April 07, 2006
http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=94222443506.977427501106.1144421672768&page=1&sort_order=0&albumsperpage=12&navfolderid=0&ownerid=0
and
http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=94222443506.459057501106.1144423588813&page=1&sort_order=0&albumsperpage=12&navfolderid=0&ownerid=0
May 23, 2005
Finally... home...Oz !!!! hahahahah!
It is hardest place to write about !!!!I don't really know why! It may be because I consider Oz my home country! ahahah! As everybody know my dream was to be an Aussie myself... but unfortunately my stork ( Karina's dictionary - stork = bird that brings us to this world) was so hopeless that it couldn't even read a map and it delivered me in the wrong place! I still can't understand how it happened! Of course I had to fire the stork after this deadly mistake!
The goal of my trip to Oz wasn't tourism... it was to visit my friends and feel a bit aussie myself... so I cannot really write a tourit guide about Oz...
So I am going to write a list of the best.... best things ( or worst ) in Oz!
As you can imagine, the list needs to start with... and go following my favourite subjects !!!hahahah! That will be fun!
1. the hottest guy ( need to be aussies, of course.... it couldn't be different!). It was my diving instructor, Oh God! He was so gorgeous!!! He was almost as hot as Nathan ( Karina dictionary: Nathan = the hottest , most gorgeous guy I have seen in my whole life. note: best personality isn't included in this cathegory. Well we can never get everything in the same package ... can we?!)And I was so luck that my diving buddy got sick and couldn't dive anymore... so the instructor had to be my new buddy - hard job !!! hahahah! He was so gorgeous that I think I missed most of the beautiful fishes on my diving... no need of more comments!
2. My second favourite subject ( after number 1 ... of course!) Rugby. I can't believe I am leaving Oz without watching the Wallabies playing! I am pretty sad about it!!!! I couldn't even afford an Oficial Wallabies Rugby Tshirt ( you know... traveller budget!)... and the worst thing is that NZ is my next stop... of course I cannot watch the enemy ( All Blacks) playing too! Hahhah! I saw a guy on the streets wearing the best Rugby Tshirt I have seen ( i asked him where he bought... but I couldn't find it myself). It said... I support Wallabies and all the teams play All Blacks! hahahh! well, I think nowadays I would change the All Blacks for English, as I will never forgive them for the last WorldCup...
3. Friends - It was so good to see my friends after so long travelling solo.... Lisa, Narelle,etc and especially Craig... London will never be the same without guys - it won't be so fun!!! I already miss you heaps! I feel sorry I couldn't see everybody... missed many people, but Oz is so big... so for the ones I couldn't catch up with ... I will be waiting for you all in UK!
4. Snakebite - on that issue Oz is far behind! ( I suppose it is because there are only english working in pubs over here!) Guys you need to get some lessons at Walkabout - because the snakebites here is shit!
5. Food - after putting on 6Kg ... ( joking - oh I am not so sure if it is a joke! I wish it was !!!) hahah!I can really have a say about this topic! Oz is a great place to eat.... especially sushi ( my favourite food ever!). there are sushi everywhere and they sell it in big rools ( size matters!) you can just grab one or 2 or 3 or 4 for lunch! Fantastic!!!! I am sure the sushis aren't to blame for my extra body weight... of course the many rockroads ( best chocolate ever - with mashmallows...so yammy!!) contributed a lot with it!
6. Highlight - that I will need to put in 2 ... 6.1 and 6.2
6.1 highlight 1 - Of course the diving course . Well, I still cannot decide if it was because of the diving or because the instructor... but anyway it was a highlight!
6.2 highlight 2 - Believe or not it was work... I loved working at Frank's and Julie's farm... packing grapes! They were the best bosses ever, I even adopted them as my aussie family ( hahahah! now I think I can really consider myself an aussies as I have a family over here - and they even have the same italian background than me! David, Julie and Frank eill miss you heaps! See you at Christmas in Oz... or in UK?!!!)
7. Favourite city - I still can't get it right. I can't decide between Cairns and Melbourne ! Love both!!!! But definitely Queensland is my description of paradise ! I loved it! The only wrong thing with it was too many english, germans and foreigners over there !!! See even not paradise is perfect!
8. Now I need to confess the worst " lowlight" - at least it was funny ( not for me !!!!) . I hate spiders, I am very scared of them... and there were 100000000 redbacks and other monsters living on the grapes I had to clean. All the time I got a grape to clean ( 2000000 per day)... they were there... looking at me and saying.... I will eat you alive !!!! Of course, as you can imagine, my panic and scandal was huge !!! So I used to run away, scream, yell heaps! It was horrible! But I can't understand why, other people thought it was funny ( probably they thought I was yelling of happiness for seeing a deadly spider so close!) and start giving all the grapes with spider to me to clean!!!! I should have charged double for making people laugh!!!!
9. Lowlight number 2... a land full of aussies... everywhere... that was my perfect dream! But the only unexpected thing was that I ended up hanguing out with too many foreigners ( Jamie had warned me before... I didn't believe him!!! how naive!)...I cannot believe!...After being here a while I do think that there are more aussies over in Uk than here, back home!
(most of aussies here have that back home "old people" style of life....how boring! for sure the aussies in London are much more fun!!!! ahahah!)
So guys, that was my Oz experience !!!! I still haven't decided how I rate Oz!!!! I still love Aussies but I do miss Europe...Oz is just too far away!
I went there just after the Tusami happened !
It was so sad... so many people crying on the streets.... family search for the missing ... people holding photos asking you if you have seen their beloved son-daughter - friend -parents that were missing!
Very sad ! I even feel like crying!
So in respect to this moment I won't write about Thailand as it was one of the biggest world tragedy!
Sorry guys...
