Malaysia and Singapore

We had a very early departure from Thailand to head to Malaysia with alarm clocks going off from around 4.30am or so! We had mini buses waiting for us to take us to the ferry port where we were meeting another bus which would take us on the ferry and to meet another bus on the mainland which would then bring us to the border. We had an early breakfast thanks to the wonders of a 7/11 shop at the port and then we got on the bus which drove us a short distance to the ferry. The ferry was about 45 minutes but after being up so early I pretty much just slept through it. The bus journey was fine and we provided some entertainment for some local school kids who were also on the bus with us! We changed from the big bus to two mini buses which drove us to the border and guided us through the process. In honesty there was very little they had to do. It was by far the easiest border we have done all along the way. We got stamped out of Thailand fairly swift and getting into Malaysia was even less hassle with s quick stamp and sticker in the passport. And then that was it, country 18 of 21! Back on the mini buses we got and then drove on to the island of Penang. Luckily getting to this island didn’t involve any ferry...so how did we get there??!! Well Penang has a 13.5km bridge linking it to the mainland! The bridge was huge. We were crossing it at dusk and at first I wasn’t quite sure what was going on as the sea and sky were just one blended grey colour. Then I copped on that it was a big ass bridge. Funny moment when, after about 5 minutes of driving on the bridge, Brian looked up from his laptop and said “Oh look, we are on a bridge!” We all laughed and informed him that we had been on it for quite awhile to which he replies “Well, just as well I pointed it out or else you all would have missed it!” so we got some little amusement before we got off our buses and headed into the hostel. Once we had dropped our bags we went in the hunt for atms and some dinner. We were successful in both missions and once we were fed and watered we all collapsed straight into bed.

The following day was our main day in Penang and in all honesty I didn’t find anything too exciting! I got up and headed out for a walk with Rhona and after an hour or so we hadn’t find anything worth taking our cameras out for except for a luminous green car that had Malaysia flags sticking up all over the roof of it! Rosie had been out that day too and did find some things such as churches and temples but she said that she is so templed out that she hardly bothered taking any pictures so I didn’t feel like I missed out too much! We attempted to go to a local food market that night but were directed to the wrong food market, so instead of ballroom dancing and line dancing to entertain us from the locals we ended up out a at a huge shopping mall with a tiny food market out the back. After having a quick look around a few of us decided there was nothing we wanted so ended up cheating and going into the mall and having something there. Oh Triona, they had a whole Korean type festival going on in the mall, I think promoting travel to Korea and I got really excited when I saw those Peppero Sticks (is that what they are called?). Didn’t get any but I did then observe them in pretty much every shop I was in after that throughout Malaysia!! And so that was Penang, a big bridge and peppero sticks! As Kev observed, it looked like Malaysia built a massive impressive bridge and when they reached Penang said “Oh f***, we put it in the wrong place!!” which pretty much sums it all up!

We left Penang the next day to head to Kuala Lumpur (KL) and I was excited. Everyone knows the Petronas Towers with the Skybridge and I was dying to see it. We got picked up from the hostel by the bus and we all got quite a shock when we got on and experienced a bit of luxury! At first I thought the nice bus was only taking us so far and then we were to change buses but when we got to the bus depot no one told us to get off so I settled into my seat. The bus we were on had, rather than two seats on either side of the aisle, had one seat on one side and two on the other. That’s because the seats were about a foot wider than normal, reclined, had a movable foot rest and they MASSAGED us!!! Yes I kid you not, we overlanders do it in style every now and then and this was style at its best in the public bus world!!! So we had a very comfortable journey to KL. When we arrived in the city I got that good feeling again! If there is one thing that this trip had made me realise, it’s that I am a city girl at heart! As much as I love beaches and a relaxing two week holiday, if I want to get a good feeling about somewhere all I need is amazing skyscrapers and a busy city atmosphere and I’m smiling! As we arrived in KL the heavens opened and it started spilling down but even this couldn’t take away from the city. The buildings all around us were amazing and I got a little glimpse of the towers but couldn’t get a proper look at them. When the bus got to the station we got taxis to our hostel, and this is when I realised KL is confusing!!! They have big massive roads but they all run on a one way system so getting from A to B involves driving through X, Y and Z first!! We did make it to the hostel eventually and got ourselves sorted. It’s one of the nicest hostels we stayed in on the trip. The bunk beds didn’t creak as they were all individually built into the wall, every bunk had its own little window with a shelf on it and we all had a little lamp and our own socket right beside our beds. I know that sounds like a list of rather mundane things but we have been in 14 beds dorms before and had 2 sockets...and we have a lot of crap to charge between laptops, cameras and phones so two sockets basically means there is a queue all the time! So having one beside our beds was like a little bit of luxury! Our hostel was right behind a massive shopping mall called Times Square (No I haven’t magicked myself to NY!!). I can’t really describe with any justice how big this place was...but I’ll try. It was 10 stories high, had an East, West AND Central mall, and had a cinema that was spread over the 3^rd, 7^th and 10^th floors. Had a huge bazaar type market on the 10^th floor too...and just so you can hopefully comprehend the size of it...it had a ROLLERCOASTER going through the 5^th and 7^th floors! Yep there ya go, a rollercoaster in a shopping centre...so yeah the place was massive!!! On the first day though we headed out to find an Irish bar to watch the rugby! Once the match was over a few of us headed to the cinema in the shopping centre and I came across a restaurant called Ireland’s Potato (I kid you not!!!) where they basically did a million different kinds of potato with a million different toppings!!! After the movie it was bed time and I discovered that the beds were as comfy as they looked and I passed out for a lovely sleep!

