Thursday, May 13, 2010
It's been a while and ...OMG Glastonbury
This post has now been moved over to our blog especially for glastonbury. Click here to wizz off to it.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Photo Comp and Erica
Email just in:
:: Schmap Sydney Fourth Edition: Photo Inclusion
Hi Andrea,(and Simon)
I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photohas been selected for inclusion in the newly released fourth edition of our Schmap Sydney Guide:
Palm Beach
http://www.schmap.com/sydney/activities_outdoors/p=66643/i=66643_15.jpg
If you like the guide and have a website, blog or personalpage, then please also check out the customizablewidgetized versions of our Schmap Sydney Guide, completewith your published photo:
http://www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=22967152N00/c=SF50012193
Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!
Best regards,
Emma Williams,Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
To find our picture (which we actually dont even think is from Palm Beach) you have to flick through the different Palm Beach pictures. But there we are famous. Well admittedly i am as Simon put my name on it.
Erica (girl from Vietnam
The other thing i wanted to add to this blog was a link to Ericas picture site whereby she has pictures of us from Vietnam:
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/hanoi
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/halongbay
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/hue
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/hoian
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/nhatrang
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/saigon
and the blog:
http://eversoe.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
:: Schmap Sydney Fourth Edition: Photo Inclusion
Hi Andrea,(and Simon)
I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photohas been selected for inclusion in the newly released fourth edition of our Schmap Sydney Guide:
Palm Beach
http://www.schmap.com/sydney/activities_outdoors/p=66643/i=66643_15.jpg
If you like the guide and have a website, blog or personalpage, then please also check out the customizablewidgetized versions of our Schmap Sydney Guide, completewith your published photo:
http://www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=22967152N00/c=SF50012193
Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!
Best regards,
Emma Williams,Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
To find our picture (which we actually dont even think is from Palm Beach) you have to flick through the different Palm Beach pictures. But there we are famous. Well admittedly i am as Simon put my name on it.
Erica (girl from Vietnam
The other thing i wanted to add to this blog was a link to Ericas picture site whereby she has pictures of us from Vietnam:
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/hanoi
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/halongbay
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/hue
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/hoian
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/nhatrang
http://picasaweb.google.com/erica.brooks/saigon
and the blog:
http://eversoe.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Hints and Tips for travelling again
Simons cousin (Jade) asked us for some advise and this is what we wrote, it was good for us to collate the info together (For future travelling:-) )
This one is gonna be an epic mail guys, so brace yourself. This has mainly been compiled by Andrea so she should take all credit/gold stars for it...i just filled in the blanks one evening. The main thing to remember is that everything we say here are just tips and we are in no way telling you where to go and what to do as that's all the fun in the adventure. Without further ado, have a read and I hope that some of the tips might be handy for you....
Diary/Blog
Firstly for some bed time reading, please feel free to read our blog: http://gigpop.blogspot.com
Click on the months down the right hand side, to flick to differnet blog entries. We would highly recommend that you both write a blog. Its really an on line diary and will mean that friends and family can read it as you go along your travels and read about what you have done, without you needing to email everyone repeating your stories over and over again. More importantly though its something you will be able to read when you have grown old. We will at some stage have our blog printed out so its like a book. There are lots of different blog websites but we used: www.blogger.com which is a very simple blog but you can amend the design of the screens easily and also add things on the right hand side (have a look at our blog for what i mean) There are some other blogging websites that are more specific for travelling, so you can add an entry to each different place you travel. For example: http://www.travelblog.org/ . We decided against this as we wasnt going to necessarily write about every place we went to. They do however have a map on that you can track your journey on, which i think is very useful. I would check these all out before you go and see if you like them.
Email/Skype/Mobile
Asia and Australia have a lot of internet cafes so as long as you are in backpacking areas you should find one. America and Fiji were limited. The hotels in America normally have a computer though you can use in the Reception area. You may or may not have heard of skype, but its a great cheap way of ringing home. Before you go, get yourself a skype account and put say £10.00 credit on it. You will find that most internet cafes have skype on the computers and you can then ring your family on their landline through the computer and it will cost peanuts. Website is www.skype.com. If your family do have a computer then if they have skype running you can ring each other and it will cost nothing. The other options is phone cards. They are fairly cheap as well.
Mobile phone. If you have a mobile phone here thats unlocked so you can put a sim card from any network then this can prove really helpful. As soon as we got to Aussie we got an Aussie vodaphone sim card and then we could ring up trying to find somewhere to live in Australia without it costing a fortune. We also found it really handy in Asia. In Malaysia and Thailand we bought sim cards at the airport and we were then able to ring up hotels. In most of the countries i think the sim cards are free anyway.
Luggage
Its not easy to travel light, and we were rubbish at it, but it really does make sense to travel as light as you can. Particularly in Asia. In America its more difficult because you tend to dress up a little more, but in Asia its so hot and everyone is so studenty then you care less about the fact that are wearing the same outfit all the time (it does bug you though). We didnt have backpacks, and i would say it was only a couple of times where it would have made more sense to have backpacks (Only in Asia) and it was a little embarrasing that we didnt look like the other backpackers, but we purposely didnt want to do the backpacking lifestyle but be poshpackers.
Make sure though that you can each both carry your own suitcase up and downstairs. The case i started of with in America was far to heavy. (it had a heavy sticker on it hahah from the airplane) Ooo that reminds me.. Some of the airline companys are really anal about the weight of luggage. We got stung a couple of times, particularly in Asia wehre the limit is 15kg each, but the fine is so small anyway you accept it. We got really stung though going to Las Vegas.
Post Stuff !
Post offices - Buy stuff and then send it back by Sea. Its really cheap especially in Malaysia. It takes 3 months to get home but its great opening a box when you get home and seeing all your stuff.
Finding accommodation other than hotels..
