My travelling adventures...

Hey :)
Bianca arrived a bit late yesterday - flight delayed and minus her bag!!!  We are about to head out amongst the rickshaws, beeping cars, hiking equipment and pashminas :) for a bit more of a wander around the town before heading back to the airport where her bag is hopefully going to be waiting for her. Got to say she has been very relaxed about it - staying in the same clothes after ~15hrs flying...
The guesthouse accomodation is pretty good (and their food is very tasty!)

Last night a 15yo boy had a bit of a chat to us - showing of all his facts he knew about Australia... he ended up asking if we could buy some powdered milk for him to give to his baby sister (which we did)...
Met our porter this morning - spent a couple of hours talking to him about our plans - getting very excited now!!!
Have a 6.30am flight tomorrow to Lukla where we start part of the Everest Base Camp trek (just to tengboche monestary)... We'll get back to Kathmandu on 13th... then leave on the 14th to begin our next trek on Annapurna circuit... Yay!
Well thats about all the news for now... Later!

Well I arrived safe n sound :) Next leg of the flight was pretty good - despire no movies -had a yummy curry dish :)
Had an airport pickup which had to wait around for a bit but that was ok... It was about 23 degrees when arrived - feels a bit chillier now... (4pm)
On the way thru to the hostel saw a cow grazing on a roundabout, calves hanging out on the footpaths (free reign) - poor goats were tethered up, beautiful saris, a lady hanging washing from her roof top on the power lines!!! traffic of course is crazy (not as bad as Vietnam but still...) Anyway now am waiting for Bianca to arrive... so will catchya later~!!

In Singapore at the mo... Zzzzzzzz :)
All the beginning stuff went ok... not sure what I packed - but it was getting close to 20! - do have a few chocolate supplies tho, so once i get thru them it might make a difference ;)
Plane ride was ok - managed to have a good nap despite Mr Sniffy Man beside me (just hope I dont catch his cold!)... There were heaps of good movies - I went for the short ones tho (maximise sleeping time) - they had 'Up' definitelywas not watching that one again (way too sad despite what everyone else thinks ;) )!!!  So watched Mary and Max and 500 days of summer - which were both ok - kept me entertained :)... Am about to have a bit of a wander and then another nap I think... :)
Speak to u from Nepal!!!! Yay!

Hey, Well I am back to my blog.... ahhhhh feels good - travelling again! (has been +9mnths apparently!) So I am off to Nepal with a friend (Bianca) from work... we started planning it about March - so has been ages to look forward to it... We are planning on doing a bit of the everest base camp trek - just to Tengboche Monestary... and then perhaps a bit of the Annapurna Circuit from Muktinah/Jonsom to Pokhara... We have already organised a porter to meet us on the day after we both arrive in Nepal and we then fly out the next day to Lukla where the adventures begin :) We are in Nepal until the 28th November (~3.5weeks)... from there Bianca flies back home and I will go on to India where the plan is to have no (or minimal) plan ;) - we'll see how I go with that... -I have booked my train ticket from Dehli to Agra a few hours after I land and the first night's accommodation in Agra.... from there...? The plan is to mainly stick to the NW of India (Rajasthan). Have ~3 weeks in India (I come back 18 December). A bit nervous about the India part - but I know from experience that it is the most challenging adventures are the most rewarding in the end :) So thanks for joining me - and hopefully I will get an email from you soon :)

Hi! Well i back in Australia - back at work and everything... :( .

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Hi!  Well we have been to Sihanoukville - not the idyllic beach getaway we were envisioning (however you spell it :) ) but it was still... well I'll tell you about it... the bus ride was ok there... but as we arrived a day earlier than planned we couldn't get into our first choice of accom but thatwas ok - still got a beachfront hotel room... we went diving the next day - Stella and I had a huge boat to ourselves it was amazing... It took a few hours to get out to the dive site and this time stella couldn't make it down as I had passed my cold onto her :(  But the diving was good - nice and relaxing -altho not entirely clear (from above tho it was absolutely beautiful blue water near lovely green island)... The next day we did an overnight trip - it was meant to be to Ko Tang - about 4 hours out... but they told us when we were already on our way out there that cos of bad weather we would be going near where we went yesterday and doing the overnight there - Stella and I weren't that impressed as the boat wasn't exactly catered for an overnight expedition and the diving wasn't overly brilliant to be doing 5 dives there (Stella was able to make it down diving)... so we had 2 dives during the day and I did a niht dive as well... was all ok but nothing brilliant... Then we spent the night in the howling wind on the top deck of the boat with tarps down along the side that flapped in the breeze sleeping on gym mats - not a good nights sleep.  We didnt bother diving the next day and waited for the open water student to finish his dives before we made our way back in the rough weather (wasnt that bad - was meant to be 5-6m swell - didnt feel like that at all tho).  And of course when we got back our accomodation hadnt saved our room at Coasters so we stayed where we spent our first night which was all ok.  We didnt remember that we hadnt paid Coasters for our night there - but dnt worry they somehow tracked us down 3 days later when we were on a bus back to Phnom Penh (he phoned the bus driver to get hold of us! - very bizarre!). 
From Sihanoukville we headed to what tur books describe as pretty Kampot... hmm - we stayed by the river in a really nice place so we just hung out there and had some amazing BBQ pork ribs at a place - the Rusty Keyhole - nearby for lunch - never eaten so much meat in my life!  The next day was a bus back to Phnom Penh - which did a loop to Kep (which did look beautiful and quiet) and back to P. Penh.  We did a bit of shopping and then today we caught the boat to Siem Reap.... It was a looooooong 5.5hr boat ride - but we made it eventually - the place we are staying is a bit out of town but really nice.  Have been dong a bit of market shopping this arvo (well I have  - silver jewellery is cheap!!!) We are getting up for the sunrise at Angkor Wat - hiring bicycles for the day and making our way round - should be good.
Then the day after I will be leaving :(  gone so quick - altho HCMC feels like ages ago now.
Anyway hope everyone is doing great...
Later gators!