Alas, a lie in, in the comfy bed was not on the cards for me as I was up early to head out for the day. A friend of Joe’s had organised a friend of his to drive us around KL for the day to do some exploring. Lim (the driver) picked me, Joe, Rosie and Rachel us at 7.30am (!!) and off we headed. We all really wanted to do the Skybridge so Lim brought us straight to the towers to get tickets. They only hand about 1,600 tickets out in a day so it’s a case of getting there early and keeping your fingers crossed. When we parked at the towers we had a little adventure walking around trying to find the right escalator to bring us down to the ticket office. After doubling back a time or two we found what we were looking for...only to find a sign outside the door saying that from the 15^th of September (that day!!!) until December 2011 the Skybridge would be closed for renovations!! I know typical luck really!! I refused to be too disappointed though and instead we decided to go to the KL Tower instead (think Fernseherturm for those of you who visited in Berlin!). We arrived there...to be told it didn’t open till 9!! So we had about half an hour to waste, so we grabbed a bite to eat and were first in the queue for tickets. This was actually a God send as when we got up there, there was none of the usual fighting to get at the window to have a proper look out. The lift to bring us up did 250 metres in about 58 seconds which was pretty impressive! The view was slightly hazy and we couldn’t see the whole way across the city, the audio guide was telling us to look at things that weren’t visible through the haze so I’d say on a good day the view is amazing. Having said that the view was still pretty incredible and I kinda liked seeing the buildings rise out of the haze in front of me. Once again I was waiting for a proper look of the towers...but they were positioned in such a way that from KL Tower one was nearly hidden behind the other and I still couldn’t see the Skybridge! We timed our visit brilliantly though as just as we were leaving a gang of excited school kids came running full tilt into the viewing area...so we promptly left as the chattering grew louder!! As part of our ticket we got to either had a pony ride (no thank you!!!) or go into the little zoo that was beside the tower. So we went for zoo!! The zoo was more a reptile and spider place with a few birds and monkeys around. They had a lot of snakes including a MASSIVE python and they had a big selection of “albino” reptile ranging from snakes, to a frog and lizard. The albino theme ran as far as a “Hairless Albino Mouse” which was in fact a disgusting trio of bald rats. These were beside a selection of bald somethings!! We all came across the cage at the same time and there was a chorus of “What the hell is that”...among other things as you can probably imagine. Even as I am writing about this I had a disgusted look on my face at the memory of those creatures! They also had some turtles, including a two-headed one that was a bit of an anti-climax after all the posters made such a huge fuss about it!! There was some monkeys, rabbits, including little baby rabbits (so cute!!) and we also saw a 14 day old parrot...which was kinda disgusting! It was in a little heated cage thing right as we walked in the door and we all wondered what it was. Guesses included a baby bat but then it moved a little and we saw its little beak and knew it was some kind of bird. It looked really funny, it had a body that looked too big for its head and yet he could barely lift his head as though it was too heavy for him. He was also slightly slimy and instead of nice colourful feathers he had black, well they weren’t even feathers they were just black stick type things sticking out of it!! I know it was only 14 days old and if I went back in a couple of years it would probably look amazing but the only was I can describe this parrot is to say that it reminded me of Voldemort from Harry Potter when he was just a creature i9n the first few films!!! Anyway, once we had had a look in all the cages we were on our way out when we walked past a snake box. Joe, rather calmly, stated “That snake is going to eat that gecko”. Us 3 girls whipped around and said “oh my God is it in the cage” and then we realise it was feeding time at the zoo!! The snake was probably about 2 foot long and was fairly skinny but as we watched it poised itself and got ready to strike, and then quicker than I could actually see it had got the gecko!! But the drama didn’t end there!! That little gecko was not going down (excuse the pun!) without a fight! He twisted around a grabbed the snake by the throat. The snake kept a good hold and a struggle ensued!! The snake at first just lay still and kept readjusting his grip, then he seemed to get a bit pissed off and he starting moving around, hitting the geckos head off the couple of branches in the cage, but even that didn’t weaken the spirit of the gecko and he would just grab onto the branch with his little hands! It was horrible to watch but for some weird reason neither me, Rosie or Rachel could stop looking (Joe seemed to have a bit more sympathy for the gecko’s plight and he went outside for a smoke!!!). Eventually the gecko’s body starting disappearing slowly but surely but still the little fella was fighting and covered the snake’s eyes as he tried to pull himself back out. We knew who was going to win the fight though and after about 15 minutes they gecko’s head disappeared with a last gulp from the snake and it was all over! I was slightly disappointed that there wasn’t a gecko shape in the snake but he just squished the little bastard to bits and he fit nice and neatly down the skinny snake!! And so we left the zoo with a slightly queasy feeling in our stomachs!! I guess I should have put a warning at the start of this story for people with weak stomachs but oh well, sorry about that!!!