In Australia and New Zealand it's a good idea to check out http://www.gumtree.com/ (Links on the right for the correct location). Stick to the flat/house shares as you can easily get a nice room with an en-suite for a very reasonable price. Having house mates can be a great source of company if you're doing each others heads in, conversely, it's also nice though to have a door to shut out your house mates too. It's a good site to remember anyway as they do a lot more than just flat shares.
Travel Insurance.
We ended up getting our travel insurance from Direct line as they were the cheapest by far. I think it cost us around £550 for the two of us for 1 years travel insurance that included USA. If you have no plans on going to the US you can get this cheaper still. I think it's down to their daft health care system.
Where to go
We bought an around the world ticket from trailfinders that was:
London - San Francisco - Hawaii - Fiji - Sydney - Cairns - Singapore
Hongkong - London
We had to make our own way to Hong Kong (more about this later)
We had to go to these places but we could change our dates as long as they were all within a year. We didnt actually take the flight between Sydney and Cairns, as we wanted to go to see some friends but as long as we told Quantas/British Airways that we werent catching it, then they are okay. Apparently if you miss your flight they cancel the rest of the journey. I think overall the flights were about £1200 each. Going around the November months i think is the cheapest.
In regard to Asia, we decided that as we were planning on spending 6 months in Australia we didnt want to plan the Asia part of our journey upfront as it was to much organising, so this is why we concentrated on good flights to America, hawaii etc and we would worry about the coming home at a later stage. Overall we are happy we did this because it allowed us to land in Singapore and say right where now?. And if we liked/disliked somewhere then we stayed there longer. We slowly made our way round Asia going to:
Singapore
Malaysia - Borneo
Kuala Lumpur
Langkawi
Vietnam - 14 days of travelling throughout
Thailand - Phuket
Phi-Phi
Ko Sumai
Ko Tao
Bangkok
China - Macau
Hong Kong
This took us just under 3 months to get round Asia. We had a sketchy map in our head as to where we wanted to go but we really did decide on the go, where we were going. Sometimes we was at airports landed somewhere trying to find somewhere to stay. The reason we flew between a lot of places was because the flights were so cheap. We would recommend www.airasia.com. However dont go on 123airlines as this is the one that crashed in Phuket. Actually after that crash apart from the obvious big airline companies the only budget asia company i would go with now is airasia. However in Malaysia we were there when there was really bad publicity about coach crashes and we didnt feel safe travelling on coaches. So in summary of what we did for each country.
Singapore
It can be expensive to fly out of Singapore but if you get a bus across the border into Malaysia to Johor Bahru You can fly from that airport really cheap. (Its not the simpliest of journeys to get there as you have to get on and of buses to get through customs...Lonely Planet is your friend here)
Malaysia
We flew around the different places using Kuala Lumpar as a base. (Note KL has 2 airports so dont get mixed up) The lonelyplanet book was really handy for Malaysia.
Borneo is where the orangutans are
I think Kuala Lumpur was cheaper then Bangkok for clothes and rip offs.
Specially Trainers.
Its a very muslim country so do expect to cover up a little more, you will see lots of the women with the black outfits on, even on the beach.
The places we went to in Malaysia are: KL, Langawi, Kota Kinabalu, and some other place on the east of borneo.
Vietnam
This was one of our favourite places in Asia.
As its not so tourist hit we would recommend that you do a tour here. We did a 14 day tour and it was great. We went down the country via coach and over night train, and dont get me wrong it can be minging at times, but its funny as well. If you get a good group of people like we did then you have a great 14 days. We went with www.intrepidtravel.com . In hindsight we would have liked to have done longer and gone on to Cambodia as well and which would of ended up in Bangkok and meant we didnt have to pay for the flight from Vietnam to Bangkok. I think this is the tour we did:
http://www.intrepidtravel.com/trips/VSR . I could talk for ever about this trip. So im going to stop.
Highly recommend buying the box sets of tv programmes from here.
Thailand
Thailand was a bit of a disappointment after going to Vietnam as they are more influenced towards tourists. Having said that once we got used to it again, we had a really good time here. This was the most backpackery place and the lonely planet guide came in really handy here. On some islands it is wise to book ahead for where you are staying as they can get booked up.
We got buses and boats to all of the planes, oh and an over night train back to bangkok. As mentioned this was prob the most difficult part of the journey with cases.
Full moon party was an experience, and worth trying to get to, this was at ko-phanghan (near ko sumai). Its a party on the beach all night, all the differnent bars have house music pumpin out of them. Its very amusing if you like that sort of thing. We were rubbish in that we stayed till 2 and then caught the speed boat back to ko sumai. I think i would have prefered to stay on the island and then be able to get drunk without worrying about a journey over water home. The big places to go and see Thailand beach wise is the James bond island (where they filmed man with the golden gun) close to phuket (a dump by the way). The other is Ko Phi Phi, which was devastated by the tsunami and also has trips from here to "the beach" where the film was made. quite stunning really.
Macau
It was okay. It was like a toned down unfinished Las Vegas. and a big hit to our pocket after it being so cheap everywhere else. We stayed in some nice hotels though.
Hong Kong
This was the last place on our journey and the plan was to shop. - which we did
Alcohol really expensive here.
No rip of dvds here. Actually not particularly great on rip offs at all.
Recommend going up to Victoria Peak for some stunning views of HK and good shops and places to eat. find out more here... http://www.thepeak.com.hk/full/en/index.php
Handy Extra Hints.
Doing Bangkok, Macau, and Hong Kong was the wrong thing to do at the end, It was to many similar cities at the end of the holiday that were a bit to expense and we just wanted to go home at that stage
Favourite places for us
Simon Vietnam, Australia and Tasmania
Andrea Vietnam and any beach
phew!
Like we said, have a look at our blog as well. If you have any questions, feel free to email us it's not a problem.
take care,
Simon & Andrea xx
This one is gonna be an epic mail guys, so brace yourself. This has mainly been compiled by Andrea so she should take all credit/gold stars for it...i just filled in the blanks one evening. The main thing to remember is that everything we say here are just tips and we are in no way telling you where to go and what to do as that's all the fun in the adventure. Without further ado, have a read and I hope that some of the tips might be handy for you....
