Jun-gle trek-king across the universe!

We've just come back after a brilliant 3 day, 2night trek in the Jungle visiting hill tribes, riding elephants and bamboo rafting down the river. On the first night we stayed in a hill tribe village in a bamboo hut and on our second night we stayed in a hut next to a waterfall in the middle of nowhere. Absolutely Brilliant!



We had a great group of 6 English and 4 Dutch, with three crazy Thai lads as jungle guides.

Trains, Planes & Automobiles

Well it's been all go over here in Thailand! After a lovely relaxing week down south, we made our way to Chang Mai via Bangkok. The sleeper train we had planned to catch was fully booked so we decided to opt for a cheap flight with Nok Air - it turned out that it was cheap for a reason! We checked in fine and everyone boarded the funky birdy plane, but after a few goes of revving the engines on the runway, it didn't look too good. In the end they told us 'the flight has been deleted please go back inside.' They luckily managed to upgrade us to a Thai Airways flight within the hour and as an apology they kindly gave us a voucher for a meal and refreshment from the airport cafe. This actually turned out to be a dodgy slice of swiss roll and a can of pop... Thai Airways in fact was deluxe by comparison and after we took off to the sound of classical music we were offered a tasty light refreshment - another slice of (still dodgy, no better) Swiss roll!



So we finally made it to Bangkok and from there we caught a taxi to the train station hoping to jump onto the 7pm sleeper train upto Chang Mai (about 13hrs). What we didnt realise was that the annual worldwide floral show was on in the city and so the only beds left were topend cabins - well it was that or a night with our backpacks, so we went for the true Agatha Christie experience.



And the bonus.... dinner was included - check out this yummy treat below, tasty! Also bare in mind that at this point we havent really eaten all day (couldnt face swiss rolls) and we've had dodgy stomachs.... and the finishing touch, served stone cold!



Anyway, we finally made it Chang Mai at 7am the next day and booked ourselves into a small guesthouse close to the city walls. For the first day Lex was in bed ill, but Ad and Dawn managed to hop onto some bikes and look around the city alittle. The roads here are absolutely crazy and as many Thai people tell us, if you can cross the road here you can cross the road anywhere! But Dawn didnt have too much trouble on the bike, especially with her bell ringing!











Whilst in Chang Mai we've walked around the huge night markets and also visited the Tailors, GG Armani (lovin the name). We've both had suits made and also a black evening dress, its just so cheap, we cant believe it!

A well earned break(down)

We caught the overnight train from Bangkok to krabi-the train was a bit like something out of a Michael Palin adventure, but it was all good fun and suprisingly comfortable.

The train arrived in a Surat Thani at about 7.30 in the morning, so we thought we would get some breakfast before the second leg of the journey-a 3 hour bus ride to krabi. But as seems to be the Thai way, as soon as we got off the train everyone starts shouting at you, wanting to know where your going at to follow them. We tried to explain but all we got was 'no time, no time, bus leave now!' 'it's ok' we said, 'we catch a later bus, we need breakfast' but all we got was 'no no, no time, next bus not for 3 hour, come come, quickly hurry!' 'you take this bus then you change and get next bus!'

It's so difficult to know whether the person your speaking to is just trying to help you, or to con you into paying him to take you somewhere, and you never get a minute to think about what you want to do. We ended up getting on the bus, as some other people who were going to Krabi were also on it. As it turned out it was all fine and we were safely delivered to krabi 3 hours (and very hungry) later.

We were thinking of heading out to Kho Pii Pii, the setting for 'the beach' but as everyone we had met said it was terrible, and just a big booze up we decided to give it a miss, and instead Dawn got a tip off a guy to check out a place called Ton Sai.

It turned out to be a great tip as ton sai is a secluded beach on the mainland only accessible by long tail boat, which is really under developed (at the moment) and just a really chilled out little place with loads of bars made of bamboo and little bungalows to stay in, there are monkeys roming around in the wild, fire dancers on the beach at night and everyone just having a good laid back time.

It also seemed to be 'drinks o'clock' quite often, and the girls really got into a few Mai tais

We also took a snorkel trip for the day while Dawn went diving, which was pretty good, especially as it only cost us about 7 quid each, we went to a few different spots and saw loads of little fishies before stopping for lunch on a really beautiful beach. The only downside was on the way back the boat broke down. We were cruising along and the propeller came clean off the back of the boat, so the guy hade to call his dad out to tow us back home (it was just like the AA back home)

Our boat (minus propeller)


Getting a tow Thai style

Sawadee Kha (hello)

After a crazy crazy week in the bustling city of Bangkok we are really looking forward to heading down south to the chilled out islands around Ko Pi Pi (where they filmed the Beach). Whilst in Bangkok we visited the Grand Palace Temple, shopped round the crazy markets, held on tight to mad tuk tuks and seen some Thai kickboxing.

