Hayley's Excellent Adventure

I am going to have to warn everyone now that I completely fell in love with New Zealand, so this blog could get a little gushy. As I write this I have been in Australia for just under 3 weeks, and I am still really missing New Zealand. It was just the best month, so much fun and I made some really great friends.

Anyway, after an 18 hour journey from Bali, including a stupidly long stopover in Sydney Airport, I finally reached Auckland. I managed to find the bus from the airport to Auckland easily, and had been told that there was a discount for backpackers. So I got on the bus and asked the driver for a ticket to Auckland city centre, and the street where my hostel was. I was a little surprised when he charged me the full fare, and I said ‘I thought backpackers got a discount’. He said ‘Do you have a BBH or YHA card?’ to which I replied ‘No, but I have a backpack!’ He just looked at me like I was crazy, and I had to pay the full fare – honestly, why would anyone get on a bus with a bag almost the size of themselves if they weren’t backpackers??

Anyway, I made it to my hostel and immediately got chatting to a lovely English couple, Hannah and Steve, who were staying in my room. They were really nice – they even gave me an Australian SIM card for my mobile phone. Hannah was a hairdresser, which made her quite a useful person to know, especially considering I hadn’t had a haircut in 4 months. We swapped information about South East Asia (where they were heading next) and New Zealand and Australia, and despite only knowing them for a couple of days we have kept in touch. And I had my first outdoor haircut on the roof of our hostel courtesy of Hannah – it was quite a relief to get nice tidy hair! It was about 6pm when I reached the hostel and I was knackered from my travelling, I had an early night. I spent the next day in Auckland sorting out my trip for the rest of New Zealand, and signed up with a bus touring company called Stray to leave Auckland on 4th June- this is one of the best decisions I ever made. I then had to go shopping to buy myself some clothes with sleeves and long legs – it wasn’t really cold in Auckland, but I knew it would only get colder as I headed further south. And having come from South East Asia, I somehow knew that shorts and vest tops weren’t quite going to keep me warm enough. I didn’t do any sightseeing in Auckland at all, and I don’t believe I missed much, except for maybe the Sky Tower. Everyone says (except Aucklanders apparently) that the best bit about Auckland is when you leave it. The city was ok, but I completely see what they mean.

I had a day to kill before setting off on my Stray trip, so I booked to go on a day trip further north of Auckland, as this was not included on the full tour that I had booked. I went to Paihia, also known as the Bay of Islands, which was a good 4 hour drive away from Auckland. There were only 2 people on the bus, myself and a German guy called Alex Hug (what a cool name!), who was absolutely lovely. Our driver, Nance, was on her last day as a Stray bus driver, she was a great laugh. On the way to Paihia we picked up a couple of Swiss girls who had been hitch hiking around New Zealand – now I can kind of see the benefits of this, but I still think they were a little crazy, I wouldn’t dream of doing it myself. Alex and I were supposed to be doing a boat trip where we could swim with dolphins that afternoon, but again we were the only 2 people that were booked onto the trip so the company cancelled it. We had got the trip for free by booking through Stray, but still I had paid $90NZ (about 25 quid) for that one day trip and I was then a little concerned about the rest of my trip with Stray – although I needn’t have been. So Alex and I took a boat across to Russell, the island opposite Paihia, as there was a walk that you could do for views out across the entire Bay which were supposedly stunning. We went for lunch in a lovely little cafe and then set off up Flagstaff Hill. And yes, the views were beautiful, and we were lucky that the rain from earlier in the day had cleared up into a gorgeous sunny day. Alex was staying in Paihia overnight to do sand boarding down the dunes at the top of the North Island, but I was heading back to Auckland with Nance. She picked me up at about 4.30pm, and there were then 3 other people on the bus – an English girl called Bukky, an English guy called Nick and a Dutch guy called Albert. They were all going to be on my bus the following day, so I kind of knew people before I got on the bus, which was good. Little bit of historical information that I learned on my day to Paihia (see, I do do more than just go to these countries and sample the local beer) – Paihia means ‘good here’ in Maori, and nearby Waitangai is where the treaty of New Zealand was signed between the first British settlers and the Maori in 1844, so it is thought of as the birthplace of modern New Zealand – even though the treaty was not all it cracked up to be, but still. Every day is a school day! We arrived back in Auckland at about 8pm, so I decided to sort out my bag for my early start the following day, when I would start my tour, and get an early night.

Once again, I was up ridiculously early (this was a trend that continued all the way through New Zealand) and was the first person to be picked up by the Stray bus, and so was the first to meet Morrie, our driver for the trip. I ended up staying on Morrie’s bus right up until Queenstown, and I cannot compliment the guy enough. True, my first sight of him at 7.15 on a cold and windy Tuesday morning was a little scary – Morrie is a big guy with a huge beard and even bigger dreadlocked hair. But it proves that appearances are deceiving, because he is just the coolest bus driver that you could ever ask for, full of information and a clear love for his job, and an all round lovely guy. I think this went a long way towards the amazing experience that I had – I’d heard of rubbish bus drivers who don’t go into the detail that Morrie did. I’m not sure that everything he told us was true, but it was entertaining! Our first stop was to the top of an extinct volcano in Auckland where you got amazing views out over the city, and then we started the drive to our first stop, Hahei and Cathedral Cove, stopping to hug a couple of trees en route. Morrie tied this in with an old Maori legend on how the world was born involving trees (I would go into detail but I’ve kind of forgotten the gist of it). We also stopped at a little vineyard to sample some local wines and spirits – the owner of that place obviously didn’t get much company – he spoke very quickly, had a very odd sense of humour and was utter filth. He made very tasty booze though – his strawberry liqueur was great. We finally arrived at Cathedral Cove and the entire bus group walked down to the beach. This place has been used in loads of films, most recently the new Chronicles of Narnia, and it is truly stunning. The beach itself is really secluded, and there are loads of little caves that you walk through. There is also a massive archway in the rocks from one part of the beach to the next, and the rock formations in the ocean were huge. It was just beautiful. Then Bukky, the English girl from the day before, and I walked along Hahei beach to our hostel to help prepare dinner. It was great because even though there were about 25 people on the bus, we could all do the walk at our own pace. As it was the first night, Morrie had suggested that we all chip in $5NZ and do a big barbecue. We were split into teams – I was Team Coleslaw with 2 other girls, so there is now another dish that I can add to my list (even though I hate the stuff). The evening was very much a getting to know the other people on the bus sort of vibe, very chilled out and very enjoyable.
We were supposed to visit Hot Water Beach the next day, somewhere that I have been dying to visit ever since I read about the place – basically, if you dig holes in the beach the water that fills them up is hot, hence the name. Morrie told us that at the time of year we were visiting the water was not really hot and the beach wasn’t that great, so we skipped it. I was disappointed, but it just means that I have yet another excuse to go back there (one excuse of many). We were heading to Raglan, where we were offered a surf lesson as an activity. Those of you who know me well know of my fear of the ocean, but I surprised myself by not even hesitating to put my name down on the list. I then spent the rest of the journey to Raglan tormenting myself on whether I actually wanted to spend $65NZ to do something I’d never really thought about before, and which actually did scare the life out of me. I am so glad I did it though, it was such a fun afternoon. Our instructor Wes was from Bath and he was pretty easy on the eye. He had trouble believing that I’d grown up in Cornwall and never been surfing before. I was concentrating so hard on trying to stand up that my fears were pretty much forgotten, and I did manage to stand up a few times. I was so proud of myself! It was exhausting as the current kept sweeping us down the beach, so when I actually managed to ride into the beach I had to drag the board back through the water to rejoin everyone else. I was aching for days afterwards. I am definitely doing that again (although whether I am brave enough to do it in Australia remains to be seen). We were staying in an amazing lodge in Raglan, with a lovely big communal area with a pool table, big comfy sofas and a really fast flying fox. There was even a sauna, which I took advantage on when we returned from the beach –such a treat. After dinner, I went up to flying fox with an American girl called Lynsey and an English guy called Rich. It was absolutely pitch black, as there were no artificial lights up there, and I have never seen a clearer night sky, thousands of stars. It was pretty scary getting up there but it was a really good laugh. You couldn’t see where the flying fox ended so when it hit the tyre and you got swung up (which was really hard) it came as a bit of a shock. If you weren’t on the flying fox you just waited to hear the squeal of the person who had just gone down there. It was really funny. On the way back to the lodge I saw a couple of glow worms in the hedge – that was a bit spooky, as they looked like animal eyes.