Diary/Blog
Firstly for some bed time reading, please feel free to read our blog: http://gigpop.blogspot.com
Click on the months down the right hand side, to flick to differnet blog entries. We would highly recommend that you both write a blog. Its really an on line diary and will mean that friends and family can read it as you go along your travels and read about what you have done, without you needing to email everyone repeating your stories over and over again. More importantly though its something you will be able to read when you have grown old. We will at some stage have our blog printed out so its like a book. There are lots of different blog websites but we used: www.blogger.com which is a very simple blog but you can amend the design of the screens easily and also add things on the right hand side (have a look at our blog for what i mean) There are some other blogging websites that are more specific for travelling, so you can add an entry to each different place you travel. For example: http://www.travelblog.org/ . We decided against this as we wasnt going to necessarily write about every place we went to. They do however have a map on that you can track your journey on, which i think is very useful. I would check these all out before you go and see if you like them.
Email/Skype/Mobile
Asia and Australia have a lot of internet cafes so as long as you are in backpacking areas you should find one. America and Fiji were limited. The hotels in America normally have a computer though you can use in the Reception area. You may or may not have heard of skype, but its a great cheap way of ringing home. Before you go, get yourself a skype account and put say £10.00 credit on it. You will find that most internet cafes have skype on the computers and you can then ring your family on their landline through the computer and it will cost peanuts. Website is www.skype.com. If your family do have a computer then if they have skype running you can ring each other and it will cost nothing. The other options is phone cards. They are fairly cheap as well.
Mobile phone. If you have a mobile phone here thats unlocked so you can put a sim card from any network then this can prove really helpful. As soon as we got to Aussie we got an Aussie vodaphone sim card and then we could ring up trying to find somewhere to live in Australia without it costing a fortune. We also found it really handy in Asia. In Malaysia and Thailand we bought sim cards at the airport and we were then able to ring up hotels. In most of the countries i think the sim cards are free anyway.
Luggage
Its not easy to travel light, and we were rubbish at it, but it really does make sense to travel as light as you can. Particularly in Asia. In America its more difficult because you tend to dress up a little more, but in Asia its so hot and everyone is so studenty then you care less about the fact that are wearing the same outfit all the time (it does bug you though). We didnt have backpacks, and i would say it was only a couple of times where it would have made more sense to have backpacks (Only in Asia) and it was a little embarrasing that we didnt look like the other backpackers, but we purposely didnt want to do the backpacking lifestyle but be poshpackers.
Make sure though that you can each both carry your own suitcase up and downstairs. The case i started of with in America was far to heavy. (it had a heavy sticker on it hahah from the airplane) Ooo that reminds me.. Some of the airline companys are really anal about the weight of luggage. We got stung a couple of times, particularly in Asia wehre the limit is 15kg each, but the fine is so small anyway you accept it. We got really stung though going to Las Vegas.
Post Stuff !
Post offices - Buy stuff and then send it back by Sea. Its really cheap especially in Malaysia. It takes 3 months to get home but its great opening a box when you get home and seeing all your stuff.
Finding accommodation other than hotels..
In Australia and New Zealand it's a good idea to check out http://www.gumtree.com/ (Links on the right for the correct location). Stick to the flat/house shares as you can easily get a nice room with an en-suite for a very reasonable price. Having house mates can be a great source of company if you're doing each others heads in, conversely, it's also nice though to have a door to shut out your house mates too. It's a good site to remember anyway as they do a lot more than just flat shares.
Travel Insurance.
We ended up getting our travel insurance from Direct line as they were the cheapest by far. I think it cost us around £550 for the two of us for 1 years travel insurance that included USA. If you have no plans on going to the US you can get this cheaper still. I think it's down to their daft health care system.
Where to go
We bought an around the world ticket from trailfinders that was:
London - San Francisco - Hawaii - Fiji - Sydney - Cairns - Singapore
Hongkong - London
We had to make our own way to Hong Kong (more about this later)
We had to go to these places but we could change our dates as long as they were all within a year. We didnt actually take the flight between Sydney and Cairns, as we wanted to go to see some friends but as long as we told Quantas/British Airways that we werent catching it, then they are okay. Apparently if you miss your flight they cancel the rest of the journey. I think overall the flights were about £1200 each. Going around the November months i think is the cheapest.
In regard to Asia, we decided that as we were planning on spending 6 months in Australia we didnt want to plan the Asia part of our journey upfront as it was to much organising, so this is why we concentrated on good flights to America, hawaii etc and we would worry about the coming home at a later stage. Overall we are happy we did this because it allowed us to land in Singapore and say right where now?. And if we liked/disliked somewhere then we stayed there longer. We slowly made our way round Asia going to:
Singapore
Malaysia - Borneo
Kuala Lumpur
Langkawi
Vietnam - 14 days of travelling throughout
Thailand - Phuket
Phi-Phi
Ko Sumai
Ko Tao
Bangkok
China - Macau
Hong Kong
This took us just under 3 months to get round Asia. We had a sketchy map in our head as to where we wanted to go but we really did decide on the go, where we were going. Sometimes we was at airports landed somewhere trying to find somewhere to stay. The reason we flew between a lot of places was because the flights were so cheap. We would recommend www.airasia.com. However dont go on 123airlines as this is the one that crashed in Phuket. Actually after that crash apart from the obvious big airline companies the only budget asia company i would go with now is airasia. However in Malaysia we were there when there was really bad publicity about coach crashes and we didnt feel safe travelling on coaches. So in summary of what we did for each country.
Singapore
It can be expensive to fly out of Singapore but if you get a bus across the border into Malaysia to Johor Bahru You can fly from that airport really cheap. (Its not the simpliest of journeys to get there as you have to get on and of buses to get through customs...Lonely Planet is your friend here)
Malaysia
We flew around the different places using Kuala Lumpar as a base. (Note KL has 2 airports so dont get mixed up) The lonelyplanet book was really handy for Malaysia.
