G'day Mate- Sydney

Sydney, Australia: 

We got a cheap airline to take us to Sydney , which was the equivalent of being on Easy Jet for 8 or so hours. When we landed we had no trouble going through it was very easy, unlike them TV shows you see back home. We walked off the plane, got our luggage and decided what was the best way ( or cheapest) to get to our hostel. We decided to get the local bus for only around 7 dollars each, In Sydney this is very cheap as we would soon find out. The journey to the hotel was easier than I had imagined, maybe this was because I was excited to finally make it to Australia. Last time we run out of money and couldn't go, so I

Beautiful View at Blue Mountains

was eager more than ever to make it here! We booked a bed each in a 6 bed dorm was something ridiculous, we were still use to paying ten dollars for a luxury room in SE Asia. We paid a little more to be central and to have a good hostel, when we arrived they upgraded us to a 4 bed dorm, which made me pleased. The two boys in our dorm were very quiet and worked during the day, so it was like having our own room to ourselves most of the time. The first thing we did was put our bags in the room, have a mooch around the hostel and decided that we were
hungry and KFC was definitely calling. Now we are use to eating gourmet meals for 3 dollars each, we were about to get kfc with no thrills for a mere 10 dollars each, it soon became apparent that I would be chef George for the foreseeable future. Anyway after using kfcs free wifi and eating their delicious hot wings, we decided to go for a walk. We were very jet lagged and ended up walking around 4 miles or so to see the Famous Sydney Harbour and Bridge, before we knew it, it was 1 am and we were roaming the streets in Sydney , we weren't even drunk , which makes a change.  We decided to eventually go back and try to sleep. We tried and almost failed, finally getting some shut eye at a silly time.

James at Sydney Harbour

The next day we had to go to the bank, get a bank card in Australia for when we start working out here, we also managed to sort out of tax file numbers ( national insurance for all of you wondering, keeping it legit and all that), and last but no means least a Aussie Number. Once all that was sorted we decided to go food shopping, our hostel had a huge kitchen and we defo needed to make the most of it, saving up our dollar. We was shocked a packet of mushrooms is literally 3.50 English pounds, how is that even possible? More interestingly meat was so so cheap. A huge piece of steak for 6 dollars, so it soon became apparent that we was becoming raging meat eaters because we couldn't afford the veg. we saved some much money by cooking, When I say 'we cooked' that means I cook, James watches and don't offer to wash up at the end of it. He needs whipping into shape. James's reply to him not helping out is usually along the lines of  'When your my wife in a couple of years time, you'll be a good one with all the practice I'm giving you now' , speechless. Thinking about it, I don't think anyone eats out in Sydney when they are backpacking it literally is far too expensive and I personally ain't paying 6 dollars for a bit of garlic bread that I could make better ( rant over haha).  After shopping we got some lunch 3 slices of pizza for 10 dollars, so one and half each, I'm definitely going to be loosing weight out here haha. We headed back to the hostel feeling accomplished because we had sorted out most things in an afternoon, good team work! 

Sydney Harbour

We were still so jet lagged, I ended up making us dinner, as always I have no control on portion sizes and James get fed a feast enough for two men haha. The night our hostel held a trivia Tuesday Night, we teamed up with 5 of us from the UK and one Canadian boy, who was overly excited, but a laugh. We came a impressive third in total and won lots of free drink vouchers , so we didn't spend hardly anything having a few beverages or two in the evening. Our hostel ran a free walking coastal beach tour the next day, so we had a relatively early night and got up to do the Beach tour. 

The beach tour saw us all take a bus to Coggee Beach and walk along stopping at a few beaches on the way and finally ending up in Bondi Beach. The walk was really nice and I enjoyed the walk, the weather was a nice temperature and the beaches were some of the best I have seen. This took up most of our day, a girl we met on a quiz team suggested we do the Sydney Walking Tour the next day, we was definitely going to do that. The next day we turned up to the tour, its a free tour but you pay a tip if your enjoyed it or not. The tour saw us go to all the historic sights in Sydney and explained the Aussies History of their convict past. We got to see so much of Sydney and got to

Three Sisters Rock

understand how Sydney became the city as we know it. On our tour we even got to pass the local news room and see a lady presenting the news and when it cut to a break, she got her make up done. I'm sure she appreciates the Tourists all waving at her, while she's presenting some news. The tour ended up at Darling Harbour and we finally got to see it in the light. We got told a story that if you wish to climb the Bridge you can't be under the influence of alcohol , George Clooney ,obviously had too many drinks the night before and was refused entry to climb. They take this seriously and breathalise everyone that wants to do it. The harbour has some cool cafe's, eateries and bars, all of which look beautiful, but Cinderella here had to go home to cook for her hubby haha.  We headed back to the hostel, full of facts from our tour. We were so tired as we still weren't sleeping that well since we landed in Australia, so we got an early night.

That famous huge steak

The next day we got a ferry over to a place called Manley ,which was good. The ferry was the best way to see the sights in Sydney . Manley itself is very good and relaxed a typical beach town. All you ever see in Australia is Beaches, and look another beach. So we decided to go back on the ferry. On the ferry the sky was orange , as if the sky was on fire. Unbeknown to us we didn't know there was bush fires close by and this was the reason why the skies were such a bright orange. You can see a theme through this blog :we aren't drinking or eating too much haha, maybe this is why we are doing so many excursions. We read up about a place called 'The Blue Mountains' , and decided that we was going to go there the next morning. The bush fires were still ongoing and it was very close to the Blue

The effect of the bush fires from the years before

Mountains, but we decided to risk it and go anyway. The train ride to the mountains was around 2 hours, so we left for the 9.30  am train and made our way to the mountains. The blue mountains are for those who want to go on scenic walks and visit the national parks. You can purchase a ticket for 35 dollars , which allows you to go on the worlds steepest train, cable car, sky car and another one that I can't seem to remember. After going on all four we decided to go on a walk around the National Park , and we got to see the famous three sisters. The three sisters are a set of rocks that look like you guessed it...Triplet Sisters. The walk was so scenic, I'm starting to like this trekking stuff! On our way round we got to see how the bush fires affected the national park some two years before, the trees were all black, but luckily nobody died or got injured this time. On the way back we walked through the town called 'Katoomba', it was such a peaceful, serene town and definitely looked like what Australia should be.

