Matt's Infamous Travels of '09 (a.k.a The Asian Chronicles incl. The Australian Saga)

I dreamt of circum-navigating the globe... Dreams don't always come true, no matter how much you want them to.

 

The last week or so has been brilliant (with the exception of last night)!
I arrived in Bangkok late for the start of my tour, so i missed the first meeting but after I finally got reunited with my group, all was good from then on. We went out for what I thought was a heavy night drinking with the 5 beautiful aussie chicks who happened to be on my tour (Charlotte, Alison, Brooke, Georgia, and Laine) on Khao San Rd, the best area for backpackers in Bangkok, packed with bars and t-shirt and souvenir vendors. It was a great introduction to Bangkok and a brilliant first night.

The following day brought with it the longest and most arduous bus journey ever. No air-conditioning and a thai woman's baby puking on my arm the whole way, we finally arrived at our destination, or did we? Nope! It was time for another bus which exceeded the length of the previous journey by 2 hours. Hooray! It was a boring and tiresome day for everyone, we were all miserable and sweaty. Then we saw our guesthouse at which we were staying that night. "Oh my lord, is this actually heaven?" is what we all thought on arrival. The name of the town was Sangkhlaburi, and our accommodation was sat right on the edge of a beautiful lake with fisherman and little shacks dotted around its edges. It seemed to make the bus trip worthwhile. Around the lake towered looming mountains covered in lush forest, just breathtaking. That day also brought with it my first experience with a thai squat toilet, fun!

The next morning, I popped out early from the guesthouse, taking a moment to admire the lake once again as the mist covered the majority of the landscape, and went for a little walk to the local market. People were yelling at me from every direction, trying to get me to buy random bits of meat on sticks or strange looking baked delicacies. I settled for a strange looking baked delicacy and nibbled on it happily for my breakfast. As i was walking back I bumped into a couple of friendly Buddhist monks, who were performing their daily ritual of humming and receiving rice from peasant folk who could probably use the food more than the monks could, in their bright orange dresses, er, robes. When I got back, I was just in time for the boat ride with the rest of the group on the beautiful Khao Laem Lake beside our hotel. We sped off at considerable speed (surprising when the boat is essentially a wooden plank with a engine), passing a submerged temple and off towards a little hill tribe village in the forest.

The first thing I noticed was their pets...CHANG! or in english, ELEPHANTS!! They were absolutely unbeliveable, the village children ran towards us, taking us by the hand and leading us to the colossal creatures. We stood for a long while petting the enormous heads and trunks while they playfully whacked us in the faces with the latter. It was a moment to treasure. But not as much as the elephant ride itself which came next. The elephants bowed to their knees allowing us to clamber clumsily to the saddles on top, and hold on for dear life as they began to amble forward, meandering through the thick vegetation of the jungle! There were two people to an elephant, along with the scrawny guides who repeatedly grunted and scolded the elephants as they tried to eat the plants around us. I was on an elephant with Charlotte, who practically jumped out of the seat at the first opportunity to ride the elephant (nicknamed Bebe), sitting on its head, tucking her legs behinds its ears and holding on tightly as to not slide off its forehead and land in a pile of the prior elephants dung. The photo-taking was excessive, flashes here and there while we each took about 200 photos of the experience. When it was my turn to ride the elephant, it wasn't as easy as it looked. I practically fell off the seat and wrapped my arms around the elephants neck, trying desperately to keep my sandals on my feet. When I got myself sorted, it wasn't as comfortable as it looked either, all my weight on the elephants head, keeping myself up with my hands on its temples, massaging the elephants thick-skinned leathery head as we went, its spine grinding my gonads with each step (a problem Charlotte hadn't had) for about 2 hours. When that was over, it was time for lunch where the village people had prepared a delicious meal of rice with a chilli sauce.

After returning to the guesthouse, again via the lake, we headed off to three pagodas pass, the border area of Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), where I purchased a nice little elephant pendant necklacey thing.

The day after that, it was on to Thong Pha Phum (don't worry, I have no idea how to pronounce these names! I'm simply copying them from my booking sheet!)!!
This was an interesting day! It brought with it the experience and knowledge of the Karen villagers, basically refugees from Burma, I guess they panicked, eh Nippy?
We learnt a little of their culture (religion, farming techniques, general way of life, cutting edge stuff). It was wicked, we taught the kids of the tribe how to play "stuck in the mud". With it,the crumbling of their culture was soon coming to a close. One explaination of the game in a language they had never heard and they thrashed us entirely. Twas a wicked day! In the evening, we went to some orphanage in the countryside, in which the kids showed us some yoga dance they had learnt, followed by a short hip hop show. A bunch of tribal kids entertaining and dancing for wealthy-enough-to-travel white men, just like old times! After a night in average accommodation, we were off again!

After that, we visited the eery Hellfire Pass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(yes, the exclamation marks add to the illusion of a dramatic place)

It was very humbling, to visit a place where hundreds of aussie and british soldiers had been tortured and forced to build a railway through the treacherous mountain terrain of Kanchanaburi, by the wicked, evil, purulent, vicious, disgusting, wild, inhumane, innovative, prosperous, feared, respected Japanese pigdogs!! (I'm only kidding, I love the Japs! just not the wicked, evil, purulent, vicious, disgusting, wild, inhumane, innovative, prosperous, feared, respected Japanese pigdogs you find in WW2 japanese armies, as advertised by the propaganda of the west as seen on TV!)

However they did not die in vain, for we were able to use this railway, nicknamed "death railway" (which filled us with confidence concerning its safety). The scenery however was spectacular as I'm sure you'd imagine, and it carried us across mountains, rivers, paddy fields, facilities where elephants were chained and beaten, villages, picturesque towns and far reaching plains.

We evetually came to the Bridge over the River Kwai, which was all very exciting, but more about said river later! We left the uncomfortable train to find ourselves surrounded my menacing looking men a saamlaw each. Who were these men, with their bulging leg muscles and menacing looks? Were they some sort of Thai Hell's Angels or Kickboxers, threatening to kick us in the shins until we gave up our money and belongings? Nope! They were our next and newest form of transport (saamlaw is thai for rickshaw bicycles). They seized our luggage, which were heavier than they had expected, causing some of them to swagger clumsily as they carried them to the bycicles. They peddaled furiously, we could see their little legs whizzing away there, enthusiastically racing to get each one of us to our destination first, in the hope of a massive tip or a new house. My peddlar was horribly dissappointed with his 20 Baht, as another skipped merrily, waving a 100 Baht note in his hand, so I gave him another 20 and smiled apolegetically. The thai words for thank you barely escaped his lips, and he stormed back to his bike and began peddling again in first gear, travelling very slowly with maximum effort, attempting to find more business under a raincloud of anger and bitterness for his ungenerous previous customer. That night was a jolly one, with a delicious thai meal and a strangely luxurious guesthouse room (it had just been renovated the prior weekend).