Due the Tusami and personal emotional boyfriend crisis ( that I don't want to publish at the internet) I will have to skip Indonesia ... and as the beaches in Malasya are close due to Moonson - I will skip it too...
Flying to Oz !!!! Melbourne here I go ! the city with the most gorgeous guys in the world! Oh! That will be fun! I cannot wait to see my friends !
Oh No !!!! I think my memory isn't that good anymore... I see I am really getting old. I am almost leaving Oz... and only now decided to write about Laos... so long ago! Nex time, I will try to update this site soon...
Lets stop complaining and write something...
As it was hard to get into Laos through Cambodia, I decided to go to thailand and enter Laos by boat ( 3 days trip... I thought I was drunk when I decided to do it! hahhah!) ! Oh God !
This " boat" ( if I can call it boat - I think a sardine can would be the best name to call it - it means 100 people smashed on each other for 3 days in a boat not big than a bucket !!!) trip wasn't exactly what I call a cruise... but it is what travelling is about - at least it is more fun than a cruise ( well !!! I suppose as still need to win the lottery premium to spoil myself in a cruise !) and the best idea to improve your swimming skills, in case you have foorgotten them.
The best think about the boat was that it was so small that it was the best place to make new friends... as you couldn't avoid listening other people conversation ! hahah ! It was fun, I could even start writting for a girly magazine after this trip - had enough time to learn about everybody's life!
I met a very nice group of dutch people in the boat - yuplipup! ( dutch happinees exclamation!)I will have friends to spend Christmas with !!! It was quite a relief as I was quite scared of spending Christmas alone, rejected in the middle of nowhere ! Just girls things... if you understand me ?!
After 3 days in the boat - finally got to Luang Prabang ( Peter ( Bresnan) thanks for the advise, it was really the best place to spend Christmas - you are a star!). Luang Prabang is my favourite "town" in Asia . It is so charming, and beautiful, great atmosphere and the best food ever !!!
It is so charming that all the accomodation were all booked, even high class hotels - oh no not homeless again !!! But as I am the luckiest person in the world... my friend who I had travel Cambodia with, had some friends in Luang Prabang ... so they invited me to stay with them ... they even cooked the best dinner ever for me !!!! And ... you don't know what... after being so smashed on the boat trip ... I could eat and drink as much as I wanted to get to normal sice again!!!! Oh! I cannot believe - be able to eat and drink as much as I wanted without feeling bad !!! Every girls dream!
treeking in the north - I think I should skip this part as I even don't remember the name of the place I did trekking - but as you can imagine, the best way to get there was by boat - AGAIN !!!! Oh no!
Time to go south again - back to Luang Prabang and head to Vangviang( I even don't remember the spelling!) where I spent New years - as everybody expect - drunk, dancing along the river !!! It was so much fun... although I couldn't really remember anything next day - and felt sick all the way to Vientiane .
Vangviang is like a hippie young drunk backpacker place... nothing very special to do but a nice place to rent a bike and ride around the mountains and country side and for having some water adventures ...
Vientiane is also a great place, lots of nice but expensive ( for asia) restaurants. And where I had my hair cut again and I hated it! ! i cannot wait to this hair grown again !!!
I did like Laos !!! It is a great place to relax, very friendly people !!!!
2 albuns
Album 1 - http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=170540630106&page=1&sort_order=0
and
Album 2 - http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=735350630106&page=1&sort_order=0
http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=70372487606&page=1&sort_order=0
December 28, 2004
I have read so many books during the trip!!! So may good books.... of course bad books too... so I decided to write a bit about it... recommend some books.
I have been trying to read at least one book about each coutry to go to. It si very useful to understand the country's culture and people's personality!
I read 2 books that I really would like to recommend:
1. The Girl from the Picture. It is a book about a photo taken at Vietnam War! It is great!
2. They first killed my father. It is about khmer Rouge government in Cambodia. Very real!!
I don’t have much to tell about Cambodia …
I had a great time there, spent around one week on the beach, doing nothing!!! Very relaxing! It was so good to have a rest from the traveling thing…. one week without thinking about next bus, next town, and getting new accommodation! Ate fish and ships every day!! So good!!! Little girls sell the best fruits salads on the beach, lades sell sea food on the stick! As you can see it is a great place for food as well!
I think very hard to write about Cambodia. It is difficult to talk about Cambodia not only because it is considered the most corrupted country in the world or because it is one of the poorest countries in the worlds. I think hard to talk about it because it made a very big, hate grows in my body. It is my hate for USA. I was already a bit anti America before, due to the facts everybody knows. But after Cambodia I really do hate USA ! The only Americans I do like are the ones who have a Canadian flag on their bags because they are ashamed of being Americans! US (together with China) supported financially the most brutal governments that the world has ever seen. (I think it was the only time I could see USA and China support the same idea…only because it was against Vietnam!)… Khmer Rouge. 2 million Cambodia were killed from 1975 till 1979… and hundred of thousand died of its consequences from 1979 till1980.
You still see “mirrors” of Khmer Rouge Government everywhere in Cambodia. You se it through the way people are aggressive, through the fact that all the families and individuals have already seen the death on the door, the largest population on amputees in the world!
I also spent a couple of days in Phnon Penh , visited the S-21 Museum – The Killing Fields ( need to be seen!)
Of course, I couldn’t miss Cambodia biggest Tourist attraction – Angkor . Usually people spend 3 days wondering around the Temples but I only spent one day and half on the Temples! It was more than enough… as in the end all of them are the same – same same – not different at all!!!
My plan was to go to Laos from Cambodia but I had heard that as the border between the two countries isn’t 100% legal… and very corrupted. I decided to go to Laos through north Thailand! Oh no!!! 3 days boat trip to get to Luang Prabang in Laos from Thailand !!!