We headed to Waitomo the next morning to do some caving. I joined the group that did tubing underground, as I had loved it so much in Laos, but this time there were no bars along the way. It didn’t make much difference though, as it was a brilliant morning. We were kitted out in all these wetsuits and helmets with torches on them, and massive welly boots. Our guide, Mel, was so enthusiastic about her job. We had to squeeze through all these little gaps and in some places had to swim through freezing cold water 3 metres deep to get to the next bit, but without kicking our legs as this caused your wellies to be sucked off and Mel warned us that if that happened, we would have to dive to the bottom to retrieve them (don’t think that was true, but didn’t want to test her). I also found myself crawling through some very narrow tunnels on my stomach – after Cu Chi in Vietnam I was a bit scared but I’m glad I did it, the tunnels were nowhere near as long as the ones at Cu Chi. We did have to turn our headlamps off though, which I wasn’t too keen on. At the end of the caves, you all jump backwards off a 2 metre ledge into your tube (big inflatable rubber ring) and then Mel pulled us along through the darkness – we were all linked by putting our feet under the arms of the person in front. There were glow worms all over the ceiling, it was amazing to look at. As Mel was pulling us she insisted that we all sing something, so we settled on Bohemian Rhapsody and the theme tune from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. A slightly surreal experience which I will never forget. After the tubing, we stopped off at a place where they shear Angora rabbits to make hats, baby booties, scarves...anything that can be made with wool basically. The place was owned by the mother of one of the Stray drivers, and if I had the money I would have definitely bought a hat, they were so soft and cuddly. And I’ve never seen rabbits with that much hair. They sheared one for us to see how it was done, they strapped him down to a table and just started shaving. It looked a bit uncomfortable for the poor rabbit to be honest, but we know he was happy, because after they are sheared they get to go and ‘visit’ the lady rabbits. That poor rabbit looked so skinny after they had sheared him.
After that we were heading to Maketu, for an evening’s cultural stay and show in a traditional Maori marae (meaning meeting place). We were slightly delayed by something coming away from the underside of the bus as we were driving along a road, with the nearest town 20km ahead of us. We had to drive through this tiny town to try and find someone to fix it. We managed to find a funny little garage, where they removed the part from underneath the bus and told us that we would be ok to continue to Taupo tomorrow, but that we should get another bus when we got there. We arrived at Uncle Boy’s in Maketu absolutely starving as we had been delayed by about an hour and a half. We had a roast dinner which had been cooked in an oven simulating the conditions of a hangi, the traditional Maori way of cooking. A hangi is a pit in the ground that has hot rocks at the bottom of it, the food is placed on the rocks and then covered in earth. I don’t know if they used the replica oven or not, but it was a lovely meal. After dinner we went into the main room of the marae (where we would also be sleeping – there were piles of mattresses, duvets and pillows in the corner) and the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Uncle Boy and his family put on a show for us, singing traditional Maori songs, doing the haka and poi (a white ball on a string that the girls swing around and catch – incredibly difficult) Once this was over, the boys from the bus got taken into the dining room to learn the haka, while us girls had to learn a Maori dance and have a go with the poi. I did not stop laughing from beginning to end, and eventually got the hang of catching that damned ball on a string (the secret is to catch the string, not the ball). I have some amazing photos and video footage from that night, the boys were brilliant when they came back in to perform the haka, Morrie looked like a great big lion shaking his dreads everywhere and the rest of the boys had bright red chests from smacking themselves so hard. I know a few of them actually gave themselves bruises. Once we had performed with our poi and showed that we could shake our hips as well as the Maori girls (ok, nowhere near as well, but I gave it a good go) we got our photo’s taken with the group that performed. The children were so good, the younger ones that were in the show really gave it their all. It was one of the best evenings I had in New Zealand, and all without alcohol being involved.

The next day was one that I will never, ever forget – my adrenaline day. And I wasn’t even expecting it to turn out that way. It started by going to Rotorua to do some white water rafting along a river with the highest commercially raftable waterfall in the world – 7m high. After my experience in Bali I was really looking forward to this. There were 5 of us in my boat, plus 2 instructors – Jonny and Weka. I think Jonny was new to the job, as he kept asking Weka if what he was doing was ok. We started by riding down some smaller waterfalls, about 2m high, and then when we got to the bottom we would all raise our paddles in the air and cheer, which for some reason amused me greatly. The 7m waterfall came up pretty quickly, and according to the boat behind us it was obvious that the boat was going to flip as soon as we went over the top. I remember that the raft seemed to land ok, but the next thing I remember is being thrown across to the other side of the boat and then being underwater. I surfaced underneath the boat, still clutching my paddle, and then realising that I ad to get to the outside, grabbed the edge and ducked out under. Weka was shouting at us to swim to a nearby cave, so I just went for it, still holding onto the paddle. I was terrified that my feet would touch the floor, as that is how people drown when they go rafting, their feet can get caught in the rocks and as the current is so strong you have no chance. It was really deep but I was taking no chances! On the way to the cave I came across another paddle, so grabbed that too – and then realised that it is really hard to swim across strong currents using just your legs. I eventually made it to the cave, by which time the boat had been righted and everyone else was in it. I was completely buzzing, I just could not stop smiling. I know that some people would count a raft flip as a bad experience (Camilla, a Danish girl who was in my boat, who turned out to be one of the most fun people I have ever met, did not enjoy it, but she got stuck underwater for a while so had a bit more of a scary experience) but for me it made the morning. After surviving a flipping raft into white water the rest of the trip seemed pretty tame, but it was still really good fun, and much better than the trip in Bali. Right at the end we drove the front of the boat into a small waterfall, which caused us to get soaked as water was just going everywhere – we bought the photo CD at the end of the trip which shows our raft flipping over and this little bit at the end of the trip. I am so glad we bought it. After the rafting, we were taken to the centre of Rotorua to meet up with the bus – Morrie had taken the bus to Taupo to change it for one that did not have metal hanging from underneath it. Rotorua is a volcanic area, and the smell of sulphur hits you as soon as enter the area – not particularly pleasant but you do get used to it really quickly. I had a chance to go down and see some of the volcanic pools, the amount of steam coming off some of them was immense. It was good to warm you up though, just standing near the pools made you nice and toasty. I found watching the mud bubbling mildly therapeutic. The bus finally arrived to pick up those of us who had been rafting and we headed onto Taupo, where the main draw is a lake the size of Singapore – and skydiving. I hadn’t been expecting to skydive in the same day as the rafting, but I was still buzzing with adrenaline so thought I’d just go for it, even though I hadn’t had time to prepare myself mentally for it. Morrie dropped us off at the skydiving centre and it was touch and go whether we would be able to actually do the dive, as there was a fair bit of cloud cover and there had been a few showers. Waiting around at the centre, all rigged up in my gear, was incredibly nerve wracking. There were 7 of us from the bus who were going to do the skydive, and they eventually got 3 of us, plus a girl from another tour group in the plane to go up to the 12,000ft drop zone. So me, Claire, Nick and the German girl were taken up in the plane, a very pretty pink one. We saw a rainbow on the way up and I remember thinking ‘I hope we jump through that’ but other than that one single sane thought I was basically just nervous as hell, I couldn’t stop giggling. If you ever watch the skydive DVD that I had made, you will see how scared I was at the beginning – non stop giggles and coming across as a complete idiot. I was attached to a German guy called Sonke, who was big and tall. For some reason this made me feel safe – I’m not sure what logic I was using, as big tall people surely fall faster but it made me feel better on the day. I think the worst bit for me was watching Nick jump out of the plane – he seemed to be hanging out of the door for ages and I thought it would just be a case of get to the door and get out quick. It seemed like he was there forever, but as soon as he had jumped I didn’t have time to think about anything else, as Sonke got me straight over to the door and had me hanging out of it in seconds – and not just my legs, all of me. That was a really strange feeling, but then before I knew it we were out of the plane and plummeting towards the ground. We had 30 seconds of freefall, and I just remember feeling completely weightless and not really feeling like I was falling that fast. We passed right through a cloud, and that was where Sonke opened the parachute. It was just like you see on films – I did actually feel like I was being jerked up and back really hard. I then remember Sonke undoing some of my attachments to him, obviously to make the rest of the fall more comfortable, and thinking ‘Oh my lord, he’s going to drop me’ but then I was just hanging and trying to take in the amazing views beneath me. Sonke kept doing something to his parachute which made us fly around in big circles which got faster and faster. The first couple of times it was really cool, but the third time he did it made me feel a bit dizzy and queasy. Before I knew it we came into land outside the skydive centre, and I managed to land on my feet instead of my arse – I was very proud of this. I was so overwhelmed that I had actually done it that I could not think of words to describe it, so on that bit of my DVD I again come across as a bit dim. I was bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, Fran and Rich from my bus were told that they would not get to do the skydive as it was getting too dark, and Bukky and Albert from my bus got all the way up to 12,000ft in the plane before their jump was cancelled due to the cloud – I’m just so glad that wasn’t me, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to go up again! Claire, Nick and I got to watch our DVD’s on the big screen after they had been edited, and they were brilliant. I’m glad to say that despite expectations, my face did not flap around at all, my nose and mouth went a bit funny though. Sonke’s face was literally rippling in the wind. Claire’s DVD was by far the funniest, her face was all over the place. Everyone in the room was crying with laughter, I tried to get a copy of her DVD but she was having none of it. The guys at the skydive centre took us back to our hostel in a limousine, and we got ready for a night out in Taupo – I felt that after the amazing day I had had, I could handle anything. We went to a couple of Irish pubs, one which was a bit rubbish, but they were celebrating their birthday so we got free cake, and another where there was live music and a dancefloor with a DJ, where we spent most of the night. The whole skydiving crew were in the rubbish pub, and they gave away a free skydive to anyone that would run down the street naked – worth about $500NZ. I had already left by this point, but when Camilla (or the crazy Dane as I came to call her) arrived in the good pub, she was brandishing a certificate for the free skydive. Apparently she is now on YouTube. It was a brilliant night.