Blue Mountains

We made our way back and decided to check out. A few days previous we had tried to extend our stay but because it was the weekend everywhere was full, so we had to settle on a 14 bed dorm in Bondi Beach. We got a confirmation that said we were being placed in the resort down the other beach. I gave them a ring and they said that because its the weekend , everywhere was full and we had no choice but to go to their other hostel that was down the other beach. Being annoyed already, we didn't have much expectations , we just thought its only two nights, what's the worse that could happen!? We made our way on Friday night to the hostel, checked in and had to pay 3 dollars for dirty stained sheets, so you can imagine we was not impressed.The hostel was full of long term people, who basically live there so was really clicky and people weren't so friendly. We got two top bunk beds that had no ladders to on to the top, so annoying and full of people's clothes and stuff everywhere, One of the worse place I have ever been to. That night was 'oktoberfest' and the hostel gave our free entry tickets, they had however ran out by the time we had arrived. We asked a man if he had a spare ticket, seeing as he wasn't going, he said 'yes' and he went to get us it, upon his return he decided to act like the knob he was and said he will give it to us if we pay him. This made no sense, I told him no. He said if you really want it, then you will beg me for it. I literally didn't know whether to laugh or slap him haha. I decided to laugh and told him,. I'd rather pay 100 dollars

Steepest Train

than give you him any of my money, he got the hint and did one. Anyway we finally made it to the bar with a another little hick up on the way. It wasn't worth it, full of stupid drunk Australians who were generally acting like idiots. They had a rap group up on stage, now I'm found of the music myself, but really? It's meant to be Oktoberfest for god sake haha. We stayed for a while and enjoyed ourselves, then it was time to go back to the dorm. The next day we just decided to get up and go to the beach all day. The beach itself was beautiful and really relaxing. Coggee Beach is a lovely place, its just a shame we had to be surrounded with such idiots. We spent the day and the beach at at night ate our for the first time in what seemed like ages ( no cooking for me ) . I ordered a steak and no lie it was the hugest piece of meat, I have ever eaten. Well James had a good third of it lol. And all of this for only 15 dollars, I couldn't believe it.  We then took a walk for a few miles to a place called ' Randick' . it had a old fashioned cinema called the Ritz and was just generally a really good town. Our time was coming to a end, we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep as we were leaving in the morning to head to a place called Newcastle and then Onto another town called Port Macquarie.

Beach

Note to anybody who wants to stay in Sydney avoid 'Cogge beach surfside backpackers'  it is filthy, dirty, a cold showers and the staff literally do not know what they are doing. 

Our time in Sydney had come to a end, and what a busy few days we had. Sydney is such a good place and we definitely want to come back sometime soon :))

Until Next Time...

Georgia and James. 

Katoomba

Kampot and Phnom Penh (Round 2)

Hello hello,

As you have probably guessed from Facebook we have been in Australia over a week now but we are behind on the blog so just think as it we are still in Cambodia!

A short journey in a minibus from Sihanoukville and we ended up in Kampot, a small French town with not much going on but there was plenty to see in the countryside including the famous Kampot Pepper plantations. When we got off the minibus, a tuk-tuk driver persuaded us in taking us around the countryside all day for 20 dollars and arranged for him to pick us up the next morning. We decided to rent a moped out and travel 30km down the road to Kep which was meant to be a good day to visit a few beaches and visit the national park.

Hiring out a moped was a big mistake, I'm sure we have said this several times but I don't learn. The road we travelled on to Kampot was probably better than the main roads in England so I assumed it would be okay to travel further down the road to Kep on a moped. What a mistake......I don't know where to begin. There was no tarmac in sight, just mud and gravel, roadworks all the way including having to dodge JCB's on our little moped, and so much dust that when I left my shirt was white and I came back with a orange t-shirt. Even my teeth had a layer of dust on! When we got about two-thirds of the way we basically slid off the road as it was a gravel road and we ended up bending the key and paying a local 2 dollars to use a hammer to smash it back into place. 5 dollars was a bargain as the man who gave us the moped could have charged as much as he liked because he had my passport as a deposit. As you can imagine Georgia was not impressed, and has now definitely decided no mopeds again!!! We decided to leave Kep and head back, luckily we didn't fall this this time. When we arrived back to the hotel and in one piece ( I had a few cuts on my knees), we decided to go to the local cinema and watch the 'Killing Fields', it was a film about the Killings In Cambodia, which was worth the watch. Everything shuts at 9.30pm, so we headed back to the room as we were up early for our tour the next morning.

The next morning our tuk-tuk driver arrived on time just as planned . We took a tour to the countryside, the first stop was at a local fishing market, there was not much to see here, so we headed back into the tuk-tuk and went to see some salt fields. The salt fields were huge and they had barns filled with every kind of salt you can imagine. Next stop was to visit the pepper plantations; we stopped for lunch here. Georgia was upset that she couldn't buy any fresh pepper because we wasn't sure if we were allowed to take it into Australia, nevertheless we had Kampot pepper stir fry for lunch and were satisfied with that. The next stop is where all the action starts...
We were on our last place to visit the temple in a cave ; it had started to rain and the roads became even worse although we didn't think that was possible Our tuk-tuk got stuck in mud literally in the middle of nowhere. We both got out and attempted to help our driver get his vehicle out of the mud. We were covered in mud and almost fell over ourselves, it was quite a funny experience when we look back. We eventually stopped and almost made it to the caves where our driver mentioned we had to walk the rest of the way as the road was so muddy. We couldn't walk it in our flip flops as the roads were so muddy from the rain so we took off our shoes and walked in mud for about ten minutes to get to the cave. By this point we were laughing and Georgia wasn't even saying it was my fault! We walked about 200 steps or so to get into the cave, there wasn't anything too impressive about the caves but the experience to get into them was funny. Our driver had to hold Georgia's hand to walk across the river back. There was no bridge just a tree trunk to walk across, Georgia wasn't confident enough to walk over it on her own so she had to have the trusty hand of our driver, who then gave her a flower at the end of it for all her hard effort ;) We have a load of photos but haven't managed to upload them onto Facebook yet!
We then took a 2 hour drive back to our room, with many locals on the way back saying 'hello' to us in their small villages. There isn't much to do/see in Kampot and we had a couple of nights spare before we headed to Australia, so we decided to visit the capital of Cambodia again; Phnom Penh....

Phnom Penh

We got a mini van to Phnom Penh , we paid 2 dollars extra to have the VIP van, In Cambodia you don't take notice of VIP anything, if anything VIP means your in for a treat and not in a good way. The minivan was literally VIP with free WIFI to help pass the journey, leather seats that were still intact  and a free water of bottle... smiles all round!
We got to Phnom Penh and checked into our room, our hotel told us all the things we could do and see, the problem being we had already visited here before and do most of them all. Phnom Penh is really busy and dusty ,as is most of Cambodia . We decided to walk around in the blazing heat to go see the Royal Palace, we made the mistake of walking 2 miles or so in the heat, got to the palace and only had our debit cards which they didn't accept, we decide to go back and go early the next day to avoid the heat and actually bring money this time. On the way back we visited a pagoda that was close to our room, and of course there is always a entry fee for

the tourists. The pagoda itself was similar to what you see all over South East Asia , fancy Buddha's and similar decorations. That night we ended up in A Indian restaurant and the food was really decent. We ordered far too much and had to take it away, our plan was to keep it in our fridge in the room and have the Naan bread for breakfast the next morning. The next morning came and we went to the Palace which was worth it as mentioned before we had seen and done everything Phnom Penh had to offer. We seemed to walk for ages in Phnom Penh, that night we rewarded ourselves with a night out after all the walking we done over two days. The night out consisted of a walk to the river front, people watching which ended up with a girl tripping and falling flat on her face (hope she;s okay now though). The weather in Phnom Penh was really hot and sticky, so we took refuge in our air con a lot of the time. We visited a Russian market with no Russian in sight.I bought Georgia a back scratcher for a dollar, which was a good investment haha. The next day was time to leave for the airport , our flight had a stop over in Malaysia so we got a hotel at the airport for a few hours to have some sleep and shower. Phnom Penh left a better impression on us this time as we wasn't depressed from visiting the killing fields this time round!
We was really looking forward to leaving Cambodia and heading to Australia.

Next Stop Australia.....