The next morning, kayaking the River Kwai!
The river was full of poo, and other untreated waste of an unrecognisable sort, which we discovered while paddling through it, or while Brooke and Laine capsized and plunged into it. But it was beautiful nonetheless, with little corrogated iron-built houses and wooden shacks of varying sizes and structural soundness. By the end we were covered in flicks of brown, as we had furiously tried to shower each other in it using our paddles as sprayers.
In the afternoon, we saw the brilliant Erawan national park, with bautiful waterfalls, filled with nibbly carnivorous fish, in which we bathed for a bit.

That evening we travelled to a beautiful Thai House, made of teak with intricate carvings on the walls, worth some 50,000,000 baht (or about 986862 pounds approximately), or so the lady owner declared, beaming with pride, allowing a moment to soak in the response to such a figure. It was lovely.

Right, last day of the tour now, so as we headed back to Bangkok, how else to go but by strange-really-long-and-thin-boat, down the Chao Phraya River, also known as the River of Kings? This river was more like a canal, not unlike the Kwai with its wooden shack lined shores, however it had plenty more fish, which leaped into the air and hit several of us in the face or landed in our crotches. It stretched past several Buddhist temples and beautiful luxury homes, even by Sandbanks standards!! That afternoon we had to oursleves, so I went and bought some things I needed (namely bog roll and crisps).

That night we ate more food, believe it or not, and went out rather jolly to hit the bars... I didn't last very long... drinking perhaps more than I should have in rather quicker succession than maybe I should have drunk them ended in rather an untasteful display of illness and vomiting, hence the reason I felt a little rotten while writing the first half of this first update.

Since then however, I have been left to fend for myself!! Gasp! And i'll survived this long! Whoopee!

I left Bangkok the following day with a train ticket for Chumporn. I thought it might be a good idea to save some money and get the cheapest possible ticket and make the trip more of an experience. It was a good experience, but it wasn't a good idea. The tickets cost less than 3 pounds but 9 hours with a shard of metal up yer bum was not what I thought a 3rd class seat would involve. Perhaps I just had the only broken seat in the carriage, but it wasn't so bad as it could have been. I was kept entertained by a few of the passengers, who were excited and shocked to find a westerner in the carriage with them, and by the idyllic scenery that drifted past the carriage window when we weren't stopped at one of the 6,048 station we stopped at along the way. (6,048 is a rough exaggerated estimation and not an exact figure). One of the thai fellas who spoke to me said he was a Government official, but he looked more like a crazy bum to me, but he called me a handsome man so I thought "he can't be THAT crazy" and the other man was a policeman, who accepted me as a "real man" when I told him i was travelling on my own at 19, and he also accepted himself as a "real man" on declaring he had two wives on either end of the country (maybe its legal here?) as he showed by displaying his arm muscles on more occasions then was necessary. After being declared the policemans friend in a loud voice to the whole carriage, he shook my hand and allowed me to leave the train unscathed.

The moment I exited the train, a woman came up to me and asked "Koh Tao tomorrow?"
"Yes?" I replied meekly, yawning rudely, wondering how this woman knew my plans so well.
"You want room tonight"
"um...yes... I think?
"Get in my car!"
I hesitated, but then thought "Nah, shes weak-looking and small, she won't rape me". I spent the rest of the car ride wondering if she was going to stab me with a syringe and steal my things while I lay unconscious in her passenger seat. Soon enough we arrived at a ferry booking place and I realised why she asked if I was going to Koh Tao. It was dark inside. She rang the bell and a sleepy (quite attractive) woman approached the door and let us in, grumbling and whinging, I assume, because we had woken her up.

I bought my ticket and went up to the room, well, more like a box in the corner of a room, but it had a bed in it, so it would do.

The next morning I upload half of my photos onto this group and got in a taxi and bellowed charismatically "To the pier!". He looked at me oddly for about half a minute, and then drove me to a bus depot, where a bus with a picture of a ferry on it waited for me. I was glad he didn't actually take me to the pier becuase it was about a 35 minute drive, and the taxi driver hadn't put the meter on, granting himslef the right to ask any price he wanted.

The ferry to Koh Tao was about an hour, and although the views were great, the film "Death Race" was on the overhead monitors and Jason Stathom was a familiar english speaking face to listen to for a bit.

When I got here, about half the island waited to greet me specifically! Weird, eh? Well, not really, they all wanted to offer me a taxi. After about half a mile of walking, it started to get a bit annoying, so I simply walked, head down at a quickened pace saying NO loudly every 1 and a half seconds. I got a relatively nice place to stay, although it was a tad expensive, but I had heard the south of Thailand was a bit expensive and someone later told me it wasn't too unreasonable a price. But the next day i went off in search of my Dive School, Davy Jones' Lockyer Diving! It had a pirates to the Carribbean refernece, so I knew it would be good. I walked halfway up the legth of the island (literally) before I found it and they showed me to my own private little bungalow in which i was staying. My first place! It has two rooms and a very noisy family of birds living in its roof, so I can't ever get to sleep, which isn't too bad considering the awesome bars that keep everyone up until the early hours of the morning. The diving course has gone great, I feel i'm excelling at every excerise, which is no real achievement, it's pretty easy. Tomorrow I have a dive at 7pm, so I should probably get some sleep at some point. Its getting late and I've told you guys pretty much everything now. I need to keep a couple of stories under my belt for when I get back, so the next one probably won't be in as much detail. I imagine you're sick of reading this one, plus its expensive in internet cafe's!! i don't write particularly fast and I daydream during posts. So anyway. Thats that. Happy? Sorry it's taken a while to finsih this update, i feel really bad, bad llama *slaps oneself*! (only fans of "the emperors new groove" will understand that)!
Cheerio!

PS: Next one's in about a week, otherwise I have to much to remember and forget stuff, if I can be bothered, I'm sure I will... hopefully... but you know I'm useless so It'll come when it comes, be patience, love you all, stay off drugs, don't stay up past your bedtime I all the rest of it!

