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Monday 16th May - Train to Siem Reap

We got the 5.50 train from Bangkok to Siem reap. There is only one class, 3rd but there are some 2nd class seats available if you get there early enough to nab one and they are the same price. It cost only 45 baht or so for the ticket, which is about 1.30. The journey is an arduous six hours but it takes you through some lovely Thai countryside. The train was delayed, taking an hour longer than it should have. This meant that we only arrived in Aranypharat at 12.30.
We headed into the town itself to find a bank. All the banks were closed so we got out some Thai baht and headed to the border.
There were a lot of scams which happened in the next few hours between here and Siem Reap. I counted 7 in total, but I could have missed a few.
We have been through this border before and we knew what to expect, but the scams are infuriating if you just want to get through it quickly.
We got a tuk took from the town to the border. The driver stopped by an office in the middle of nowhere which claimed to be an official visa place. This is scam one and its a good one even though its an old one. They put the hard sell on us, telling us that we needed to pay them 45 dollars for a visa (which costs 20), they told us a pack of lies (border is closed, we can't get visa on arrival, etc). We said no to them several times and finally they relented. The tuk tuk driver apologised for bringing us to the scam guy, which was nice. Luckily we avoided the money changer scams, which I will come to later, and found a bank near the border where we changed our thai baht to US dollars.

Bangkok Friday 13 - Monday 16th May 2011

We stayed at the Shanti lodge while we were in Bangkok. This is an old favourite of ours. We stayed here three times before this and we wanted to stay again to seep up that air of adventure which we first felt when we reached Thailand back in 2007 for our first trip to Asia.
The truth is that you can never go home, you just keep moving forward and the past is an unreachable country. So, the Shanti lodge was not as we remembered it!
We were feeling a bit low at this time. All the stresses of moving country and the strains of dealing with our ex-landlord dispute was wearing us down. We were tired, grumpy and not in full holiday mode. Going on holidays between a move like this has its ups and downs. On the up side, its a lot cheaper, you can use your flight home as a way to get a free holiday flight. The holiday flight is the flight you would be taking anyway. In our case, the total flights home cost us 1150 which is less than the 1850 we would have had to pay to go all the way home from Australia with one airline. Secondly, since you are not paying accommodation while you are away, you save about 800 each per month! But the drawback is the frame of mind. You have one foot in the old world of old stresses and chaos, one foot in the new world
of future worries and an eagerness to start anew and yet you are stuck in some hiatus world of holiday.
Our mood disintegrated when we reached the Shanti. Constant travel and landlord issues had paid a heavy toll. We needed a warm bed and friendly therapist. We found shouting, angry hoteliers and a rock hard bed in a hostel.
The shanty brings out a mixture of feelings in me. At once, I hate it and love it at the same time. It shouts Thailand at me, it reminds me of adventure but the people who work there are always angry and gruff and the rooms are quite sparse and noisy.
We got bitten by mosquitos, children ran up and down the stairs shouting while we tried to sleep and one nasty woman mocked me after I tried to say Cap-com-ca or thank you to her in Thai. But, the restaurant is amazing, the food is all home made, msg free and organic, the place is covered in lovely plants and trees and decorated with little tiles and mirrors. It's as much of an enigma as Bangkok itself, a city I both love and hate with equal passion.
The staff at the Shanti lodge are not representative of Thai people at all. They are the exception. Most people seem really nice and friendly and extremely polite. I am not sure how genuine that is, having once worked in a tourist shop back in Dublin, I know the fake smiles that tourists evoke, but I believe that most of their smiling, laid back attitude is genuine and that Thai people are, all in all, very friendly.
We did the tourist thing and headed for the Kho san road, the backpacker mecca where everything is sold from fake ids to shirts to foot massages. I got a dress made for my friends upcoming wedding, we had a beer in a corner pub and ate our dinner back in the shanti, washing it down with sangria.
I was feeling very sick with Asthma because of the smog, so the next few days are a blur really. I also had a bad cold which contributed to my breathing problems. We went for a fish spa, which was really weird but awesome. The fish are called doctor fish, they eat dead skin from your feet. You basically put your feet in a tank with a load of little fish who swarm in on you. On Saturday night we went out for beers, got drunk on chang beer and the last day was a fairly quiet day of being hung over, reading Asimov's 'The rest of the robots' and drinking Thai soup.
I love the food in Thailand, it's always a delight. Thai food is probably my favourite over all. It's so tasty and there is such a wide variety of different dishes, the spices used vary and are never too overpowering. We had an early night on Sunday, as our monday train was at 5.55. Bangkok came and went like some strange neon blur and we were up at 4.30 Monday morning for our trip to the train station. The 5.50 train to the Cambodian border awaited.

Butterworth to Bangkok Friday 13th May 2011

We took the 22 hour night train from Butterworth to Bangkok. When we arrived at the station I had to run straight to the ticket office and pick up our tickets. I hadn't, until that morning, seen the small print on the email, which said that we should pick up our tickets at least 12 hours before the train. We were worried!
The ticket office initially said that our seats were gone but after checking their computer systems told us that our seats were still vacant. We wandered around the station looking for a non-existent post box and found someone selling delicious banana bread. Two slices of this and two bananas cost 1 dollar AUD. As we waited in the station, gathering together a supply of snacks and water for the journey, the rain started to pour. It was torrential. thunder and lightening boomed and flashed around the area and the roof of the station started leaking. We stood inside the small seating area watching the downpour until it was time to board the train. Lightening flashed around us as we left Butterworth.
The train was a comfortable sleeper train, the type I have come to expect in Thailand. We had a double seat each which turns into a berth. The cost was 115 ringett each, about 35$aud. The train seats were comfortable and spacious. There is a removable table between the seats which is used for meals.
We reached the Thai border around 8 hours later (10.30pm) and handled all the visa stuff. This was to be our best border crossing by far! Efficiently, we were marched through a check point, handed in our Malaysian departure cards and then through another check point we got our Thai visas and off we went on the train again. The whole thing was like clockwork. Thai visas are free and available on arrival for Irish people.