James and Georgia

Sihanoukville

We got a bus from the school to Sihanoukville which we was told would only take 3 hours. In Cambodia you expect 3 hours is roughly around 4 hours or so. We waited for over two hours for the bus to come, it finally picked us up and was over crowded with locals and a monk. I got told to sit next to the Monk and he refused me due to me having a vest top on, needless to say I was beginning to get annoyed by this, anyway I finally managed a seat next to a local girl. We were finally on our way, when the bus driver told everyone who was heading to Sihanoukville to get off and wait '5 mins', we got off and was on a motorway in the middle of nowhere waiting for another bus ( it came after 35mins). This again was very crowded, however this time we had our seats reserved probably because we paid more than the locals. I instantly felt bad because the locals had to get off our seats and stand/seat in the aisle, some of them were clearly over 70 years of age. The bus driver gave them a plastic seat to sit in the Aisle, so that made me feel much better, you can't have the elderly standing all that way! All in all we arrived some 7 hours later, 4 hours more than expected which by Cambodian standards is good going.

Otres Beach at night.

Dinner

We made our way to the hotel we stayed at before in March, it was luxury with a pool and only for $16 or Ten pounds English. We booked for 7 nights and ended up staying 11 nights. Just as we left the Village James woke up being sick and a high temperature, so when we arrived at the hotel , we went and stocked up on tablets for him. The next day I caught what James had and we were both ill for a few days, not ideal but we had 11 days to play around with. When we were finally better we managed to go out; Sihanoukville is a party place and there isn't much to do other than eat,drink and sunbathe. Feeling much better we got a moped out and headed to the secluded part called Otres Beach, where we had dinner on the beach :) 

Football in the bar and winning our bet :) 

After dinner we headed to a few bars along the beach front, I was happy that I found a bar that played Drake, Lil Wayne and others haha, I was in my element with my $1.00 vodka redbulls. After a certain time of night you can have laughing gas for only a dollar. I think James got addicted and I am now calling him Blake ( Amy Winehouse's ex husband) haha ;). To put it bluntly this place in Cambodia is like the Magaluf of Spain, you can even add ' Happy' on to anything, food, drinks etc for no extra, they practically give away weed for free! 

We decided to book a tour as all we were doing was sleeping a lot, the tour was a party boat that went to another Island called Koh Rong.The Island is secluded and only has electricity for 4 hours per day, so we decided to just go for the day. We got on the boat the next day and what a journey it ended up being. They gave away little plastic bags, which we soon found out where for sea sickness, everywhere we looked there was Chinese Tourists being sick in bags. I thought we got lucky then about a hour in I started to feel very sick, luckily I wasn't actually sick though! The tour on the boat included a lunch buffet and snorkelling,the Chinese tourists were so greedy. When we went down to finally get some lunch, it had practically all gone. There was enough rice to feed 300 people ( literally) and they seemed to be piling enough portions of their plates for 4 people, no lie. Me and James ended up with a little bit of rice, we didn't let it bother us too much though. When it came for the time to snorkel the Chinese tourists again were the first to get to the front to make sure they did it first, needless to say they annoyed me so much that I didn't end up even bothering to try snorkelling.  We was on the boat for some hours by this point and still not at the Island.We finally arrived and only had 2 hours on the island, the boat we was on was too big to dock, we had to get in little fishing boats and then jump into the water to reach the shore. I literally couldn't jump and got myself stuck on the boat, much to the annoyance of James. Anyways I finally faced my fear and jumped in the water haha, and we found a secluded part of the beach and sunbathed for a couple of hours, it was now time for the boat home ( nice and easy). On our way home our boat took a little detour, the boats captain said the waves were too high to dock at the main pier. We ended up being stuck on the boat for another few hours, it was starting to get dark and the Chinese tourists were still being demanding as ever. They got little fishing boats to take us to the main pier in another town. There was 200 people to get in to two little fishing boats, so we had to wait our turn and just about got on the third boat. The tour finally ended 3 hours over the time we were due back, and it all felt like that we was stuck on a boat all day. All in all it wasn't a good tour, laying in bed at night the room was spinning, I literally had sea sickness in bed from the boat! 

James

Having dinner on the beach.

That night we went out to the front and went to the bars again, they offered free beers or whiskey most nights which we took of course. There wasn't much else to do in Sihanoukville, other than drink etc, so one night we managed to find a casino. James will find a place to bet anywhere he goes! We visited the Casino about two times during our time there and won some dollar each time ( Only because I was so good at roulette) ;) . I don't think there was a dress code in the Casino as the local women were in their pj's betting away their money. Cambodia is so poor so it shocked me to see them betting their money away ( lets hope they were winners). 

Otres Beach

The last couple of days we headed to Otres Beach as it was so pretty and relaxed. I got a manicure on the beach for $2 , might as well for that money you can't complain. On the beach there was local children who would try and sell you things,they clearly did not like James, he told them he had 5 girlfriends and they was annoyed by this . The little girl said to James 'you are nasty and I will get my brothers to cut off your banana' haha. She then goes 'why do you need another girlfriend when your girlfriend here( me) has big boobs like Nikki Minaj'. I carried on letting them abuse James, then she got a stick and starting whacking him with it haha. That will teach him.... After a while they were calling him gay and lesbian, and carried on hitting him, so I eventually told her to stop and that he was only joking. She then goes to me 'you can lie to yourself, but not your heart'. I think she got a little crazy and I had to tell her to calm down and chill out. 

So after 11 days in Sihanoukville, we finally decided to move on to another city called Kampot.

Sorry this blog isn't as detailed, we literally slept, drank and ate for 11 days :) 

Georgia & James :) 

Our week volunteering at a school in Cambodia

 Hello, thought I would write the blog this time! (Georgia)


After leaving Koh Chang we arrived at the land border between Thailand and Cambodia and was just as stressful as any other land border we have been to. The minivan dropped us off on the Thai border and then we had to walk a few minutes down the road to enter Cambodia. There were a load of locals on the Cambodian side trying to con as many tourists as they could and we fell for a "health check" which included an old woman shining a torch in our eyes saying we were okay and charging us. We eventually found a taxi and a bus to take us to a little village called Andong Teuk and we was on our way. The bus driver decided to drop us off in a field about 10km from the village and we had to call up the school to say we were stranded on the main road in the middle of nowhere. He agreed to pick us up and arrived on his little motorbike thinking we were all going to fit on the back plus too huge suitcases, needless to say we had to negotiate a price for a tuk-tuk with a local.

We were volunteering at BCDO school and was teaching and living at the school for a week. The BCDO school was a place where children came before school, at lunchtimes and after school to improve their English as well as to play games.When we first arrived they had lunch prepared for us by the mother of the family who lived at the school. We were fortunate to be teaching with 2 other volunteers called Ben and Amira who were only staying for 4 nights and were from Australia. Amira had previous experience teaching children from her main job back home in Australia and was sure to put our non-existent teaching skills to shame! When we had all finished lunch we were shown around the grounds of the school by the director including the "luxury"" bucket shower, squat toilets, the classrooms and the bedrooms. We were lucky that we arrived before the Aussies as were given a choice of bedrooms. One bedroom had no bed with just a carpet on the floor, the other bedroom had a bed with no mattress so we grabbed the bed. My theory was that the spiders, geckos, and other strange wildlife could not get us so easily especially as we had a mosquito net that covered  the whole bed. It was now Sunday evening so we decided to have an early night ready for our 8am morning class the following day.