 

Okay, I understand its been a while longer than some of you (Nippy) were expecting since my last update, but they are quite arduous and time-consuming and they fill me with dread when i see the price to use the internet!

Can i even remember where the last one left off? I think i was half way through diving school... that was a long time ago!

Okay! The last days of my diving course were awesome, diving is definitely something i want to do more of, and I've been told that Cairns, Australia, is the place to do it! Anyway, the reefs at Koh Tao were really beautiful, lots of strange and poisonous looking fish and anemonemonies, including the fabled blue-spotted ray! I was paired up with a buddy, Kesia, a rather attractive 24 year old Canadian girl training to be an instructor herself, jackpot! I'm kidding, seriously though, jackpot...

After two more days I passed the theory and practical exams and I got my certificate (there was a certain level of incentive not to fail the practical, it was a long way back to the surface and the fish all glared at me hungrily). That night there was a party down at the dive house and everyone was there, my instructor, Ian (who looked far too much like Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show), my good friend Chang, Rob (a friendly Englishman from Portland who spent most of his time on a hired scooter he named "the Beast"), Lars (a big, butch, friendly Dutchman who was really scared that there may be sharks in the water, i mean really scared, bless him) and Kiesa. Needless to say I spent most of my time around Chang and Kesia and the night ended well for me...

The next day was fairly uneventful, I woke at 6:43am as I usually did, and made my way to the beach, which was underwater until about 1pm, I ordered two full english breakfasts to pass the time, and spent the day reading and sunning my bod, needless to say it caught all the beautiful ladies attention.
I heard them whispering to each other, things like, "Whats that?" and "Looks a bit like a pale beached new born fish, only larger". Apart from my arms, i have to say i was the whitest pasty little imp on that island, if the sun shone too brightly you could probably see my heart.

Anyway, I'm waffling, So the next day I left my island to head back to Champhon. I'm certain we were chased by pirates for part of the ferry ride. My accommodation that night was pitiful. It literally involved a scary Thai man's house, an old lady who lived in a net, and a crazy old man who continuously bowed and mutttered under his breath each time I walked past. The room wasn't too bad, it was the cockerels and the stray dogs that fought, crowed and barked all through the night that was a bloody nuisance!! But I had an alrightish nights sleep.

The next day I was to catch a bus to Phuket, it was a 9 hour bus, it was a mini-bus and it was a bloomin' slow bus. I sat, staring out the windows, listening to Canvas Bags on my Mp3 player, wondering what would happen to the boulders that hung above the road from the Mountain sides, if there was a massive earthquake of some sort, imagining them crashing down the mountainside into our bus. There wasn't, that would've at least made the bus journey interesting, although we did run over a dog, or a cat, or a log or something, leaving a large dent in the front of the mini-van. We also stopped at 1000 petrol stations, where I watched a puppy lick petrol off the floor.

I finally arrived in phuket and found somewhere to stay. It was nice enough. The next morning I was assaulted by five billion taxi drivers asking me for my custom. I picked one at random to take me to Karon Beach. I managed to pick the only bleedin taxi driver who didn't actually own a taxi!

A 40 minute moped ride later, which was awesomely good fun for me, the driver I think probably disapproved of me constricting his stomach with my arms in an effort to stay on the damned thing with the weight of my bag pulling me off the back.

Karon Beach happened to be the most boring place on planet earth. Full of annoying tailors and fat red-faced English and German holiday makers who "over-did" it on the first day with their Birkenstocks and their daily expresses and their complaining about the tea, etc etc! I went because I heard that some of the aussie girls from the tour where down there. Well I didn't find them.

I pretty much spent 3 days in my room watching animal planet! Ugh!

I'm just going to forget that horrid place!!

I booked a bus to Bangkok as soon as I could and it was very tolerable. They showed a childrens tv show about a Thai soldier beating up various members of the American military. It was very good. A bit violent but hey they're communists!

Bangkok was fairly uneventful, i just went to the airport for a taxi price that seemed pretty good, one pound for 40 minutes driving! The plane ride to Bangkok was enjoyable, I watched Stephen fry in America and half of the Extras Christmas Special, and chatted to a Canadian couple who I mistakenly assumed were American. They weren't best pleased but they were nice folk.

Hong Kong is amazing! Theres no other word for it and i'm devastated to be leaving tomorrow! The view along the waterfront, looking across to Hong Kong Island, is unbelievable! The hostel is brilliant! The people are amazing! The food... The parks are beautiful! The girls!! I've been told i'm very handsome now by three different girls and two 50-something make security guards! I'm cool here! I get to make first impressions and I get them right most of the time! I feel cool!!

The city is clean and marvellous! The homeless are polite and the police are helpful (i lost my iphone, as some of you already know). I want to stay here forever!

The skyscrapers are unbelievably tall and Jackie Chan is everywhere! I've seen most of the sights now, and I noticed that the beds in the hostel are exactly the same as the history museum's exhibit for an old fashioned army barracks!

I've made so many friends here, in contrast to the other places I've been to and a few nights ago we went out to Hong Kong central and did an all nighter at the bars and clubs. Sure I now have no money but I'm kind of thinking that I'd rather have an awesome time while I'm here, and have to come home a little earlier, then spend 6 months abroad and never splurge a bit of money on social events!
Right Dad?

I got my visa sorted and i collect it today in a few hours, and then i have a 24 hour train ride to Beijing, where its apparently below zero. But a fellow traveller did give me his woolly hat so I'll be fine...

Thats all for now! I know its not as exciting as the last one, but more happens on tours it has to be said. Plus as I said before, i need to keep a few stories to tell when i get back home!

 

Alright! Here comes installment one of another update!

The ride up to Beijing wasn't too bad, sure it was 24hrs but I managed to snooze for 21hrs and it was really rather comfortable and nice!
As I left Hong Kong, out of the window I saw beautiful residential skyscrapers, fantastic blues skies, amazing mountains cloaked in glorious green foliage... as I approached Beijing, dirty, grey, dead looking views. Ruined houses and delapidated factories dotted the barren landscape. The people rummaged in ditches looking for rubbish that they could recycle and use themselves... Miserable!

The train pulled into the station and things still looked horribly polluted, but at least there were signs of moderate wealth and buildings looked rather more maintained, generally a bit more civilised! I left the train station and looked out at my first view of China, I took my first breath of chinese air... I nearly died! It was the most putrid, disgusting, dirty, horrible breath I had ever taken. I could taste the vile pollution in my throat!