Back on the train, I drifted into the semi-consciousness of a pixel puzzle book until we we ordered dinner. We were not expecting to get food on the train, so it was a pleasant surprise. We had to pay for it, of course, but the food was cheap and there was a vegetarian full menu too. We ordered dinner, drinks and breakfast. I got a beer with my meal, Paddy ordered a whiskey and coke was amazed to receive a full nagin of rum instead!
The food was better than aeroplane food.
The train trip was pleasant, travelling through lush jungle and little towns along the way. There seemed to be a lot of construction going on in Malaysia.
After the food and beers, the westerners on the train got chatting. There was only a few of us, so it really felt like being an 'expat'. There was a guy from Ireland, he was from Newcastle in Down and he was off to teach english in Laos. There was an American fellow who was working in Thailand as a voice actor and another American guy who was on his way back from spending a year in Korea. As we chatted, trading stories of our trip so far and our previous adventures, the efficient train crew made our seats into beds and we retired for the night.
It was really pleasant in the beds. They were comfortable, not too small and had a little curtain which gave you a great feeling of privacy. I love the feeling of having this little private world of the train bed, my own little reality between the curtain and the window. I fell asleep quickly as the world of green trees fluttered by.
The next morning I woke early, queued to wash up and brush my teeth and then had some breakfast.
We arrived at about 11.30 and got a tuk took from the train station to our hotel. We bargained him down to 100 baht which is good considering the distance. 31 baht is 1 aussie dollar which is 70c in euros roughly.
Being on a tuk tuk made me feel like I was really back in Bangkok again! Tuk Tuk's a ubiquitous here, especially in the tourist district. They are more expensive than a taxi but they know more of the city, always speak great English and are a lot of fun, but you have to bargain with them!

Penang - Georgetown, the snake temple and Batu Ferranghi

We arrived in Butterworth after a relaxing train journey and got the ferry to Penang. The ferry leaves from beside the train station and arrows lead the way. The ferry costs 2.60 or so which is about 85 cent in Aussie dollars. It takes about 20 minutes or so.
I was reading an interesting Graham Greene book on the train called 'ways of escape', it's a biography and Graham Greene is an honest and thought provoking autobiographer. His insights into his own progress as a writer are intriguing. He talks about placing too much emphasis on detail and not enough on imagery and about treating the audience like they are idiots. It is a really interestng book for any Graham Greene fans.
Anyway, we got off the ferry and tried to get a taxi but the taxi drivers were a bit obnoxious and refused to use the meter so we decided to walk into town in search of our hotel.
Penang is an island in North Western Malaysia. It attracts quite a few tourists for its beaches, it's temples and it's wild life. The main town is called Georgetown and it's a bit of a sprawling industrial place with a few heritage buildings at the centre. It's sad to see the heritage listed buildings of old in such bad states of disrepair while a modern and some what ugly city builds up around them.
We stayed in a cheap, cheerful little hotel called the Continental right smack bang in the middle of Georgetown. Most people head straight out of town to the resorts on the northern coast, but we picked this hotel as it was much cheaper! It's south of Georgetown, at the outskirts.
We wandered into georgetown yesterday evening and got completely lost on the way. We ended up in a slightly rough industrial suburb of the town where everyone, absolutely everyone, was staring at us. We drudged along through the filthy, car lined streets, forced onto the narrow roads by the lack of footpaths, chased by beeping cars and motorcyclists. After about ten minutes of this we were tired, hot and covered in dirt. After twenty minutes we were well and truelly lost and cursing the travel blogs which had led us to the place at all. We decided then and there that we didn't like Penang one bit!
Just then, retreating back to the hotel and the lifeless shopping mall which straddled it, we found the way into the real heart of the city and made our way there. After a few minutes the streets because less threatening and more amiable to tourists and pedestrians. Soon we found ourselves in the tourist heart of the town which was, although rough around the edges, a welcome sight. We headed into a restuarant for some food, I had some delcious mushroom masala and we sampled a drink called 100 plus which tastes a lot like an Irish soft drink called lilt. After our food, we strolled around the city exploring some buildings and looking for a bar. There were none. But we did find a coffee shop where Paddy got to drink coconut milk straight from a coconut and then we stopped by an amusements and played a basketball game which was a lot of fun. The chap who owned the amusements came over to watch us play and cheer us on.
Georgetown, although a rough sight at first, grows on you.
We have found Malaysia to be more commercial than we first imagined. We've been to Thailand before and we thought we'd seen it all, but Malaysia and Singapore embrace the west and shopping in a way I've never seen before. Huge shopping malls are strewn against little, run down houses and it feels like the old way of life is dying at the hands of a new, unworthy competitor. At times it feels soulless and it makes me wonder about my own society and, if I were to look under the hood, would I find that Ireland had also succumb to a sense of marketing and globalization which stripped it of its true identity. Without all this, what would the tourist experience of another country be like? Would it be more daunting? Would the absence of global brands and interests make it a more unique experience?
I feel like we could slip into KFC at anytime and that intrinsically adds a layer of artificiality to our journey.
We traveled to a place called the Snake temple today. It's south of Georgetown, about 30 minutes on the public bus. There are buses everywhere on this island!

Probably the only one of its kind in the world. The temple honours a resident named Chor Soo Kong, who had healing powers. He was a Buddhist monk, who moved to Penang.

Some devotees from as far away as Singapore and Taiwan come to pray in the temple on Chor Soo Kong's birthday (the sixth day of the first lunar month). The temple was built in about 1850 and is dedicated to Char Soo Kong. The statue of the deified healer was brought to Penang by a monk from China. The legend is that this pious monk gave shelter to the snakes of the jungle; when the temple was completed, the snakes moved in.

The Snake Temple is located at Sungai Kluang near Bayan Lepas airport in the Penang Island.

