Keep in touch

Hey you all out there that I have met in Thailand so far...

I'm tryin' to stay in touch, but its pretty difficult whan I have the incorrect email address passed on to me.

It's great that you are checking the website, but if you can mail me I can write to you personally.
There is a link to my hotmail account to the left of this blogg, but just in case, its

sity@hotmail.com

p.s. - I have tried emailing some of you a couple of times, but it fails, so sorry.

p.p.s. - As soon as I get a good internet connection, I promise I'll put the photos up

xx

Spirited Chiang Mai

I have had the most awesome time in Chiang Mai, the city is great, just like the people in it.
On my first day here I walked around the city and took in all the sites. I kept being stopped by the locals for a chat as they were curious as to where I was from, I even got stopped by a monk who took me to a Wat where we prayed together.... how awesome is that?!!!

I haven't updated you for a bit 'cos I have also beet trekking through the jungle, and then enrolled on a Thai cooking course for a day... I'm telling you I've never done anything like it... No, not cooking, I was referring to the trekking!

I'll get some photos up when I get a good enough connection.

Meet some really great people, and we got to know eachother pretty well, after spending a couple of days out in the jungle together... Hoping that we will all manage to keep in touch, (If any of you are reading this, just wanted to thankyou for making my trek so great)

Heading to Pai tomorrow and then probably Burma for a visa run :o/ will let you know what the plan is from there..

Hope you are all well

Take it easy
xx

Chiang Chang

Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang, Chang Chang Chang
Chiang
Chang Chang Chang, Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang
Chang Chang Chang
Chiang - Chang Chang Chang
Chang Chang Chang
Chang Chang Chang
Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang
Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang Chang
Chiang

xxx

Bangkok

After the bumpiest boat ride ever followed by an 8 hour coach journey, we finally made it to Bangkok.

We arrived pretty early in the morning so the place was quite tame, it was another story by 11 am I'm telling you!

We arrived on a pretty good day (apparently :o/ ) and managed to get a tuk tuk driver to cart me and my 2 friends round the city for 4 hours for 30 bart that's like 50p!!!

It was awesome, saw lots of sites and it was the best way to travel, went out for dinner last night and then went out and partied till around 6am this morning... Not feeling too hot at the moment, and once again drank way too many 'Big Changs'... lol... but am getting ready for another pretty long overnight journey into Northern Thailand. Made friends with a group of Thai girls... will put some photos up when I next get the chance.

Not quite sure where I'll be heading in the north but will update you when I do.

Take Care

2 Big Chang's and a packet of Oreo's

The title of this blogg refers to my diet over the past 7 days.

Probably less of the Oreos, and more of the Changs!!!

Finally got my act together and have made a plan to leave Ko Tao and head off the Bangkok on Saturday.

Not sure where exactly I go from there, but have picked up a new travel buddy so we'll have to see what we both want to do.

Ko Tao has been great and I have met some really cool people here who I am going to miss a lot.
Got a cool DVD of some of the Scuba Diving that I got up to and the people that I have met, so I guess you'll get to see that when I get back.

Hope all is well with you guys,

Guess the next time you will hear from me will be from somewhere in the North of Thailand.

Till then... keep it real
xx

'Ooh La La'

Well what can I say...

I know I have been off the radar for a while, but this place makes you forget... 'Hotel California' springs to mind.

Currently on a little Island called Ko Tao just off the east coast of southern Thailand.

What have I been up to...?

Signed up to do my 'Open Water' with my very hot diving instructor ;o) ... (Happened to pass with flying colours don't you know), and hit the Full Moon Party, it was an experience lets put it that way. Lost my shoes, and my mind!

Not sure how long I am going to end up staying here for, already 4 days over schedule, so we'll have to wait and see. Have met some awesome people, so have just been hanging out with them.

Guess I'll give you more of an update after I have finished getting my act together and have made a bit of a plan.

Till then
xx

'Hai' Hong Kong

After spending just over a week in Hong Kong we say goodbye tomorrow.

The last couple of days have been great. We really got to know the city quite well and spent some time exploring the more remote parts of 'Hong Kong Island', 'Kowloon' (I visited Kowloon park), 'The New Territories' and even the 'Outter Laying Islands'. We went to the bun festival on Lantau and even though the bun parade was more of a bun blowout than a parade... (no pun intended)... it was a good festive experience... Hanging out with the locals... lol.

I went to a place called Kadoori Farm yesterday and hiked for about 4 hours... hiked... me!!!
It was a complete accident... the place was sooo beautiful, and there were sooo many things to see, that time just ran away from me.

I'll be leaving Hong Kong tomorrow satisfied with the thought that I have made the most of my time here.... Really looking forward to Thailand... Guess that's where you will hear from me next..

Till then...

xx

Hectic Hong Kong

So,

After a short hop across the water, Matt and I found ourselves in Hong Kong... I'm afraid it was a case of feeling bit much like a 'Rabbit in the headlights'. Even after Bombay, nothing could have prepared us of this place. Its manic, and there are shops selling everything you can imagine covering every inch of the city. Housing is cramped (high-rise... very, very high-rise) and you would have trouble swinging a dead cat around our shared dorm room, but everything else seems to fit perfectly, they even managed to make space for parks in the heart of the city.