The legend that was Mr Hong Thong Song.

Kids playing games before lesson

Cebloase posing in the background

We woke up on the Monday morning ready for work to be told that there were only a couple of children coming in the morning as it was their school holidays at the government school and not as many children would come along. Me and Georgia were relieved and we followed the lesson plan and we were given the task of teaching the letter "B". The kids were practicing their handwriting and learning new words beginning with B. We also taught at lunchtime to around 15 children that increased to 20 by the end of the week. They were all aged between 7-11 and usually went crazy after half hour of teaching and had to abandon the lesson a couple of times but was still good fun! The evening class would consist of children 11 and over and was my favourite class as the children was older and not so naughty. One of the Cambodian teachers, ""Teacher Hong" who was only 19, and on the first day got confused and thought Georgia was with the Aussie man, Ben and that I was with Amira and was adamant we should teach together as couples lol. Nobody wanted to correct him as he was quite a strange character to put it politely. So we ended up teaching the classes with a different person. I hated teaching under Mr Hong, he would correct my English even though he barely spoke any decent English himself. He would constantly say 'you've spelt that wrong', I lost count on how many times I told him , he was the one who was wrong, needless to say I ended up bunking Mr Hong's class and by the end of the week switched classes to help James. James's class with Amira was alot better, they children were very clever and wanted to learn English. The work we set them was too easy and so we had to re-arrange our plan and teach them 'harder' words. With Amira being a teacher at home herself, the class was made easier. I enjoyed teaching this class and looked forward to my afternoon with the children who came. We had one more lesson that all volunteers helped out in 'The discussion class'', this class was made up of a few boys who were 16+ and had a good standard of English already. We took the time to discuss things in English and spoke with them; they were typical teenage boys and on more than one occasion when the conversation began to flow, we would speak about 'girls'and 'whiskey': not too different from home (I imagine ). They were interested in what England and  Australia was like, so a lot of the lesson was always based on home.

Discussion Class : Facebook, girls and whiskey

So they were the classes: what else did we do with our spare time?  PAGODA.

After lessons had finished we did what most hard working teachers do - pub, or in our case a cheeky Sprite down the Pagoda. (we had nothing but water to drink all week- Honest!). The pagoda was a place of worship in the village, where you could go to pay your respect to Buddha, or play darts, and gamble in this case. It was the most dodgiest (even a word?) place of worship I have ever seen. There was an old monk trying to keep the kids out of the temple, who were running wild! There was a few stalls selling soft drinks, that tasted like heaven after a week of water, rice and vegetables. And then comes the techno music... young boys had placed huge speakers into the pagoda and was playing music loud so that everyone could have a little rave up. All the local teenagers would go crazy when the beat was dropped. People watching was a must!

One night we had an invite from the Dad who lived at the School. He was a strange man with little English. He had one conversation with James, that ended up in him playing charades. James ultimately worked out he must of been in the Army, as the grenade noises gave it away. 'Pow pow I shoot guns'. We then asked his son who spoke better English if his dad was in the Army. His reply was 'yes', we didn't ask too much of his Army days, out of the fear he may of been ex Khmer Rouge. If you know your history, then we don't need to explain! Anyways cut a long story short he asked us to the Pagoda one night with him and his Army Pals. James went along with it, I however being the paranoid freak I was, was worried he was capture me and sell my body parts for dollar in Thailand. Thank god he didn't, I am here to tell the tale, ( or write the blog). No alcohol is allowed at the Pagoda, but The dad didn't seem to care. He was downing shots at the back in a secluded shots with his friends. They instantly looked like they could all appear on crime watch. I was already having nightmares. After politely declining Dad's offer of a shot, out came the beer! James had one, I was still refusing. Dad's mate consisted of a journalist (hmmm debatable) , and the other one was a 'lady boy" which in Cambodia doesn't mean a man who dresses as a girl , it means a gay man. After too many beers said Lady Boy was offering James more alcohol, whilst rubbing his leg affectionately. Needless to say we headed off home.

Peace

After a heavy night at the Pagoda, all you want is a decent bed and some decent food. Which leads us to our diet for the week- Rice, water, vegetables, occasional meat and more rice. The mum made us lunch and dinner everyday, to her credit she made good sweet and sour vegetables. Meat was limited because there were no shops where they lived. Just a simple daily market were the locals would get their basics for the day and cook up a Cambodian feast. The mum made sure we were full, we were expecting to be constantly hungry. Rice however dulls the hunger and literally bloats you to the point of being so full you don't want anything else. Although I'm sure for James a bar of chocolate wouldn't go a miss after dinner.

We end the blog by talking about the son in the family. Mr Cebalose Vorn; the nicest 17 year old young boy you will ever meet. He runs the classes when there are no volunteers. He dedicates his time between going to school himself and teaching English to those in his village community. He had a love for music, myself and him would have regular bonding sessions over the little music he had. One day he was singing 'all my bitches love me''. I told him what 'Bitch' meant and he was shocked haha. We would speak about how he wants to be rich, I really hope it works out for this boy because he deserves it.

So after all our classes had finished, we were ready to leave. James really enjoyed the experience a lot more than he had imagined. My experience was good, but hiding from the children is definitely a sign that I do not want to become a teacher anytime soon! Mr James Bond thought we should of stayed longer, I would have but the living conditions were starting to get to me. I didn't wash my hair for a week.

The children were fun and it was a good experience, to be able to teach someone something. Very rewarding. Oh and before I go, I've got to mention my main little man Jerry 'Jel', one of my fav children. Definitely going to miss him saying 'Teacher Angry Birds I phone'.... What a experience and memories made.

Until next time,

Georgia and James. 

Rain Rain Rain......the island of Koh Chang, Thailand

Hello again :)

Before I start I will like to mention that we must have seen the sun for around 10 minutes in the 8 days we stayed on the island of Koh Chang. If anybody thinks Thailand is continuously hot and sunny, think again.....

Kayak not included in the price of a bungalow....

As mentioned in the previous lady-boy blog, we arrived to Koh Chang on an old looking ferry in the gloom of the monsoon rains and once we arrived on the island, had to endure a hour's drive along one of the worst roads ever, it makes gants hill roundabout or spaghetti junction in Birmingham look like a piece of p**s. We were staying in Lonely beach, we was surprised by how quiet it was, although we should have guessed by the name. I had read many good things about the place online, and consisted of an undeveloped beach area with a couple of dozen restaurant and hundreds of beach huts some of them as cheap as 3 pound a night. Some of the huts required a kayak to get to the front door in rainy season! Fortunately, we splashed out and paid 9 pound a night for our room and we were footsteps away from a secluded beach but wasn't able to take advantage of it because of the monsoon rains. We stayed at Nature Beach Resort which was located on the beach and had a nice bar and restaurant looking over the sea but as it was low season and as a result there was only a handful of people staying at the resort at the time we were.

Monsoon season on Koh Chang

We tried to make the most of Koh Chang although the lack of people and the weather was hampering us doing much during the day alongside the roads being too dangerous to rent a moped out. There was a party one night at out resort which was a good night which originally started as playing Connect 4 with the bar staff to drinking shots through a straw which I don't remember much of. It was one of them moments for Georgia when she wakes up the next morning and flicks through the photos on her camera to make sure she remembers everything. Judging by the pictures I got drunk and made a fool of myself lol.