We got the bus out there but we missed our stop so we had to go on to the airport (3 stops on) and get a bus back.

After that we headed back to the city centre and off north west to batu Ferranghi beach.

We thought that this area would be horrible and touristy and full of resorts. There were a lot of resorts and hotels but the area itself is lovely. It is like the little islands you find in Thailand. We walked along a wave torn beach and finally settled down for a few tiger beers in a lovely little outdoor beach bar which has tables on the sand. After that we headed for an absolutely lovely dinner at Ferranghi Garden which is well worth a visit for dinner or drinks.
Merrily we headed back on the bus to Georgetown for an early night and a bit of sleep before our 22 hour train journey to Bangkok!

All in all I like Penang. The northern part of the island is beachy and pleasant and it's so relaxing and unpretentious there if you can find a snug little beach bar and avoid the resorts!!

train journey and KL and off to Penang

The train journey was lovely although eight hours on a train is a long time, especially when the bus takes five hours or less to make the same journey. Still, it was lovely to watch the world going by, to look out at the jungles of Malaysia and the beautiful oriental houses going by.

We arrived in KL at night, about nine twenty or so, and got a taxi to our hotel. Taxis are cheap in KL and all of the taxi drivers we got were friendly and chatty. Our hotel was amazing, I got it on wotiff, it was a 'secret hotel', one of those deals where you reserve a room and only find out which hotel after you have done that. It was called times square and it was a really nice place with an excellent complimentary breakfast, a pool and spa, and the room was a full suite. It only cost 15 dollars more per person than the hostel from the night before. We wandered around the area that evening for a little while, got some food and went to bed. The next day we went to the hospital and got travel shots and anti-malaria pills after an unsucessful attempt to get doxycycline in a pharmacy which only had malerone. If you really don't want to go to a doctor, you can get anti-malarials in most pharmacies in Malaysia without a prescription but it costs about 20 dollars to go to the doctor and Malaysia has some of the best doctors in the world so its well worth it to get travel advice and if you can't find Doxycycline in the pharmacy.

A side note, with anit-malarials. There are three basic types for asia: Malerone, Larium and Doxycycline. Malerone is by far the most expensive (60 dollars for 12 pills). It has slightly less side effects and its real benefit is that you can stop taking it after coming out of the malaria zone. It is under patent by glaxoKlineSmith until 2014 (glaxoKlineSmith have invested heavily in Ireland and so I can't dislike them!). Larium is to be avoided. Doxycycline is the best option if you are on a budget. You have to take it for four weeks after you come back and there are a few mild side effects but these are similar to Malerone (increased photosensivity being the main one – I am so photosensive as it is that it's just better for me to cover up and avoid direct sunlight). We took Malerone for our first hike though asia and Doxycycline on our second one and we didn't find any discernable difference except for the price.

We went for smoothies: orange juice and star fruit, and hung around in our hotel for a while. I got a massage in the excellent johoba spa and Paddy surfed the net for a while. We headed to chinatown for dinner in a little outdoor eatery and wandered through the market where I bought some 'raybans' for 25 ringett.

This morning we got up at 6.00 and headed to sentral station for the early train to Penang. Now, as I sit on the comfortable train about to enjoy some banana bread and a game of cards, I watch the country side of this exotic place go by and I look forward to the historical and 'beachy' island of Penang which promises to yield a dispirate package including ancient temples, incense calmed snakes, beautiful beaches, colonial mansions, forts and french cafes.

Penang was a strategic location for the Brittish and so it's a mismash of colonial houses and British build forts, ancient temples and modern buildings. I am really excited about this part of the journey as we will take the train all the way to Bangkok. This is completely new for us both so we have no idea what to expect!

The rest of our adventures in Singapore

Singapore and KL are, on the surface, quite similar, but I preferred KL for some reason unknown to myself. I found it a more welcoming place, though I cannot say exactly why. It's not that I found Singapore in any way hostile, I just felt that I fitted into KL much more quickly. From a practical point of view, KL is a lot cheaper, so our strained budgets got a bit of a rest. We got our travel vaccinations and medication in Prince Street hospital which I would highly recommend for their level of efficiency, friendliness and professionalism. Every where we went in KL people were nice to us.

Looking back at Singapore, we were tired and stressed after the huge effort of moving away from Australia. The act of selling, giving away and boxing the stuff that we have acrued was tremendous. I found myself a little shocked by how much we had gathered since I foolishly considered myself to be a non-materialistic person, but there we have it, five large boxes of stuff sent to Ireland comprising of clothes, books, a laptop computer, a monitor, a box of electronic stuff, a plaster mould of my face, a few small kitchen applicances, a game of majong that we have yet to play and a load of presents for people in Ireland which we bought last year in Turkey but couldn't post. 5 full boxes!

Added to that there was the selling and giving away of furniture: a table, a desk, a bench, a chair, a suite of furniture, a vacuum, a fridge, a tv, a bookshelf, bikes, a guitar and tons of books, utensils, board games and other trinkets. What we didn't expect was that trinkets would take up about five bags. Trinkets were the unknowns which we didn't plan for.

So, we were exhausted by our crazy few weeks of posting, packing, selling and op shopping culminating in one crazy weekend of non-stop chaos, sleeping on the floor because we had already sold our bed and finding an odd pleasure in sitting amid duvets on the living room floor drinking the last of our home brews and watching trainspotting before I posted it to the lucky ebay bidder.

Anyway, I digress, we found ourselves amid chaos, the cleaners came an hour early on Sunday while we were still packing, we fought with them and after four threats to abandom us, finally they waited until the right time and gave us the opportunity to remove the last of our stuff.