We spent our first couple of days site seeing and getting to know the city. Hung out with Brad for a while... (Australian that we met at out Taiwan hostel... nice guy) and went to watch Mission Impossible 3!!! ('No', my Cantonese hasn't improved that much, it was in English).

We've come at a really good time actually, it's festival week, so there's lots of stuff going on in and around Hong Kong... Its Bun Festival this week (A traditional festival to help keep the bad spirits and pirates away). There will be some parades and a bun climbing tournament. (Lots of people climbing up a bun tower to see who can get the highest bun... and 'no' I will not be participating... have enough trouble with my own buns, let alone anyone else's... ;o)

Anyway guess I'll give you an update when I can get to a terminal next... Have managed to put some photos up, so you should check them out...

(There's a special one in there for you Nikki, you'll know it when you see it...)

From Hong Kong

xx

A day of firsts

So... we left Sun Moon Lake and traveled back trough the central mountain peaks of Taiwan to Taipei, where we caught our train connection to Hualien City on the east coast of Taiwan. The train followed the coast all the way so the views were once again amazing.

We spent the night in Hualien City before setting off early to Toroko National Park. We found our hostel right in the heart of Toroko Gorge and settled in before heading out to explore our new surroundings. We hiked for about 4k accidentally taking a ‘path’ (and I use the term ‘path’ very loosely) up the mountain side and through the jungle before reaching Torokos Natural Hot Spring at 40 degrees it was steaming and we clambered down the hillside to get to it, after a quick soak (my first in a natural spa) we headed up the mountain again, so visit the temple and then back to the hostel to chill out for a bit. Whilst hangin’ around we felt a distant rumble at then the whole hostel building shook, upon enquiring we found out that we had just experienced our first Earthquake… yeah that’s right… EARTHQUAKE!!!

Back in Taipei again for our last night, before we head to Hong Kong, guess you’ll hear from me when I get there

From Taiwan…

xxx

'I didn't know that's what it was for?!'

So....

We left the bright lights of Taipie for a peaceful and luxaurias bus journey along the west coast and central peaks of Taiwan to Puli's, 'Sun Moon Lake'. It is a beautiful scenic area slap bang in the heart of Taiwan. Unfortunatly for us Taiwan experiences tropical climate and with that comes tropical rain, Our hike around the lake was amazing... amazingly wet! However we found an awesome room for the night in fantastic hotel! The owners were a lovely middle aged Taiwanese couple who didn't speak a word of English, but just smiled and nodded at everything we said!
This put us in a slightly tricky situation, when we aked them if the provided a laundy service, communicating as best we could with a basic phrase book, we worked out that if we washed our own clotes, that the hotel would dry them for us, what we didn't realise was what they actually meant was that they would hang the clothes out to dry for us... due to the rain this plane turned out to be rather flawed, and subsequently Matt and I spent the rest of our evening Blow Drying our clothes, with the hairdryer!!!

hmmm... slow but effective!

xxx

Mission Impossible

I forgot to mension…

Whilst spending my last couple of hours in India, I thought I would put my time to good use so, at Mumbai Airport, I went about trying to seek out a suitable husband for my younger sister, as older sibling, I thought it my duty…

As you can see from the photo, there was quite a lot of interest, but I managed to whittle it down to the final lucky handful… what do you think Pritz…?

;o)

xxx

‘Transfixing Taipie’

Taipie is big, and beautiful…
We had a full day of site seeing today, and when I get the chance, I’ll get the photos up. We did all the usual touristy stuff even though it was raining pretty heavy most of the morning. 3 weeks without a drop and this morning we must have had a years worth!!!

They say that the Taiwanese are really friendly people, and they are not wrong. Lots of people stopped and asked us if we needed help finding places, when we looked a little lost, and everyone seemed to be concerned about me being out in the rain without an umbrella, so much so, that at Langshan Temple one of the security guards gave me a brand new umbrella!!! You wouldn’t get that kind of treatment in London!

Anyway got another day in Taipie, then we head down the west coast, will try and give you updates whenever possible…

From Taiwan

Xxx

‘What day is it?!’

After a grueling 36 hr trip from Benaulim to Margoa to Mumbai to Bangkok to Hong Kong and finally to our destination airport Taipei only to find that our luggage hadn’t!!!

Whilst filling out the lost luggage forms we were told that one bag had been located but they couldn’t tell us who’s, and that they were trying to track down the other one… nice… it seemed as though someone had forgotten to transfer our bags from the Bangkok flight to the Hong Kong flight… woops!

It turned out that they had in fact been put on the next flight, which landed 20mins later, so we were actually reunited with them whilst still in the airport… phew!
After 36 hrs of straight traveling, I needed to change.