I awoke the next day feeling pretty hungover, and not relishing the idea of being stuck on a bus all day. We were heading to Tongariro National Park, where you can do a walk through the national park along active volcanoes. We had been warned that the weather would probably not be good enough for us to do the Tongariro Crossing, and pretty much as soon as we left Taupo the heavens opened and the rain just came pouring down. A lot of people had now left our bus, and there were only 10 of us left, but it was really nice having a small group as you got to talk to people more than you would have before. It was a real shame that we did not get to do the Tongariro Crossing, but again I have another reason to go back to the north island to do it. You were supposed to be able to see Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings as you drive up the mountain where Tongariro is, but the weather was so bad that you couldn’t see more than 10ft in front of you. Morrie took us up as high as he could in the bus, and we got our first glimpse of snow in New Zealand. I got off the bus to take a few photos, and within about 30 seconds I was soaked through. We visited the tourist information centre and found out about the volcanoes there and when they last erupted. We also stopped off at another Lord of the Rings set – Gollum’s home on a bank underneath a waterfall. I braved the torrential rain to go and get some photo’s of this, and like everything else in New Zealand it was just stunning. We arrived at our hostel in National Park at about 2pm, and it was a fantastic place to stay. It was so luxurious you could barely believe it was a hostel – the beds had lovely thick duvets, the communal area was huge with big comfy sofas and a widescreen TV, log fires and a really nice kitchen, and they even had an outdoors hot tub. Because of the weather I did not sample this, but Nick, Albert and Fran jumped straight in. We spent the afternoon playing a really funny game and then a few of us cooked a communal curry – it was the perfect place to recover from a hangover. The evening was spent watching the All Blacks play Ireland, where I got my first sight of the All Blacks, the best looking rugby team in the world. Richie McCaw is just divine (girls, google him, you will see what I mean). I would have loved to have stayed in this hostel for longer to wait for the weather to improve for the Tongariro Crossing but time was against me unfortunately. We lost 3 more people off the bus in Tongariro, and gained a guy called Phil.

We woke up the next morning to see snow falling. It was actually really exciting, I was straight out in the courtyard taking photos. We drove down the mountain and strangely the further down we got the more snow there was. We stopped off at a roadside cafe and had a little bit of a snowball fight, as there was 4 inches of snow covering the ground. It was great fun. The scenery from the window of the bus was incredible, as we could actually see all the surrounding mountains. We were heading down to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital and the last stop on the north island. We arrived in the early afternoon, and Morrie, who is actually from Wellington, took us to the man made beach on the harbour front, which was beautiful. The sun was shining, which made it even better. We then headed up to the top of Mount Victoria for views out over the city and across the sea which were again absolutely stunning. I spent the afternoon shopping for even warmer clothes and a hat, and I immediately loved Wellington. I could easily have spent a few days there, as there is a fair amount to see, including a reputedly amazing museum on New Zealand history which Camilla and Enda went to. I felt so comfortable wandering around on my own, and I intend to return there and spend much more time exploring, maybe even work there. In the evening, the 4 girls that were left on the bus decided to go and see the Sex and the City movie. It was a great evening, the film was brill and I got to know Camilla and Natalie a bit better – we ended up being pretty inseparable by the end of the trip, I really miss those girls, they were so much fun. We had to say goodbye to Nick, Albert and Claire as they were staying in Wellington and not heading to the south island the next day, but it wasn’t too bad as we were sure we would bump into them again at some point (and we did).

We were up at 6am the next day to catch our ferry to the South Island, and there were now only 5 of us left from the original North Island bus – Natalie, Camilla, Enda, Fran and me. Luckily, Morrie was still our driver for another week, we were very happy about that. I was sad to leave the North Island, having only spent a week there it did feel like a bit of a whistle stop tour, but on the plus side as I have said I have plenty of reasons to return. And I will definitely be returning.

I can’t believe how much I have actually written for just one week, and this is only the highlights! I have thousands of pictures to bore you all with when I get home. As always, hope you are all well, and keep the comments coming. I have a feeling the entry for the South Island will be even longer than this, seeing as I spent almost 3 weeks there.

Love, Hayley xxxxx

Bali was not an entirely pleasant experience for me. It started to go wrong from when I arrived at the airport and there was no one there to meet me. I’d arranged with the hotel I was staying at in Kuta to come and get me, as I arrived at midnight. But I waited 15 minutes and when no-one showed up, I made my own way. The hotel was nice enough, but the staff behind the desk couldn’t have cared less when I said that no one had showed up to meet me. I made sure that they hadn’t charged me for the pick up (luckily for them, they hadn’t) and I made my way up to my room. I was slightly cheered up when I found a TV in my room, and even more cheered up when I turned it on to find ‘Predator’ showing.

The next morning I woke up and was pleased to see that it was bright and sunny outside. I got dressed, arranged a bus to Ubud for the following day, and took myself off on a walk to the beach. It was on this short walk, in broad daylight, that I got followed by a man. We exchanged the normal ‘good mornings’ etc, as you do, and then he started to follow me to the beach. I did my best to get rid of him, but he just wouldn’t take the hint. In the end I stopped speaking to him, and when I reached the beach he seemed to give up and stop following me. I was getting pretty nervous by this stage, and was relieved when he didn’t follow me onto the beach. I strolled along the beachfront and watched the surfers in the water for an hour or so, then I went for some lunch and then walked back to the road that my hotel was on. The first person I saw on that road was the man who had followed me earlier on, sat on the wall. As he saw me, he jumped up and started shouting at me ‘I just want to talk!’ I pretty much ran down the road, then as I slowed down a woman grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me into her shop! It was constant hassle in Kuta, and I’d had some persistent hawkers before but never been manhandled into a shop – not the best way to get someone to buy something. I was actually really scared by this time, and headed straight back to my hotel. After a couple of hours I plucked up the courage to leave my hotel room and go back to the beach to sunbathe for a couple of hours (taking a different route this time). Nobody bothered me this time (apart from the usual amount – I was, after all, still in Kuta) and I managed a reasonably happy couple of hours relaxing on the beach, as I had planned for my time in Bali. I was just really glad that I had booked my bus out of there already, after less than 24 hours I knew that Kuta was not somewhere I would want to stay. I’m sure it would be fun if you were in a group of friends, but for a girl on her own it was just scary. I spent that evening watching DVD’s on my laptop in my room – there was no way I was going out on my own after dark.