It took me a minute to recover and a small chinese man walked up to me, spat at my feet and asked me, "room? room? nice room for you, eh?". I wasn't sure If i could trust him, but he was half my height and looked fairly breakable, so he didn't seem like too much of a threat. He took me to an atm where i could get some money, and bundled me into a taxi, with a sad looking driver. It seemed like the miserbale atmosphere of Beijing had gotten to him, after years of breathing toxic waste, he actually looked poisoned! His eyes were red and he spat black spit, and coughed uncontrollably from time to time, however I wasn't fussed, I was just excited about being in China, the land of emperors, kung fu, Jackie Chan, dragons, Mao!

When we got to the hotel I was shown to my room and it seemed quite nice, cheap, but nice. It had a tv, two single beds that could be pushed together to form a rather comfy, decent sized double bed, and a window that offered wonderful views of the hotel corridor, an interesting feature.

The next day, I had no idea what to do... everything was in Chinese, I couldn't communicate with taxi drivers. I spent about 15 minutes in a taxi as the driver reamained stationary, yelling things at me, until finally he came round to my door, dragged me out and left me dazed and confused on the side of the road. Chinese Phrases for Dummies so far had not paid off...

I found a metro, and tripping on the step, kept it casual by pretending it was on purpose, going into a little dance, humouring the multiple people waiting for their buses. The metro, luckily was easy enough to use. Perhaps due to the Olympics that took place the previous year.

I finally arrived at my hotel where my "Roam China" tour would start. It was rather a fancy hotel in comparison to the standards I was used to in Thailand and Hong Kong. My room was nice and I found a couple of english news tv channels to watch.

I met over the course of the day, the other travellers on the tour who I would be spending the next 20 days with. First, there was Annette, a Norweigan girl who could speak just about any language under the sun, so long as it was European...
Then there was Kristy, a fellow English person from Leeds, whose northern accent reminded me rather a lot of Eric Othlewaite, a character from the 70's BBC series, Ripping Yarns...
Anders and Carina, a danish couple (a.k.a. the Great Danes) who'se camera expertise (Anders) and strange new-age tongue flicking chest pumping provocative and erotic dancing (Carina) was unique among my experience of humans...
Laura and Tamsin, also fellow english people, hailing from Manchester and Londontown, the ckeeky party animals with a rather keen attitude to pole dancing opportunities...
Jean Pierre (A Franco-Australian) and Valerie (the Mauritian), two quality people whose friendship I may hopefully experience again as I head south in Oz down to Melbourne...

Generally the first night of the tour was odd, because Vivian, our Chinese tour leader, announced to us that the included activities of the tour, that we had paid top-dollar for, had now been cancelled! We were all pretty miffed to say the least, and complaints have since been sent to Intrepid (the company who provided the tour). But the tour was pretty good...

The first few days were in Beijing, the food was alright and teh sights were plentiful. Tiennamen Square, the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven, The Pearl and Silk Markets, the Olympic Stadium and the Water Cube! These magnificent sights became quality memories!

Tiannamen Square was packed with people, chinese mostly, most of which had probably never seen westerners. There were people coming up to us, in particular the blonde Great Danes, wanting to have photos taken with us, we were like celebrities for ten minutes! Armed military men were marching up and down, due to the nearby collosal governemnt buildings where some important meeting was to take place soon (something to do with hundreds of officials from around the country coming together to sort out issues that were present in their specific regions).

Opposite the Square stands the Forbidden City! The guide who took us around lead us in through the city gates, beneath the massive portrait of Mao, and lead us throught countless courtyards and through various gates of harmony or peace, or prosperity or whatever! Each courtyard was vast, and each gate (leading to the next courtyard) was more spectacular and intricately designed and extravagantly named then the last. We saw where emperors had sat, throne-rooms mostly, restrooms where the emperor... erm... rested, where his concubines had resided and where large ancient processions had taken place. I wish I still had the photos however I bought a dodgy, yet cheap, memory card for my camera, which unfortunately decided to delete 150 of my best Chinese photos, in Shangai...

The Temple of Heaven was a fairly good sight too... There were people dancing and singing and dancing and playing cards and dancing and kicking things that resembled shuttlecocks to one another and dancing and playing odd oriental instruments but mostly dancing in the beautiful grounds that surrounded the Temple. the Temple itself was pretty cool. I mean, sure its architecture was pretty much the same as the forbidden City but I had a nice talk with Annette and Kristy about Nationalism and stuff in the gardens so it wasn't too shabby!

The Olympic Stadium? Saw it but didn't go in... The water Cube? Mainly Annette's decision to go in, but it was ok. It was cool to see where Olympic champions had competed but of course when you've been to Olympia it doesn't seem particularly impressive... its just a swimming pool with Beijing Olympics 2008 written in various places around it and different flags dotted around... meh!

I did like Beijing and its polluted and grey atmosphere, but I didn't love it. It was just a place in the world I was happy top say I've been to!

The Great Wall however, ho ho HO!
That was a fantastic experience! With stunning views and the thought of walking down such a historic sight brought with it the awe you'd expect from such a place! It stretched out forever! Off into the horizon it went, snaking its wall over mountains and around valleys, pretty much like any documentary or postcard you've ever seen! Local female farmers followed us for the first hour or two, hoping that we'd buy one of their Great Wall t-shirts or a pair of chopsticks or a book containing pictures of the wall... and we did... They wore us down. With their squinty puppy dog eyes, and desperate facial expressions, it was difficult to say no. They just didn't seem to understand that if we bought something off them, we'd soon be poorer than they were!
Mind you, the old n' toothless male farmers, in their communist army uniforms, had great success in selling us their mongolian beer, which they produced from dirty ragged bags slung over their shoulders. After 12km hiking a mountain weeving wall, you'd invest in some too!
The walk ended in a flying fox (zipwire) down from the mountain side, over a freezing lake (about 100 metres high!!!) to a small village where we stayed the night and enjoyed yet another meal of rice and kung pow chicken!

We then caught a bus back to Beijing, where a train would take us to fair old Xi'an, the ancient capital of China and nearly as depressing as Beijing!

NB: They were just as depressing as a grey day in England, we still ahd a wicked time!