Our last day before we were supposed to leave was filled with a thousand and one little jobs to do, four trips to the op shop, posting things to ebay buyers, sending off crates, disgarding rubbish and finally moving our beautiful hardwood table out to the suburb before it was taken by a passerby. The table went quickly and I was glad that was the case. It was a great table. We tried to sell it for a bargain price of 200 (it cost a lot more) but we were irked by a serious of visitors and inquirers who rattled off reasons why they thought it was 'shaky' or 'too big' or 'not the typical formica table which they wanted'. We reduced the price to 100 dollars in the hope that someone would take the handcrafted, recylced beauty which had given us so much joy, only to have people trying to offer us 50 dollars for it and insult the table in order to try to shake us or tell us that we were running out of time so it would be good to take their off so they would 'take it off our hands'. Opportunists! It felt like betrayal to sell such a beautiful thing to somone who showed it such little respect, so in the end we put it on the footpath and let a stranger take it. Oddly, there seemed to be more dignity in it.

I suppose the table, to me, represented our life in Australia and the act of selling it to some unappreciative opportunist who tried to insult it was like dishonouring ourselves. When we gave it away there was a great sense of freedom, like shedding an old skin, and we were finally able to move on.

At the start of this rant, I mentioned that I am not a materialist, and yet I found myself attached to these emotionally charged things around us. To me, they seemed to echo the choices we had made, not only for how we should live, but for who were were, like frozen mirrors remembering who were were for the last four years. Now, I fully admit that I am terrified. Paddy and I share that common fear of migration into the unknown. Sometimes going home can be the most frightening of travels because you think that you know what to expect but you don't and in the gap between what you know and what has changed lies self discovery. It was an ending of one life and the beginning of a new one, perhaps even more profoundly pronounced than our marriage vows. We are taking this trip as an epilogue to our lives as young, free, restless beings and preparing for the inevitable complications of growing up, settling down and putting down roots. Still, we find ourselves uncertain too, we have all the need to put down roots and yet I wonder whether that desire is simply an aching for the phantom roots which we have yanked out of the red Australian earth.

So, anyways, we were exhausted when we left Melbourne and then we headed to the airport, as I have mentioned, to find our Tiger airways flight cancelled. After a quick day in Melbourne we were off again to Perth and then Fremantle. We relaxed in Fremantle, it was such a beautiful and lovely little settlement, my mind still wanders around its narrow, old fashioned little streets. I really prefer it to Perth and I am so glad for the recommendation from my friend Kane to go there. If left to our own, unresearched devices, Paddy and I would have found ourselves bored and restless in Perth. The prison tour was amazing, as I have said before, it really brought us out of our state of panic.

When we got to Singapore, a strong sense of anxiety had captured us. We were tired and grumpy and we had to get travel vaccines before it was too late. We needed to get shots against typhoid and hepatitus a. In my silliness, I was really freaking out because I thought that thypoid was Cholera and I have been seriously traumatized by the painted veil so I didn't want to get that. It turns out that tyhpoid is samonella which isn't too bad, in saying that I am glad to have gotten my shots!

We got to Singapore and after a night on jetstar and a sleep at the airport we were still a little groggy and extremely hungry. We hadn't eaten in 18 hours.

When we got to the nearest food place, a food court beside the raffles place train station, I was stunned by the fact that several restaurants didn't have any vegetarian options! None at all! I asked in one japanese place and they acted as if I had just acted for boiled child. 'Vegetarian food? No, we don't serve that here!'. Finally we settled for a baked potato place and we waited and waited. Paddy got his potato and I still waited. A funny thing happened then which broke the tension. We were the only caucasion people in the potato place until this blonde woman came in. She sat down and ordered a potato. Almost immediately afterwards they brought her out the potato which I recognized as my own. I was ravenous at the this stage and watching the woman arguing with the waitress that this wasn't what she ordered, I couldn't help but wave furiously. The waitress hadn't even bothered to look at the table number which was on the order, instead she had been told that it belonged to the 'white girl' or possibly the 'blonde girl' (although my hair is brown). When she brought the potato over she apologized and I laughed and she laughed. I really enjoyed the novelty of it all which I suppose betrays my own ego. I have to admit, last time I was in HCMC (Saigon) people stopped and pointed or came over and touched my hair and I felt very much like a celebrity.

So, in Singapore we stayed on the edge of little india and although I appreciated it's charater and range of excellent eateries, we were a little bit dissapointed with the hostel we had and a little bit overwhelmed by the heat and the busy streets. I did love the ample supply of vegetarian food though!

We got to an internet cafe the next day, printed out all our tickets and reservations and reduced the myriad of tasks we had to do down to a few.

After that we had a pleasant boat ride, found out about Singapoe happy hour and a delcious micro brewary (singapore seems to have a few good microbrewaries). We found this area of the city, near the river, with lovely coloured government buildings and crazy arcology-style roof coverings over a few outdoor streets which are lined with shops and restaurants. We had beer, listened in to the conversation of an English guy who raved about Germany and talked about what things would be like for us in the next few years: the unknowable.

I got a scottish ale and despite the hot weather it was delicious. We followed that up with a trip to the park with the fort which looks down over Singapore. We just lay on the grass for a while and relaxed until a loud speaker in the field next door started pumping pop music, so we left.

We headed out to a decadent little spannish bar for some sangria and free food and talked about the hedonistic pleasure palace which Singapore seems to be. On Sunday we left for the train station. On the way I saw a man squashing cans on the street on Sunday morning to make money while we avoided a guy in a shiny merc and the huge division between rich and poor in this city struck me as a frightening thing. If it were not for the welfare state and a government funded university education I would probably be squashing cans too.

We made the mistake of being too brave in trying to find the train station, walking to the train station, getting the train to the nearest station and walking the final 800 meters or so to the train station. We found out that our Haigendaz sponsored free map of Singapore was completely inaccurate with major mistakes in the layouts of the streets. We got lost, had to ask directions from several people, tried to get a taxi (the driver wouldn't take us because we were already so close) and finally arrived at the station about an hour early for our train. The station in Sinagpore is run by the Malaysian train service (KTMB) which means that it is not connected up to the Singapore metro service and seems to be a source of shame to most Singaporians. It's about to be decomissioned, so I recommend having a look at it before it goes as it's a beautiful art deco building.