Anyway, once the nature show was over we got back in the car and headed to the Batu Caves. The Batu Caves are about 13k outside of KL and they have been a Hindu Shrine since 1891. The caves have 273 steps to climb up to get to the entrance of the caves...but it is well worth the climb...as long as you manage to dodge the monkeys on the way up! Those monkeys were not shy and anything that was swinging they would make a leap for so it was a case of keeping bags and cameras close to us....one monkey still had a lunge at Rosie’s bag though! They are also clever monkeys! We saw one of them pick up an abandoned bottle of Sprite, twist the lid open and pour the Sprite out, catching it in his paw and drinking out of that!! When we did make it to the top the caves were pretty spectacular! Most of the caves I have been to in the past have had fairly low ceilings, these ones though had a massive high ceiling, my guess maybe about 30 metres high. And there was a few holes in the roof which let the sun shine through casting light around the caves. And as it was a shrine there were small temples and worship spots dotted around the place that made it seem so different to just being a big cave. We walked around for a bit and took it all in and then headed back down the steps. I should mention also that there is a 43 metres high statue at the foot of the steps which towers over the car park and the other temples that are within the little complex. Once we were finished at the cave we asked Lim to take us for some traditional food so he brought us to one of his favourite places. It was a street stall in an area we would not have seen had it not been for Lim. At first he thought the place he wanted to bring us was closed but after a second look he saw it was open so we parked up and went over. The dish we got was a mixture of different types of noodles with egg, string beans and morning glory (type of veg) and either pork or seafood mixed in with it. It was delicious. And as we had Lim there with us we were able to say what we did or didn’t want...in other words I got to say I didn’t want seafood and would just have it plan but then he said pork and tried to do an impression of a pig (!!!) to explain I had the choice! And not only did we have good food, we also had it cooked for us but a TV star!! Lim was very excited to tell us that the guy cooking our food (about 60 years old!) was on programmes on TV...granted he kept telling us the programmes were just aired in KL but he still seemed very proud of his famous friend! And when we mentioned it to the guy he blushed...I didn’t know that Asian people blushed but this guy did and got very shy all of a sudden!

When lunch was over we headed off to the Sultans Palace, known as Istana Negara. The royal ruling system in KL is exceptionally confusing and even after Lim explaining it to us and reading about it outside the Palace gates we still couldn’t figure it out. We THINK the way it works is that there are 9 royal families within KL and they take turns ruling. There is a constitutional monarchy on two levels; the King is the supreme head of the state and the Prime Minister is the head of the Government, and then in each state within Malaysia there is a sultan who is the head of that state and a Chief Minister who is the head of state government! There is a vote among the 9 Malayan sultans (one from each state) every 5 years and a new family is voted in as the king. Having said this after reading the information outside the Palace the confusion continued when we realised that every king is called the same thing; His Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda Yang Raja Permaisun Agong!!! Now to be honest I can understand why the Sultans don’t want to be king forever if they are going to be lumbered with a name like that!! The palace itself is less breathtaking than the royal palaces we have seen in other cities, such as Bangkok and Phnom Penh. We found out thought that the palace started off as a privately owned mansion that cost $150,000 to build. During the Second World War the Japanese used it as an officer’s mess throughout their occupancy and when the war was over the British then acquired it for RAF use. The mansion was finally used as the King’s Palace in 1957 when the Federal Government bought it for $1,408,000! In 1980 an arch at the gate was also added which would house 2 foot soldiers and 2 mounted soldiers who would guard the gate. We managed to time it right to see the changing of the guard and found it quite amusing to watch the mounted unit try to do their thing when there was about 100 tourists standing around in their paths as they tried to guide the horses through the correct choreography! One horse just did not want to cooperate and seemed to sense that his shift was nearly over as he was out of the arch and getting ready to leave before his replacement even came around the corner!! Once the changing of the guard was over and we decided that no matter how much we thought about it, it was possible we would never fully understand their ruling system we got back in the car and our next stop was the International Buddhist Peace Pagoda. I was expecting it to be somewhat like the Pagoda from Pokhara but I was totally wrong. Rather than being on the top of a mountain it was in the middle of the city in what I can only call the Religious Quarter as on the way to the Buddhist Pagoda we passed a Catholic Church, a Hindu Temple and a Zion Church! The monastery was founded about 1857 and the temple pagoda was developed around that. It was quite pretty and I liked that the old building from the monastery was shadowed by a new building behind it. KL seems to be able to mix the old with the new seamlessly well with the two eras mixing together rather than clashing! After a quick stop here we then headed to Thien Hou, a Buddhist Temple just outside of the city. This temple was what I imagined it to be with the colourful roof, glittering tiles and large gold Buddha statues that we have become accustomed to! We then had a look outside and found larger than life statues of all the animals in the Chinese calendar and found what each of us were...I am a tiger for those of you who are interested which means I am apparently brave, active, bold, optimistic, impulsive, humorous, frank, generous, pragmatic, responsible and tenacious! Anyone born in 1950, 62, 74 or 86 are the same! After this we got dropped back to the hostel after a very busy morning and afternoon.