Borneo is where the orangutans are
I think Kuala Lumpur was cheaper then Bangkok for clothes and rip offs.
Specially Trainers.
Its a very muslim country so do expect to cover up a little more, you will see lots of the women with the black outfits on, even on the beach.
The places we went to in Malaysia are: KL, Langawi, Kota Kinabalu, and some other place on the east of borneo.
Vietnam
This was one of our favourite places in Asia.
As its not so tourist hit we would recommend that you do a tour here. We did a 14 day tour and it was great. We went down the country via coach and over night train, and dont get me wrong it can be minging at times, but its funny as well. If you get a good group of people like we did then you have a great 14 days. We went with www.intrepidtravel.com . In hindsight we would have liked to have done longer and gone on to Cambodia as well and which would of ended up in Bangkok and meant we didnt have to pay for the flight from Vietnam to Bangkok. I think this is the tour we did:
http://www.intrepidtravel.com/trips/VSR . I could talk for ever about this trip. So im going to stop.
Highly recommend buying the box sets of tv programmes from here.
Thailand
Thailand was a bit of a disappointment after going to Vietnam as they are more influenced towards tourists. Having said that once we got used to it again, we had a really good time here. This was the most backpackery place and the lonely planet guide came in really handy here. On some islands it is wise to book ahead for where you are staying as they can get booked up.
We got buses and boats to all of the planes, oh and an over night train back to bangkok. As mentioned this was prob the most difficult part of the journey with cases.
Full moon party was an experience, and worth trying to get to, this was at ko-phanghan (near ko sumai). Its a party on the beach all night, all the differnent bars have house music pumpin out of them. Its very amusing if you like that sort of thing. We were rubbish in that we stayed till 2 and then caught the speed boat back to ko sumai. I think i would have prefered to stay on the island and then be able to get drunk without worrying about a journey over water home. The big places to go and see Thailand beach wise is the James bond island (where they filmed man with the golden gun) close to phuket (a dump by the way). The other is Ko Phi Phi, which was devastated by the tsunami and also has trips from here to "the beach" where the film was made. quite stunning really.
Macau
It was okay. It was like a toned down unfinished Las Vegas. and a big hit to our pocket after it being so cheap everywhere else. We stayed in some nice hotels though.
Hong Kong
This was the last place on our journey and the plan was to shop. - which we did
Alcohol really expensive here.
No rip of dvds here. Actually not particularly great on rip offs at all.
Recommend going up to Victoria Peak for some stunning views of HK and good shops and places to eat. find out more here... http://www.thepeak.com.hk/full/en/index.php
Handy Extra Hints.
Doing Bangkok, Macau, and Hong Kong was the wrong thing to do at the end, It was to many similar cities at the end of the holiday that were a bit to expense and we just wanted to go home at that stage
Favourite places for us
Simon Vietnam, Australia and Tasmania
Andrea Vietnam and any beach
phew!
Like we said, have a look at our blog as well. If you have any questions, feel free to email us it's not a problem.
take care,
Simon & Andrea xx
An abrupt end
I know it was an abrupt end to the blog, but our life got taken over by life back in england and we defo were not going to start writing about this after a whole year of blogging our life.
Having said that, we had a fantastic time and every now and again we will add extra blog entries with things to help us remember our journey.
Having said that, we had a fantastic time and every now and again we will add extra blog entries with things to help us remember our journey.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Dressing down in Hong Kong
Well this is the very last place on our trip around the world. Arriving on Tuesday 16th October and leaving to go back to London on Friday 19th in the evening. So again like Hong Kong the priority is shopping. We got to Hong Kong from Macau by ferry that took an hour. Simon would have loved to go by Helicopter and whilst it wasnt that expensive we really couldnt justify the cost.
Apart from the last night we stayed in the tiniest room possible at the Bridal Tea Room hotel, which was in a great location near the tube station but was tiny. It had 2 small single beds, tv on a wall, and then the toilet/shower. TINY TINY TINY and about 25 quid a night which really in terms of Asia was expensive but it was the best we could do for Hong Kong. Having said that, the room may have been small but it was clean and it did mean that we purposely didnt spend any time in it but would sit down at the little cafe downstairs where we had free internet and could watch the back street life go past. Which surprisingly was good as we could watch the one armed octopus guy cooking food across the way and the chinese people would sit on the plastic chairs eating it. I did try some food from the cafe next door but it wasnt very nice - noodles with some spicy red things on top.
But to make up for it we paid $1200 HK Dollars (about £70) and we stayed in the Royal Garden Resort on the last night. It was the best because as well as being gorgeous we had dressing gowns in the room. This has made my year. For me it just meant that we might have enjoyed doing cheap and cheerful but its also great to do posh at the same time and completely reiterates that we are not backpackers but poshpackers. I LOVED THE DRESSING GOWNS. My list of things to have done this year defo included that.
On one our days in Hong Kong we went to Disneyland. We had a great day here, we caught the train to get there and one of the train journeys was on the disney train, it was like a fantasy limo inside with velvet seats, disney shaped windows. Very cute. We had a great day it may have included kids rides but we enjoyed them (well i did) just as much as the scary space mountain. One of the best rides (if u wanna call it that) was the haunted house where we had to walk through and things (people) would jump out on us. It was strange seeing chinese ghosts and zombies. Some of the people we walked around where really scared and would scream there heads of, it was funny watching them.
When we started our journey nearly a year ago the first night we went to a chinese restaurant in San Francisco. Now in Hong Kong we had an American meal by going to TGI Fridays. Oh my it was expensive. Struggling with the prices in Hong Kong as everything has been so cheap in the rest of Asia.
We discovered because alcohol is so expensive in Hong Kong ie a fiver for a glass of wine that they way to do it was to go to the happy hour places and do BOGOF, which is what we did. We found a nice bar that most western people seemed to go to and we was able to have a couple of beers and cider and then round the corner a kebab, eh this is the life. This was of course after a hard day shopping.