Singapore - Raffles and tourist stuff

We went to the Chijmes center for dinner last night. It's actually a really nice spot. It's an old building, a church, which is heritage listed and it's full of cafes and bars which line the inside of the walls. It's a bit pricy but I thought it was defiantly worth a look!
After that we went to the Raffles hotel and had a singapore sling in the 'long bar' although Paddy is convinced that this is not the actual long bar of previous fame. It was filled with excited tourists and although the cocktails cost 25 singapore dollars each they were delicious and we got to eat unlimited peanuts and through the shells on the ground. I would definitely recommend the Raffles long bar for a drink just for the hell of it. It is a little bit fake but sometimes fake is good when we are a tourist and it certainly made us feel like we were back in the 1930s.

Singapore - settling in

We are now in Singapore. We found Singapore surprisingly diverse. It's like two cities really. There is the clean business and tourist district and the backpacker district which is located in little India, a vibrant maze of markets, shops, bars, cafes, mosques and closed down internet cafes. This area buzzes with life but is still quite clean and tidy.

The hostel we are staying in is called the InnCrowd. I would not recommend it at all. Do not stay at the InnCrowd. It costs 60 singapore dollars per night which is, at the moment, about 50 Aussie dollars, for a double room with a shared bathroom. It's pretty run down, its loud, the aircon hardly works at all, the staff are rude and unfriendly and their supposed free internet is three computers which are always busy and seem to rely on a pretty crappy wireless connection. They seem to have an issue with their wireless connection where doesn't work at all on one of the PCs. I think its because there is a limited amount of connections available. I had this crazy idea that it would be cool to travel the world going from hostel to hostel fixing up their PC's and internet services in exchange for free accommodation. There would be a kind of freedom and xen to that life that I'd love.

I am a big grumpy with this post, probably because of the humidity !!

Jestar or deathstar? you decide!1

We got the 12.05 (midnight) flight with JetStar to Singapore. It was only 5 hours but it was a gruelling flight. The seats are really squashed up and they don't recline, so there is little or no sleeping on that flight. We also had to pay 80 dollars extra so that Paddy could take a backpack as we didn't realize that he would need to do that when we booked our flight originally.
The seats in jetstar are extra narrow compared to even Tiger airways. There was also a resounding smell of engine fuel when we landed which had me saying a few prayers!

we arrived in Singapore at 5.20 or so in the morning, hopped over to the wonderful, wonderful ambassador transit hotel inside the terminal and slept there for 6 hours. At 30 dollars each for a six hour block, it is well worth it. The room was spotless, had comfy beds, a bath and shower with shampoo and all that and tea/coffee. There is also a pool and sauna but we didn't use that as we just slept the whole time.

So Jetstar is terrible but cheap and if you really, really have to take the budget option then reward yourself with a night at the ambassador hotel in the transit lounge.

Oh, by the way, the hotel is before immigration and baggage reclaim so you cannot collect your bags! If you are not worried about anything expensive in your bag, you can just leave your bags in lost in found and collect them the next morning!

Rotto and Perth

We headed to Rottnest island the next day to see some of the famous 'australian outdoors' which we had heard so much about.

Having been in Grampians, the great ocean road and Tasmania, we weren't overly amazed by Rottnest. It was a pleasant place with nice birds and a few quiet beachs, but we were a bit dissapointed with things like the bike hire (the rottnest express bike hire and snorkle hire is not worth it!) and snorkles we got for the day as the bikes were rusted and the chains kept coming off, Rottnest is a hilly, hilly place, so you can imagine how annoying that was. Paddy's snorkle was also incomplete, adding to our frustration. I would recommend renting bikes and snorkles elsewhere. DO NOT RENT BIKES AND SNORKLES WITH ROTTNEST EXPRESS!!!
Other than that the ferry was fine. We cycled to the west side, went snorkeling, saw a large heron, has a spot of lunch on the island, cycled north and snorkeled again. All in all, I thought rottnest was a little over priced and not as pretty as many areas of Victoria such as the Great ocean road or the Grampians.

When we went back to Perth, we invented a new game with urban spoon on the iphone. Basically, you pick a restaurant on urban spoon and see the distance to it. Then you walk in a certain direction and see how the distance changes. You get 'warmer' or 'colder' as in nearer or further from the place. We played that game for a while and finally got tapas in a nice little restaurant. There is something about Mediterranean eating that I love. It always feels like an event when you are eating in a nice Mediterranean restaurant. We drank wine and had a few interesting tapas before heading off to catch our plane.
Just a note, there are excellent lockers at Perth train station (in the shopping centre next to it) which allow you to hold about three large bags for 10 dollars for as long as you want.

Monday 3rd - Wednesday 5th Melbourne, Perth. Freo

Our Tiger airways flight to Perth was cancelled without ANY NOTICE! we are annoyed and appalled, not exactly a good start to our travels. We had to wait until Wednesday to travel to Perth, spending Monday night and Tuesday in Melbourne. It was strange returning to Melbourne after we had said our goodbyes. We stayed in a hotel since we had moved out of our apartment already, we stayed just off Degraves street, so we felt like proper tourists.
Tuesday was spent sleeping, eating and drinking a bottle of Drambue whiskey which we had left over from years ago. It was a fun day, although it was strange to start our holiday with a 'staycation' day.
We were up bright and early on Wednesday morning for our 7am flight to Perth and we arrived a little more awake around 9.30 Perth time. A quick stroll through the city, a spot of breakfast and we were off on the train to Fremantle. The strangest thing we noticed about Perth was 'Ye old London' district which was a fake 18th century london street. It was like something from Harry Potter, it looked so artificial that it actually worked in a bizarre way.
When we arrived in Fremantle, we immediately liked the small town feel to the place. Our guesthouse, the Fremantle B&B was excellent and I would highly recommend it. The guy who owns it is extremely friendly and the breakfast, which was included in the 110 dollar room, was lovely.
We went on the torch light tour of Fremantle prison. I love ghost tours so I've been on quite a few. I'd rank this one as 'okay' but not as good as the Port Arthur ghost tour, certainly better than other tours. The tour is a bit light on stories but the atmosphere is spooky and I would recommend it.