Our day was not over just yet though! When we arrived at the hostel the day before the staff told us that we had arrived just in time for Malaysia Day (equivalent of Paddy’s Day). Usually it is on the 31^st of August but it had been postponed due to riots as far as we could make out!! So that night there was a countdown to Malaysia Day (which was now the 16^th of September) with a fireworks display at midnight. So we all got together headed out for some food and then hopped on the monorail (how many Simpsons fan are singing the song now!!) to the Petronas Towers. After all my wanting and waiting to see them I was not disappointed. As we walked from the station towards the towers my I fascinated. At night the towers are truly breathtaking once they are all lit up...plus we walked to them from a good direction so we got to see the Skybridge linking the two towers. I couldn’t stop looking at them and was completely in awe of them. We then went into the shopping centre to find out where the fireworks would be and went out the back to where there was dancing fountains and a stage had been set up on the pond with dancers and singers entertaining the crowd. I found the lack of people very odd!! There was a huge army and police presence and when I leaned on a barrier a soldier walked over and, very politely, asked me to please not lean on the barrier! It was only about 10 at this stage and the fireworks weren’t expected until midnight so I expected the crowd to get bigger and for it to get packed. Those of us who stayed for the fireworks found a nice step to sit down on and played IPhone Trivial Pursuit to pass the time...and not once did we get stood on or told to stand up as the crowd got bigger...cause the crowd just didn’t get bigger! Don’t get me wrong there was a good crowd there but all I kept think of was Skyfest during Paddy’s Week and the mayhem that descends upon the city as thousands of people spill onto the quays to see the fireworks! It was nice to not be squashed though and to be able to enjoy them without getting an elbow or two in the ribs!!! When the fireworks were over we headed back to the hostel and ended up walking through the city as the monorail (MONORAIL!!!) had stopped for the night. It was cool walking through the city as there was a festival atmosphere...and there was also a lot of little motorbike and moped posies zipping through the streets. They were rather loud and I felt sorry for the little bikes that couldn’t keep up with the rest of the bigger bikes when they all sped off when the lights went green!! I do remember coming across a group of men standing around and one guy was really tall with from about his elbows above the heads of everyone else. I thought he was standing on a box and had a look and realised that, no, the man had both his feet on the group! Couldn’t believe the guy was so tall...especially as we are in Asia where, well you just don’t expect to see exceptionally tall people milling about on the streets!!!

I had great plans the next morning to get up and head down to Merdeka Square (Independence Square) for the Malaysia Day Parade. However, due to the heat I guess they like to start their parades as 8am and after the early start, late night and busy day of the day before, when my alarm went off it got snoozed very quickly and that was the end of that plan!! So I ended up taking the day very easy...and even flaked on going to watch rugby match! That evening though we all headed out for a meal to mark Wendy and Greg’s last night with us. Wendy’s 6 weeks since she had joined us in Ho Chi Minh City had absolutely flown in and none of us could quite believe that it was over so quick...but I guess that pretty much illustrates how quickly the whole trip has gone for us all!! So we headed out for a meal and a couple of drinks and then headed back to the hostel early enough as Wendy had an early start the next day to go get her flight.

The next morning we were leaving Malaysia to head to Singapore. And no, I haven’t gotten it wrong; Singapore is an independent state to Malaysia with its own currency and all!! We were treated to another luxury bus so we settled in for a very comfortable journey to the border. The border was smooth enough again though not as quick as our entry into Malaysia. It’s weird; it always seems more difficult to get OUT of a country than into it!! In my mind if they have let us in surely they don’t have to think about it too hard to let us out of their but they always seem to think about it a bit more, and study the passports for that little bit longer before they run it through the system! Anyway once we got through the Malaysian exit point we had to go through the Singapore entry point which meant getting bags scanned. Singapore has a lot of odd restrictions, most notable not allowing chewing gum into the country! So anyone with it in the bags binned it before we went through the scanners. One of the guys on the trip though had bought two traditional Ghurkha knives in Nepal. When his bag got scanned he was asked to show the guards what he had in his bag. On the scan only one of the knives came up so when he took it out all the guards around came running over to have a look. They asked if he had anything else, and as he didn’t know what had shown up on the scan he said yeah I have another one and whipped it out! They all looked at them with great excitement and after a few questions were answered and a warning was issued not to go walking down the streets of Singapore with them in view (!!) we were on our merry way without any fines being imposed! When we got to the hostel Colin, the manager greeted us with great gusto and told us all about Singapore and what there was to do. He then asked had we any questions, my hand flew up with a simple question, “Where can I watch the Ireland/Australia rugby match?!” it turned out the hostel were showing all the matches on their TV so we dumped our bags and settled in for a nail biting match. Myself and Dee were a source of great amusement for the other guys and I was literally shaking for the last 15 minutes of the match terrified that they would screw it up!! But they held out and I was one very hyper girl for the rest of the afternoon!!