I was up bright and early the next morning for my bus, and got to Ubud in about an hour and a half. By this point, I had started to feel pretty unwell and had a nasty chesty cough. So I spent my first day in Ubud lying in bed, watching yet more DVD’s, and every now and then venturing down to the nearest cafe for hot toddies – they were amazing. And every second step you took, someone shouted ‘Taxi’, Transport’ or ‘Where you go’ at you. Enough to break even someone with unending patience. I felt a little better the following day, so went on a white water rafting trip down the Telaga River for the morning. It was absolutely hammering down with rain, but it was loads of fun. We went down a 4m waterfall in the raft, which was fantastic, and the American couple in my boat were lovely, they loved it as well – although the man said it was nothing compared to the rapids he had been on in America. I was back in Ubud by 2.30pm, so I decided to go and find an internet cafe to catch up on my emails. I wandered down to the far end of the road I was staying on, which was pretty close to a forest which was also a monkey sanctuary. I was walking along, minding my own business, when someone grabbed my shoulder. I turned round expecting to see a shop keeper, to be confronted by a large, moustachioed monkey, who then opened his mouth and hissed at me, before beginning to run forward. I screamed my head off and without even thinking ran into the middle of the road screaming ‘Help, help, a monkey is chasing me, help!’ After about half a minute, I turned around to discover that the monkey was not actually chasing me – he had disappeared into thin air – and to find everyone staring at me – some people trying to hold back their laughter (and I don’t blame them, I would have laughed). So I did the only thing I could do – carried on walking across the road as if nothing had happened and went into a shop to ask about the internet. I was so embarrassed, but honestly, it was pretty scary, I have a bit of a monkey phobia now. I spent another evening in my room as I was starting to feel pretty rough again, and I needed to be up early to get my bus to my next destination, Lovina on the north coast.

Lovina was beautiful, by far my favourite place in Bali. It was much, much quieter than anywhere I had already been. There were a couple of English lads on my bus, Dan and Joe, who I bumped into again on the beach and we got chatting, so I finally made some friends! There were still hawkers on the beach, but they were nothing like the ones in the South. The boys and I went for a drink and ended up watching the sunset over the ocean – it was stunning. We then met up for dinner a bit later on and went to a bar, where we played Jenga and Connect 4 for a couple of hours. There was a live band in the bar, with a little Balinese man singing all the 80’s classics – you’ve not heard ‘Red, Red Wine’ until you’ve heard it sung by an Asian man who can’t say his R’s properly.

I was up at 5am the next morning to go and see the sunrise over the ocean and hopefully see some dolphins. I met the man who would be driving my boat, and also a German guy called Johannes, who was on my boat with me. It was the strangest boat I have seen for a long time – very deep, enough room for only 2 people, with a great big pipe like structure going over my heads and branching out into a kind of square on either side of the boat. The sunrise was absolutely stunning, and we saw loads of dolphins – but there were at least 100 other boats out there like ours, and every time a dolphin was sighted these boats would flock en masse to where it was seen. It was like they were being chased, and neither Johannes nor I liked that, so we made our man take us back to the beach early. I did get some really stunning photographs of the dolphins before the boats got too overwhelming, but I feel kind of guilty about them. I had enough time to nip back to my hotel for breakfast and then I went off on a day trip to the west coast of the island to do some snorkelling. It took about an hour and a half to get to the west coast by bus, in sweltering heat, but my god it was worth it. We went out on a boat and moored by this little island off the west coast – on the journey to the island you could see Krakatoa, the volcano on Java. I wish I’d had enough time to go there. I then went snorkelling with one of our boat drivers, who doubled as a guide. I thought the fish in Thailand were spectacular, but that was nothing compared to the sights here. Just off shore there was a drop of 40 metres off a shelf into the deep blue ocean, and this whole area was covered in the most spectacular coral and had the most beautiful fish swimming around me – it made me want to be able to dive even more than before so I could have seen more. I even tried a bit of diving with my snorkel on to see more. I touched a sea cucumber, which was just one of the oddest feelings ever, and watched jellyfish swimming past. I am so glad I have managed to get over my fear of the ocean (well, enough to snorkel anyway) as it would be awful to not have seen the sights there. I would probably go back here once I have learnt to dive. We went to a couple more places to snorkel, and it was more of the same amazing sights – at one of them I saw a blue starfish – at first I thought it was plastic that had been abandoned, but I pointed it out to our guide and he swam down and picked it up. Then I noticed there were loads of them scattered around on the ocean floor. It was definitely one of the best day trips I have ever been on, worth every penny. I got back to Lovina and had just enough time to shower and change before heading out to meet Dan, Joe and Johannes for drinks and dinner. It was also Rachael’s birthday, and as this was the first year since we were about 12 that we haven’t spent our birthdays together, I told all the lads that we would be going out for a few drinks and celebrating for Rach Bali style. They didn’t take much persuading to be honest. We ended up in the same bar as the night before, and got very, very drunk. We played more Jenga, Connect 4, and then moved onto pool. They band let me have a go on their drum kit (by this point I was hammered) and then some of the locals wanted to play me at pool. And in the words of Dan, I got badly beaten by a man wearing a curtain. It was a fantastic night, I didn’t get back to my hotel until about 2am. I was leaving Lovina the next morning, but had arranged to meet Dan and Joe again. It involved a return to Ubud but I didn’t mind, as we were going to climb an active volcano together.

I was up early for my bus the next day, with a little bit of a sore head, and headed to Sanur for a couple of days. I found a room, and then headed straight to the beach to sunbathe my hangover away. It was lovely as I hardly got hassled at all while I was on the beach – as per usual though, walking down the street I got asked constantly if I wanted transport – I don’t think anyone walks anywhere in Bali. I arranged to go to the Safari Park the next day. That place was brilliant. The architecture and carvings around the place were interesting enough to look at, and there were loads of animals. I had my photo taken with a baby tiger called Raka – she and her brother were 2 months old and they were absolutely gorgeous. I spent a lot of time hanging around this area and asking the keeper’s questions about the tiger cubs, they were so playful. I watched the keepers de-fleaing them as well – that didn’t go down too well. I also spent a lot of time watching the white tigers. They were beautiful, but spent most of their time sleeping. I got some good photos of them, my patience paid off. I had lunch in a restaurant from which you could see where the lions lived – one of the lionesses was prowling up and down outside the restaurant windows, she kept looking in and roaring. I went on the safari trip around the park, which was far better than the one in Singapore, the animals did actually have areas to wander round, and they all seemed happy and well cared for. The only thing I didn’t like was the elephant show – it was like they were being forced to perform tricks, so I walked out after a couple of minutes. After a few hours I headed back to Sanur and got myself a facial and the best pedicure of my life – I got it done at the end of May, as I write this it is mid July and the varnish still hasn’t chipped! Incredible!

The next day I headed back to Ubud to meet up with Dan and Joe. I arrived mid morning, so after checking into my room I thought I’d have a proper wander around, as I never got the chance the first time around due to feeling so rubbish. I bought a few things to send home for the family, and then bumped into Dan and Joe completely by chance. We arranged our volcano climb for the following day and then did our own thing in the afternoon. I got chatting to Claire and Peter, an Irish couple in the room next door to me, they were lovely and I had a couple of drinks with them before getting ready to meet the boys for dinner. I met the boys for dinner, and Johannes also joined us, which was lovely as we weren’t sure if he was back in Ubud as well. Claire and Peter joined us and we went for a couple of drinks. We went back to our rooms at about midnight, and then I was up again at 2.30am for my night hike up Mt Batur, an active volcano in time for sunrise. We started the climb at 4am, with 2 torches between 4 of us providing the only light, in the complete darkness, and got to the summit at about 5.15am. It was a pretty hard climb, all sand and slippery stones up the track to the top but it was so worth it. Our group was the first one to reach the top, so we had a little while to save ourselves the best spots for watching sunrise. It was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen in my life. As the sun came up, you could see Mt Gunung Agung, which is the biggest volcano and peak in Bali, and also see the mountains and volcanos of Lombok in the distance, the island which neighbours Bali. Mt Batur, which we climbed, last erupted in 1999, and the eruption lasted for nearly a whole year. We walked around the old crater, which last erupted in 1824. All eruptions since then have been out of the west crater, which we weren’t allowed to go to (or so our guide said, I think he was just being lazy though, as I definitely saw other groups heading across the mountain). It was fascinating seeing all the steam coming out of vents all over the place – at one point we were walking across a grassy area and the steam was rising all around us. One of the best experiences of my life. We were back down the bottom of the volcano by 9am and I then saw all the signs at the bottom saying who was able to climb the volcano – apparently ‘women do not climb when menstruating’. I wonder who has to check that one. Gross. We spent the day chilling out, and in the evening Dan, Joe and I went for my last evening out in South East Asia. And it was truly amazing. Claire and Peter met up with us again for a few drinks, but as the boys and I had been up pretty much 24 hours, we didn’t last that long in the drinking stakes. Even though I hadn’t known Joe and Dan that long, I was really sad to say goodbye to them – if it weren’t for them I don’t think I would have enjoyed Bali very much at all.