Our trip to Ireland through SE asia 2011

We are off on our trip home to Ireland. Our route is still up in the air (disorganization or adventure?) but basically, we are going from Perth - > Singapore -> KL -> Penang -> Bangkok -> Cambodia ->Vietnam and then to either India or China and Russia. We are hoping to do most of it by train!!

We did a similar trip four years ago on our way to Australia, this is an extended version of the trip and part of the fun, for us, will be re-visiting those old places again. 4 years ago we wrote our names in graffiti in a graffiti covered bar in Siam Reap over a bucket of whiskey, now we get to find out if our names are still there or if the bar itself is still in business!

So here I am writing in this blog again, this is the place I return to, our travel blog.

new trip

our newest trip is almost upon us.... we wait with bated breathe as the days and weeks pass, doing the essentials needed for the trip: getting a visa for India, booking travel vaccinations and booking flights and accommodation.

This is our trip back from Australia to Ireland.
We are going through Perth, Singapore, Malaysia, Thaliand, Cambodia, Vietnam and India.

A few years ago we went through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and later KL in Malaysia, so this will be reminiscent trip for us!

Here is the itinerary for the first half:

leg 1- Melbourne to Bangkok
flying from Melbourne to Perth - > three nights in Perth/Freemantle - > flying to Singapore (with jetstar) -> 2 nights in Singapore -> travelling by train from Singapore to Bangkok stopping for nights in KL/Melacca and Butterworth/Penang.

leg 2 Bangkok to Hanoi
train/bus from Bangkok to -> to Siam Reap -> 2 nights in Siam Reap vising Ankor What-> boat to Phnom Penh -> 2 nights in Phnom Penh -> bus from Phnom Penh to sihanoukville -> 3 nights in sihanoukville -> back to Phnom Penh for 1 night -> Phnom Penh to HCMC by bus.
2 nights in HCMC -> train (reunification express) from HCMC to Hanoi.


Stay tuned for our trip....

The Great Ireland Adventure

Well, here I am, sitting in my apartment in Melbourne enjoying the first day of my holidays. We're flying out at 4.30 today from Melbourne airport. We fly to Singapore and stop there for two hours, then off we go across the world to Europe. After an hour long stop in Paris, we head to Dublin, arriving bright and early on Saturday morning at 8.30.
Here is our plan so far...
Sat - Dublin: major catch up with friends
Sun - Meeting Paddy's family for dinner(not sure if this is happening?) and staying in Kildare with my wonderful friend Lynn for a MUCH OVERDUE girlie night.
Mon - Heading back to my home town of Buncrana with a stop in wonderful Derry City (http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&tab=wl). Amazingly, if you type 'Buncrana' into google maps it takes you to my home town straight away, there are no rival 'Buncranas' hidden in the US.

Tues -
This is lazy day! I'm going to try and watch as much of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who as I can in one day, oh yeah, and also catch up with my Mum. Mainly today is about regressing back to the state of a teenager!!

Wed & Thurs - adventures in my home town
Fri - Sun - heading down to Clonmel in Tipperary to meet up with Paddy's folks for the weekend. His brother is coming over from London so it will be Hickey Family Catch up.

Monday - off to BERLIN!!! very exciting
Tuesday - BERLIN, probably drinking German beer and visiting wonderful German museums.
Wed - Still in Berlin.
Thurs- back to Ireland
Fri - Dublin!!
Sat- Back to Buncrana for the last week!!

I'm sitting here programming, drinking guava juice and listening to the Cat Empire (the best Aussie band ever) and it suddenly occurred to me that although I'm excited about going to Ireland tomorrow, I'm also glad to be returning to Melbourne. I'm in a bit of a Melbourne love-buzz at the moment, enjoying the wonderful stuff that the city and the place has to offer: the coffee, the conversation, the music and the atmosphere. Melbourne is beautiful in spring with the light drizzle of rain fluttering at the window against the tea green trees which seem to be swaying to 'The Wine Song'.
Our brew party went off without a hitch on Saturday last! About 20 of you showed up and the beer all turned out well.
For anyone who couldn't make it, there is always next time!!
So, in saying all that, we are excited about our trip, heading home to Ireland!! We leave tomorrow afternoon on a crazy 22 hour flight to Dublin where it will be Autumn and where the stout is flowing. More details on our trip tomorrow.....

Getting Married

Well, this is how it all happened......

It was March. We had already decided, one spur of the moment Thursday evening, while strolling through a river bank in Elwood, that we would leave Melbourne and head back home to Ireland. We had a plan and this was it...
We would fly to Perth, spend a few days there, then on to Kuala Lumper, travel up through Malaysia and Thailand over through Cambodia and along the coast, all the way up through Vietnam until we got to Sapa in the north. Next, we would cross the border to China, going to Kunming. Making use of the extensive train network we would go to shanghai, hong kong and up to Bejiing, see the wall and head east to Uduximi, in far western China. From there we would cross over into Turkmeinistan, travel on to Kasikstan, into northern Iran (to see the most beautiful lake in the world), next, up to Turkey, turn east into Russia, back through Poland, Germany, Austria, France, England and finally fly from London to Eglington Airport, Derry, Ireland.

So, we had the map, we had the plan, I strolled into work and quit the job I hated....
Then the plan changed......

Paddy proposed. He was never one for quitting and leaving seemed a lot like quitting our life in Australia, so he said something along the lines of ... "lets stay on here, the Irish economy is fucked". I had to agree that things were only getting worse back home and my employer wanted me to stay. I hated my job at the time, I really did, but staying meant that we could work through that and that things could get better.

