Nick’s world tour

Well I made it here. Although the “for your convenience” flight renumbering did leave me slightly confused as my flight out of Bangkok had been both renumbered and retimed! The flights as ever were excellent: films and music that you watch and play as and when you want to, and meals on proper crockery with metal cutlery and a real glass to drink out of. Unfortunately no more flights on Singapore Airlines.

I was woken around 8am for breakfast and my little TV said we were over Uluru (Ayers Rock). It’s down there somewhere under the clouds. With two and a half hours to go to Sydney it dawned on me really how big Australia is- and I’m going to do half of it on a bus… in just over six weeks….!

First “G’day mate” came from the immigration officer who let me in, I resisted answering the question “do you have any criminal convictions?” with “no sorry, I didn’t realise that was still an entry requirement”. Read the rest of this entry »

… as I’ve now spent seven and a half months in Asia, I think it’s time to crack on with the world tour, as I’ve only made it about half way round. Slacking, I know…

Arriving near the Khao San Road at 5am yesterday, I had to be pointed bleery eyed in the right direction by a helpful taxi driver. I walked to “My House” on Soi Rambutri which, on account of the amount of nights I’ve spent here compared to elsewhere, must now count pretty much as my second home.

After a few hours rest, it’s a hectic day of shopping for everything that will be too expensive in the next few months. I spent a relative fortune, but hopefully will not have to haggle for anything at all for the forseeable future!!

The rest of the time was filled with tasting all my favourite Thai dishes (arguably the best food in the world), and sinking a final few Bia Chang’s. Oh and the crazy halloween parties on Khao San Road, complete with what sounded like gun fire, and then a near stampede as everyone tried to run away…

Over the past few months, we’ve all got used to a pretty luxurious lifestyle: being able to do pretty much anything you want as it’s all so damned cheap and eating and drinking without really worrying about the cost. And when you overspend, well compare back to the good old pound and you realise that posh dinner and far too many drinks probably only cost about 3 quid…

South East Asia has been great: I realised I ended up going to most of these places because I knew that people had been there, but didn’t really know much about the places at all: no preconceptions. So it’s all been a pleasant surprise!

From over 4000m metres above sea level, to about 18m below, and everything in between. Roads, rivers, planes; jungles, rice paddies and plains; laid back Laos, fast paced and oriental Vietnam, smiley and diverse Malaysia, horrors to glories within two cities in Cambodia, spic and span Singapore, and Thailand sitting someone in the middle of it all just being ”ok”. I didn’t make it to Myanmar or Indonesia, which I’d planned on, but I’ll sure be back.

As of tomorrow morning at 10.55am it all gets very different. Different country, different continent, different hemisphere even, and very different prices. Still, they’ll all speak English with a strange accent.

Shortly I’m off to the new airport here in Bangkok: flight SQ625 to Singapore and then SQ231 down to Sydney in the early hours of tomorrow morning. (It should have been on one of those brand new double decker planes, which would have been cool, but the French haven’t got round to finishing it off yet…)

So next time you hear from me, in a month or so it’ll be G’day to everyone from somewhere, very, very different.

So, I’m taking the “express” boat again, this time it’s headed to the port of Thong Sala on Koh Phangan. Read the rest of this entry »

More on the cryptic title later…

I thought I’d been clever, bearing in mind the word express,  buying tickets for the Songserm Express ferry from Surat Thani to Koh Tao (via everywhere else first). It did turn out to be slower than every other ferry, save the appropriately named slow night boat.

Read the rest of this entry »

First, on a “for your convenience” note:

“Some Singapore Airlines flights will be re-numbered to reduce confusion with similar-sounding numbers and to ease communication.”

right… and on a more serious note, Virgin Atlantic’s booking system decided to cancel my last flight next year, which was a little worrying. Their US customer “service” department took two emails to send this enlightening message:

“Having viewed your reservation, it is apparent an operational change has taken place.”

(Eventually I found out that the flight time had changed. Presumably they thought that I’d like to have my reservation cancelled- and be stuck in America land, no thanks!)

So Virgin are now on the crappy airlines I’ll-not-choose-to-fly-with-again list along with perennial (un)favourites British Airways. And while I’m whinging, two out of three Nikon cameras I’ve owned now have developed “technical faults”, and my expensive Vango bag is now held together with gaffa tape after it started splitting in June… “They don’t make things to last anymore…”

So, finally, the end of the season approached and we left the island just before the last ferry made it’s journey back before the monsoon.

  Read the rest of this entry »

The Perhentian Islands are located in the South China Seas about an hour by fast boat from the mainlaind. There are two: Pulau Perhentian Kecil and P. P. Besar (or small and big islands).

But it’s not worth going here, they are absolutely horrible. Much better sticking to the more touristy islands in Thailand… Read the rest of this entry »

Or translated, quite literally “National Park”. Occupying a huge section of interior Malaysia, it’s 130 million year old rainforest. So it’s quite impressive!

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Next up is the ascent of Mount Kinabalu, the centrepiece of World Heritage Site, Kinabalu National Park. I arrive tired, muddy and covered in bites (but still smelling sweetly of citronella, jojoba and tea tree oil repellant) in the early evening. The short walk from the road to the park is an effort at nearly 2000m above sea level, and it’s pretty cold… Read the rest of this entry »

Next day I take a six hour bus ride east to the town of Sandakan. From here we’ll be heading off to Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp. Read the rest of this entry »