The next morning, I was up early, once again, for my bus to Kuta. My flight to New Zealand was at 11pm, so I had a whole day to kill. As I was waiting for my bus, I watched a man from a shop try and shoot a monkey from the rooftops using a slingshot – I was silently cheering him on. I got back to the hellhole that is Kuta and managed to rent myself a room just for the day, so I had somewhere to store my stuff. I ended up needing it to sleep though, as I took myself off to the beach but had a bit of a funny turn (I nearly fainted in McDonalds) so luckily made it back to my room and slept until it was time to get ready to go to the airport. I finally made it to the airport and was stung one final time – a 150,000 rupiah surcharge to leave the country. I was so glad to be leaving I willingly paid it.
Bali was ok, Lovina and Sanur were lovely – I think that if you avoided the main tourist areas you’d find that the country was a really beautiful place to be. I definitely felt safer once I’d made friends, but I definitely wouldn’t go back to Kuta willingly. It was a bit of a shame that my last place in South East Asia was not really somewhere I loved as much as I loved the rest of it but in a way it made it easier for me to leave for New Zealand. I would have loved to have seen some more of Indonesia, and will definitely go back there, just will probably skip Bali.

So, now I am almost up to date – prepare yourselves for the New Zealand blogs - they could be pretty lengthy.....

Love, Hayley xxxxx

Malaysia was a bit of an odd one for me – it was the first place I would be travelling to truly on my own since Casey left. But I soon learnt that what everyone tells you is true – you are very rarely travelling on your own. I spent the bus journey down to Kuala Lumpur chatting to an 18 year old girl who was also travelling by herself. We arrived at 4am in the middle of the city, which was pretty daunting for me. As usual, we got surrounded by taxi touts shoving boards with details of their hotels on them under my nose. And as I’d only just woken up, I was pretty dopey. I’d booked my accommodation already, so found a taxi driver who was hanging back from the crowd just a little (honestly, you do get really fed up with the pushy ones) and got taken to my hostel. The first thing I saw when I approached the front door was a massive rat running along under the closed up stalls on the pavement – but then again I was in Chinatown, and I’d been warned that it wasn’t the cleanest area in the city to be.

I spent my first day in KL wandering around the city just taking in the sights and sounds. It is not a big city, but I thought it was lovely – I could actually see myself living there. The locals were all really friendly (if not a bit pushy, but then again it was still SE Asia). I went up to the top of the Menura tower, the 4th tallest building in the world, for views out across the city and then strolled along to the famous PETRONAS Towers. I was going to go up on the sky bridge but had missed out on the tickets for the day – the sky bridge is free to go on to, but they only give out a limited number of tickets on a first come, first served basis. So instead I spent 5 hours wandering around the shopping centre at the base of the towers. It was almost like I was at home – there was a Body Shop, Topshop, La Senza, MAC and a Zara. There was also a massive Marks and Spencers (although I was really disappointed when I found out there was no food court in there). When I eventually left the towers night had fallen, so got to see the towers all lit up – it was stunning. I also got to see the lake behind the centre at night; all the fountains in there were lit up as well. I met up with my friend Mark (aka Goldilocks) in the shopping centre with his friend Dominic from Canada (more about him later) and we ended up going to the cinema. I’d had a great day just strolling around on my own, but it was very nice to see a familiar face. We went to see Prince Caspian, the new Narnia film....I wish I’d waited till the DVD, but never mind.

The next day I met up with Mark and Dominic, and we went for breakfast at a guesthouse. Nothing that special, until you realised that every single one of the staff was actually a transvestite. How I didn’t realise that as soon as I walked in I don’t know, they were the butchest ‘ladies’ I had ever seen, and their voices were Frank Bruno deep. The breakfast was great! Once again I missed out on sky bridge tickets despite getting to the towers at about 11am – but never mind, it gives me an excuse to go back! I treated myself to a couple of bits from Topshop and La Senza and then the 3 of us walked to Kuala Lumpur Park for the afternoon. I thought the park was gorgeous – the only thing that spoilt it slightly was that the lake had obviously dried up during the dry season, so it wasn’t as spectacular as it could have been. The planetarium was in the park, and also a complete scaled down replica of Stonehenge. There were loads of funny little statues and monuments all over the place; they were pretty amusing and really unusual.

On the way back to my hostel to get ready for dinner, I had to negotiate my way through Chinatown and all the hawkers. I needed new sunglasses, so I stopped at a little stall and tried some on. I found a pair I liked (while the ever present man hovered behind me) and managed to bargain the man down from 200 ringgit to 80. I opened my wallet to pay the man, and realised I only had 30 in my wallet. I told the man that I would have to go and get some money, and he seemed to think that I was going to go away and not come back! I explained that if he held the glasses back for me I would buy them, but by then he had called his mate over. They kept saying ‘You can pay in any currency!’ to which I had to explain, yes, that’s fine, but I only have this currency and only this much. The man then leaned over and took the money I had straight out of my wallet! So I grabbed the sunglasses out of his hand and made my merry way back to my hostel...pretty quickly as well, before they could catch up with me. They did themselves out of 50 ringgits (just under a pound) there, as I would have gone back with the 80 ringgits they wanted. Crazy though, I was mad that the man had just taken the money out of my wallet like that.

I spent the evening with Mark and Dominic again, we went for dinner, and then wandered through Chinatown for a bit. It is really pretty there at night, there are little red lanterns that light up the streets and the smell of all the food is just incredible – you could buy just about anything you fancied, as long as it was roasted chestnuts. We then went to the rooftop bar of my hostel to watch the FA Cup final - pretty gutted that Cardiff lost out, but was really pleased that I found somewhere that was showing it! And so close to my bed too!

The next day I was up bright and early to catch my bus to Singapore. Dominic was also coming with me, which I wasn’t too happy about, and got even less happy about as time went on – I don’t think the man had more than 1 shower in the 4 days that I knew him (and imagine being sat on a sweltering hot bus for 5 hours next to someone that you know hasn’t washed....gross) and he complained about the price of everything! Ii kept saying ‘Well, you don’t have to come with me if you think it’s too expensive, but I’m going’ and he would still come, but continue to moan about the price. It did my head in, I can tell you. Kuala Lumpur and Singapore were both absolutely boiling – I needed 2 showers a day just to feel semi clean. The bus journey, apart from the smell emanating from Dominic, was not too bad – Dom got stopped at customs at the Singapore border because he had a big tribal knife visible and accessible in his backpack. The knife was blunt, but honestly, who carries a big old knife, blunt or not, in luggage where it can be easily accessed? (Can you see why he might have annoyed me a bit??Ha ha) Of course, customs confiscated it and he was not happy about this – I didn’t hear about anything else for the rest of the bus trip. I stayed at a hostel in Little India called the Inn Crowd 2, which was actually really pleasant. I don’t think I’d stay in Little India again, mainly because the amount of looks I got just walking down the street from the Indian men freaked me out a bit – and I was pretty well covered up as well. It was also really expensive in Singapore – I went out for a beer on the first night and paid almost 4 pounds for a pint of beer – and it wasn’t even very nice beer! Our hostel had slightly cheaper beer, so I decided to only drink there from now on.