It was a more commercial city, further south and just as polluted, where a few chains had established themselves (Starbucks, Maccy D's, KFC...so many bleedin' KFCs!). The sights here were slightly fewer. There was the Muslim Quarter (basically a place the city had decided to keep the muslims, like how you might assign the downstairs of your houses to keep dogs)...(does that sound racist?)... (oh well)... there was the ancient bell tower (a tower with bells in it...) the ancient drum tower (they must've been running out of ideas of things to build) ... and the city walls!
We walked quarter of the way round the city walls, not a bad achievement, until the girls decided it was time for yet another starbucks! Outside the starbucks, there seemed to be a sort of fashion show, for bridal dresses, or something! The photographers of the group ran out to take photos. I'll admit, Annette did the best by getting the models to pose especially for her... and her.. her moosifer (a small fluffy moose holding the norweigan flag)... um... yeah so anyway, I got a wink out of one of the professional dancers so I took an interest in the show! Along with being called "hansome" by the girl in the HK ramen restaurant, several male security guards at the HK hostel, a male security guard at the Water Cube in Beijing, several of the saleswomen in Beijing, I was feeling pretty good about myself...
Oh well, I'll have to go back some time ;-)

Oh heck! I almost forgot! The Terracotta warriors! They were wicked! A few miles out of Xi'an, back to delapidated building-land, a huge parking complex and a large statue of a stone emperor screams tourist attraction at you! We got there and a billion squilion fajillion tour guides marched at us like a marauding army, weilding clipboards and pens like sheilds and very tiny swords! We accepted one at random. She offered a good price and took us away from people trying to sell us dog-skin rugs and other nasty dog related products. Her name was Jenny... She looked more like a Chichi then a Jenny but she provided us with a decent tour of the warriors. There were loads as we entered the excation pits... loads! Whatever the emperors name was (I forget such details), he sure will be kickin a*s in the after life! Apparently all the workers who built the thousands of statues were buried alive with them in order to keep the tombs location secret. Obviously the people doing the burying were more trusted than the poor innocent workers... for they could've just as easily revealed the secret...

The tour finished and some of the group purchased various jade trinkets that supposedly helped your well-being in various mythical and medical ways and we made our way back to Xi'an.

We visited culture street and some of the girls bought local art or special magical "weight loss tea" -- it tasted like sh*t... apparently... rather a vulgar description I know... sorry!
That night Annette, Kristy, Anders and I went for a meal that could be described in a similar manner. Steak, spaghetti and [unidentifiable object] doesn't really go... ok?

Shanghai was a bit of a dissappointment to me... maybe it was the poor location of our hotel. There were no decent shopping areas near us. People spat far too often. And I walked directly into a pair of dirty bloomers hanging in the street! (Who hangs their washing in the street!? Everyone can see/walk into your soiled undergarments! URGH!) Although I think Shanghai probably could've been a fairly awesome place. If we had been in the right part of town, on the right day of the week, at the right time of night, it could've been wicked! It does have a bit of a reputation as the city with the good nightlife, Vivian kept telling us. To us though, it seemed pretty dead. There was a building with a sign that read something like "The Shanghai Land Subsidence Monitoring Show". Now i'm not sure what kind of "show" that was, but I can tell you I'm won't be paying for that quality entertainment! It seemed like a monty python sketch waiting to happen...
"Land Monitor one is in the lead, Oh! But here comes Land subsidence monitor number three with a spectacular series of observations... But what's this THE LAND HAS STARTED TO SUBSIDE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENTLY THROWING OFF OUR MONITORS AND SURPRISING THEM IN A WAY THATS GOING TO MAKE IT DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO DRAW ANY SORT OF CONCLUSION AS TO HOW THE LAND WILL SUBSIDE ANY TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!!!"

Sorry, got a little carried away there...

Um... what happened next? I hope you realise I'm trying to recount a month of activities, with nothing written down, as Nippy did so well in Europe... Ah Europe, I forget about it sometimes.... But it was so nice... Ah yes Guilin!

Guilin was an utter pig-sty! But we would only find that out later, because we went directly from the train station to Yangshou. Oh yeah, and I ate a chicken eye for 50 yuan... an amusing story actaully, perhaps for another time. (Sorry if you were eating anything while reading this)

 

Yangshou was ace! (Note to self: I have to stop using such old fashioned slang terms such as: ace, awesome, wicked, etc.)
There were fantastic mountains dotted around, solitary and looming, like big solitary loomy things! I went for a walk a few hours out of the city to the squalor that was the unfinsihed housing estates that blotted the landscape. Horrible concrete structures, that stood tall next to scenic paddy fields and yet more beautiful mountains. The view was...(what do young hipsters say nowadays?)... sick?... (I don't know, I went to private school, I use the word "parentheses" instead of "brackets"!)
What we all really loved about Yangshou, apart from the fantastic views over the Li River, and the kung fu class given to us by Master Jim! was the cheap cheap prices! Especially in comparison to the cities! We could order 2 dinners, with 3 desserts and a starter, and we did! We took full advantage of the prices, and because of that, we wound up spending more in Yangshou then we did anywhere else! A Plate of spring rolls, followed by a steak and a burger, and then two pancakes with different toppings and a bowl of ice-cream was just too tempting! And of course...

...they sold apple pie! ^_^ YAY!!

There was also a nifty little bar in Yangshou, pretty much the only one in China that was open past 11pm. It was called the "Stone Rose". It was small but it had a DJ and a pole dancing, well, pole. This was Laura and Tamsin's time to shine! With their newly aquired super-hickie's that they had gotten at a massage parlour with something called "hot cupping treatment", they took to the dance-floor and then the, pole. Sadly for the 40 year old chinese fellas that infested bars like these, the petite blonde western girls kept their clothes on for the performance, but they enjoyed it nonetheless, and after the girls of our group had put together what they believed to be a decent playlist, they gave it to the DJ and the club livened up!
Soon people from every race of life hit the dancefloor and pole... some more successfully then others... except for some of us more conservative folk. I reckon a few more beers would've done it but after about 40 mins the girls got sleepy and we retired to our hotel, which was aptly named, Fawlty Towers!

Yangshou was cool but after a few days we took a short bus ride to a mountain inn which was basically an old farm house. It was staffed by a troupe of very attractive young chinese minority girls, and an austrain couple who were running it on behalf of the owners.
They told us the story of how they fell in love, it was true movie material! I'm not kidding! They fell in love while travelling in India, which is where they met each other, got chatting, she was leaving for somewhere by train, he was somehwere else, he declared his love for her and raced to the train station to catch her in time, the whole village turned out to find out if he made it, he did and it was all very spectacular. I'm a little hazy on the details... we had rather a lot of rice wine beforehand... but at the time we were blown away!