One night we caught a tuktuk to the stadium closeby to see our first Thai kick boxing fights. The whole experience was amazing, from dashing through the traffic on the tuktuk to trying to buy our tickets. All in all, we saw 6 fights and two of those ended in one boxer being carried off on stretchers, brilliant!





The markets are absolutely brilliant, so cheap its hard not to get too carried away. The best bit about shopping around the streets is the haggling. They often say a high price like 250 baht (about 3.50) and you start to haggle over 50 or 100 baht like its a huge discount, but then you realise its probably only 20p you're arguing over! Plus you can eat pad thai from street vendors for 20 bhat (about 14p)







The Thai people are really friendly and enjoying having a laugh around with the backpackers. It's great to hear them chatting away in Thai and then coming out with some real Eastenders phrases.





You also have to cope with the constant barrage of 'you want tuk tuk' 'you want suit-make you very nice shirt' 'thai massage mister' 'hey man! where you go?' and if you stop to look at a map, your asking for trouble. Someone else always knows somewhere else you should go 'you see my friend, he do you good deal!'



As you would expect, there are loads of temples in and around bangkok, we took a trip to the grand place to see the emerald budda, but there was some kind of ceremony going on, so we could only peer in through the door and have a quick look, but the rest of the palace is amazing-the thais sure love their gold leaf!





Yesterday we took a trip down the river, and went to one of the massive shopping malls at siam square, and then tried to go to chinatown-which was easier said than done, at first the tuktuk did know where we wanted to go, then he didn't, and then took us completely round the houses to somewhere that turned out to be nowhere near chinatown. So a long walk later we finally got there, and as dawn concisely put it 'it looked a lot like Thai town!' So we walked a bit more and caught the ferry back home! The girls then had a nap, and we went out on the town...

The Three Amigos!

Welcome to Thailand!

After a really long day of travelling (20 hours door to door) we finally arrived at our hostel in Bangkok. It was great fun to arrive in the city at night and drive into town seeing loads of crazy guys on motorbikes, and sitting in the back of pickup trucks driving like nutters, and all the bright neon lights of the street and alleys. It all felt a bit surreal, like we were in a documentary. But we were both pretty exhausted so headed straight to bed.

The next day we were back at the airport again to meet Dawn. After an initial panic of thinking we were on the wrong bus, and the conductor not speaking english, and we not speaking Thai we managed to find our way ontime to the right terminal.

After a lot of waiting and looking, and more looking and waiting we finally spotted my big sister, and although it took her a while to spot us we were soon reunited! After 10 months it was great to see dawny again and a few tears were shed!

We don't know if we'll be able to post as often as we have in the past, but we'll do our best to keep you updated on our Asia adventure.

Start spreading the news....(dah dahdeh dah)

... We're leaving tooo-morrrr-roooow!



The day is nearly here, we finally say a fond farewell to good old Oz. It's been one hell of an adventure and we've many great memories to take with us on our last leg home. Yep, we're coming HOME! Woohoo, just 44 days to go!

We've spent our last week in Sydney squeezing in the last of the tourist sights and enjoying the Aussie lifestyle. On Thursday we re-visited the Bluemountains, which is a 2hr train journey from the city into the countryside. It rained for most of the day, but as the tourbuses of tourists in squeaky white trainers tried carefully not to get muddy, we happy splashed around as much as we could! At the end of our 2-3hr walk around the cliff top and down into the valley we finished the trail by catching the steepest railway in the world back upto the top. It was steep!








And here are a few other snapshots of the week...

Here's our first flat together.... ahh...



Our local, the 'East Sydney Hotel,' a pub that prides itself on not having any Pokies! (that's fruit machines to the rest of us)



The Bats in the Botanical Gardens...



The good old Harbour bridge...



and of course for one last time, the Opera House...



Our flight leaves at 08.30am tomorrow morning (a nice 4am start for us!) and arrives into Bangkok at 19.45pm. It may take us a few days to adjust to the crazy Thai environment, so we will try to be in touch soon. Also we are really excited about meeting up with Dawn, Adam's sister on Tuesday. We can't wait Dawn, and don't worry, we'll be at the airport!

We're coming home, we're coming home, we're coming..... well nearly anyway, we're getting closer! See you all soon xxx