After 3 nights at the resort we figured out it was pointless staying on the beach because of the weather alongside getting bitten alive by mosquitoes. We moved into a different hostel in the village which was more central and had a much nicer room and bed. 'The night before we moved the hotel's dog slept outside our door all night to find out in the morning he brought us a used nappy as a present. When he realised we were checking out, then followed us 15 minutes down the road to the new hostel where we were staying at. I felt guilty for leaving our dog as he was always around. I was trying to make the dog turn around so he wouldn't get lost but Georgia was secretly happy he was with us as he was our guard dog from the monkeys. There was a lot of monkeys on the roadside, and I can't say monkeys are Georgia's favourite animal that she has come across, especially after witnessing monkeys steal sunglasses and a Cornetto before!

Our days consisted of waiting around in the hostel waiting for the rain to stop and during the night trying different cuisine, I even had Danish meatballs one night, work that one out! I still was still in "protecting the dogs" mode and when we was in the Danish restaurant a small and timid ugly looking dog come in looking for food, it looked more like a cat to be fair. The European owner was kicking it back out onto the street but the dog came back and this time the owner picked the dog up and started stroking it. Me being a paranoid freak, thought he was going to kill the skinny dog and I was telling Georgia that we were walking out if they done anything to the dog. The owner had this evil looking mustache and an evil look, he spoke to his mate and he went out the back.He come back out with food and walked the dog 5 minutes down the road to give him food to make sure he didn't come back for more. I was so stupid, I must have though Danes like to murder dogs for some reason. Random story about dogs again, but I had to tell someone!

Ingredients for the Thai cooking School

Me and Georgia were debating whether to do any excursions and I was keen on treetop activity excursion and Georgia wanted to do a cooking school, so we agreed to just do our own thing especially as I gave myself food poisoning the last time I done a cooking school. I ended up doing the treetop excursion with a French family which included two young girls, so as the macho man I am, had to go first and had to set the example. It was much more fun than I thought it would be, there were zip wires, tightropes, had to balance on a skateboard whilst flying through the air and even sit on a bike at one point. The course was so high in the trees and must have been 80 feet of the ground and torrential rain started and I was stranded. My idea before I started that an instructor would help you around the course but I had a 5 minute training session and was left on my own. Stuck on a wire 80 feet up in torrential rain was an adrenaline rush borderline buying a new pair of boxers! Georgia ended up doing the cooking school on the own her own with a young Thai lady who showed Georgia how to cook 5 dishes including Thai curry and spring rolls.

We wanted to move on from Koh Chang but still had a couple of days to kill before we had to cross the border into Cambodia to start teaching. Lonely beach was too lonely for us so we decided to go to the more commercial and larger resort of White Sands which had more your typical touristy restaurant including an Irish bar. There must be Irish bars everywhere??? We stayed here for a couple of nights and the highlights was having a barbecue by the beach both the nights and watching football including having a sneaky bet on Everton to beat West Ham 3-2 to win 68 pound from 2 pound, Georgia is still in the process of going through the courts to try and claim half of the profit.

It was now time to leave Koh Chang and we had stacked up on malaria tablets for Cambodia, sounds so exciting...... but we were looking forward to volunteering in Cambodia teaching children at a school. So after eight nights in Koh Chang we came to the conclusion it is such a nice place especially Lonely Beach, a true reflection of Thailand, although it was a mistake to go in monsoon season or to stay for so many nights.

P.S. We are slightly behind on the blog so I will post the next one in a couple of days so keep a look out!

Travelling continued.....Pattaya

After spending the summer back home, our plan was to work for a bit and save some money to go and do a working holiday in Australia, with a month away in Thailand and Cambodia. We were just going to work for some rubbish event company over the summer to earn the money but luckily enough we managed to find something we were both interested in. I managed to get a job as a Transport coordinator and Georgia worked over the summer as a domestic violence advocate so both of us managed to put our degree to use!

We started our travels in Bangkok Airport where Georgia flew from London, changing flights in India where she stated that she would never go again, but the flight was cheap so she cannot moan. I flew in from Hong Kong where I had spent a few nights with my family and was actually one of the best cities that I have visited. We also went to Dubai which wasn't as great as the busy and bright streets of Hong Kong. Our flights landed only 15 minutes apart, Georgia had endured her 18 journey and I loved my 2 hour flight from Hong Kong where I was upgraded to business class (had to include that in the blog), I am sure the check-in attendant felt sorry for me as I was the only white person on the flight! After a 2 hour bus journey from the airport we arrived in Pattaya late at night and had an early night.....

The next morning, well lunchtime by the time we woke up we had a walk down to the beach and the streets seemed pretty quiet and done nothing in particular as Georgia was jet-lagged. It was much more lively during the night though. When we have been to Thailand before there would always be a strip or a road where there would be a few bars full of Thai girls, like where we visited the ping-pong show in Bangkok, or on one of the Thai islands. But Pattaya is a huge city and there must have been hundreds, if not thousands of these bars full of local girls on the lookout for their middle-aged white men, or if they was lucky a hunk like me...Some of the bars would have Thai girls on one side of a table and westerners on the other, a bit like speed dating I should imagine, although me and Georgia didn't catch on to this until we wanted a quiet drink. It was raining so we ran into a bar and got a couple of beers and we ended up sitting opposite a 50 year old Thai woman looking for her future husband, she got us 2 instead! After sitting in awkward silence for ten minutes we decided to quickly finish our drinks and run off into the distance lol.

The rest of Pattaya was similar, full of bars or "special" massage parlors with dozens of girls outside each. Then there was Walking Street which was a lot less seedy with more bars and nightclubs alongside the go-go bars. A lot of the bars had a black curtain at the entrance which gave us flashbacks of the time we got locked in Bangkok at a ping-pong show but after a few nights we braved it and went in. It was a bar with a load of girls in their bikinis on stage all with a badge on, each having a number so if you wanted a girl you could book her by her badge number. The western men in these clubs were a lot younger unlike the men who would go to a go-go bar to find their future wife. Its not sounding good for me and Georgia right now but we only went there once out of curiosity! We ended up in the more traditional bars and clubs that you would get back home the majority of the time. There was even Russian strip clubs along the street that we may have ventured into one night.....

Pattaya was all about the nightlife and not too much too do in the day especially as it was monsoon season and it was usually raining and the cheap umbrellas that we had didn't stand a chance! Also, a lot of the excursions that was on offer such as elephant trekking and cooking schools wasn't worth paying for again as we done earlier in the year on our travels. A couple of the days we ended up going bowling and cinema because of the weather, but on the rare sunny day we took a boat to an island where we thought we would have a secluded beach to relax on. It turned out to be the busiest beach ever with about a thousand jet skis making a load of noise and a packed out beach full of large tourist groups. It was the complete opposite to a secluded beach so we only stayed for a couple of hours and took the ferry back to Pattaya and headed back to our hotel.

Our hotel was more like a guesthouse, with about 6 rooms run by a Thai family who would go out there way for you and would make you breakfast and lunch although it wasn't even included in the price.The majority of times Thai's are so much more friendly and welcoming compared to anyone else that we have been.