I only had one full day in Singapore, so I decided to catch the cable car across to Sentosa Island and check out the various tourist attractions there – my shadow came with me. I caught the subway down to the docks – it was like the Hong Kong subway, really clean and so easy to use. The cable car across to Sentosa was nice; I got to see some pretty good views of Singapore on the way across. I went up the Carlsberg tower when I got to Sentosa, which was like the Menura tower in KL, but not as tall – the views from up there were stunning, and the viewing platform revolved so you didn’t miss anything. I then went to see the Merlion, which is the national symbol of Singapore. You go inside this massive station of the Merlion, hear about the history of Singapore and then go up to the top of his head for more great views out over the city and the ocean. The beaches at Sentosa are manmade, but they made me wish I had bought my swimming costume with me, they looked beautiful. After the Merlion we went on the luge, and that was great fun. I loved speeding down the track, and really wanted to go again, but it was pretty expensive so I decided to save my money (Dom obviously had some effect on me!) We had to catch a chair lift back up to the area with all the attractions, which went right over the beaches – we spent most of the ride looking backwards over to the ocean. Our final stop on Sentosa was the Butterfly farm. It was a lovely garden to walk around, but to be honest you didn’t really see more than one species of butterfly, and they were pretty hard to come by. There was a lovely great iguana in there and some parrots, but I expected loads of tropical coloured butterflies to be flying around my head. There was a turtle swimming about in a cage, and it had the longest neck I have ever seen – I took a photo, it looked that freaky. The museum at the end of the farm was really interesting though, loads of different insects mounted in display cases (dead, obviously) and telling you about them and where they came from.

We headed back over to the mainland on the cable cars again and went back to the hostel for a couple of hours before going out to Singapore Zoo on the night safari. This was something I was really excited about doing, and I ended up being pretty disappointed. The adverts made it sound like you would see loads of animals wandering around while you were in a closed in vehicle – like a real safari. In actual fact, it was a tram ride around the cages of the animals, and half the time the light was so bad that you couldn’t see the animals anyway. The leopards in particular looked really sad. The best thing that I saw was the tribal fire show at the beginning, before you got into the night safari. Dominic got picked to go on stage, he kind of stands out in a crowd as he is about 8 foot tall (ok, probably only about 6’5”, but he makes you feel very small when you’re stood next to him) and he looked really uncomfortable – they were holding flaming torches up to him and telling him to breathe fire like them. I got some great photos, and it was one hell of a show.

The following day I was just killing time before going to the airport to catch my flight to Bali – I went to the local shopping centre and bought myself a laptop for pretty cheap (a great investment I thought) and then just hung around the hostel. I was reading my book outside the hostel when a strange Indian man approached me, and started questioning me about what I was reading. I was reading a Stephen King book, so I showed him the cover and he said ‘Ah, Step-ee-han King’. I had to work really hard not to laugh when he said that. He then asked me if I could actually read....bless, I don’t think he was all there. I got rid of him in a nice, patient way and then about 5 minutes later he came back and sat on a bench outside the hostel looking over at me. I was chatting to an English couple who were staying at my hostel then, and as I glanced over in his direction I noticed him take a disposable camera out of his bag, snap a photo of me, then he stood up and walked away. How bizarre.

I liked Singapore, but 2 days was definitely enough - it was pretty expensive for food and drink. It was nice and clean and there were signs everywhere about being fined if you dropped litter, cigarette ends – basically anything you dropped onto the streets, you would be fined for it if caught. They are in the process of building a Universal Studios on Sentosa Island, so I would probably go and visit that when it was up and running.

So, then I was headed to Bali, my last stop in South East Asia, and at this point I was feeling really sad about that – I’d had an amazing 3 and a half months and really didn’t want it to end.

Once again, I’ve rambled on forever, so I’m off to make a cup of tea before starting to type up the Bali instalment – I’m finally starting to catch up with myself now I’ve stopped moving around so much!

Missing you all,
Love, Hayley xxxx

After the craziness that was the city of Bangkok, we headed down to the islands in the South of Thailand for some sun, sea and sand – the guys wanted to relax on a beach for their last two weeks travelling, and I had no objections to this plan! We headed to Ko Phi Phi Don, an island just south of Phuket on the west coast of Thailand. We had to get a ferry across to the island from the bus terminal which took 2 hours. We arrived onto the beautiful island in glorious sunshine, and managed to get accommodation pretty easily, although as usual as soon as we got off the boat we were surrounded by hordes of touts – it gets so annoying, but you do get used to it (bizarrely) We dumped our bags in our rooms and headed straight to the beach, which was just absolutely stunning. A small bay surrounded by massive limestone formations of the island itself – it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. You just couldn’t imagine seeing that tsunami rolling in on Boxing Day 2004, but the evidence of what happened is still all over the island. They have managed to rebuild the island mostly, but there are still some buildings which were obviously demolished by the tsunami which have never been rebuilt. That night was the ‘bucket’ night (if you saw my profile picture on facebook, you will know what I mean) where Trisha and I decided to look into the night life that Ko Phi Phi had to offer. It was a very good night, we had a great time but drank far too much, with the result that the next day was spent lying by our pool and on the beach recovering from pretty nasty hangovers. That evening we went to a bar on the other side of the island to watch a fire show, which was absolutely incredible – I got some fab photos and videos, it was incredibly impressive to watch and a great atmosphere.

We were booked on a snorkelling tour for the next day, my first time ever snorkelling to try and get over my fear of the ocean before booking a PADI diving course, and so the 4 of us turned up, met our tour group and got onto a little wooden longboat with about 8 other people for the trip. Our driver looked like a walrus – he had a moustache and only 2 teeth remaining in his mouth – his incisors, which made him look very, very scary. The sky was grey and cloudy from the off, and when we reached the first snorkel site I refused to get in, as the sea was getting pretty rough from the wind, which was picking up speedily. The guys had been in the water no more than 5 minutes before the heavens opened and a storm started right above the island – with us, in this tiny little wooden longboat. The driver took us to a bay round the corner to shelter but the rain was coming down harder and harder, with no sign of letting up, and the thunder and lightning had started with a vengeance. The boat decided as a whole that we would like to go back to the island as there was no point continuing in this weather on a snorkelling trip, and when we told the guy he pretty much ignored us and started just gunning the boat out to open water! We were shouting at him for about -5 minutes before he actually listened to us and turned the boat around – we think it was when we said we didn’t care about the money, he seemed to be more worried about getting paid than about our safety. We were told that we could go on the trip the next day for free, which was good as it meant I still got to go snorkelling. We spent the rest of the afternoon in Claire and Gary’s posh room watching their TV and listening to the rain lashing outside – it didn’t stop until it had gotten dark, it was the most miserable day we had seen up until that point. That evening we discovered that Kev, Andy and Colm had arrived on Ko Phi Phi, so we went to meet them for a couple of drinks and it turned into a great night out. We went to a place with a Thai boxing ring, where they had real fights but also let tourists get in the ring and fight their friends. This was really funny, but really dangerous. The couple of fights that I saw between friends were between guys who were incredibly drunk. One guy was so drunk he could barely stand up, he ended up falling through the ropes at the edge of the ring onto the floor after using them to steady his balance. We then went upstairs and had a good old dance, the first one since Vietnam, Claire and I went a little crazy.

Trisha and I dragged ourselves out of bed the next morning to make our free snorkelling trip (with the same crazy driver as the day before), and it was definitely worth it. The weather was still not great, raining and a little breezy, but nowhere near the awful storm conditions of the day before. It was the first time I had ever been snorkelling, and I was really nervous but I did it! Trisha took me off the shore of the first island that we visited and then when the boat stopped in the middle of the islands I was straight in. The sights were awesome, I cannot believe I have never snorkelled before. Just the colours of the fish amazed me. Our driver, who I am actually convinced was evil, started throwing the scraps of fruit left over from lunch into the water, right at my face, so hundreds of little yellow and blue fish started swimming at my face. Bit scary to be honest, I did have to jump out of the water pretty quick. Then we were taken to a little cove in between all the limestone rocks and islands, and told to get out of the boat and swim towards a hole in the wall about 50 metres away from the boat. So, with my newfound bravery regarding swimming in the ocean, I jumped in and headed towards the hole. It was all very Lara Croft like. We had to pull ourselves up some ropes and climb through the cave to get onto the island, Ko Phi Phi Lei. Then we had to walk across the island to find Maya Bay, where they filmed ‘The Beach’. It was absolutely stunning but was a lot warmer to sit in the ocean than on the beach itself. Then we had a white knuckle ride across the ever increasing waves back to Ko Phi Phi Don – I honestly thought at some points that we were going to be turfed out of the boat. And no, there were not enough life jackets to go round the 10 of us that were squashed into the boat. The scariest thing was looking at our boat driver, who grinned and sniggered to himself the whole way back – I honestly think he was not all there. Hs teeth definitely weren’t anyway.