We made our way to our hostel, but after searching for an hour we decided to catch a taxi, we got in and explained to the cab driver where we wanted to go thinking that he was just tentatively listening, when her responded we realized he didn’t speak a word of English, nor could he understand it, (that explains the blank expression) and we ended up having to get out of the taxi and resume our search by foot… we did eventually find it, and it turned out to be a nice place, as you can imagine, we slept well.

xx

'Sticky Business'

Had another run in with the postal service today...
Wanted to post a book back home and found once again after spending 260 rupees on stamps, that none of them would stick!!!! The post Office did not supply tape, but they did however have glue, or that's what they called it anyway, which apart from make the stamps soggy and not taste very nice, did nothing else! I had a blanket of stamps on the envelop that wouldn't stay put, so I had to go and purchase some cellotape from the shop next door to stick them all down... took a while, but I got there... Check out the photo, to see what I mean.

p.s. - Ther's also a phot of us and our landlord from Palolem, and a picture of one of our new neighbours and our early morning wake up call who, was a little camera shy.

:o/

xx

'Hot Water Burn Baby'

Last night at dinner we were approached by a young Indian man, very well spoken, not so well dressed, he started asking us about what country we were from, and then the area we lived in in the UK, after speaking to some of the locals of the next table, it became apparent that the guy was almost like the character Dustin Hoffman played in the 'Rainman'. He could speak 11 different languages and he knew all the postcodes for all the areas and boroughs in the UK and probably a lot more countries than I cared to ask about?!!! The guy had never been to school 'cos he came from a very poor background, and had taught himself everything he needed to know from speaking to tourists & reading books (and then some)! I was gob-smacked. Anyone that has seen the film will know what I mean by the title of this blog, and if you haven't seen it, then you should!

;o)

xxx

Breathtaking

So yesterday we said farewell to Palolem & our lovely chilled out landlord Rupesh... (Our home for the past 9 days). We took the bus from Palolem through the Goan hill sides to Benaulim, just South of Colva. The route was awe-inspiring. I wish I could have taken a decent photo of the views that we saw (the bus was going to fast) because words cant describe how beautiful it was. India is surprisingly green and fertile, so much so that Water Buffalo can live as far in land as Margoa?! Television just doesn't do it justice.
We me a couple yesterday that warned us about saying in Colva itself and after doing a day trip there today, we realised why. Its pretty busy and was pretty much tailored to the Indian holiday making family... Not really our scene. Benaulim on the other hand is a lot calmer, with a few really nice restaurants and a secluded beach. We found somewhere nice to stay so have settled in for the next 2 days before heading back to Mombay.

xx

Cockroach in my pants

The driving force behind me adding another blog entry and the most exciting thing to have happened to me in Palolem.... This morning whilst rummaging through my backpack, trying to find a t-shirt I felt a little tickle against my leg, just around the rim of my short, shorts... I gave to obligatory brush, (as I am sooo used to doing now, seeing as how much the mozzies love me), to find that I had brushed a cockroach from my leg onto the floor.... eeeewwwwww.... Nice... Not!

It scurried under the bed, where I left it?! :o/

Just thought I'd share that with you.

Anyway to give you a quick update, we were going to head further south to a place called Gokarna but decided that the further we go the longer our journey back to Mombay is going to be, so we we're gonna stay in Palolem for another couple of nights and then head north to Colva, spend maybe 3 nights there and then start our journey to Taiwan, via Bombay, Bang Kok and Hong Kong!!!

Its going to be busy in Taiwan, we only have a week and there's sooooo much we want to do. I'll try and get online when I can, but I'm not sure when that will be, so you'll have to watch this space...

Take it easy

xx

Peaceful Patnem

Went for a walk yesterday, thought that it was about time that we actually did something, so we walked to the next beach... only took about 40mins....

The beach was peaceful and beautiful, but there wasn't really much to see or do there. We had a drink and headed back... in the blistering heat of the midday sun... not good. I felt the first tingles of sun burn on my neck!!!

After returning I thought I would treat myself to an Indian Head Massage... seeing as I was in India and all. It was going pretty well and I was feeling rather relaxed until the masseuse started hitting me round the side of the head. I couldn't help but grin to myself at the thought of her laughing her pants off after I had left by the fact that she had repeatedly and quite freely hit me... Maybe I'll have to get another one just to make sure that she wasn't just amusing herself at my expense... any comments?!

xx

HAPPY EASTER

I also just wanted to with everyone a Happy Easter... Don’t eat too much chocolate… especially you James… yeah you, you know who you are… lol
And I’ll collect all mine upon my return.

;o)

xx

‘Hello Sailor’

Just a quick note about that photo in particular…
All over India we have noticed guys holding hands… especially in Bombay…. We didn’t realize India was so liberated… It gave a new meaning to ‘Gay Bombay’, if you know what I mean…?!

Anyway upon further enquiry we found out that it is just a public show of affection and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the men are gay… bizarre to say the least… Don’t think it would go doesn’t so well as home… what do you think!

Anyway I spotted these 2 sailors walking down the beach hand in hand, and I couldn’t help but take a photo… lol
xx