On a couple of evenings we walked down to Kowloon harbour to look across to the hong kong skyline and watch all of the buildings light up at night and then at 8oclock the buildings all have a bit of a lighting show set to music, this is definatly one of the best views we have seen.
Whilst waiting for the lights we walked along examining the Avenue of stars which is the same as Los Angeles except its all Chinese people which of course we dont recognise apart from Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. We did put our hands though on Jackie Chans handprint.
On our last evening, we spent a busy couple of hours running around, getting our hair done, shopping, seeing the lighting show and then we ended up in a mexican/chinese bar. We ended up somehow chatting to an American guy with a very interesting mustache. The conversation started off okay but it gradually started to turn into a pathetic conversation whereby he was telling us he travelled the world for his job checking planes (ie an ex pilot) but he owned a gun store in america and wanted a website down for it, and he thought me and Simon would be really good and we should talk business the next day blah blah. I very very stupidly told him (as i was still excited about it) about our dressing gowns and he asked me why was i telling him, was i inviting him in to see them. The conversation really was starting to go very dodgy so we left him at about 1 in the morning. Really i didnt want to go out for long as i just wanted to sit in my dressing gown, so i slept in it instead and then we didnt leave the room the next day until 12 on the dot so we could enjoy the room and the tele for the morning.
On the last day as well as running around looking for a white Ds from me (thank u Simon x), a teapot, Simons Ipod touch we wanted to go up to the Peak via the tram and see the skyline from high up. This was something again on my to do list but was something i expected to be a quiet affair and would be about seeing a temple at the top. How wrong i was, it was an hour queue to get on the tram, and then it was totally commercial at the top. We ended up eating at the Bubba Gump restaurant looking over amazing views and of course buying some more rubbish.
To get to the Airport we took our suitcases and our many bags of hand luggage and caught the train, we managed to get one of us on free as the Octopus card simon had bought previously to validate the airplane tickets seemed to continue to work. I spent most of this extremely fast journey trying to pack things tidyingly up in the suitcase. Once we got the airport we was extremely lucky as the plane going 10mins after our plane going to London had been delayed for 20hours. I dont think our mums would have been pleased if we had landed an extra day later.
Back home in England - 20th October 2007
Apart from the last night we stayed in the tiniest room possible at the Bridal Tea Room hotel, which was in a great location near the tube station but was tiny. It had 2 small single beds, tv on a wall, and then the toilet/shower. TINY TINY TINY and about 25 quid a night which really in terms of Asia was expensive but it was the best we could do for Hong Kong. Having said that, the room may have been small but it was clean and it did mean that we purposely didnt spend any time in it but would sit down at the little cafe downstairs where we had free internet and could watch the back street life go past. Which surprisingly was good as we could watch the one armed octopus guy cooking food across the way and the chinese people would sit on the plastic chairs eating it. I did try some food from the cafe next door but it wasnt very nice - noodles with some spicy red things on top.
But to make up for it we paid $1200 HK Dollars (about £70) and we stayed in the Royal Garden Resort on the last night. It was the best because as well as being gorgeous we had dressing gowns in the room. This has made my year. For me it just meant that we might have enjoyed doing cheap and cheerful but its also great to do posh at the same time and completely reiterates that we are not backpackers but poshpackers. I LOVED THE DRESSING GOWNS. My list of things to have done this year defo included that.
On one our days in Hong Kong we went to Disneyland. We had a great day here, we caught the train to get there and one of the train journeys was on the disney train, it was like a fantasy limo inside with velvet seats, disney shaped windows. Very cute. We had a great day it may have included kids rides but we enjoyed them (well i did) just as much as the scary space mountain. One of the best rides (if u wanna call it that) was the haunted house where we had to walk through and things (people) would jump out on us. It was strange seeing chinese ghosts and zombies. Some of the people we walked around where really scared and would scream there heads of, it was funny watching them.
When we started our journey nearly a year ago the first night we went to a chinese restaurant in San Francisco. Now in Hong Kong we had an American meal by going to TGI Fridays. Oh my it was expensive. Struggling with the prices in Hong Kong as everything has been so cheap in the rest of Asia.
We discovered because alcohol is so expensive in Hong Kong ie a fiver for a glass of wine that they way to do it was to go to the happy hour places and do BOGOF, which is what we did. We found a nice bar that most western people seemed to go to and we was able to have a couple of beers and cider and then round the corner a kebab, eh this is the life. This was of course after a hard day shopping.
On a couple of evenings we walked down to Kowloon harbour to look across to the hong kong skyline and watch all of the buildings light up at night and then at 8oclock the buildings all have a bit of a lighting show set to music, this is definatly one of the best views we have seen.
Whilst waiting for the lights we walked along examining the Avenue of stars which is the same as Los Angeles except its all Chinese people which of course we dont recognise apart from Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. We did put our hands though on Jackie Chans handprint.
On our last evening, we spent a busy couple of hours running around, getting our hair done, shopping, seeing the lighting show and then we ended up in a mexican/chinese bar. We ended up somehow chatting to an American guy with a very interesting mustache. The conversation started off okay but it gradually started to turn into a pathetic conversation whereby he was telling us he travelled the world for his job checking planes (ie an ex pilot) but he owned a gun store in america and wanted a website down for it, and he thought me and Simon would be really good and we should talk business the next day blah blah. I very very stupidly told him (as i was still excited about it) about our dressing gowns and he asked me why was i telling him, was i inviting him in to see them. The conversation really was starting to go very dodgy so we left him at about 1 in the morning. Really i didnt want to go out for long as i just wanted to sit in my dressing gown, so i slept in it instead and then we didnt leave the room the next day until 12 on the dot so we could enjoy the room and the tele for the morning.