The food in Pattaya was very mixed as it was a huge tourist attraction so had the choice of western or local food. Georgia seemed adamant that she would keep having Thai food but I was still on holiday mode from the week before with my family and couldn't resist burger and chips!  Georgia gave in to Western food at 3am one night when we passed McDonalds, to her credit she has avoided chocolate and crisp since we have arrived and to be fair nobody can say no to a double cheeseburger after a night out!

After 5 nights in Pattaya, we arrived in Koh Chang via the Thai equivalent of the Woolwich Ferry through the gloom and the rain and finally made it to the hotel. The minibus had to go along the most dangerous roads I have seen with some of them completely flooded, I decided straight away that we wouldn't be renting a moped if we wanted to get off the island alive.

Until next time.......

Our last ever blog........

We have been home for 3 days now and are slowly getting back to normal. For me it's sitting on the sofa watching TV, going for a game of snooker, having a roast dinner and having dozens of cups of tea (made by Mum and Dad, too lazy to make it myself). To summarise our last 4 months we are going to do a "best and worse of..." and see our similar our answers will be!


Best Country:
James: I thought the best country and I would recommend for anyone to go to even if it was for just a 2 week holiday is Thailand. I heard a lot of good things about it and wasn't disapointed. But I am going to say Vietnam was the best country we went to because I had no expectations, did not know what to expect and seemed to meet a lot of people and visited some good places!
Georgia: Thailand, it has the best of both worlds. Really secluded beaches, yet really busy ones. The food is good and cheap; plus Chang is cheap ;) Its a very pretty place, with some much to see/do.

Worse Country:
James: It's a bit harsh to call one of the countries is the worst but if I had to miss one out it would be either Laos or Indonesia, but I probably prefered Indonesia because of Bali. So if there was any country that we could have missed out is Laos, as only Luang Prabang was worth seeing. There was a few good things to do in Laos and certainly wasn't rubbish but overall could have easily been missed out!
Georgia: There isn't really a worse counrty, but if there was a country we could have skipped out it would have been Indonesia, still good nonetheless. Indonesia was very authentic to say the least, the only place worth visiting is Bali. The rest can be skipped. 

Best City:
James: I think Bangkok would be up there and is the best city that we visited, we actually went there twice! First time round we was just thankful of escaping India and staying in a luxury hotel surrounded by skyscrapers in the business district. The second time round when we was feeling a lot better we stayed on Khao San Road in Bangkok where all the backpackers go and is one street with a load of street food, restaurants, bars.
Georgia: Bangkok- Lived up to the Hangover film. When again in the future, Am I going to visit a strip club with James and watch a ping ping show!? LOL.

Worst City:
James: Although it was for just a night, Agra springs to mind almost immediately. I would be very surprised if Georgia didn't say the same. Everything about Agra was bad, the hotel, the whole place and even the train leaving was like a cattle market.
Georgia: Vientiane in Laos, was pretty boring and not much to do. Laos in general was a close second for the worst place category . It just seemed like a very boring place to be, with nothing to see or do!

Best Island/Resort:
James: Sihanoukville in Cambodia was my best place as it was ridiculously cheap for food and drink, a beach with a strip of bars and clubs. We also went on a booze cruise and met a few people that we will hopefully stay in contact with. The hotels that we stayed in wasn't great but dinner and drinks after was always a good laugh for the 6 nights we were there! For example, fish and chips was about 85p, we also went to a barbecue a couple of nights where you could have 3 bits of different meat, garlic bread, side salad, and a jacket potato for £2. The average price of a beer was 50p and a vodka a £1 at most! It was a place I would definitely go back and would be good to go with a group of mates. We have been to more scenic places with better beaches but this place made up for it in other ways!
Georgia: Sihanoukville in Cambodia, best place because I wasn't expecting it to be so western. We met some really nice people and had a week of clubbing in the sunshine :)

Best Beach:
James: Beaches on the Thai islands spring to mind, including the time me, Georgia and Rob had breakfast on the beach in Koh Tao. We also went to one in Koh Samui when we took a moped around the island and we found a nice deserted beach.
Georgia: The beach in Hoi An in Vietnam where we rode bicycles to the beach. I havent been on a bike for some years, so for me to enjoy a bike ride and a beach, is literally saying something lol!

Best Hotel:
James: It would probably be the hotel that we paid the most for which was in Bangkok for £38 a night to recover from India. The room would have easily cost about £200 in London and had it's own kitchen, a bathtub which is rare in Asia, bathrobes and was just modern and everything worked! Georgia even cooked me a meal one night! Rooms that also worth a mention was the shed we stayed in at Pai, the hostel we stayed in at Singapore and the Villa we stayed in Lombok was nice.
Georgia: The Quinlins, in Pai in Thailand because it was empty and peaceful. The owners were like your family, and after India this is just what we needed. 

Worst Hotel:
James: The worse hotel would have been Agra because of no heating and the location was similar to downtown Baghdad Also, the place in Lombok, Indonesia for one night was pretty bad when even the toilet roll was not included with the room.
Georgia: In Lombok for the night , dirty bed sheets and a toilet with no flush. It wasn't even worth seven English pounds!

Worse journey:
James: The 20 hour journey from Singapore back home via Saudi Arabia sounds bad but it was not too bad really. The worse journey would have been maybe going from Bangkok to the full moon party which was about 18 hours on a bus and boat. The bus wasn't even a sleeper bus like they claimed. There were a lot of bad journeys in truth including a 20 hour bus journey from Vietnam to Laos and had screaming Vietnamese men screaming every hour waking us up. Also when I was in a coffin on the top bunk of a train was pretty bad!
Georgia: The slow boat to Laos, travelling all night and had only 3 hours sleep, hardly a hotel for a night like the travel agent claimed. The journey was so uncomfortable...

High Point:
James: One of the many nights out in Sihanoukville or maybe when we went trekking in Thailand as we had a good group of people with us!
Georgia: Cameron Highlands,where we visited the tea factories and then had the best afternoon tea in the mountains. A very British day :)

Low Point:
James: On the train from Agra to Delhi where I was addicted to imodium and it didn't quite last for the whole of the journey. Lets just say I could see the tracks when I was in the toilet.
Georgia: India..... James and myself being ill :( I was so worried for James, he has a fever alongside everything else. So glad we both got better :)

Best Excursion:
James: Trekking in Chiang Mai in Thailand
Georgia: The S21 prison in Cambodia got to see the aftermath of the civil war. Was a very heavy day. I'm a history buff, therefore this was one of the best excursions for me.

Best Night Out:
James: Most people probably would say full moon party but I wouldn't do it again although it was a good night! I can't really choose a good night out, maybe Luang Prabang when we went to an underground bowling alley. Also in Hoi An, in Vietnam when we started the night out with a nice meal with a couple we met and ended up at a bar that just started up and was basically someone's house and played pool tournaments all night lol
Georgia: Luang Prabang bowling alley - the hangover the next day was such a shame. I will never drink beer t that excess again... such a good night, shame about the morning haha!

Best Meal:
James: Probably a curry in Laos, I think Georgia persuaded me that was the best meal as it must have had a million different spices in it!
Georgia: Eating our first western meal after India, In Chiang Mai. A god ole' fashioned pie and mash!

Worse Meal:
James: The undercooked cheeseburgers in Koh Phangan, they looked like that they were cooked for a whole 2 seconds!
Georgia: When I had to wait 2 hours for my meal which was rice and it come out wrong. How and why? How can you mess up Rice? I paid and then quickly left with a empty stomach!