The following morning though it was time to explore Singapore and after an early wakening (5.30am) thanks to the other girls who were in our dorm most of us were ready to go exploring early enough in the day. We hit the subway and headed down to the Marina. Singapore has some amazing buildings in it and the Marina shows them off in spectacular style! The first building we came across was the Esplanade Theatre which, after some discussion, we decided wasn’t so much designed like a pineapple, but more like a durian (that disgusting fruit I have talked about before!!). We also saw the Art-Science Museum which is shaped like, em kinda like a split orange peel up in the air. I’m not sure that that makes any kinda sense but I don’t know how else to describe it. We also got a lovely view of the Singapore Flyer, Singapore’s answer to the London Eye (or the Dublin Wheel!!). Next on our tour of odd buildings was the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino. This building I think was the most impressive of all as it was 3 huge skyscrapers side by side but the roofs were joined by what I can only describe as a ship shaped platform along the top of the 3 buildings! And we could see that in all likelihood there was a swimming pool and bar up there as there was palm trees and lovely flowers visible over the top! The last thing on our tour of the marina was the Merlion Park...and it is only as I am writing this blog that it has dawned on me why it is named as such! The main thing to see here was a large statue of what we said was a fish with a lion’s head, now that I think about it I guess that wanted it to be a MERmaid with a LION’s head on it...think I was a bit slow on the uptake there!!! It was cool though, it was spitting out water which was quite refreshing as the breeze was blowing the spray in the direction of the pier so we all got a nice little cool down...not that it lasted very long of course!!! When we were finished there we walked towards Chinatown where we stopped for some lunch and a cold drink. I headed back to the hostel at this stage as I was getting too warm! On the walk to Chinatown we noticed all the markings on the road in preparation for the Singapore Grand Prix. We were missing it by only a couple of days which some of the lads were really disappointed about but they seemed happy enough to get to see some of the preparations at least! The day didn’t end there though as most of us girls, and a couple of the boys, were heading to the famous Raffles Hotel to try a Singapore Sling in its home town!! We all dressed up a little with makeup coming out and hair straighteners...something my hair had not seen since a night out in Turkey!!! Once we were all dolled up we headed off. Raffles is a lovely hotel. I could tell without even walking into it that it was a fancy place...and this was confirmed for me when we walked in and saw a Tiffany’s in the hotel along with a Louis Vuitton!! We made our way up to the Long Bar and were shown to a table. First thing I noticed was that there were monkey nut shells all over the place! I was quite confused by this but it excited Rosie as she had read that this was all part of the Raffles tradition!! So we ordered our drinks (8 Singapore Slings in all!!) and waited for them to come. Once they did they were photos galore and once we were all satisfied we had a taste. Honestly...it wasn’t THAT amazing!! I mean it was a nice drink and one of the nicer Singapore Slings that I have had (not too much cherry liquor in it!!) but I can’t say that I felt charging 26 Singapore Dollars (equivalent of about €20 once you add on tax and service charge!!) was justified!! But as they say it was all about the experience so I wouldn’t do it again but it’s a box ticked.....and I’m pretty sure we ate enough monkey nuts to cover the $26 that we spent!!! It was then time to head back to the hostel to go to the local food market for food. The way food markets work over here is that you go in, find a table, take note of the number and then walk around all the different stalls and decide what you want to eat. You then order and pay for your food, give your table number and a few minutes later it’s delivered to you. I suppose it’s the equivalent of a food court back home in that you can decide to eat something totally different to your friends but still all eat together. When food was over it was then time for me, Dee and Joe to head off to an Irish bar to watch the All Ireland Final. As soon as I found Dublin was in the final I found out where we would be and found an Irish pub in the area that would be showing it. So after some research I found and Irish bar called Muddy Murphy’s and when we arrived in Singapore I rang to double check they were definitely showing it. As soon as the phone was answered I knew I was onto a winner as it was answered by a Dublin accent who assured me that they “most definitely would be showing the match”!! So we hit the subway and found our way there. When we walked into the pub me and Dee just smiled at each other. I swear to God it was like walking into a pub in Templebar. All I could hear was Irish accents; there was a trad band on and GAA jerseys everywhere!!! The placed was absolutely rammed so we grabbed a drink (definitely felt like home with the price of a drink!!) and found a quiet to corner to sit down in. Once it got closer to kick off we had a quick look and saw a guy in a Dub jersey sitting on his own just in front of the TV> I went over, asked if he minded a bit of company to which he said he was going to invite us over but he thought we all looked a bit rowdy (Irish humour!!). I assured him we were Dubs (Joe an honorary one!!) and we grabbed a couple of stools. His name was Martin and he had been working in Singapore for the last year and was going home to his family the following month. I think he appreciated the company and he was getting texts from his wife and sons the whole way through the match which was really nice. After the rugby match the day before I wasn’t sure my heart could take the GAA match too and I think it was even worse than the rugby match!! When we were down those 4 points, 10 minutes from the end I thought we were screwed. But when that ball went in the back of the net the place erupted!!! I’m pretty sure you guys probably could have heard us from home!! The place was on their feet for the last 7 minutes of the match and there were hugs all round when that whistle blew!! Once again my hands were shaking and my heart was pumping!! We headed home then and I got a quick call on Skype to home to see how the celebrations were going there...and was very happy to see my Lily White Mam and Royals dad smiling for Dublin!!!