Food was cheap there too, but we were in a rush to get a bus for the longji rice terraces! The bus ride took about 3 hours, and that took us to a place where we had to hike a further hour or so up to a little mountain villages where yet more minorities lived. It was beautiful, especially as the sun sets, but i can't do it justice... I'll upload the pictures soonish.
As we ate that evening, three young dogs played around our feet. We nicknamed them Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, because as our guide explained, that's exactly what they would one day be... and that too was our motivation not to feed them scraps from the dinner table. We didn't want them to fatten up!

We left that village with a different guide, a short dumpy man sho looked like he was better adapted for curling into a perfect sphere and rolling over the mountains. His name was Farmer Tien, or something similar, and he was very nice. His english wasn't fantastic but he was so eager to please! He took photos of us all, with about 8 cameras at a time, and each time he was saying "ready?" about 6 times before he would try and take a photo, and if he failed to push the button hard enough he would spend five minutes apologising before he'd give it another try... and if successful he'd declare "got it! got it! got it!" about 30 times, somewhat excited and pleased with himself.

The hike to the next village took about 3 hours, but we weren't going to the next village, we were going to the next one after that, which took between 5-6 hours, 3 or 4 mountains away! Farmer Tien never stopped trying to get across that the forefathers of the villages had built the stone road that we were walking on, and that many small shrines were dotted along the way were dedicated to thanking them and the earth for their sacrifice and its productivity in terms of food and nature. Oh, Buddhists!

When we arrived at the village, the view was everything we expected. The Village itself wasn't! We had trekked miles into the deep Chinese mountains to find a village containing americans, small shops selling beer and snickers bars...
However we were just glad to have arrived! That night minority villagers put on a little show for us, and we in turn got involved in their songs and dances and games. It was all very silly and funny. Especially watching the tall and lanky JP try and skip the bamboo sticks, a difficult task with such big feet, oh well, he was still better than I was!

The night was beautiful, stars dotting the sky, blah blah blah blah...

{it's 1:41am... I got up this morning at 5am and didn't get to sleep last night until 4am so I'm pretty tired... I'll try and remain thoughtful of what I'm writing...}

Erm...yeah, ok, So the following day basically involved a bus ride back to Guilin, where we had arrived by train into the Guanxi province. And then we had to occupy the day in Guilin before our train left at 8pm. We wondered around, getting increasingly annoyed by people trying to sell us cheap tacky rubbish on road sides, trying to figure out what a Schloome was (a word annette had invented). I thought it was a strange spiral that bent off to the side and crossed dimensional barriers... but apparently that idea was stupid and it was dismissed fairly quickly!

We found an underground rollerskating discotheque thing, which the girls decided to have a go at... I was somewhat concerned about my finances so I had to give it a miss, so i went up to an internet cafe with the Great Danes and left Tamsin, Laura, Kristy and Annette skating in the dark smoke filled empty disco thing. JP and Valerie were off doing there own thing ;-)

After wasting suitable quantities of time we finally got our train to Shenzhen, where we'd cross the border back into Hong Kong. It was a shame to leave China... my description of it probably sounds quite complainy and bitter, but it was a lovely place, filled with lovely people, and, I think, had a hidden charm eminating from the culture that hid behind each souvenir cart and sight.
Who knows when I'll next see a rotting ox skeleton strewn over the back of a moped parked in a dark alley, or a group of armed law enforcers "re-educating" a man who got a bit too gobby, or a chicken anus skillfully hidden in a nice bowl of sizzling kung pow chicken?
I shall miss it...

But i was back in HONG KONG!!! WOOHOO!!!
And after a night in a mediocre hotel room, I was happy to be back in my old Hostel, which went by about 8 different names, with fresh faces who would all grow to look up at me as the one who knew how much a subway ticket would cost, or a ferry ride, or where to find cheap food, or what was worth seeing, and most importantly, where the good clubs were!

Yes, though i saw Jean-Pierre, Valerie and Anders a couple of times in the three or four days I had left in the glorious city, I had a new group of friends instantly, and I was the knowledgable cool one who could pull the best faces when stupid faces were called for, and refer to the hawkers by their first names after trying to sell me so much rubbish, and throw back cheeky responses, safe in the knowledge that they were harmless. I was like the pied piper, and playing my fictional flute, I lead my Welsh, Canadian, Chinese, Dutch and German friends across the city, showing them sights and generally being silly!

The problem came that night when the two Canadian and German girls became openly affectionate, and being the tactful gentlemen I am, I had no choice but to turn them both down, well, sort of, I turned them down when the other was nearby... a story for another time! X-D

The next morning was time to leave that city I loved so much, and after breakfast came two seperate emotional goodbyes, despite having been in their lives for little more than 60 hours...

I arrived at HK airport in a strange emotional state... I was happy and excited to be leaving for a grand new adventure, afterall all a border is is a checkpoint to mark that I've survived that chapter of my adventure, yet sad to leave such a beautiful country and two such beautiful girls...
But I soon forgot about them with the news that I had been bumped up to....



....BUSINESS CLASS!!!!! **** !!!!!

However, I was only in business class until I got to Singapore... And the flight between Singapore and Darwin was one I'd rather forget...

About 3000 crying babies and riding with general riff-raff (I don't mean that)... Dreadful!
Think about it, you step off a plane with enough legspace that I could've got up and had a little dance, where you're given a menu before you're braised pork steak with rice and a spicy sort of sauce, two salads and a chocolate gateau, personal tv screen and a choice of regional newspaper, not forgetting my complimentary Champaigne (which I generaly hate, but it had a taste of victory to it!), and getting onto a small cramped plane with fat ugly aussie stweardesses (as oppose to gorgeous slim asian hostesses which I'm sure were trained to give "the eye" to make you feel even better on your flight) sat next to some german druggy/hippy whose fallen asleep on my shoulder, stinking of smoke, with my legs pressed up against my chest due to lack of footspace and some bawling baby who keeps staring at me over the seat... I know it's a baby but I still felt uncomfortable! And some disgusting fat tart across the aisle with her hair brylcreamed down yapping on all flippin night not allowing me a second of bleedin sleep!!!!

SHUTTUP!!!!! *There's really annoying turkish music playing in this hostel, and its been playing for the last 3 hours i've been writing this, I feel like the guy in the cheese shop, yet again, a reference for Nippy*

So I arrived in Darwin (almost finished I swear) and for a capital of a province, its really small! Its so small, I mean, I could walk across it in 20 minutes easy! Its a ghost town too! There are few bars (except for one in which I won 2 jugs of beer for my table of aussie blokes whose acceptance I'd been fighting for as a "pommie", so that was good). but its just like, "What am I doing here?" I can't leave until Monday either, which means I have to stay longer in this hellhole! Its too hot, its full of drunkards and aboriginals...