Unfortunately I was not able to do the PADI course due to the fact that I did not lie about ever having had asthma. I could have got a Dr’s note to let me do it, but despite there being both a hospital and medical centre on Ko Phi Phi, there were no doctors – apparently they had all run off to Bangkok and no one knew when their replacements were coming. The guys did go ahead, and I was incredibly jealous. I spent the days sunbathing (for one afternoon, the sun came out for long enough to do this) and reading. We ended up staying on Ko Phi Phi for a few days longer than expected, but we had a great time.

We then decided to head to Krabi, as we had heard that the rock climbing there was really good and also the snorkelling (I wasn’t too keen on rock climbing). Unfortunately, from the second we arrived at Krabi town to the moment we left Railay Beach 3 days later it pretty much poured down non stop. We had another white knuckle ride in a long boat to Railay Beach, when I was almost certain that we were going to lose our bags to the ocean. A storm actually started while we were in the middle of the water, which was pretty frightening. And when we landed at Railay, we had to walk through the water at knee height, with our massive bags on our bags, along a very narrow stone gangway. The water was pretty murky due to the storm so you couldn’t see the sides, where the water was actually pretty deep. And it was so slippery, it took us about 20 minutes to reach the shore, which was probably no more than 20 metres away. We splashed out on a posh room with a tv, as we didn’t really have much else to do. The sun would be out until about midday, so we would get to the beach early and you could almost set your watch by the clouds coming in and signalling the start of the afternoon downpour, which would last until the evening and sometimes right through the night. It was a shame, as Railay Beach was a beautiful setting but the weather just wasn’t right to enjoy it properly.

Our last stop in Thailand was Ko Phang Ngan, for the Half Moon party. Once again, we had a massive storm while we were on the ferry across to the island. The sky actually went this really deep electric blue colour – it was absolutely amazing. What was not so great was riding in a tuk tuk across the island from the ferry terminal to our accommodation – a 20 minute ride in pouring rain. Our accommodation was fantastic though, we stayed at the Coco Hut Village, and it was great – big swimming pool, right by the beach, with an amazing spa on the beach and a great TV lounge, with loads of DVD’s to watch in the main lounge. I didn’t do much in Ko Phang Ngan, as the weather meant that most of the activities were not worth doing. Trisha, Claire and I went to the Half Moon Party, which was quite a sight. It was in the middle of the jungle about 20 minutes out of town, and it was just loads and loads of neon – painted on booths, walls, trees and of course people. We thought the cover charge to get in was a bit extortionate, so having had a few beers, we decided to jump the fence just down from the entrance point and run through the trees to the main area – I am still really surprised that we didn’t get caught, we weren’t exactly quiet about what we were going to do! It was a really funny night, loads of dancing and people watching, we got back to the hotel at about 5am, and I stayed up at the hotel bar (24 hour bars are really not that good an idea) until about 6am.

Claire, Gary and I left Ko Phang Ngan at about 6am in the morning and were on the same ferry back to the mainland – them for their flight to Bangkok and me for my bus to Kuala Lumpur. It was so sad saying goodbye to them, there were tears in the middle of the car park when we eventually had to get off the bus and separate. I travelled with them for pretty much 3 months solid – I’ve not spent that much time with anyone before and I still really miss them and Trisha (bearing in mind I am writing this at the beginning of July after having met many other people on my travels since) I cannot wait to get to Ireland to visit them, although when that will be who knows?
So, that was the end of Thailand, and to me the end of an era (well, I’m sure you know what I mean). I’d like to apologise for the massive delay in posting this blog – this is partly due to my own laziness and partly due to being kept incredibly busy since I left Thailand. I’m now settled for a bit in Australia so will be able to update my blog over the next couple of weeks (and it will probably take a while – I have 4 more countries to do yet!)

As always, I am thinking of you all and missing everyone, hope you are all well, and you will be hearing more from me soon (I promise). Would be nice to hear from you as well, I do love reading the comments.

Lots of Love, Hayley xxxx

Once again, apologies for the length of time it has taken to get this posted – I am now the proud owner of a laptop (Singapore rocks for cheap electricals) and so I might even get photo’s posted on here soon – providing I am in Wi-Fi areas for long enough that is!

So, after the amazing month that was Laos, I did not expect to be too blown away by Thailand – I had heard that it was very westernised and I had gotten used to being in places where it was not that easy to get hold of Dairy Milk or chocolate éclairs (how I’ve been craving a decent chocolate éclair!) And at first I thought I was going to be proved right – we crossed the border from Laos into Thailand (a 2 minute boat ride – cool!) and pretty much the first thing I saw as we entered the main town was a 7-11 store. So the Dairy Milk problem was sorted anyway (although Cadbury’s here doesn’t taste quite right....).

We got on a bus to Chiang Mai, the nearest city in the North, and settled in for a long, uncomfortable journey on a bus where there were benches on either side of the bus, room for 3 (apparently) on one side, a very skinny aisle and then a normal 2 seater on the other side. It was hot, sticky and uncomfortable – I spent most of the ride to Chiang Mai with my bottom hanging off the edge of the seat into the aisle as I was unfortunate enough to be sat on the end of the 3 seater bench. And, as per usual, the sir con didn’t work. We eventually arrived in Chiang Mai and found somewhere to stay – the Banana Guest House. This place came highly recommended in the Lonely Planet and by the recommendations on the walls from previous guests (I especially liked the life-size drawing of Bananaman) but the place was like a sauna – I think I got about 10 minutes sleep through the whole night. So the next morning we had a mutual agreement that we would find somewhere with more powerful fans, and decided to treat ourselves to an air conditioned room in a lovely hotel with a swimming pool – it was great! Chiang Mai was a fantastic city with loads to do – for the first couple of days we lazed by the pool and took advantage of the good weather. We also took the time to familiarise ourselves with the local beers, Chang and Singha. After 2 small bottles of Chang I felt a little bit more drunk than I should have – I then realised it was 6.4%! Needless to say, I stuck to Singha afterwards, a much more respectable 5%. Gary overindulged on the large bottles of Chang, which gave him a pretty savage hangover – that stuff is lethal.

We went downhill mountain biking down a real mountain on a dirt track, which was great fun but pretty nerve wracking – I did fall off a couple of times, and I bought up the rear pretty much the whole way down with one of the guides, Toonin, who had the patience of a saint. We were so kitted out in safety gear I thought I was on Gladiators. Claire actually managed to break the front of her bike, so we all had to have a swap around, and I ended up with Toonin’s bike – the suspension was so bouncy that when I was stood up on the pedals the bike would actually jump up and hit me on my ass – I was very sore by the end of the day. That evening, we went to Thai boxing match and were sat so close to the ring we could hear every slap and punch. It was fantastic, the boxers were so respectful of each other and they have rituals in each corner of the ring before they fight, and if they knock their opponent out they rush over to make sure they are ok. It was so much fun – the best bit was when 4 guys got in the ring blindfolded and then fought as half time entertainment. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, one guy spent the best part of 5 minutes beating the crap out of one of the corner cushions, and at one point the referee obviously lost his temper and administered a flying kick which sent a guy absolutely flying across the ring. Bloody brilliant. After the fights, we were treated to a ‘cabaret’ show, which mainly consisted of the lady boys that Thailand is famous for getting in the ring and miming to Cher and Tina Turner songs – sometimes with no tops on so their boobs were on display, and you could also see their packages down below. It was pretty disturbing, so we left pretty sharpish. We had met one of the guys from our bike tour at the boxing match, a Welsh guy called Mark, and after we left the boxing we went to a nearby reggae bar which was on the fourth floor of a shop building, with views over some of Chiang Mai. It was a very relaxed bar, and we ended up getting pretty merry – Mark was singing Welsh opera to Claire, and I had to do my very best not to laugh out loud as it was terrible. We met 3 more Irish boys in the bar (I am a magnet for the Irish!) called Colum, Andy and Kev, and Trisha and I ended up going to a funny little nightclub with them to continue our evening out. We hailed a tuk tuk and got taken to a club on the outskirts of the city called the V club, where we were the only westerners, the drinks were incredibly overpriced and Colum had 2 men massaging him in the toilets when he went for a wee – needless to say, we had one drink and then we left as soon as possible. The 5 of us, plus a random Israeli guy, piled into a tuk tuk (which seat 3) to go back to town and we serenaded the driver with ‘Never Forget’ by Take That – and you will probably be surprised to hear that for once it was not instigated by me – I never knew Irish lads were such Take That fans. The tuk tuk broke down halfway back to the city, and we then had to wait for the driver’s friend to come and pick us up in his flat bed jeep. It was also raining, so I spent 20 minutes in the back of a jeep with no roof in the rain – so much fun.

