Travel Diaries

Bangkok and beyond

slinky1876 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:31:00 GMT

I arrived in bangkok on the 3 of feb 2007 and i would like to point out thats it is *** scary when you have just jumped of a 12 hour flight to find a million people hassling you for taxi rides and bus journys, but after adjusting your self in around 10 mins you release that this is just the norm for this type of place. The journey inro bangkok was great, kind of sust out the buses on the net before i left as i knew i could get a bus for 150 baht rather than paying the 1500 baht taxi fee. I arrived on Khao san road, which is a mecca for backpackers as its got everything you need, the main thing is a very large beer. I headed out alone but was soon to find myself getting really pissed on a cocktail called mai thai, got its got a kick, i only know its that bad becasue i woke up 12 hours later to find myself still pissed. The next night i moved on to the patpong area of bangkok which i was pleased to find out house the famous ping pong shows. Every bar has the same shows but with different girls. The one thing i found i little funny was the fact that every girl firing a banna, dart, ping pong out of her fanny was a little bit porky or should i say fat, but thats ok because there is normally a really beautiful girl sitting next to you while you watch it. Don't get pulled in tho boys as the girls are there to make money and not to find love, just be pleasant and dont buy them drinks and you'll be fine. I also made a trip to the amazing home of the thai massage in a place called wat pho. They give you an hours massage with herbs for 480 bart and yes it really was worth it. Don't expect soothing because they crack every bone in your body, but its a experience and thats what life is about. I also payed a vist to the royal palace and this is where you can view the emreld budda and this is also a must on a trip to the capital. Unfortunately i like a good time and seeing it was my first week i sent most of my time and money drinking and getting wrecked on the famous central bar or gullivers night club. Oh another club woth a vist is the spicy club which is about ten minutes from the khao san and you can get there for 40 baht in a tuk tuk. Tuk tuk are another story but they are cheap and money matters when your on a years holiday. I'm now in a place called ko chang which is an tropical island in the gulf of thailand, but i'll tell you about it next week.

Slinky

Oz East Coast Forster/Tuncurry

Michaelc — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 04:51:00 GMT

Just done a few nights camping at Forster/Tuncurry on Ausutralia Day weekend - and what a throwback this place was! Reminiscent of the older tales I have heard about backpacking in Oz, Forster/Tuncurry are a typical pair of australian towns where the living is most definitely easy.

We stayed at the Lanis holiday park which to be honest, was probably too upmarket for us! better places to camp that are right on the beach and that also have access to the Great Lakes system would be those at Seal Rocks and Treachery Beach, around 20km south of Forster. Seal Rocks is also home to the Sugar Loaf point lighthouse, which is pretty iconic by Australian standards and presides over a complex out cropping of rocks, reefs and a blowhole that have sunk more than there fair share of shipping over the years. I will try and stick a couple of photographs up in the gallery if anyone is interested.

Back to Forster / Tuncurry then and life revolves around the fishing industry - although judging by the amount of people we saw jumping of the bridge that links the two towns it also revolves around the Myall Lakes system and having a bloody good time too. Food in the Lakes & Ocean hotel was really cheap and the beer was nice and cold - and the fishing in the lake was also good, as we caught a good size flathead and a bream. I would really reccomend Forster and Tuncurry to anyone who wants a break a little off the beaten track, although I would recommend Seal Rocks camping for those who prefer it a little more raw and who want to be right on the beach - definitely next time!!!

noosa to rainbow beach

namyh — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 03:03:00 GMT

ok so we woke up a little early this morning, we (eve, alec and i) had it in our heads that rainbow was hours away, so we woke up really early (7am) to get on the road as they needed to be there by 4pm for their briefing at dingos hostel. We were wrong. I got talking to the owner of the hostel whilst we were trying to jump start this backpackers car in the car park and he told me it was only 2 hours away...so then we had breakfast, well i had breakfast like a german, there was cheese, toast, jam, cereal, lamington cake, tea, coffee, mango, pineapple, apples......i didn't need to eat again until 4:30 that evening.

I let Alec drive some of the way to rainbow. He drives like a granny. Oh my god.