...rant on aboriginals ommitted on legal advice...

...and drunk aussie's are ticking time bombs, and this hostel is full of 'em! I'll be honest, I don't fit in here at all! But i'll ride it out, all I have to do is be good natured at aussie racist banter and *through gritted teeth* ...i'll... be... fine...! It seems they're still sore about being our convicts that we sent out here... odd, and its somehow my fault...

 

I arrived in darwin at 4 am.
Tumbleweed rolled across deserted streets.
Intoxicated, obese, begging aboriginals dotted the landscape...

I had come from Hong Kong... to this?

Darwin, for those of you who are unaware, is the capital of the Northern Territory. It has 70,000 people. About 30% are aboriginal I should think, or somewhere thereabouts. I've never spent a week - A WEEK!! - in such a dull and uninspiring place! Sure, a place is kinda what you make of it, it's good if you make it good. But what am I going to use to make it good?
There are no people, well, not of my age or liver condition! There are a few bars, full of beer that tastes of water! The sights are brilliantly exciting if you're particularly interested in where the Japs dropped a few bombs (about a billionth of the amount the germans dropped on us, but y'know, they're still not over it.).

I was glad to leave it!

After a week and one day I was off to Kakadu national park. It took about 4 hours and we headed off at 6.10am into the wilderness of the outback along Arnhem Highway. I was too shattered to look out the window for very long, but we stopped every hour at a little roadside fuelling station to buy Cornetto's and Dorito's...

The culture gap still astounds me!

After a few near misses of Wallabies and various tropical birds, we arrived at Kakadu! Oh bugger, I forgot, we went to a lovely place called Fogg's Dam first. It had a few nice views and is home to the $1000 bird (A bird that gets you a fine of $500 if you accidently kill it, and then it's said that it's mate, with whom it stays with for life, dies of heartbreak, getting you another $500 fine! No joke!).

But kakadu was great, we saw some aboriginal artwork and climbed some rocky sandstone canyons and cliffs, and our guides told us all about various things which I've forgotten but was no doubt very interesting!

I'll take this opportunity to tell you of the great St. Luke! no, not the bible bashing gospel writing beardy holy man, but our guide... um... who wore a hat... and er... some shoes... he basically made the trip more fun! Though i was woken every hour by his infernal singing on the microphone or his rather good gollum impressions.

We spent two days in kakadu, swimming in waterfalls and walking through scarily large spider webs, getting covered in St. Cristopher's Cross Spiders (I think that was their name). They looked poisonous to me, but they were apparently harmless. Red and black legs...
It was all very nice, then back to Darwin... urgh!

Luckily I only spent a few hours in darwin before I was back in another 3 hour bus (not including cornetto stops)down towards Katherine. Katherine is something like the thirds biggest town in the Northern territory. It has 3200 people...
But we saw some big crocs there... so that was cool...

I feel dumb writing all this down, It wasn't interesting, I'm sitting here trying to make it sound interesting, there were a few small towns along the 1500km Stuart highway between Darwin and Alice Springs, woo...party...yeah!

(If you're interested, the Stuart Highway was named after an explorer named John McDowell Stuart and has only two turns... It's fun to learn!)

We stopped just under 876,000,000 times on the way down over the course of the 3 day drive. the monotony of the trip was broken thanks to a cool german couple, with whom I have now travelled many many miles... many long miles... more than 1,880 miles actually between Darwin, Kakadu and Adelaide.

Sebastian and Monika are their names.

Alice Springs was more lively than Darwin, but I'd still rather be back in Bournemouth than go back to that place.

We popped over to Uluru for a night, of course, you ignorant fools will simply know it by Ayers Rock. Uluru is the aboriginal name... Its apparently a sacred site for them so although it can be done, I decided not to climb the world's largest monolithe... believed (by freaks) to have arrived from space as the rock is not common in the area...

Umm... so onemorning in Alice (cheeky!), while enjoying a hot dog for breakfast, I made a split second decision to leave for Adelaide that very day!

So here I am! In Adelaide, budgeting and swindling as i go! Its a much nicer town and I like it much so! I applied this morning to be part of a research experiment in which I have to do live in a lab for 12 days and nights... I hope I get selected because then i'll get $1440... KERCHING!

This morning I went to an art gallery and a museum... i felt very cultural... sigh!

So here we are! Tahts all, sorry it was so boring and dull! I entered the writing process with optimism and hope, but I've grown disillusioned, and sceptical with the world, or something!

Basically i have better things to do than sit here writing this!
Hey guys! You're going off to watch a drunk guy stumble across the street, missing speeding traffic by inches as he goes? Wait for me!...

 

Right then, next update.... 5 I think!

Adelaide was a funny sort of town. It was small and leafy, with a beautiful river running through it, filled with black swans and various long legged, short beaked, greedy, sometimes aggressive, little-winged, big-eyed, web-toed freaks of birdkind.
I spent much time, musing over life, while sitting on the riverbank, rubbing my 'ungry little tum during my stay in the town.

My hostel looked something like a vast warehouse, with corrogated iron and wire mesh occupying most of the material that made up the infrastructure of the building. Of course it was very tastefully done, painted yellow...

Of course, I was in Adelaide looking for a job, and during this time of global joblessnessess and recession, it was no easy task. I went from shop to shop, crossing vast streets, and making my way through dangerous pedestrianised zones, battling gyffins and minotaurs as I went.

One day passed... no luck...

Two days passed... no luck...

Last few dollars passed... no luck...

Day after that... oh! hello!

Yes, after several rotations of the earth, one man, evidently gay, decided to stop and listen. His name was Anthony, and he was bingo-caller at the greek orthodox community centre down the road. He listened to my tale of hardship, exitement and woe, and to my delight, bought it!

The next day, at 2pm, I was there, in the hall, greeting old ladies and selling raffle tickets, each one asking where I was from and asking me to say various words where my accent seemed particularly prominent.

It was quite fun, having a chit-chat with the other guys and gals, who were mainly greek orthodox, or maltese. I was given food by Doris, the maltese cook, who referred to me mainly as "darleeing" in a sort of stereotypical new york fashion-executive. She was very nice, as was Barry, an ex-TV personality so I was told, who taught me the rules of bingo and how to call out the numbers with stunning displays of professionalism!