What we will miss:
James: Not living in the real world back home, the nice beaches and meeting people along the way
Georgia: The sunshine, which obviously makes us all happy :) And spending time with James

What we will definitely not miss:
James: Living out of a suitcase and wearing the same set of clothes for 4 months. Living in about 3-4 different places every week.
Georgia: Rice... I'm literally not eating the stuff for quite some while!

Best Beer:
James: Lao Baeer (Laos)
Georgia: Bintang Beer (Indonesia)

That's all our answers and that's the end of the blog. We have had over 1700 views so we are glad people have actually been reading it!



Final Stats

Days been away: 112 days

Distance travelled: 25,000 miles (approx.)

Countries Visited: 8 (India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore)

Hotels visited: 47

Bus: 21 Times
Boat: 8 Times
Plane: 10 Times
Train: 4 Times
Overnight Journeys: 7 Times
Longest Journey: 26 hours (journey home)

Our final stop.....Singapore! :)

Singapore is probably the best city we have been too, it's so modern compared to anywhere else I have been including London. We have only been here for 2 nights and have a couple of hours left before our flight leaves the airport back home, although we have the pleasure of changing flights in Saudi Arabia with a 5 hour stop-over in the airport, can't complain considering it was only 220 pound to get home! Let's get started on Singapore.....

Our flight left Indonesia at 7:30am in the morning so it was an early start and Georgia fell asleep as soon as the wheels left the runway but was hard for me to tell as we were seated 10 rows away from each, it allowed me to spend the last of our currency on food for myself lol. We arrived at the airport and made our way to the train station, the station was so clean and was because there is a £250 fine for even eating or drinking on the trains. The country also has a ban of chewing gum which is another explanation on why the streets are spotless.

Our hostel was located in Little India and we was staying in a dorm with 24 other people which was made up of 8 double beds and 8 single beds and seemed to be full the first night! It was strange as the double beds were on the lower bunk and the single beds were above the double beds on the top bunk.

Strange, but it worked!

We have not stayed in too many hostels and when we have we have had a private room because it has been so cheap. The average basic room with a double bed within Singapore is around a 100 pound a night whereas a double bed in a hotel was 20 pound so it only seemed logical to stay in a dorm. The "boutique" hostel that we are staying in is basically a 5-star hostel if that is possible, and has only been open for a few months. The bathrooms are huge and always clean, there is a big breakfast area, a kitchen and even a games/cinema room. I am currently writing this blog in the hostel on a Apple computer with a huge screen so this hostel is definitely not done on the cheap! The rooms are a little small but we have spent so much time trying to cram in as much of Singapore as we can in 2 days, that we haven't really been in it much!

See we did make it to Australia!

After we checked into the hostel we headed to Singapore Zoo as it had good reviews and the orang-utans had free-roaming of the zoo, basically not in any cages which seemed a good idea. We got there at 2 o'clock a little tired from our early start and had 4 hours to explore the zoo before it shut at 6. Immediately after buying our tickets at the counter, it chucked it down for a solid hour flooding the whole place, thunder and lightning constantly until about 3 o clock whilst we was hiding under shelter. When it stopped we only had a couple of hours left to explore the zoo and we had not even started! I'm not a big animal fan, well zoos to be specific but this was good including seeing kangaroos in the "Australian outback" enclosure as they wasn't in cages and the kangaroos were just walking around not bothered by the people surrounding them. Georgia even fed a giraffe, although I didn't get the camera out fast enough to take a picture. We also saw an elephant show and a seal show which was good. In the end the zoo was a good afternoon out although I was so tired after deciding to eat rather than sleep on the plane earlier in the day.

True fact!

We got back to the hostel at 7pm and after resting my eyes for half hour or so and having a shower, it was off out again! After "googling" and speaking to the staff, we headed to Clarke Quay which was on the river full of restaurants and bars, they even had a Hooters! We was having a heart attack on the price of things though, the price of a pint was around 7 pound and a Jagerbomb was 10 pound! Each bar seemed to have a live band and after having a walk around we found a place offering buy one get one free all night with a band playing inside. We only had one drink as we had been up for so long and we headed back to the dorm and feel straight to sleep.

Temple

The next day Georgia wasn't happy as she was woken up early by kids, should kids even be allowed to be stay in a dorm??? Follow her on twitter to get a jist of how angry she was. They didn't wake me up as I was so tired from the day before, I don't even think an earthquake would have woken me. When I finally managed to get myself out of bed, we had unlimited breakfast, nothing too fancy though; fruit, toast and cereal and we headed to Chinatown recommended by a nice woman working at the hostel. Chinatown was very nice and authentic with lots of stalls selling cheap souvenirs to add to the presents we already bought in Indonesia. We tried a bit of street food and went to a hawker centre, which is where there are dozens of stalls under one-roof selling cheap food so we tried some of the chicken and rice but wasn't nothing special to be honest! We also walked down a street in Chinatown where there were 4 places of worship on one street within a few hundred metres of each other including a Mosque, a Temple, a Wat and a Church which gave Georgia an excuse to get her camera out. Singapore seems very keen on religions working in harmony. We were in Chinatown for a couple of hours before we jumped back on the train to Orchard Street which is basically a less crowded larger version of Oxford Street.

When we got our the station we were surrounded by shops such as Louis Vuitton, Prada and Hugo Boss and other shops that was slightly out of a price-range lol. It was nice to just walk around and people-watch until we come to the end of the street and found a shopping mall to find that there was a Marks & Spencer. We went in there on the off-chance they done food and thankfully they did and I went on the hunt for custard creams whilst Georgia looked for some shortbread! There was also a huge supermarket in the mall and we ended up buying meatballs, cheese, pasta and Jamie Oliver's pasta sauce. It was strange because a lot of the food was from Waitrose and was being sold by a different supermarket for a slightly higher price. We also managed to find some cheap beer (rare in Singapore) to go with the meal that Georgia was now cooking for us for dinner. We had the biggest portion of spaghetti and meatballs that I've ever had with a mountain of cheese to go with it. We also watched "Horrible Bosses" in the outdoor cinema room and had the room to ourselves and lounged around on the beanbags.

Singapore at night

That evening, we went to Marina Bay where there was a laser show surrounded by the skyscrapers in the business district. They even had the Singapore flyer which was identical to the London Eye. It was a bit annoying as we missed the laser show but we walked around for a hour or so but by this point our legs were falling off from the amount of walking we had done in the past 2 days so we headed back and passed out in the dorm.

This morning we had yet another walk around the city that we had not not been to, including Arab Street which was different but nothing too amazing. Our hostel was in Little India and it was quite nice compared to the other dirty Little India districts that we had visited in Kuala Lumpur and Georgetown and felt a bit more safer. The Indian men in all the countries that we have been to have an habit of staring, especially at Georgia and haven't got a care in the world that they are doing it!

That's it, we are heading to the airport and running out of time, we don't want to miss out flight now....or do we? lol. I will write a final blog once we are home, and just for your information we have had 1600 views on our blog in the past 16 weeks so thank you for reading!

James and Georgia x

Indonesia continued.....

We don't seem to make the best of starts when we arrive to somewhere new..........