So we arrive at the dingos hostel, its lovely. There is $4 dinner on tonight, spaghetti bolognese and salad. Its a great idea because not only does it feed us, but we all congregate to eat dinner, therefore meeting people. This hostel does self drive tours on fraser so its a really good way to get to know your group before you go. The bar is good, they do killer pool competitions etc.

I met some Irish guys who were hilarious, they were complaining about three asians who had arrived on their fraser tour and had only brought 6 bottles of toohey's between the three of them!!!!! disaster!

The beach in rainbow beach is lovely. The water is crystal clear with some wicked waves!!!

Byron to Noosa

namyh — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:50:00 GMT

Ok so i survived the camping, i thought it was ok but at a steep $30 a night to camp at the arts factory its left me feeling a bit ripped off and i am wondering why i bothered when a dorm somewhere else would have been cheaper...

so anyway, i got a call last night from a girl looking for a lift to Noosa for her and her friend, so i meet them out the front at 11am the next morning, its a bit nerve wrecking in a way. I feel like a bus driver or something. So Rebecca (from Oz) and Natalie (from Israel) hop into the car and we head out the highway to pick up Rob (from England) and then when we pick him up he asks is there room for a friend of his Jo (from England) so off into town to get Jo, the more the merrier...and cheaper and we all set off on the 4 hour journey to Noosa. Rebecca and Natalie are going to Rainbow beach so they are going to hitch from Noosa to there....hmmm...

So most people fell asleep on the way up. We played some good music and the conversation was good and I am feeling confident and proud that this is working out.

We arrive in Noosa, the girls promise to text when they arrive in Rainbow safely and i drop off everyone to their hostels. I am staying in the YHA in Noosa. It is so lovely (cheaper than camping at the Arts Factory @ $27 per night). This place is so light and airy. I am in dorm six. I turn the key and see a rather fit looking man standing in the dorm wearing only boxer shorts, i apologise for not knocking. Its quite funny actually. This is Alex. He is "made in Russia" "lives in Germany" we get chatting, and then I meet Lena, his classmate. They are travelling together and have been studying in Melbourne. This hostel is so lovely, everyone is smiling. I have dinner there and share my table with a man Ian from England, he's about 55 years old and wise, so it is interesting talking to him. We later meet more people, Lena and Alex join in too. We all sit around a table having a few drinks. I am finally feeling like this is going to be a more than a great experience.

The next day Alex and I go to the beach, Lena joins us later. The water is so warm and clear. The beach is lovely. It is a real holiday destination with plenty of well healed sunbathers....all in all this place is really lovely and relaxing.

Tonight we head to the koala bar for some drinks. I am speaking more German than English and I am beginning to think in German now too....strange!

arts factory - byron bay

namyh — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 10:39:00 GMT

welcome to the town of beautiful people, most of them hippy wannabe's....ouch!

ok its day 2 of the excursion....i'm gettin quite used to my own company....

so if you've never been to the art factory....its very hippyish, its quite cool actually...its got a lake with big permanent teepee's around it, a campsite and the dorms in the main building. its full of beautiful people, sporting new dreads, fishermans pants which they bought in thailand on the way over and basically a lot of hippy wannabes. is that cruel to say??? basically, i was in the kitchen half an hour ago and over heard an american girl frying her organic eggs complaining that there wasn't a starbucks in this town....hmmm.

so i'm camping here...the kitchen is minging. ants everywhere and possums too. the actual campsite is quite nice. everything was lovely until i spotted two rats creeping outside the door of my tent the night before last. i ran to the kitchen and i saw a girl and just said " there are rats outside my tent" and her reply before walking off was "welcome to australia"....ehmmm we've rats in ireland too love, but thanks for your help anyways. so i ended up getting a boy to throw things at my tent to scare them away until i got in.

another thing i have noticed...people aren't very welcoming at all here. everyone tends to hang around in large groups around tables and i am generally very outgoing, and i will talk to anyone. maybe its because i'm not bronzed with dreadlocks i dunno.....

sydney to byron

namyh — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:20:00 GMT

okey dokey....i'll be the one to get the ball rolling so......