I was up bright and early the next day for my cooking course – I can fully recommend this as the best hangover cure ever. We got taken to a local market to see the ingredients in their natural state and to actually buy them, and then got taken to the chef’s house to do the cooking part of the course. There were about 20 of us altogether, and it was a great day. I have learnt to cook some of my favourite Thai dishes, including the fantastic Tom Yam Goong (really spicy hot and sour soup with prawns) and Pad Thai noodles – I can’t wait to get in a kitchen to try and cook them myself. We basically spent the whole day eating; I was stuffed by the time we had finished. The teacher was really funny; he kept pretending he was on a TV show. Every time he tasted something that he had made he would close his eyes, give his head a little shake and whisper ‘Unbelievable’. And then he would crack up laughing. It was hilarious. I got some great photos.

From Chiang Mai we headed south to Khao Yai National Park. We took an all day train and promptly realised why night trains are better – enough said. We stopped in a town called Ayutthaya overnight and then got back on the train the next morning to get to Pak Chong, the best town to sort out treks to the national park. The legends that are Steve and Lesley Warrington were kind enough to let me know where they stayed when they visited the same area, so we made our way there and found Steve and Lesley’s names in the guestbook, which was pretty cool. We went on an afternoon trip to look at the local surroundings, which included a dip in a natural pool and a visit to a bat cave. There were thousands and thousands of bats sleeping in this cave and flying about above our heads. It was pretty impressive. Our guide gave us this plant and told us to put it under our tongue as part of the tour, and after about a minute these things popped in your mouth and gave you one hell of a shock – it was really funny once you got over it, I would like to bring some home to play tricks on people. We were supposed to go to another cave to see thousands of bats streaming out at sunset on their way out to hunt, but before we got there a massive storm settled over Pak Chong and the rain poured down in what looked like sheets, so even though we still went to the cave opening, we could not see the bats coming out as the sky was just too dark from storm clouds. The storm was amazing though, as all storms in this part of the world seem to be. There were 7 of us on the tour altogether, the 4 of us and an Aussie guy called Alex, who was very serious and a Dutch couple called Hans and Dittie. They were lovely, but I know a little more about their love life than I would consider necessary!
The next day we were due to go on a full day tour around the National Park, ending in a sunset trip around the park to see some of the nocturnal animals that live there. We set off fairly early and saw some stunning views from halfway up the mountain over the town below. We were issued with some very sexy leech socks to wear over our trousers inside our trainers, and were taken to the park office. That place was really interesting, especially two stuffed tigers which apparently got a taste for human flesh so had to be shot to protect the park rangers. We were then taken on a trek through the jungle for an hour, which was brilliant. We saw gibbon monkeys swinging through the branches overhead, calling to each other in the eerie way that they have, and lots of funny looking insects. I flicked no less than 40 leeches off my shoes and leech socks on the way through, and was shocked to discover that somehow a leech had gotten through my leech socks and my actual socks. I pulled it off pretty quick but I was not as grossed out as I thought I would be. We had been in the jungle for about 45 minutes when the heavens opened again and we got absolutely soaked. Our guide provided us with the obligatory ponchos and we set off to the hut for our lunch. We had to walk through all this really tall grass and it felt to me like we were in Jurassic Park - I expected raptors to surround us at any point – I was reading The Lost World at this point, and yes, I am sad anyway.

The rain didn’t let up while we were eating our lunch in the hut on stilts, so we trudged through the rain back to our truck to go to the visitors centre to make sure there were no leeches on us. When I pulled off my leech sock I was shocked to discover another leech wound.....but no leech. It had obviously been on me for a while, as there was quite a lot of blood running down my ankle, and it didn’t stop properly until the next day. Again, I still didn’t freak out but it was gross. I discovered another leech on my knee when we got back in the truck – I seemed to be a leech magnet. I still have very faint marks on my ankle from the ‘attack’ (if you can call it that, seeing as you can’t feel them when they attach themselves to you). We were then taken to a waterfall which was apparently used in ‘The Beach’ – I’ve seen that film many times, and it looked a lot smaller than I imagined, but we didn’t get to see it from the ground as, yep, you’ve guessed it, it was still raining really hard! It was a very impressive waterfall though. We were supposed to be going to see another waterfall but by this point we were all cold and wet, as our truck did not have sides and even though we had ponchos on we were getting soaked so we asked the guide if we could cut the tour short, as the rain showed no signs of stopping. He agreed, and apart from having to move a tree out of the road which had fallen over in the storm we had, we got back with no troubles. We did see a load of monkeys alongside the road on the way back, some with babies attached to their stomachs, which were very cute – I got loads of photos. And as we were in the truck, I was not really nervous of them – I have been nervous of monkeys ever since the incident in Vietnam. We got back to the hostel about 5m, and within 10 minutes the rain had stopped – typical! But despite having to cut the tour short due to the weather, it was still a great day and we saw some amazing stuff.

The next day saw us board a luxury bus to Bangkok – it was amazing, they gave us free Coke and water, the seats were really comfortable and they showed an English film – ok, it was ‘War of the Worlds’, so it was rubbish, but the thought was there. I did not expect to like Bangkok at all, I thought it would be a dirty, nasty city with lots of touts and hawkers fighting to shout at you in the street but I was pleasantly surprised. The city itself was clean, ok the taxi drivers were a bit persistent and a bit rude at times but mostly everyone was lovely – as we had come to find everywhere we had been in Thailand so far. We spent a day and a half in Bangkok, and I wish we’d had longer to explore some more of the sights in the city. I really loved it there. Once we’d found somewhere to stay we headed to the shopping district – MBK shopping centre. That place is amazing, and I fully intend to go back to Bangkok to do some serious shopping before I head back to the UK. I also managed to finally satisfy my chocolate éclair craving in there, with a proper éclair which had proper cream in it – heaven! That evening we had the best Pad Thai ever – from a lady who was cooking it on a street stall. It was fantastic. We then headed to the neon wonderland that is the famous Khao San Road. Again, I was not expecting to like it, but I thought it was great. Loads of stalls selling clothes, books, jewellery and fake driving licences (seriously), loads of bars and a really good atmosphere. We sat on a street bar, basically just a load of plastic stools set up by a shack selling buckets of cocktails and cheap beer, and watched the human traffic going up and down Khao San Road. It turned into a bit of a reunion, as we ended up drinking with a couple who we met in Chiang Mai on our cooking course, then we saw Kate and Mudsey, the English couple we met in Vang Vieng and finally the Irish lads from Chiang Mai made an appearance. The police came along and shut down the bar we were drinking in, so we were forced to move on to a real bar, which was showing the Liverpool game (the one where they got knocked out of the running for the Champions League final – Claire and Mudsey were not happy). I ended up going to a club with one of the Irish lads, as neither of us were really football fans, and we managed to find a club that was playing 5ive, a favourite band of mine from my teenage years – it was great! A fantastic night all round. Trisha and I spent the next day wandering around MBK and the shopping district surrounding it, as we were too hungover to do anything else, and I spent the day just eating my hangover away. We were booked on a night bus to Ko Phi Phi, an island down in the south of Thailand, to get some serious tanning time on the famously beautiful beaches – and that is a story for the next blog, because as usual I have rambled on for far too long and I am sure you are all thinking about putting the kettle on at this stage!

As always, missing you all loads, hope everyone is well, take care. Keep the comments coming!

Love, Hayley xx