We took a boat from Bali to the adjacent island of Lombok which is around a hour and half away by speedboat. the boat first stopped at the Gill Islands before reaching Lombok and it looked amazing and we were gutted we wasn't getting off here. It had the kind of beaches that you would find on a poster or canvas and had no roads and just a few donkeys. We should have really got off but we bought the ticket to Lombok and we had a flight a few days later from Lombok so we didn't get off. We arrived on the island, but the boat stopped in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny village, a million miles from anywhere. We got off the boat and looked for a bus or taxi to where the majority of the hotels in Senggigi, but were informed by a few poeple that there was no taxis or buses which seemed a bit suspicious. Two men, no older than us approached us and said they will take us to the main town which was 5 miles away for a stupid amount of money. When we refused ,we walked up to the main road to look for a taxi and a couple of them passed whilst we were on the roadside. These two locals were making sure we wasn't getting in a taxi as they were trying to con us. We were basically stuck in the same place for half hour not moving, but then the two boys finally stopped trying to rip us off and offered us a reasonable price. At this point we didn't trust them one bit so we decided we wasn't getting in a car with them no matter what especially after they had caused us so much hassle. A taxi driver finally stopped and offered to take us but on leaving he had to give the two men money to shut them up, he told us they were bad people and they do this to everyone getting off the boat at this isolated pier. The taxi driver was nice and took us to a cheap place for the night as we had a villa booked for 2 nights the day after. Another stressful beginning to a new island.

The villa we had to ourselves for a barmy £24

The place we stayed in for a night was probably the worse place we have stayed in our travels but it was only 7 pound for the night including breakfast. We knew we had a shared villa the day after that we booked online for a barmy 24 pound the night after but one night was one too many. The room was terrible, toilet roll was not included and had to pay for, no flush, ants everywhere....it was bad! I didn't want to stay in the room for too long so I went for a walk and left Georgia in the room. I thought I would try and find the villa to try and cheer me up and I thought that I found it. It turned out to be someone's house on top of a hill overlooking the valley. I had a nice chat with the owner for a while and thought I would head back because Georgia would have been a nervous wreck being away from me for a whole hour and probably making up a million scenarios of how I could have been run over, kidnapped, got lost etc....

She preferred doing this to trekking, it was hard to disagree

We made it through the night and we arranged for the owner of the villa to pick us up from the poor excuse of a room which turned out to be a 5 minute drive away. The villa was beautiful and our room even had it's own kitchen. The villa consisted of 3 rooms but we were the only one staying there so we had the villa to ourselves for 2 nights! We spent our 2 days mainly around the pool after finding out that the only excursions in Lombok was a 3 day trek to the top of the volcano.
I didn't mind trekking but Georgia didn't agree with me lol...to be fair I didn't mind, we was staying in the nicest place since when we was staying with my Mum and Dad a month ago. The owner was American and his wife was Indonesian and they were nice enough and offered to take us to the bus stop which was 5 minutes away to catch our flight from the Airport. Before our flight in the evening we had a nice lunch on the beach when the weather decided to take a turn for the worse. We ended up walking back to the villa in torrential rain as the roads turned to rivers and was only saved by the umbrella that the restaurant on the beach decided to give us after we said we had a flight to catch!

We made it to the bus, we were the only one on it to begin with which allowed us to sing along to the radio blaring out "All Rise" by Blue lol. The airport was not so good, our hour long flight was delayed by an almighty 4 hours due to operational and technical problems which we was annoying and worrying.

I do love a map lol

The airline had a history of crashes and the plane wasn't much bigger than my Citeron C2 with propellas. We were flying to Surabaya on the island of Java. When we landed we couldn't find our hotel for over a hour and by this time it was past midnight, our hotel turned out to be on an industrial estate which was guarded by an army of rats. It seemed like we was going from one extreme to another regarding our hotels.

The next day in Surabaya we visited a cigarette factory which doesn't sound thrilling but there's not much else to do there apparently to Tripadvisor. It was actually quite an experience as we saw the factory where Indonesian's biggest brand of cigarettes were made. Each cigarette was individually hand-rolled and packed by an army of about 300 women. It was a bit like the factory out of Willy Wonka in fast-motion. Each cigarette was rolled in a second, and a pack of 20 being packaged up in about 2 seconds, I am not exaggerating by the way. I think Georgia has put pictures up on Facebook so take a look, because I can't really begin to describe it and the speed in which they was working! Oh and by the way, a pack of 20 cigarettes in a shop costs a pound! That was it for Surabaya apart from the fact that our hotel was next to a shopping mall and we had a sneaky Pizza Hut and went in the games arcade.

Each individual cigarette was hand-rolled in a second!

Our final stop was Yogyakarta which was a 5 hour train journey way. We didn't manage to get seats together which was annoying and I ended up sitting next to a doctor who seemed adamant on me posing for photos on his blackberry and adding me on Twitter! I didn't let him have my Facebook, he isn't that lucky! We checked into our guest house which was nice with a good set of owners and staff. We were also located on a touristy strip, which is just what we needed, as we needed a laundrette, an internet cafe, travel agents and some decent restaurants. The main tours to do in and around the town was to visit ancient Hindu temples and seemed quite interesting. When we found out that the entrance fee was 2 pound for locals and 15 pound for foreigners we were a bit put off, especially after visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia which was a Wonder of the World and is probably impossible to beat regarding ancient temples so we decided to look for something else to do.

Volcano, last erupted 2010 killing nearly 400 people! 

About 20 miles away from the town is an active volcano, and after missing out on trekking and visiting the volcano on Lombok, it was something that I wanted to see and do. It didn't involve trekking which suited Georgia so we headed to the base of the volcano on a buses that took 2 and half hours to get there! We arrived in the afternoon and found out that the "lava tour" costed around 20 pound per jeep and lasted around 90 minutes, so me using my superb initiative decided to find someone that was willing to share the jeep and split the cost and we ended up doing the tour with two locals. You may think why are locals going on the tour? Let me explain.....

Burnt out house from the lava

Me being cool obviously

The volcano last erupted in November 2010 and the lava tours started running last year so it was a fairly new tour to show what the most recent and largest eruption did. The eruption wiped out villages, melted cars and houses and killed around 300 people as it erupted in the middle of the night and there was no warnings as people slept. The tour was done using Jeeps from WW1 to navigate the dried lava and the ash that the eruption left behind. We visited a woman's house that was destroyed which she has now turned into a museum which shows what the lava done to all her belongings which was quite shocking! We were also lucky as it was a clear day and had a good view of the volcano as it is usually hidden behind the clouds. The guide didn't speak English but luckily enough the two locals that we were sharing the Jeep with translated and explained what the guide was saying. The wildlife was already growing back through the ash but the once flowing rivers were completely dry due to the lava drying up the rivers to the present day. We got back to the base village at around 5pm to discover the last bus was at 3pm which was awkward! The two men we shared the Jeep with was part of a big family and they could see we was in a bit of trouble and offered to take us back to our hotel as their house was only round the corner to our guest house which was kind of them! The car journey home involved listening to Elvis and UB40 and only took 40 minutes compared to the 2 and half hours it took on the bus on the way.

Yogyakarta also has a couple of things to do including a famous shopping street where we managed to get a few gifts as we only have a few nights before we head home. It is now 11 o clock at night and our flight to Singapore is at 7am so I better get some sleep! Goodnight