On the last day as well as running around looking for a white Ds from me (thank u Simon x), a teapot, Simons Ipod touch we wanted to go up to the Peak via the tram and see the skyline from high up. This was something again on my to do list but was something i expected to be a quiet affair and would be about seeing a temple at the top. How wrong i was, it was an hour queue to get on the tram, and then it was totally commercial at the top. We ended up eating at the Bubba Gump restaurant looking over amazing views and of course buying some more rubbish.
To get to the Airport we took our suitcases and our many bags of hand luggage and caught the train, we managed to get one of us on free as the Octopus card simon had bought previously to validate the airplane tickets seemed to continue to work. I spent most of this extremely fast journey trying to pack things tidyingly up in the suitcase. Once we got the airport we was extremely lucky as the plane going 10mins after our plane going to London had been delayed for 20hours. I dont think our mums would have been pleased if we had landed an extra day later.
Back home in England - 20th October 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Macau
Macau is an odd place, the first reaction would be to say what everyone says and that it's the Vegas of the east, but it's not...it's the Blackpool of the China!! OK, it's got the grand casinos of Vegas but it also has the regular tourist attractions like old buildings from it's colonial past, you can go to the top of the tower to see the view from too. Also, just like Blackpool, finding anyone who speaks English is quite a novelty. They really don't speak a word of it here in Macau, Andrea opted for the 'shouting the question in English even louder whilst I just got better at pointing.
Anyway, arriving in Macau is an eye opener. The taxi took us past the new venetian casino which is simply enormous and is the second largest building in the world, then over the bridge gave us view of the Grand Lisboa which is like a giant LED ball with a golden palm tree shaped hotel planted on top of it.
We stayed at the Hotel/Casino Fortuna initially which had more modestly priced rooms but like vegas the room prices go sky high on a Friday and Saturday night so we had to move again to a regular hotel that had views Chinese mainland! The casinos here are what Andrea call "hardcore" casinos full of very high stakes games, oh and stupid card games like Casino War which consists of everyone being given a card and if the dealers card is higher than yours, you loose ! it's a nice fast way to loose your money.
Walking about one night we stumbled upon the control tower for the motor racing street circuit. There has been nods from the bods saying that it will be on the F1 Calender soon, apparently. Further on from here was a weird "theme village" that contained, a volcano, a Chinese kinda temple, a stereotypical middle eastern town, Italy, New Orleans, and of course Africa. Apart from the middle east and the volcano, the other areas were themes for the restaurants within them. It was all very cheesy and the locals and Andrea loved it. The thing that made me laugh was there were quite a few posters advertising a kind of an advanced laser quest that was going to the held in the middle east !! I'm guessing the soldiers vs terrorists is a stereotype too now!
Anyway, wandering about we discovered where the new MGM Grand is going to be built, it's certainly big and kinda looks like 3 giant lego bricks ontop of each other. The MGM Lion is very impressive as its colours change occasionally.
On the next block to the MGM we stopped at a bar called the "MP3 Bar" that had some westerners there. The geeky side of us was drawn to the MP3 but after sitting down there it wasn't until a very scantily clad lady came up to us and asked what we fancied to drink did we realise what it was all about. It was then that we noticed that all the westerners were blokes and all the ladies were Russian/East European go-go dancers. They even had a pole in the middle of the bar where occasionally one of the girls would give a performance. Anyway, there were a lot of men that were "on business" in the bar with leggy blonds all over them, that was until a bunch of leggy asians wandered up the road and stopped outside (i think they were mobile go-go girls, have to keep up with the times i guess). They then swamped the blokes and were chatting and getting all touchy touchy. I had the feeling that at any moment a great big "girlfriend" *wobbles head* fight was gonna break out between the blonds and the asians....alas not. It was all very interesting though and I would recommend it for a drink or two.
Macau seemed to be famous for two things food wise, one was these really dry shortbread biscuits, which are quite nice once the dryness has gone, and these pieces of flat beef jerky Chinese style with all sorts of sauces over them. The shops selling these things were swamped with a throng of asian tourists buying loads of stuff whilst outside there were ladies from the shops offering samples of the biscuits and the jerky. They were at least to everyone except for Andrea as one lady refused to give her a sample biscuit. There was a moment where the woman was stood on the spot turning in circles whilst Andrea was running round the outside trying to grab a biscuit ! hehehe.
Andrea loved Macau and could of probably spent a couple of weeks here, for my part I though Macau was ok but it would be interesting to see it in about 5 years or so. For me, Hong Kong was much much better. :)
Anyway, arriving in Macau is an eye opener. The taxi took us past the new venetian casino which is simply enormous and is the second largest building in the world, then over the bridge gave us view of the Grand Lisboa which is like a giant LED ball with a golden palm tree shaped hotel planted on top of it.
We stayed at the Hotel/Casino Fortuna initially which had more modestly priced rooms but like vegas the room prices go sky high on a Friday and Saturday night so we had to move again to a regular hotel that had views Chinese mainland! The casinos here are what Andrea call "hardcore" casinos full of very high stakes games, oh and stupid card games like Casino War which consists of everyone being given a card and if the dealers card is higher than yours, you loose ! it's a nice fast way to loose your money.
Walking about one night we stumbled upon the control tower for the motor racing street circuit. There has been nods from the bods saying that it will be on the F1 Calender soon, apparently. Further on from here was a weird "theme village" that contained, a volcano, a Chinese kinda temple, a stereotypical middle eastern town, Italy, New Orleans, and of course Africa. Apart from the middle east and the volcano, the other areas were themes for the restaurants within them. It was all very cheesy and the locals and Andrea loved it. The thing that made me laugh was there were quite a few posters advertising a kind of an advanced laser quest that was going to the held in the middle east !! I'm guessing the soldiers vs terrorists is a stereotype too now!
Anyway, wandering about we discovered where the new MGM Grand is going to be built, it's certainly big and kinda looks like 3 giant lego bricks ontop of each other. The MGM Lion is very impressive as its colours change occasionally.