i am 23, irish therefore i am pink skinned and freckly.....

anyways, i have been in australia for 3 months and new zealand for 1 month, all of which i did accompanied by at least one other person. so here's where it all changed direction.....my friend that was to come up the east coast with me couldn't because of money, we had bought a car together previously, so the best way around things was for me to buy her out of the car and travel on up the coast as i have less time than her, whilst she works in sydney.

so this is what i did. i bought the car new years day.....great, the car is all mine....new years day night the gear box went.....***.

so over to the garage across the road, got a quotation for a second hand gear box, then rang about 10 garages and got quotations from them, they all came in at $900 and thats what the garage across the road quoted me too. so off i trot over to ralph, the mechanic, and told him how broke i was, offered to sweep his floors and as a last resort i cried....just for extra measure.....so ralph told me "not to worry doll" so i went to coles supermarket to buy some own brand food because i need to start doing things cheaper, no more dolmio for me....so as i am looking for own brand tuna i get a call for ralph to tell me he'll fix the car (a ford falcon.....the backpackers dream???) for $620....i'm liking that better.....so i tell him to go ahead, should be done the next day.....of course it wasn't...but anyway...i reasoned the price out in my head by saying i wouldn't go out for 5 weeks.....disaster....now in fairness after getting a shock like that, and being irish, it was only mandatory to go on a session, sing karaoke and fall out of 'scruffy murphy's at 7 in the morning absolutely rat arsed. now i know some men might find that very unlady-like but boys this girl hads spent the day becoming an expert in gearboxes.....

skip forward 2 days.....6.30pm approx.....i can see the car being reversed from the garage, so i'm over there in a shot. they bring the car for a test drive....all ok....

right....i'm full of excitement, but really i am shitting a brick incase the car doesn't make it to byron.....so i say my goodbyes. I had advertised for a ride share and the guy i had couldn't wait until the car was fixed so ended up going on a bus. oh well. he has asked me out for a drink since though? hmmm...

anyway, i sort of took a wrong turn about 5 min from where i was staying and ended up going around the block...i hate admitting that....so i managed in the end to get out of sydney without much trouble, just a layer of cold sweat on my back and brow.....so i've decided its about 7pm now, i'm going to stop off in port mcquarie for the night, and i am going to sleep in the car. my friends aren't happy about this and are worried, but in pure irish fashion....i'll be grand.

so i was driving along.....keeping to the speed limits. the gears are clanking a little to begin with, but other than me being over paranoid about every sound that i can hear from the car, everything is going great..........

until i see before me for a split second the little ears of a kangaroo......bang......crunch....crunch (sorry) but yes....i have just taken out a kangaroo at 110kmp/h.....uh oh.....i swear i'm not making this up....the poor thing....no actually, poor me, he shouldn't be out on the road so late...

so of course because i'm on my own sure i'm only dying to tell someone but theres noone there....

downside no.1 of travelling on your own.

so i pull up by this well lit rest area with petrol station outside port macquarie and i climb into the back of the car and into my sleeping bag. its roasting hot. i am afraid. so i lie really still. 6:00am i get the fright of my life, i see a man by the drivers window and i hear a noise, then i realise its the litter man cleaning, he goes to both sides of the car sweeping and scooping and generally frightening the shite out of me.

right, i start driving to byron at around 7:30am.....its raining.....i remember seeing this yellow battered up sort of backpackers looking car in the petrol station....only i wasn't prepared to see it bashed up in the middle of the pacific hwy, i was the 2nd car behind the accident. i have never seen anything so horrific in my life. the passenger of the yellow car was waiting to be cut out. i thought he was dead until after about 5 seconds i saw his arm move. the driver of the other car was waiting to be cut out too. so i stick to the speed limit the whole way from here to byron. scary.

so here i am, in byron. i made it. here for 4 nights, then i am tackling byron to noosa monday, i've been in surfers and brisbane before so i'm bypassing them.....

i am looking forward to finding someone to share the driving with though, i'm getting drivers tan, need to work up the freckles on the left arm to match my right.....