll report back when or if it happens.
x

A little bit behind

So, yes, I´m waaaay behind on entries BUT I do intend on catching up very soon. The speed of internet down here is a bit of a joke. Paid to log onto dial-up at one point last month!! No internet is better than slow internet!

Leaving South America in two days for a quick look at New Zealand and then onto Oz where I´ll hopefully settle down somewhere for a few months (fingers crossed it´s by the beach and I can learn to surf). Keep checking back and checking the flickr accound... they will be updated soon.

xxx

"I like it right here, but I cannot stay. I'll try, but you'll see, it's hard to explain"

After spending the most amazing four days travelling around the south-western part of Bolivia in a kickass 4x4 Landcrusier, I'm finding it hard to remember everything that we did and I'm finding it very difficult to remember what order it all happened in. So much happening in such a short time. In the middle of the tour I was even thinking 'How can one small part of one country have so much going on?'

We started our trip in a small town called Tupiza (which even had its own pizza place called Two Pizza!) with a company called Valle Hermosa and I'm so happy we found that company. We set out as two jeeps, 9 people, and we were so lucky that they were all young and fun! The hostel we had stayed in in Tupiza had a group setting out and they were two old boring couples. Phew! on our first day we drove through some amazing landscape, circling around mountains, spotting llamas and even an ostrich!! Our first night we stayed in a tiny village made of mud. And with one small solar panal on the roof of our room we only had enough energy to light the one lightblub in our room for a few hours.

We woke the next morning at four and since our light bulb was dead we got ready in the dark and set off again. Our first stop was a ghost town, abandoned when disease broke out. They say the devil lives there now. It was a very creepy place but the cold got to me and I had to jump back into the jeep and wait for the others! As the sun rose we were again navigating around monsterous hills and climbing up to the snow. Our jeep got suck in a frozen river and the other had to pull us out! Day two continued onto our jeep passing huge rocks that had been spat our of volcanoes thousands of years ago and were now landed all around us, we entered the National Park and passed the Dali landscape (a nickname given to the landscape which influenced the painters style), we had a pre-lunch relaxation in the hot springs, we passed lagoons of bright blue, of green and of pink and white, we covered our mouths from the egg smelling, bubbling geysers and we watched gorgeous flamingos relax as the sun went down. And more llamas! Our second night had a better supply of electricty but we had no running water AKA flushing our toilets with a bucket of water. Fun!

On day three we got the luxury of waking up at 5:30 and our first stop brought the old geology nerd out of me. We stopped to look at a rock tree (rock that looks like a tree!), but we were surrounded by lots of surreal looking rocks formed through wind erosion. Our second, but not the last, experience of jeep failure happened when our jeep wouldn't start and as other tours arrived at the rock tree they seemed to find our jeep a better photographic opportunity than the gorgeous landscape we were surrounded by! After we got going again, things didn't last long. We struggled up a large sandy hill and as we neared the top the truck just gave up. The men worked on it for about an hour while I sat in the heat of the other jeep. After successfully fixing...whatever was wrong... we headed for more gorgeous lagoons that were finged with ice, watched more flamingos, peered up at a smoking volcano, crossed railway tracks that disappeared into the nothing, and throw in a flat tyre for good measure, our final destination was an amazing salt hostel on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni. Everything was made of salt, beds, tables, bar, walls, lighting fixture etc. It was unreal. And even though it felt like we were surrounded by ice we were nice and toasty. Here we enjoyed some whiskey and played cards till they turned the lights out at 10:30 and we had to find our way to our rooms in the dark.

Day Four was Salt Flats day, the thing I'd been looking forward to most when daydreaming about South America from my bedroom in Ireland, but after the previous three days and all we saw I was a bit sceptical of if they could impress me. But I didn't need to worry. As we drove away from normal land the sun rose and we got the full impact of being surrounded by nothing but white. The mountains which edged the huge salt field seemed to float because of the mirage. Our first stop was a large island in the middle of the flats, where we had breakfast in the freeeeezing cold and then got to climb the island which was covered in cacti. After the gorgeous views from the top of the island we drove farther into the white nothingness and it was time for the funny photos. They are a lot harder to capture than they look. Had great fun trying. There were lots of holes in the salt with rivers underneath and our guide plunged his hand into a particularlly big hole and pulled out gorgeous pink, white and black salt crystals.

The place was amazing. The whole four days were just amazing. It's kind of hard to put it all into words but I tried. I even found it impossible to get it down in my own diary. The photos tell a better story.