On the next block to the MGM we stopped at a bar called the "MP3 Bar" that had some westerners there. The geeky side of us was drawn to the MP3 but after sitting down there it wasn't until a very scantily clad lady came up to us and asked what we fancied to drink did we realise what it was all about. It was then that we noticed that all the westerners were blokes and all the ladies were Russian/East European go-go dancers. They even had a pole in the middle of the bar where occasionally one of the girls would give a performance. Anyway, there were a lot of men that were "on business" in the bar with leggy blonds all over them, that was until a bunch of leggy asians wandered up the road and stopped outside (i think they were mobile go-go girls, have to keep up with the times i guess). They then swamped the blokes and were chatting and getting all touchy touchy. I had the feeling that at any moment a great big "girlfriend" *wobbles head* fight was gonna break out between the blonds and the asians....alas not. It was all very interesting though and I would recommend it for a drink or two.
Macau seemed to be famous for two things food wise, one was these really dry shortbread biscuits, which are quite nice once the dryness has gone, and these pieces of flat beef jerky Chinese style with all sorts of sauces over them. The shops selling these things were swamped with a throng of asian tourists buying loads of stuff whilst outside there were ladies from the shops offering samples of the biscuits and the jerky. They were at least to everyone except for Andrea as one lady refused to give her a sample biscuit. There was a moment where the woman was stood on the spot turning in circles whilst Andrea was running round the outside trying to grab a biscuit ! hehehe.
Andrea loved Macau and could of probably spent a couple of weeks here, for my part I though Macau was ok but it would be interesting to see it in about 5 years or so. For me, Hong Kong was much much better. :)
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Bangkok
We were here for 3 days and purposely didnt want to do any of the normal temple sites but go shopping and see the night sights.
So first stop was a hotel on Th Khao San called D & D inn. We arrived here at 8 in the morning from the train journey. We didnt actually want to be on Khao San Road but the taxi driver managed to overcharge us and then just dropped us off on this road even though we directed him to another road putting us both in a bad mood.
This road is where all the backpackers stay on. Its a drinking road but weirdly closes at 12. For example at 12 oclock on the first night we were sat on the road on some plastic stools chatting to some people drinking from plastic glasses, when suddenly we had to stand up and look like we were just walking around as the police went past. We then were able to sit back on our plastic stools again and continue chatting.
The days were spent shopping, we found a great shopping centre that had floors and floors of stuff to buy, so we bought a lot of stuff. It was Simons turn to go mad this time.
To go shopping we took what they call Tuk-Tuks . This was one of those things on the tick list to have done and is now completed. It was not the nicest journey we have had as it stinks of exhaust fumes and is very nosy.
The other entry on our list of things to do was to go to a ping pong show on Patpong Road. This was a disaster as we got ripped of when we went in to a club and had to pay triple the price of the drinks that they said. I tried to argue with the madam but really we didnt have any choice and as Simon pointed out, me arguing with this women is not going to get us anywhere apart from a punch on the nose. The girls just wanted tipping all the time for trying to massage my arms whilst we watched the bored fat semi naked girl fire darts from her bits into the balloons (was actually pretty impressive). We quickly had our drinks and left and instead of going into any other bars we went around the market instead. Ah shopping again.
So it was back to forgetting the seedy side of Bangkok and sticking with the dodgy shopping side of Bangkok. I think overall i preferred Kuala Lumpur for shopping.
Just before we left Thailand i managed to convince Simon that he couldnt leave without having some type of massage so he had 30mins of foot reflexology and i had a back massage. I think Simon came out better then i did because the women whilst very good caused me a lot of pain pulling me and pounding me. I think the objective is for them to get my bones to crack but as my bones dont really crack anyway it really hurt :-).
Flight to Macau was on Thursday 11th October on Air Asia
So first stop was a hotel on Th Khao San called D & D inn. We arrived here at 8 in the morning from the train journey. We didnt actually want to be on Khao San Road but the taxi driver managed to overcharge us and then just dropped us off on this road even though we directed him to another road putting us both in a bad mood.
This road is where all the backpackers stay on. Its a drinking road but weirdly closes at 12. For example at 12 oclock on the first night we were sat on the road on some plastic stools chatting to some people drinking from plastic glasses, when suddenly we had to stand up and look like we were just walking around as the police went past. We then were able to sit back on our plastic stools again and continue chatting.
The days were spent shopping, we found a great shopping centre that had floors and floors of stuff to buy, so we bought a lot of stuff. It was Simons turn to go mad this time.
To go shopping we took what they call Tuk-Tuks . This was one of those things on the tick list to have done and is now completed. It was not the nicest journey we have had as it stinks of exhaust fumes and is very nosy.
The other entry on our list of things to do was to go to a ping pong show on Patpong Road. This was a disaster as we got ripped of when we went in to a club and had to pay triple the price of the drinks that they said. I tried to argue with the madam but really we didnt have any choice and as Simon pointed out, me arguing with this women is not going to get us anywhere apart from a punch on the nose. The girls just wanted tipping all the time for trying to massage my arms whilst we watched the bored fat semi naked girl fire darts from her bits into the balloons (was actually pretty impressive). We quickly had our drinks and left and instead of going into any other bars we went around the market instead. Ah shopping again.
So it was back to forgetting the seedy side of Bangkok and sticking with the dodgy shopping side of Bangkok. I think overall i preferred Kuala Lumpur for shopping.
Just before we left Thailand i managed to convince Simon that he couldnt leave without having some type of massage so he had 30mins of foot reflexology and i had a back massage. I think Simon came out better then i did because the women whilst very good caused me a lot of pain pulling me and pounding me. I think the objective is for them to get my bones to crack but as my bones dont really crack anyway it really hurt :-).
