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.