Hello one and all! i'm remarkably cheerful for a person who can't get near her nano for another two days.

I spent the night in a fantastic hostel called Backpackers at the Bay. Quiz, sing a long and I got dumped into the pool! It is such a fun place to stay.

I am going sailing around the whitsunday islands for the next two nights, see you on the other side

Fraser Island is a paradise. The whole island is made of sand, the lakes are crystal clear and the sand is white. I could have stayed there a lot longer. I even got to see a dingo there!




Nano is going relatively well. My MC is wiggling around and doing his own thing so I decided to post the first bit to please him.

( River Cruise )

Not bad for the first day. However Alex my MC is determinedly pushing the plot in his own direction now and I am not sure where he is taking me. I know were I am taking him tomorrow though. He is coming with me in a notebook on to a boat and from there to a island made out of sand. I'm sure I'll find some time to deal with him

I've 6 hours to go until it starts! This year I'm in the first flush of people starting. Eek! I've got some mild panic and a vague plan. I'll be writing on buses, planes and trains from midnight. I'm moving up the coast from Sydney to Brisbane. Australia is awesome but anyway if people want to add me for the year click on below!



As much as I am looking forward to New Zealand, Syndey has stolen something from me and demands I love it. For the next two weeks I am writing in between seeing:

Fraiser Island
Sailing around Whitsundays
Great Barrier Reef and Rainforest
Hiking and Camping at Ayers Rock!

I think I may be a little busy for the next while!

Can't believe it but I am off to Australia in less than 7 hours! I'm leaving Indochina behind with sadness.

Anyway some randomly gained knowledge:

McDonalds can and will do delivery to the bedroom hotel door!
The biggest pest in a hotel is an army of mini ants, they get into -everything-
There are no limits to the amount of mosquito bites you can get in one hour
Elephant riding rocks!
You can become a Buddhist monk/nun for any length of time (even one day!)
Vietnam is much cheaper than Thailand for dvds
Thai massages kill at the time but after wow you feel sooooo good.
Australia ETAs take about 1hr 20 mins to get, not minutes

Getting in a giant tractor tire sized ring and floating down the river sounds really relaxing doesn't it? Now add in on this 2km stretch bars 50m a part, dirt cheap drinks, free shots, 'happy' drinks, zip lines on rackety wooden structures and no railings between the bar and the water and sharp rocks in the shallower bits.

Everyone knows somebody here who has ended up in hospital as a result. There are no safety precautions.

Even I'm bruised and I'm really stiff, all I had was three drinks. I adored playing mud volleyball, everyone was covered in mud because it was impossible to stand up and there were large hoses to clean off with afterwards. I did 6 zip lines, all really high and a slide that tossed you out over the river. Don't see any company back home letting me try that. I did lose my grip once and went down suddenly from a great height. The relief that avoided the rocks by a meter.

Yeah, much as I love tubing, I'm not trying it in that kind of environment again

I'm in Capba Island just off Halong Bay for the night and tonight's hotel is minus internet access, woe is me! It's meant venturing into the local internet cafe. Instead of being packed out with tourists which I would have sworn during the day made up the population, I am completely surrounded by local kids. The noise level is horrendous and the ones not using a computer keep standing right behind me and my roommate, practically leaning against our shoulders.

So with little room to move I can't do my picture post. Instead I will tell you what my Vietnamese fortune teller saw for me:

The very first thing she said was that I Would marry a -straight- man in two years time (she was very fierce and firm about that!). He's going to be two years older and I am going to meet him in eight months time. It did creep me out that she said he would be American because I will be in America in 10 months time at the absolute latest. Erm I'll have two kids and live a long happy life.

Mine was a bit bog standard but out of a group of ten, mine was the only one that didn't have something ominous in it.

I'm in a new country again! Seriously the time seems to fly by. It took us 12 hours to get to the capital from Vietnam. The place is sooo very pretty. Not much to report yet apart from the gay bar. Our tour guide took me and my room mate with her when she went to meet her friends. It was so much fun.

Travelling is good for the brain. I've been able to analyse a lot of the past twelve or so months briefly and put them into one hell of perspective.

I wasted a good deal of the year, I should have been away travelling much sooner rather than hanging onto delusions of jobs and friendship. The year looking back was both one of the best and the most miserable. Housemate when I look back was a taker and kept taking, with rare honesty. I would say for definite her girlfriend was more straight forward and truthful. I will never share with a couple in a small house again when there is no room to escape to own space. But until the last months I think we at least kept a measurement of friendship up. I will say then that after the spitefulness that went on for me there was no way I'll be looking them up (even if I -was- owed an email over final money payments) unless there is a miracle of something like time travel and I don't expect them to look me up because I can frankly say I was quite a bitch in that year and didn't know when to stop.

