Beach Life

'ello blogfans, belated Happy New Year to y'all,


You'll never EVER guess where I am now, Thailand, again. It's still pretty nice, if you like that kind of thing. Obviously lying on a beach all day isn't really my cup of tea but sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of travel. (fire poi man below, inexplicable candle-eater man not pictured)

I think I do have to take the opportunity to publically voice a note of thanks to my beyond brilliance family for having me home for a wonderful Christmas (and 3 month run up to said day), I thoroughly commend their airport taxi service, the room not too shabby (could do with being a bit tidier mind) and the food (puds in particular) second to none (except - in a hushed voice - perhaps the food here, GIANT prawns, yum yum). I had a super time and molefo recommend it to anyone.


Well quick update on what I've done since leaving the home of all wonder, hopped back onto plane to Singapore to watch Pirates of the Carribean (I didn't fully understand what was going on mind), multiple episodes of Kath & Kim (revising for my next port of arrival) and other such funk. Quick footed it up to Bangkok and then down to sea sea sea. First stop Ko Lanta which weren't too bad, though pales in comparison to Ko Phi Phi (current home), especially as have gone posh (oh the benefit of having a partner in crime to share costs with). Has been a wee bit cloudy mind, but obviously, being british and all, first day sun came out got sunburnt, duh. Went on pilgrimmage day trip to mini Ko Phi Phi which is where The Beach was filmed, very nice but a bit crowded - think it would be worth a swedish shark attack/episode of craziness/scary gun-toting drug farmers to protect said haven (read the book). Here is shot of me pretending to be Leo DiCap, think I carry it off rather well... Also got to go to another beach a.k.a. paradise but could only stay for an hour, despite pleading with the boat man (why couldn't it break down again there?!?).

Ach, must skiadaddle, big coconut pancake and fruit shake is beckoning me, but will leave you with this:


A priest, a rabbi and a monk walk into a bar, the barman says "is this some kind of joke?"

err, waiter? there's a fly in my soup...

...and then some. Left Phnom Penh (no I don't know how to pronounce it either) to go to a place called Battambang, was initially disappointed when I realised that this wasn't Battemberg of cake fame, but soon got over that when I discovered a nice cafe selling lots of other much nicer cakes. However this soon faded into utter disgust as I decided to go for an adventure and find somewhere 'local' to eat, oh dear. Much gesturing and pointing ensued and out came a nice noodle dish, yummy yum, but hang on what's that? and that? IT WAS CRAWLING WITH INSECTS. Initially I thought this was some kind of mistake, until I realised that they had been fried: they were there on purpose! Guys I really tried to eat it. Each bite was washed down with a hefty gulp from the enormous jug of beer I accidently ordered. I had a good few mouthfulls until I realised that the food to beer ratio was heftily weighted towards me being very drunk. I did eat about half of it but had to stop when I looked at the chopsticks and there was loads of insect wings stuck on them. Eeeeeeeuuuuww. I stumbled home and heartily brushed my teeth never to think of it again, until now.

Eating crises aside, went on a tour of the local area for the day with some dude called Bom (or similar) who took me along lots of muddy tracks that are actually main roads. Saw lots of rice paddies, learnt how much rice costs and that if you hand plant it rather than some other way of planting it you get 4 times as much rice (my rice education continues, I might even be able to cook it one day). Went up a hill to one of those lovely Khmer Rouge type places where Bom's family was killed and on the way down I saw a funky lizard who we called Ernie - see how I'm helping Cambodian's recover from their cruel past. On way back got very splashed by big muddy puddle as road had disappeared (pic), washed most of the mud off in a rice paddy which in all honesty left me just as muddy, but now probably have a happy combination of rice fly diseases. Unfortunately on my way out to dinner (went to a restuarant stuffed with tourists so felt pretty safe) I misjudged the dark patch next to the pavement and was up to me knees in mud again.