So, then Paddy turned to me and said "Would you like to get engaged? I've been trying to save up to propose for ages now and I've just been made redundant, so I can buy you the nicest engagement ring ever". I said a big YES!! (and the ring is beautiful, but I would have been happy with a pink, plastic ring with a love heart on it if it ;) We called our families and friends and jumped around for a while in glee.

and we stayed in Australia.....

Things picked up for us too! Paddy, who had been made redundant, got a new job in ANZ. Me, who hated my job, got a wonderful new one in the World's Best Company Ever!!!
We moved house to the vibrant, lively suburb of Balaclava, took a trip to New Zealand, paraglided and began writing a novel (which is almost completely typed out by now, almost ;)

Vientianne, Laos: Boats and Booze

We're in Vientianne, at last. Its an awesome place, it feels so welcoming and yet so exotic at the same time. There are tones of Tourists, much more than in Vietnam, people pass on Motorbikes or push bikes, it rains a little, its pleasantly warm and men point and stare at me. A few monks have smiled shyly too. I feel like a celebrity!! This is a million miles from everything, it has the poise and calm to it that most cities don't. Its littered with little French bakeries and cyclists pass with heaps of large bagettes.
The currency here is the Kip, 24000 kip = 1 euro. Food is cheap, restaurants charge about 2 euros for a main course (3 aussie dollors or so), the desserts are great too. We went shooting yesterday and goto to try out .33 calabar shot guns, there is a bit of a kick to them, shells flying this way and that, its all a lot of fun. Paddy scored slightly higher than me, he hasn't stopped boasting.
We went to the Victory monument, which is noted for its tackiness, I love it, its so outrageously overdone. Its pretty cool in its own way. To hell with subtle, I say. We climbed up to the top and looked out over the city, photos will be added soon.
Today is our second day in Vientianne, we are going to have some much needed rest after all of our travels. Tomorrow Vang Vieng and river tubing/jungle adventures/organic mulberry farms await;)

Over and Out,
Cavs

We went to the night market and drank beer there, drank on a boat and went to a late bar.

Sleeper Train

I've never been on a sleeper train before, I'm so excited, I feel like Hercule Poirot in 'Murder on the Orient express' or Tin Tin on a crazy adventure, actually, those are both Belgian, trains just remind my of Belgium for some reason, perhaps because that's where I took my first Real Continental Train. We have beds in bunks with curtains, its 2nd class, but its fine, the beds are comfortable and I love the idea of having this tiny little cordoned off place to sleep.
We got donuts for sustenance and books to pass the time.
The train is clean enough and quiet, its relatively easy to sleep. I thought there would be stars, I was looking forward to that, but its cloudy, just my luck, still, its peaceful, just chugging along through the country side.
Morning arrives and we sit and talk, our minds rushing now with expectation, so close to Laos. The train stops and we get a tuk tuk, the driver brings us to some scam artists who want to charge us double for the Laos visa and bus to Vientianne, this is Thailand, scams are common here. All the tourists arrive at the same time to this strange outpost, we all refuse to accept the scam and ask the Tuk tuk drivers to continue on towards the border. An Aussie guy chuckles 'Its a bloody scam!' (after talking to him, we find out that he and his wife are from Newcastle), amused at the situation.
We get to the Thai-Laos border and queue up with our departure cards. A bus takes us up the road to the Laos immigration area. Here we fill in forms, pay the money and wait for our visas. They are really efficient here, best border crossing ever! After about fifteen minutes we get our visas and continue on our way. The taxis in Laos are open back trucks jammed with passengers, the roads are dusty and it all feels rather sureal, like a movie. Its safe though, at no time am I worried, this is a lovely country to be in.
We arrive at Vientianne, it resembles a small town, not a city, but it is friendly and promises us some chilled out fun.

Bangkok: Temples and Tuk Tuks

We're back again, back where it all begun two years ago, back in Bangkok. We're staying at the best hostel/restaurant in Bangkok and dining on vegetarian, organic, additive free food and drinking Chang beer. We spent the first day doing as little as possible, we headed down to the backpacker mecca which is the Kho San Road to look at the wares on sale there. I'm so tempted to get a fake press card...
We go to a suit maker and ask him to duplicate my favorate skirt, he makes me two more. Paddy gets two shirts.
We go for a few cocktails at a street vendor/cocktail maker with some live music, we go to a bar where a guy sings Bob Dylan songs, we find an alley way which has become a bar and a Siamese cat (not a cojoined cat, btw, just a singular cat with large ears) which sits on my lap for the rest of the evening and falls asleep there.
The next day we wake and wander around the area, after checking out of the hotel, we go to see the reclining Budha, the Royal palace and walk by the wonderful Emerald Budha Wat. Hopping onto a long boat, we sail down the river, feeding friendly catfish and watching life go by. After a trip to the floating market we saunter back to the Kho San road before heading away.
We had bought our train tickets earlier that day from the Huamphong train station, which saved us 200 baht each (5 dollors) , on the travel agents offer. The train station is very friendly and easy to navigate, we find our train and settle in.

Midnight Airport

Airports are strange places at the best of times, each one a portal to another world. At night the atmosphere changes, its quieter, the rush has gone and the shops are slowly closing while cafes sell their wares, things become stranger, people: tired, semi-delirious with sleep, become commrades in some sort of battle to fly through the night. I don't know whether it is the sleep or the continuing, low buzz of excitement, but I feel like a 16th century explorer when I really shouldn't.
The coffee shop has five or six other travelers sprawled across arm chairs, sipping their beers, teas and coffees and making them last. A man to my right types furiously on his laptop, excel spreadsheets furiously defying him. A scruffy traveller smiles and gives me a wink. I realize its Paddy. To my left two guys with long, blonde dreads talk passionately about how much they hate cops. An English man sits with his young daughter as she calls her mother.
The coffee shop is closing, our boarding call hasn't begun yet, we have no where to go but we know we cannot stay. We walk around in circles trying to get some excercise before the flight.
I'm on the plane less than half an hour and I'm already grumpy. Paddy sighs, pained exasperation in his face. I have valid reason!!! They messed up my vegetarian request (which I booked two months at least in advance) and the entertainment system isnt working. Any moment now they will call out "We need someone to fix this entertainment system, is there a programmer on the plane?" I'll quietly, but confidently raise my hand and fix it for everyone, they'll upgrade me to first class with free flights for life! Ah, but its not to be, my pipe dream dissolves into restless sleep.... Bangkok here we come

Laos!!!!!!!!!

Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!Laos!!!!!!!!!

Preparing for Laos

Exciting news on the old travel front, we are preparing for our next trip: our adventure in Laos.
So, where the hell is Laos? Well, its that country squidged in between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
It is an interesting place, lots of little towns, statues and caves, plus you get to go tubing down the river in a type tube.

So, here's the plan. We start our trip on the night of the 7th of August, leaving Melbourne airport at some unGodly hour (12.05 at night). We arrive in Kuala Lumper, stay there for two hours and fly on to Bangkok. I always try to bring 'luxiuries' on long airolpane trips so I can feel like I am in first class without having to pay for it. The trip just goes so much better if you bring 1) toothbrush and mini toothpaste (a lot of airlines have these anyway), spare socks (so you can take off your shoes), a blow-up neck pillow to sleep, an extra blanket to sleep with, an eye mask to block out those horrible lights, an ipod with music and movies (in case the entertainment system breaks down).
These little things make such a difference!! Now, I've got to persuade Paddy to carry them ;)

Well, we arrive in Bangkok on Friday morning and head straight out to the good old Shanti lodge, a brilliant hostel/guesthouse with THE BEST VEGGIE FOOD in Thailand, wonderful cocktails and juices and this strange feeling of 'you're in a foreign land' because it is not as westernised as a lot of places. It has a spirit all of its own.
After spending Friday and Saturday in Bangkok, we're off by train to Vientianne: the capital, next we head to Vang Vieng: the adventure capital, off to Phonsovon to see the 'plain of jars' and then up to Sam Neau, this little town in the north east, then to another archeological site after that we'll spend a few nights in villages along the way and end up in Luang Prabang: the land of temples and tourists.
Then its back to Bangkok and off to Kuala Lumper for two days before returning to Melbourne.
So, watch this space... only 2 weeks, 1 day 12 hours to go...

Crazy storms in Queensland

This is day one of my adventure. I've arrived in the Gold Coast: a strip of queensland dedicated to sea, sun and surf. Today its raining, in fact, its the biggest storm since the 1970s. Its absolutely crazy. The weather has a life of its own. The waves are savagely clawing at the golden sand. I ventured down to the sea today, you are not allowed in the water, but you can stand on the sand and watch it. The waves are hypnotic, I have not seen such a violent sea in my life (even in Donegal). Its still warm here, 26 degrees, which makes the rain much more bearable.
I took a few movies of this not -so -peaceful pacific ocean, they will be up on the site when I return to Melbourne.
Off to water world tomorrow, Wet and Wild theme park!!!

Laura

Survial of the fittest in Darwin

Paddy wasn't working, I took a few days off work and surprised him with a holiday. I think a holiday was long overdue, so off we went to Darwin in the northern territories. The flight took four and a half hours! We arrived at eleven that night to find that our hostel hadn't left keys out for us (someone else, apparently, had taken our keys). It was frustrating because I had chosen this hostel especially because of its 24 hour service. We rang the 24 hour help line several times but no one answered!! So we had to walk into the city centre at 11.30 at night.
We stayed in a travelodge hotel that night. It was peaceful and quiet.
The next day we moved to a central hostel, called Chillies backpackers, which was to turn out to be a nightmare for us (but more on that later).
We spent the first day checking out Darwin and watching the Melbourne cup. The second day we got up at 7 to go to Lichfield national park. It was sensational (see all our photos of the waterfalls). We saw huge termite mounds, went swimming in waterfall plunge pools and went on a really cool jumping crocodile boat cruise.
The next day we went to Kakadu which is an Aboriginal area about the size of Switzerland. We took a plane ride in a small, five person plane, went on a wild life boat cruise, saw a few interesting cultural centres and saw the Aboriginal wall paintings. It was amazing day although its tough to go touring in 40 degree weather.
We spent the next day chilling out in Darwin and went out for a few drinks with one of the guys from the hostel. That night, after I went to bed, Paddy woke up at 2 in the morning and went to the toilet. He forgot his room key and couldn't get back inside. That's when the trouble started. Paddy started shouting to wake me up, but he woke up a horrible, brutish backpacker instead. The guy was British and seemed to hate the Irish, he got aggressive and beat Paddy up in the corridore before running away, the coward. His girlfriend came out and tried to see if Paddy remembered who it was, she was disappointed to find out that he remembered the guy. The night porter called an ambulance. Paddy was in bad shape. The guy who hit Paddy went straight to reception the next morning (while we were in casualty) to tell the hostel reception guy a pack of lies about Paddy in order to get himself off the hook, of course his girlfriend abeted him. He was a coward, a bully and a liar and his girlfriend was a sneaky, nasty person covering up for such a lout.
Paddy's nose was broken, his forehead was split open, just above his eye. He got stitches and was in a bad way for a time. The next day the hostel reception guy justified the beating, explaining to us that "that's how things are done in Australia". He was the worst of all, he let the guy stay and everything. We went to the cops who gave them a talking to. There were no witnesses so we couldn't press charges
Darwin was a great city, Kakadu and Litchfield were so lovely, it hasn't been ruined for us by some ignorant lout and an inconsiderate hostel owner. Still, I'd avoid Chillies backpackers if I'm ever back in Darwin!