Okay that was a pile of unspecifics but heck I don't think anyone would really believe the full story of the year or really want to know it.

Safe to say though since I came back from England, remet friends and got new ones, and started travelling, the world looks so much brighter. I'm not day dreaming about huge stuff anymore. I'm enjoying each moment as it comes, having the odd bitch, meeting new people, becoming a lot more decisive and looking for things to do instead of sitting around a lot on the internet waiting for them to happen.

Next post: typhoon aftermath and new clothes

We went to visit the tunnels in Vietnam on Monday, the result I got to fire a M16 five times and managed to hit a still target once. It was a pretty exciting and very loud experience!



and today I jumped on the back of a motorcycle and trusted someone to navigate me around the roads. The roads are hair raising there seems to be no laws but I ended up loving it!

Oh and toilets here are referred to as 'Happy Houses', I am slightly weirded out

Love Stephen Fry's tweet: Doctor's gone leaving an anti-inflammatory and some Vicodin - which Gregory House is not getting his mitts on....

Watched the first episode of season 2 of Merlin this morning, my room mate looked rather bizarred out to finding me laughing and awhing. I'm begining to think fandom people don't do long year travels. Hoping someone is going to prove me wrong on that!

There is a sad lack of Tuk tuks in Vietnam. It's back to regular taxis and one person seat bike things which are infinitely more expensive than Cambodia. This mean exploring on foot this morning for a bit and didn't get a huge amount covered (that could be because we got sidetracked by coffee....goooooood coffee)

We've done a little clothes shopping. I was looking at the designs and taking photos to make them up later because then the clothes will fit (XL is like S at home) and will be at least half the price. I think I've got about a week before I get to enjoy that fun in Hoi An.

Hello Vietnam!

I'm camped out in a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, occasionally singing songs from Miss Saigon to myself (and Doctor Doolittle, My Fair Lady and Singing in the Rain with a friend in the group).

Anyways I has had a few cocktails (we all did the buy 2 get one free and the measures are strong) since it is the group's last night together which is pretty sad really, we've all got on and had a laugh.

There are three others besides me staying on besides me for Vietnam and we are going to be joined by 12 new people! I am feeling shy already. Large groups and I don't mix. Oh well it will be interesting.

Nothing to report on Vietnam itself yet, we travelled for most of the day and only had time to walk around the market before dinner.

I've been dreading going to see s21 and the Killing Fields ever since I came to Cambodia but I also knew it was something I needed to face and remember.

I guess I should toss a little history in here, I'm skirting around war and things here because O really can't face reading details right now. . In the 1970s the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. They wanted a Communist state and rounded up all politicians, teachers, policeman, lawyers who worked under the former government, any one really who weren't farmers or workers, to be put to death so no one could protest the changes.

( Warning the details are upsetting )

On the way to the beach I visited an NGO that works with kids. They teach them to paint and sell their pictures for them. The kids get half the money the picture is sold for directly, and the other half is given to the centre to ensure the money is spent correctly on the kids. I bought a painting and five postcards. I'm willing to send four of those so drop a comment if you want one, I think I have most everyone's addresses now!

A usual throng of kids joined us as soon as we set foot on the beach today, along with two adults who were there to do threading on us (I had under arms and eyebrows done but sidetracking here). The girl who wants to be a tour guide was there and I gave in and got a funky little hairband from her and she pressed another free bracelet on me.

The kids seemed to multiply as the older kids noticed there was a group and herded the younger ones towards a likely source of money. Result, very crowded sun beds and plenty of giggles. Everyone else bought one thing off them during the course of the afternoon but there was a real sense of connection when we ordered a pizza for lunch.

We started on the pizza and looked at the kids. They didn't even seem interested in staring at our food. So we tentatively offered a couple of slices of pizza for them to share. My favourite was the first to make a move and she said with a puzzled smile,

'thank you but we don't know how to eat it'

Kids who have never had pizza. Well we set that to rights, showing them to use their hands and where we start on a slice of pizza. They broke three slices up among them. I'm never going to forget their faces as they took their first bites. Some smiled, some looked cautious and some pulled faces. Over all they decided it was different but not really for them.

When I can upload pictures, I will share three of the kids with you.

When I left the beach I braved two things - I left my ipod in for new songs to be uploaded and got my hair cut.