Hi from Pnom Penh :)
I just did an entry and it got wiped so this one will be a lot shorter...

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This was Stella's comment when we saw this poor drenched nun getting out of a canoe ride that we missed out on being on - thanks to a number of boat and bus changes throughout the day... (was pretty funny but guess you had to be there). 
We started off at 7.30am lugging our baggage across the main square to a separate bus to the rest of the people that had been waiting... - only to swap over to the original bus about 2hrs later....  We went thru some local floating markets and round some villages and then we went on a canoe ride up to this island where we had lunch... After lunch we were told to join a different group and cycle across part of the island to join another boat (where it was promised our luggage would be)...  As we were waiting for the boat we could see a sheet of rain heading straight for us along the river... our group all managed to be tucked inside the boat before it hit... unfortunately the other group that was joining us didn't make it back from their canoe ride in time and got absolutely sodden... Ad also unfortunately my day pack didn't make it on the boat either (luckily it joined me at the fancy hotel where only Stella and I from the group are staying - but it is very lovely :) )
We then had to catch a bus to Can Tho (where we are staying tonight)... and as there was a major traffic jam (apparently takes over 2hrs to get on the ferry across the river) the guide told us we should walk the 10mins to the ferry (in the rain of course) - so we all bought plastic ponchos and did the walk... we ended up in this metal cage with all these scooters waiting for the enxt ferry (40mins apart) we were lucky as one was just pulling in - but we had to fight for space as obvsiouly no one wanted to be waiting for the next one - so our group of about 16 had to fight our way across the cage in bewteen scooters scootering along to get out and onto the ferry - rather scary excercise! wish i was coordiinated enough to have the video camera running for that one but i know that an accident would have been inevitable...
I can't remember the names of the actual villages we visited - but i do know we are in Can Tho tonight - and it is quite nice here - fairly pretty... went for a walk by the river after dinner (stopped by some mini markets along the way:) - nothing like a good bargain before bedtime! :) )
Today was a bit disorganised, with one of the guides being particualry disppaointing in just trying to make more money from us all (offering other 'upgrades' etc etc) and the delta was a bit... dirty in some places... but it was still a good day in the end and I do think we have gotten to the nicer part of the delta now... and the locals have generally been very friendly, smiley and helpful... off to see some more of the delta tomorrow... :)
Happy NY!

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well... stella and I managed to get across the road using frogger maneuveurs last nite (my heart was pounding - i was sure that minivan was going straight for us! - let alone all the scooters!)... there is a huge park across the road that had all these stalls so we finally decided on a clean looking one and had some pork rib thing...  listened to some vietnamese screeching (think they were singing) and ventured back to the hotel...  Today - we were meant to get picked up at 8.30 for Cu Chi tunnels... well we got picked up with 2 other girls at our hotel and delivered to this bus which had a couple too many people... and anyway about an hour later we got pushed off the bus - cos it was apparently the wrong one!! (going up to Nha Trang half way up the coast) so a taxi driver took us back into town... The hotel was really apologetic and gave us some flowers each which was nice...  The rest of the day we wandered around - went to the war remnants museum which was pretty interesting and had some gruesome photos of what happened...
Tonight we went for a meal across the road and the very top of this lop-sided restaurant... and it poured I mean POURED with rain - the roads got flooded people were crossing the road up to their knees in water... 2 hours later we thought we would venture back while there was a break in the weather - only half way up my shins... and ohh its is lovely shuffling along in flip flops through dirty water with bit of noodles etc floating past...  all part of the fun tho ;)
Well we have booked thru a different company for tomorrow's adventure to the Mekong Delta... the hotel where we are staying (superior class) looks pretty fancy so it should be good... not sure whether the village we are staying at will do many NY celebrations but am sure Stella and I will have fun.
Anyway nearly bed time...

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Howdy! Well I have started my 3week Vietnam/Cambodia adventure - yay!!! 

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