Flight to Macau was on Thursday 11th October on Air Asia
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Overnight Train to Bangkok from Champeon
Sat on a train writing this, its 10 oclock at night sat in 1st class on the lower bunk with Simon nattering away to me in the dark on the top bunk. We have left Ko Toa and caught a boat for 3 hours to mainland Thailand and now we are on the overnight train to Bangkok. We paid 1500 bahts each which is about 23 quid altogether. We decided to go 1st class as we get our own little cabin with a sink and space for the luggage. Shame we arrive in Bangkok at 6 in the morning. Before we got on the train we had a couple of hours to kill at Champeon town so we went for a really nice but oh so so spicy thai meal. I had spicy shrimp noodles and Simon had fried pork and fried rice with extra chilli added. We both had to sup our drinks quick just to get rid of the inflamed lips. We had a quick nosy through the night market and bought some grapes for 20bahts,and a really tacky but amusing dragon drum thingy for 40bahts(75p). This seemed to amuse people as we were waiting at the platform trying to work out which train we should get on, admittedly tippsy after supping a lot of drink cos of how spicy the food was. When i went in to the toilet at the station (which i took a pic of cos of the mold on the wall) Simon got accosted by a thai women and her son and he thought they wer begging for money but actually the son he had a questionaire that he wanted answering for school. We got a pic of them. I also got a pic of me with our guard from the train. They did the Vietnam giggling thing of wanting to see the pic once it had been taken.
Ko Tao - on the populated side of the island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko_Tao
For the past 4 or 5 nights (im struggling to remember the day nether mind the date) we have stayed at the Sunset Buri resort. In a nice air con room. We went as cheap as we were willing to go in the 500 baht room over the otherside of the island, this place is 1000baht(13quid) and is much nicer and it has a swimming pool, which is good because the water here is full of jelly fish which im scared of. Simons been teaching me in the pool to dive down and pick the stone up from the bottom. i finally achieved it on my last dive down on the last day, with my goggles on and my nose clip. Diving in from the side next lesson.
Ive had a bad belly most of the time here and kept having to run off most nights back to the hotel. Bit embarrasing after meeting a couple(Roxanne and Peter) that Simon had met at Brekkie in Ko Phi Phi. We went out with them a couple of nights in particular to play pool, watch england beat aussie in rugby and then caberet. Caberet consits of the lady boys badly miming to songs dressed up in wild outfits, very entertaining.
We have been on 2 trips whilst being here:
Fishing trip. Simon caught a fish but whilst winding it in, a baracuda came and bit the fish of so Simon only ended up with the head of a fish. However as that was the only thing we caught he won our round the world fishing comp this time so its 2 each at the mo, might have to wait until we get back to england for the tiebreaker.
Andrea - Fiji, Whitsunday islands
Simon - Cairns, Ko Toa
Sorkeling trip. This was one of the best places we have ever snorkeled. We went to 5 different places over the day. The first stop was Shark Bay. I didnt see it but Simon said he saw a shark that was bigger then him. He said that was scary. One of the bays we went to was like a school for baby fish. It had all the pretty fish everywhere but they were tiny. We saw lots of 'Finding Nemo' fish but the best bit was seeing the baby sharks. We saw a couple of them swimming around and we would try to swim after them to take pics but they are to fast and to scared of people. Another bay called Mango Bay had the most amount of jelly fish ive ever seen. Its strange but i dont mind getting in the water knowing there is baby sharks there but show me some jelly fish and im scared.
The final stopping place was the island of nang-yuan. This is a beautiful island that has the water coming in from both sides and there is a tiny strip of sand you can sunbathe on in between. Of one of the sides you can go snorkeling which had some great fish and coral but for me the most interesting thing was watching the scuba divers in the water learning how to dive properly. They would be in the water, taking their masks of and learning how to put the mask on and clear it of water. I cant even dive to pick a stone up from the bottom of the swimming pool without lessons from Simon, i really dont think scuba diving is for me.
For the past 4 or 5 nights (im struggling to remember the day nether mind the date) we have stayed at the Sunset Buri resort. In a nice air con room. We went as cheap as we were willing to go in the 500 baht room over the otherside of the island, this place is 1000baht(13quid) and is much nicer and it has a swimming pool, which is good because the water here is full of jelly fish which im scared of. Simons been teaching me in the pool to dive down and pick the stone up from the bottom. i finally achieved it on my last dive down on the last day, with my goggles on and my nose clip. Diving in from the side next lesson.
Ive had a bad belly most of the time here and kept having to run off most nights back to the hotel. Bit embarrasing after meeting a couple(Roxanne and Peter) that Simon had met at Brekkie in Ko Phi Phi. We went out with them a couple of nights in particular to play pool, watch england beat aussie in rugby and then caberet. Caberet consits of the lady boys badly miming to songs dressed up in wild outfits, very entertaining.
We have been on 2 trips whilst being here:
Fishing trip. Simon caught a fish but whilst winding it in, a baracuda came and bit the fish of so Simon only ended up with the head of a fish. However as that was the only thing we caught he won our round the world fishing comp this time so its 2 each at the mo, might have to wait until we get back to england for the tiebreaker.
Andrea - Fiji, Whitsunday islands
Simon - Cairns, Ko Toa
Sorkeling trip. This was one of the best places we have ever snorkeled. We went to 5 different places over the day. The first stop was Shark Bay. I didnt see it but Simon said he saw a shark that was bigger then him. He said that was scary. One of the bays we went to was like a school for baby fish. It had all the pretty fish everywhere but they were tiny. We saw lots of 'Finding Nemo' fish but the best bit was seeing the baby sharks. We saw a couple of them swimming around and we would try to swim after them to take pics but they are to fast and to scared of people. Another bay called Mango Bay had the most amount of jelly fish ive ever seen. Its strange but i dont mind getting in the water knowing there is baby sharks there but show me some jelly fish and im scared.
The final stopping place was the island of nang-yuan. This is a beautiful island that has the water coming in from both sides and there is a tiny strip of sand you can sunbathe on in between. Of one of the sides you can go snorkeling which had some great fish and coral but for me the most interesting thing was watching the scuba divers in the water learning how to dive properly. They would be in the water, taking their masks of and learning how to put the mask on and clear it of water. I cant even dive to pick a stone up from the bottom of the swimming pool without lessons from Simon, i really dont think scuba diving is for me.
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