After all the excitement of the rugby and GAA my last day in Singapore was spent relaxing and trying to restore my heart to a normal rhythm!! I really enjoyed Singapore, it had a nice atmosphere and it was cool getting to see the set up for the motor racing. I think my lasting memory of Singapore will be down to the weekend of amazing sport with results that made me smile all round!!

As I said earlier this trip has made me realise I’m a city girl and its skyscrapers that make my heart beat a little faster when I see them, so Malaysia and Singapore definitely kept me smiling for the 10 days we were travelling through them. KL has an amazing atmosphere...once you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere as the traffic is mental...would give the M50 a run for its money I tell ya! And it was great to be there on its national day and to experience some of the festival atmosphere that was buzzing around the city. And Singapore again was a city we drove into that I was gawping out the windows at the buildings that were surrounding us. I think KL is definitely on my list of must go back to, partly because I want to get up to that bloody Skybridge and also because, even though I know we saw so much on our drive around town, I know that due to my laziness on the second day that there is more for me to discover!!! Singapore I loved, but I think I can tick it off the list! I loved it and enjoyed exploring but I don’t know if it holds much more for me than what I saw. Perhaps one day I will realise I missed out on something major but at this stage my list of places to go back to is nearly as long as the list of places that I went to so I’m going to have to be ruthless!!

And so the next stage of our journey brings us to Indonesia....country 20 of 21!! Now that is scary!! Don’t need to tell you that it feels like only a week or two ago that I was saying bye to everyone and packing up my life in a little bag and now here I am, only two countries and 4 short weeks from the end!! Here’s hoping the last four weeks will be as exciting as ever!!

Laos and Thailand

Right so; the very last few hours of Vietnam were spent on what I know “affectionately” call the Epic Bus Journey! As I said in my last blog we were on a 28 hour trip to get to Vang Vieng after we voted not to stay in Vientiane. And so on our last morning in Vietnam we were picked up bright and early by a bus that was bringing us to meet our sleeper bus. This bus drove us an hour out of Hue, we stopped just before a toll booth and met our bus...it was a LOT smaller than our other sleeper buses. So we all squeezed on and got our places. I ended up getting myself a seat down in the cave...which turned out to be a bad decision on my part. Unlike the other sleeper buses where in the cave the seats could be adjusted so that I could be sitting up these seats were stuck in an almost completely horizontal position...and even at that I had about 3 inches between my head and the ceiling above me!! So after, oh about 5 minutes there, I knew that I had just made the journey a lot more uncomfortable for myself than it had to be!! Anyway the bus got going...and drove us the exact same way back in to Hue, which was slightly frustrating, so the best thing to do was just plug myself in and listen to some music to distract myself! When we got to the Vietnam/Los border we managed to delay the bus by about 2 or 3 hours! On all these buses we are not the only people on it and I did feel kinda sorry for all the locals who just sailed through the border. There were 20 of us crossing the border and it wasn’t so easy for us! Firstly when the bus pulled up, all 40 or 50 people on it got off and queued up at the exit point window...where there was only one poor dude working. After a 15 minute wait they opened a couple more windows...but this was also where the locals tried to start skipping us! We all got slightly frustrated at this and bunched up and refused to let anyone push past us! There was words had with one or two people and then they realised that we were not to be messed with...that where we come from a queue means wait your turn, not figure out how many people you can get past in one try!! It took quite awhile for us all to get stamped out...and then we had to walk through a very hot no man’s land to the Laos border. The bus had been delayed somewhere along the way, so when we got to the Laos border everyone was on their lunch break! So we were waiting around for about half an hour or a little bit more till...yup you guessed it, ONE guy turned up to process 20 of us! At this point the guys who worked on the bus were coming over to us and gesturing wildly at us to ring the number on the window, to which we replied we had already been told they were on lunch and had to wait! When the guy did turn up he actually managed to process us all quickly enough...then we had to go to the next window and get stamped into the country and the thankfully we were in Laos!! When we got back on the bus no one looked too happy but we have reached the stage that we don’t really care if we are a nuisance to anyone!! And so I spent the rest of the journey reading, watching a movie or two, trying to sleep...and before I knew it the day part of the journey was over! It’s at this point it’s all supposed to get easier as my body should be naturally tired, twig the dark sky and sleep...but it seems it has some resistance to sleeping on sleeper buses..And so I tossed and turned (as much as my 2 foot of space would allow me to!!)  and managed to get 15 minutes of sleep every now and then!! Despite our delay at the border we arrived at Vientiane at 4.30 in the morning (so we were all very relieved that we made the decision not to stay there and to have to wait around for our rooms to be ready at midday!!). So it was time to pile the bags off the bus, into tuk tuks to go and wait for the mini buses that were taking us to Vang Vieng. The mini buses were compact...especially with all our bags but I found it easier to sleep on it and managed to get a couple of hours of sleep in on the way to our next destination. When we arrived in Vang Vieng we sorted out our rooms with military precision and within minutes reception was clear and we were all ready to shower and sleep. Of course once a bed is available my body has a little giggle and says “screw you” and suddenly decides to be wide awake! So I faffed around for a bit on my laptop and the eventually sleep came! The rest of the first day in Vang Vieng was spent sleeping, getting some food and having a drink with the whole group before going to bed early in anticipation of tubing the next day!!