The work provided me with $50 a day, working only Saturdays and Sundays. It was good, but it wasn't going to get me through the week with my hostel costing me $22 a night, and with food costing easily half that a day, if one was being stingy. A typical meal would set you back $10-$15, and the exchange rate is two aussie dollars to one british pound, if that makes it more real for you!
Actually, one day i was luckily enough for Anthony and his mate, whose name eludes me for the moment, after work, to ask me to join them to the cinema as they had 3 free tickets. I know, two guys I barely know ask me out to the cinema, alarm bells and all that but i didn't really care. It beat the monotony of work-hostel-tv-nighttime wonder-no dinner-hostel-sleep-esacape. So i said yes and we first arrived at a chinese food place for dinner, which they paid
for, followed by the film (17 again, i was ok, light entertainment), followed by a quick car tour of Adelaide, followed by a quick bar tour (i know, more alarm bells) followed by back to the hostel... no harm done, free dinner, movie and drinks, I wasn't complaining...

I don't remember how long exactly I was in Adelaide for, it must've been about a week and a half. On my last few dollars, I'd buy $1 6 packs of reduced crumpets from the local supermarket, and sneak into the hostels back door, avoiding reception to smuggle myself in and cook/toast the blasted things!

About 3 days I lasted on crumpets, they were tasty at first, by dinner on the third day, I was struggling to keep em down! I know, craaazzy!

Each night i would spend a few hours wondering around empty Adelaide. It looked post-apocalyptic (sp?) and only the odd drunken bum littered the landscape. After a while though, when I knew that the hostel reception was shut, I'd sneak back in through the backdoor, using the code I had memorised from my stay a few days before, and scuttle into the TV or DVD rooms where I'd watch films or DVDs until everyone had gone to bed, which was when i'd have a little kip on the sofas. Initially it was tricky to sleep when every set of footsteps you hear outside the door fills you with dread and fear as you pray that a member of staff isn't about to burst in with a chainsaw or a pair of sewing scissors and snip your toes off for tresspassing! You guys have seen Wolf Creek, right?

While in this delightful little town, I took steps to sign up for a scientific experiment, which, if I stayed in a lab for 12 days and nights, I'd get $1440! Now, although some have expressed concern for taking part in such a thing, when you haven't had a good nights sleep in a week, and you've not had a proper meal in over a week, and your wallet has more insects in it than coins, it seems like a pretty jawsome opportunity! Besides it had been approved by some ethical board of science blah blah blah...

But, I got no reply from my request to take part, so I figured I was having no luck in Adelaide, plus the upcoming gig of the wonderful Tim Minchin was closing in, and my only way of getting to glorious Melbourne was a $50 greyhound bus.

I spent my last days pay on the ticket and with 2 days until my coach departed, i began devising away to split 5 cents over 2 days to get myself food and shelter. Shelter was sort of ok, the current system seemed to be working, however, 5 cents won't buy you anything. A fun size Mars Bar will cost you 80 cents.

When the time came to finally get on the bus, I found 2 dollars at the bottom of some neglected pocket in my bag, HAPPY DAYS!! I rushed to the nearest over priced outlet and bought a chocolate bar which was actually $2.80, but some Indian guy said it was ok... i was puzzled yet pleased!

I jumped on the bus, and after some nigerian (presumably) fella finished saying goodbye to his pal, telling us all to look after him and holding up the bus, we were off! Off into the darkness of... the route we'd be taking...

The man next to me was fat, I mean, really really fat! His sides sat on the armrests like custard about to drip off the side of a plate, thats the best similie I can come up with right now. And through the night he snored relentlessly shifting around and making strange noises like a constipated Jabba the Hutt. However, they played the last Indiana Jones film, which, as dismal as the film was in comparison to the other three, was a decent enough way to spend the evening of the journey.

I arrived in Melbourne the next morning at 6.45am with no money, no job, no place to stay, no idea where I could stay, no idea where I was in the city and a really heavy backpack and a sleepyness I just couldn't shake!

I wondered around the backstreets of that urban jungle, ducking into shops and asking for a job... no luck!

I dropped my bag off at a backpacker I found that was far too expensive for me to stay at, and no jobs either. But at least my bags were safe!

I wondered down the main street of Melbourne's CBD, totally unaware that it was the main street of Melbourne's CBD, asking for jobs, some of which offered them, but wouldn't start for at least another month or two. I continued to wonder... hoping I'd find something...

Later on that day, I realised that two of my Hong Kong buddies, Matt and Rob, were staying somehwere in this town and if only I could find them, I could swindle them for every dollar they had! Ha ha ha ha! Well, not quite, I thought that I could possibly borrow a few dollars to sustain myself with.

After making contact via internet cafe and facebook, we met up that very day! We arranged to meet at Rob's hostel, to which I got directions from an old lady. It was a good sight to see them again. Rob was waiting outside his hostel like a glowing beacon of hope in a Melbourne filled with the dull drudgery of this wintery urban metropolis.

So since then, we've been hangin out, going to bars, popping down to the casino to check out the talent, y'know, workin it!

Though our diets have consisted mainly of supermarket home brand goods and Macca's, life has been good and the food has been swell!

I've met up with a few more faces from the past! JP and Valerie with whom I traversed China joined me for a dumpling dinner which was very nice indeed! Tam, who I also traversed China with is joining me for dinner this evening, which i'm looking forward to and Rob has fallen in love with 4 of the many dealers at the casino.

So everyone's a winner in Melbourne, and the days of sleeping in casinos or 24hr McDonalds seem to be behind me, and a new chapter in my trip can begin, where i'm not so hungry all the time, a time of peace and prosperity!

So that's the current update... hope it satiates your need for knowledge of me and my whereabouts!

 

 

Sadly… although that’s where my updates end, it wasn’t quite the end of my trip. After two nights, I was back on the streets. I made friends with some of the local hobos, and with it came some very eye-opening experiences. I lived for another month on the streets of Melbourne, sleeping in the casino, library and any 24hr food outlet that didn’t kick me out. It wasn’t a high point in my life. However after 32 days, I decided enough was enough, and I sorted out a flight home, using my exquisite negotiating skills with my father to bring me out of this situation. I was sad to leave Melbourne, I had failed in my attempts to circumnavigate the globe, however I had gotten just about as far east as I could have, and if I had made my money had last 6 months, I would have had to say no to so many brilliant, if somewhat expensive, experiences, and at the end of the day, I don’t regret a single thing…