Time for a bit of ancient history now folks. The temples of Angkor, the remains of the great civilisation of South East Asia. Thousands of years old. Yada yada yada. Spent a day looking around all these old temples and stuff, Angkor Wat is apparently the largest religious building in the world though I think they cheated on this, look - it's tiny, ha ha haaaaaaa! Played Tomb Raider in Ta Phrom which is where parts of the film was, erm, filmed, if you look real close at the picture below you might be able to find one of the keys or whatever it is that Lara Croft was always looking for. Got a bit embarassing though as I was messing around and got caught by a huge tour group who snuck up behind me and the leader pointed out a sign saying 'DANGER DANGER' as I scrambled and posed all over the ruins, whoops. Climbed a big hill to watch the sunset over Angkor, like everyone else I know who also did this, it was cloudy and a little rainy. And that was that for Cambodia, almost. Journey to Bangkok naturally took about 12 times longer than it's meant to owing to bumpy road, tiny (read collapsing) bridges and lots of dust (got off the bus and was orange with all the dirt - realised however that this is essential make-up for a chav night out in any town near you).

Enough of that, I'm going to the beach.

and the capital of Vietnam is...

...Hanoi! So no more arguments about that one. 36 hours later and a decidedly non-VIP bus ride and I made it to the city of moto's. Found a lovely place to stay and went for an explore around the place. That's a big lie. I went out to get a fruit shake and didn't return for about 5 hours, I got very lost (not much of a surprise there), though I don't think I'm the only one to have done so, I reckon the reason that there are so many people on the streets on their motorbikes and eating and stuff is because 5 years ago they left their homes, maybe to get a pint of milk or a goat or something and just haven't found their way back yet. I'm sure the streets move every hour or so just to keep things 'interesting'. Anyways, I've seen a lot of the Old Quarter (see right, or is it left, completely lost all sense of direction...). Went to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum though unfortunately he was having his afternoon nap and was not to be disturbed (apparently he doesn't get much rest these days) so had to make do with the attached museum which if I was studying symbolism for an art GCSE would have been great, alas I was left standing incredulously at a giant plate of fruit which portrayed 'Vietnams hope for the future generation to learn from their history', uh-huh. Took in a few more sights - I probably should have realised that when the bible (Lonely Planet) said the history museum was 'in a nice building' it would mean the contents were less than exciting. It was breathtakingly dull and didn't even have air-con (sacrilege). Went to a few temples (as per usual) and the prison, don't know why but since been travelling seem to keep on paying to go to jail, biz-arre.

Alas, left the befuddling streets of Hanoi behind to go to Sapa via the equally befuddling (it's a cool word, why not use it twice) train station from where the train was leaving from at least 6 different platforms, turns out the different carriages all go to different platforms and then the train gets built together and leaves seconds later, keeps things really simple. Sapa's a french hill station famous for it's Saturday market, which was, well, a four letter word beginning with 's' (and I don't mean Sapa). Oh and it started to rain. Non-stop. Went to the Sunday market in Bac Ha which was AWEsome (see above), all the people from nearby hill-tribes came here in their best colourful costumes (no-one told me it was fancy dress) and sold horses, food, tobacco, little piggies, wellies and pretty much anything else you'd need in the Vietnamese hills - I just about managed not to accidently buy a chicken. Back to Hanoi on the overnight (tch) train in something less than luxury and then (yay) to Halong Bay (see right) for a cruise, cave (see left), kayak and swim. You'd probably not believe this but, oh yes, it was still raining (I realise i'm becoming a little obsessed by this, especially as it is the rainy season and to be expected, but I'm on holiday). Just in case I'd forgotten what irony is (ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife), the sun came out the second we stepped off the boat, ha ha haaaaaaaa. However we did go through a tunnel as featured in Tomorrow Never Dies so that brings the number of Bond film sets visited up to 2, I'm practically a Bond girl now, just call me Halle Berry(hmmm).

Am currently back in Hanoi (I think, could be more lost than I thought). Managed to lose 2 pairs of sunglasses in the space of 3 hours which strikes me as a little stupid, however not to worry as there are streets dedicated to selling gen-u-ine Roy Bans. I'm sorted for entertainment tonight, there's a place here doing all you can eat on ice cream, I fully intend to try every flavour they have (about 30) so could be rolling home - good job I'm not on the top bunk. On that note I'm going - have to leave early to allow for very high probability of not finding my way there within the next hour. Au revoir!

few piccies from down India way

(1) Palolem beach in Goa, it's not all bad this travelling malarky

(2) think you know what this one is, not sure about the dodgy folks posing in front of it (me, Damian and Garlen who spent few weeks with in India, and who I thieved these pictures from: thanks)

(3) public transport desert style - still slow, smelly and not so comfy - being attended to by our man David "chappati?" somewhere in the Great Thar Desert

(4) one of the palaces at Udaipur (as featuring in James Bond's Octopussy), I WANT ONE of these for myself