So tubing what can I say only that it was an experience...and another best moment of the trip! We all got up early, went into the Irish bar next door to the hotel and ordered a proper Irish (or English depending on which country we were all from!!) breakfast! It was yum...with proper beans and all!! Then we all headed up town to go get ourselves some tubes (and a life vest for me!!) and a tuk tuk to the starting point. When we got there we got a little boat across the river to the first bar (Q Bar funnily enough!!) and got ourselves a drink. We found a can of spray paint and a star template and suddenly a lot of us were graffitied! When everyone was finished their drinks we decided to brave it and give the whole tubing thing a go, so we very gingerly lowered ourselves into our tubes and got someone to kick us off...then the current caught us and we were off!! For those of you who don’t know, tubing works by having an inflated inner tube from a tyre and floating downstream stopping off at different bars. Of course being in the middle of a river in only a tube makes it slightly difficult to just stop off at a particular bar...so the guys who work in the bars throw ropes with filled water bottles out into the middle of the river at people floating by, you grab a rope and they pull you in! My first attempt at this ended up with my flipping out of my tube, holding onto the rope and getting pulled in with my tube floating further on! When we all made it into the second bar we got another drink and found a mud pit so starting writing on each other and just generally flinging mud every now and then! After awhile there it was time to move on. Because I had lost my tube I had to walk to the next bar, with the hope that there would be more people at the next bar so I could rob someone else’s tube!! The next bar was great fun with a rope swing out into the river, a mud volleyball court and mud tug-of-war!! Everyone had great fun on the rope swing (I had fun watching everyone do it!!) and the volleyball was absolutely hilarious! When we were finished there we moved along and I was back in the water after “acquiring” (thanks for teaching me how to use that word in the McHugh way Dad!!!) myself a new tube! The next bar had a big inflatable landing pad, so everyone got into the swing of things straight away and starting jumping. The first few attempts didn’t work so then the guys who worked there showed us that the best way to do it was for one person to jump and position themselves at the end nearest the centre of the river and for two people to then jump at the other end and catapult the first person up into the air!! It was amusing to watch but a couple of times it didn’t work with the person who was sent flying ending up catapulting backwards towards the other people and them all ending up on a big tangle in the river!! Our final bar of the day was by far the most fun. It was on the opposite side of the river to all the other ones so we all paddled as fast as we could to get ourselves to the right side and grab the bottles. There were also people from the bar out in the river grabbing people and pushing them towards the bar. I missed the bottle so Rosie started shouting “Save that girl” and jumping around and pointing at me! So this little Laos dude came swimming out to me quicker than I have ever seen anyone swim, grabbed my ring and towed me into the shore! This whole episode had me in fits of laughter and I will forever have a mental picture of Rosie hopping around and waving her arms!! This bar had great music (there is a video which may make it on Facebook at some stage) which perfectly illustrates the madness that is tubing! It was also at this bar that we all covered ourselves in headbands and arms bands that said I Love Laos (if you have seen the pictures on Facebook you will know what I am talking about!!). It was getting late in the day at this stage and we had been warned not to be in the river in the dark so we all made to head home. Our group got separated at this point into little groups and although there was a bit sign at the start saying “Start Tubing Here” there was not big sign that said “Get the F*** Out of the River Now”!! or something to that affect! after awhile of floating down river and wondering where the heck we were going to get out we say a bank of stones and paddled for that and managed to get out of the river. It was at this point that I managed to get my only injury of the day! There was a couple of Spaniards floating along with me and Joe and they got out at the same point, when we got out of the water the wind took one of their tubes and I tried to catch up but ended up slipping on some mud and went down on my knee, arse and elbow!! All I can say is the life jacket saved me on more ways than one as it saved me getting an awful bruise on my back! As it turned out we picked the right place to get out as we just had to walk a couple of minutes to drop our tubes back and then we headed back home. Some of the guys were already in the Irish bar so we went in to let them know we were still alive then went to shower and change and then went back in for some food! We all had great plans to head out that night but tiredness and early drinking syndrome kicked in and after the food and a few games of pool it was time to rest my weary little head!!