The ipod place said they could upload songs without deleting old songs (as long as there was space of course). They had a huge book of music, tv and films and I waded my way through it for close to an hour. I opted to try 13 albums all really recent to make sure it worked. It cost me $12. When I picked my ipod up an hour later all the songs were there complete with album art work and so was my old music. So happy with the result, and they've even installed in the ipod how to transfer the music to my computer without losing it. I was most impressed. I think I will get more added tomorrow.

The hair cut was fun and cheap. It cost me $5. It is all trimmed into a neat shape and straightened. After 5 weeks of no hair dryer and straighteners it feels amazingly good. Now if only hair cuts where cheap like this every where.

Meet the current bane of my life as much as I pity them. As soon as you set foot on the beach they swarm around you, trying to get you to buy bracelets and fruit. Now ignoring them doesn't get them to go away they keep pawing at you, saying how much they need the money. The worst bit is you can't really buy from them, if you buy one thing from one, then all the others demand that you buy something from them. And while one dollar isn't a lot of money, fifteen dollars is!

It does tug at the heart strings though. There was one lovely fifteen year old who wants to be a tour guide and from her height and bone structure she barely looked twelve to me. She sells all day long and goes to school for four hours in the evening. School costs 25 dollars a month and a good day of selling only gets her $5-10. Apparently she is lucky if this happens two days a week and any money she makes also needs to help support her family. I felt so sorry for her and yet there was nothing I could really do to help.

I have eaten snake ladies and gentleman.

It doesn't taste that bad, kind of salty and bland but it is incredible hard to eat. Snakes have so many tiny bones that you kind of have to worry a bit of meat off with your teeth and proceed cautiously around in a circle.


Also been doing some rather cool snorkeling by an island. Got rather burnt but the coral was really cool and some one did have an underwater camera which we all got to play with so photos will come on that once I can steal her memory card.

Slow internet = no photos and shortish posts, sorry everyone!

Anyway, I am completely in my element in Cambodia. It is an incredible country and one filled with contrasts. When I crossed over the boarder, my immediate reaction after seeing the first wooden shacks and less than smooth roads was wow this is a sad country. My opinion has reformed slightly, the standard of living they have makes me sad but the people are so warm and friendly.

Out of the main towns most people get their electricity from small generators or car batteries which only last a couple of days at a time before they need to be recharged. Kids beg or make bracelets and sell postcards so they can afford school and yet they never stop smiling even when you aren't buying from them and are just happy to have a chat with you.

I've been in the last couple of days:

Visiting a floating village
Saw Angkor Wat
Gone biking around an island
Swam at the base of a waterfall
Spent $9 on the beach and got - pedicure, nail polish done, a ride on a banana boat and a cocktail and many free bracelets from the kids who were as fascinated by my one hand as I was with them.

I know Bangkok isn't all about the Ladyboys but hey I'm there and I love them!

I arrived at my hostel at midnight rather tired and already bamboozled by currency. 55 Baht to the pound and even when I do it as 50 my mind isn't really wrapping itself around it. I don't -think- I got ripped off by the taxi driver on the way from the airport.

The one coherent thing I really remember that night was that the bed was uber comfortable and big. Quite a change after China!

Anyhows first thing I did the next morning was book Calypso for the next night. Ladyboys cabaret pictures below the cut

( They are far to pretty )


I have managed to do the historical stuff too and now I've grabbed my new room mate, who is stuck with me for the next 12 days all the way through Cambodia.

The Travel BLog has had an update, just Hong Kong to do and it is up to date

We've got a level 3 Typhoon warning outisde which is mildly exciting! It's very gusty and I am looking forward to my brief stroll to McDs and back.

Can someone link me to a download for the new Supernatural ep? I'm screening comments so you can! I really want it and yeah I don't think I can wait a year to see it.

What does everyone classify Hong Kong as now adays? I went through customs and had my passport checked and the check for swine flu so I'd claim a new country. Okay there is Hong Kong island but Hong Kong also has its mainland area Kowloon which is where I am staying and most of everything takes place, so I guess it could be a province of China? My Geography lessons really didn't prepare me for this.

Anyways I've swapped the compartive comfort of my tour accomodation for my pitstop hostel. It's in a tall dirty building a couple of floors up and a cat looking distinctly like Munkustrapp has just walked passed mewing loudly, I don't think he was welcoming me here. My room is a box. There are sleazy men around and I am thinking the bathroom, tiny and frosted with no proper lock is just right for a Pyscho remake. Yeah I'm an idiot with an over active imagination.

So my list of where I've gone and where pictures will be following for tomorrow are - Beijing - Great Wall - Xi'an - Shanghai - Yangshou - Longji Terraces

Until I leave Hong Kong on Saturday I definitely have regular internet access.