The next day there was a few sore heads so some of us decided to take it easy and go to the Blue Lagoon. It was a tuk tuk ride away...on some of the dodgiest roads I have ever been on. To say the potholes were craters doesn’t even begin to cover it! When we got to the Lagoon there was hardly anyone else there so we grabbed ourselves a little hut and settled in for some relaxing with a nice cold coke. The Lagoon itself was really pretty and it had ropes to swing off into the lagoon. It was more of a greeny colour than blue, mostly due to the monsoon season...but I was just glad it wasn’t brown like the river the previous day! After a couple of hours there a convoy of jeeps pulled up with a load of day trippers so we decided to take leave and head back home. It was into Gary’s (Irish bar) again for some more amazing food and then the rest of the day was spent relaxing before packing to move on the following day.

The next leg of the journey took us to Luang Prabang. We had two mini buses to bring us up through the mountains....of course going through the mountains, pretty as they are, also means we had the obstacle of landslides...one of which was rather substantial! We were ticking along making nice time winding up and down on the sides of the mountains when we hit traffic jam...yes a traffic jam in the middle of the mountains. Our driver then informed us that there had been a landslide a couple of days previous and they were almost finished clearing it but not quite...so we would have a 3-5 hour wait! Of curiosity got the best of me and some of the others so we decided to walk up and have a look. This seemed like a great idea at first but then as we got closer to it, it got a lot muckier, with that red clay type muck which is just not good when it’s wet...and of course I was wearing flip flops! So by the time I reached the landslide I was practically sticking to the ground because of the thickness of the mud and my legs looked like I had been given a really bad spray tan!! The landslide was huge! We could see how much of the mountain had given way and it must have covered a couple of hundred feet of the road. Luckily for us the landslide itself had happened two days previous so they didn’t have much left to clear. Once I was satisfied with surveying the damage (because I’m such an expert on landslides of course!!!) I headed back up to the mini buses thanking my lucky stars that I had some baby wipes to clean off before I got back into the van. However it turned out I didn’t need the baby wipes as some ingenious person had fashioned a tap using the top of a bottle and finding a small spring that was coming down the side of the mountain, and they had put a bucket under it to gather some water. And so at the side of a random mountain in Laos I washed in a bucket!!! Flip flop and all I stuck my leg into the bucket and washed all the muck off and then did the exact same thing with my other leg! It was quite the experience but at least I was muck free for the most part!! To avoid another bucket wash I got back on the minivan and decided to stay put before I destroyed myself again! And much to our surprise about half an hour after that, the traffic started to move!! So in the end we were only waiting about for an hour or so before we were able to pass through the destruction. The traffic moved very gingerly across the path as, as good a job as the workers did, there was still a thick layer of mud and a sheer cliff edge to the right of us so the drivers were all taking it very easy! Once we had cleared it though the driver went back to his usual, well don’t want to use the word manic as that sounds a tad extreme, but slightly “unique” style of driving!! We did meet another landslide that day but luckily again the worst of it cleared so it was only a couple of minutes wait before we got through that one and then there was the odd mini landslide we came across. It took us about 8 hours in the end to make the journey which was slightly longer than expected but not as long as we had expected at the first landslide!!

The next day we were all up at 5 in the morning...no that’s not a typo you read it right!! Luang Prabang is famous for the morning offerings procession that the Buddhist Monks take part in every morning. The monks only have one meal a day so to supplement their diet at 6 every morning the monks leave the monasteries with their offerings bowl and Buddhists line the streets with offerings of food, usually a hand full of sticky rice and in return for this the monks bless the people. So at 5am we all, well I won’t say hopped out of bed, but removed ourselves from bed and went down to the main street to watch the procession. It was amazing to see all the monks in a line that seemed to go on forever. I was also amazed to see the range of ages of the monks. There were a couple of dudes who were well in their 70s and then some kids who must have only been about 7 or 8! We watched the whole thing for about half an hour and then headed back to bed! Rhona and Rachel though spotted something they didn’t expect to see while they were walking back. When the monks turned off the main street they all relaxed as the formality of the occasion was over. Rhona and Rach spotted two teenager monks having a bit of laugh as one of them chucked his bucket of rice over his mates head! Not something I would have expected to have heard about but it sounded like fun and good to know they do get to have some fun and it’s not all seriousness all the time!! The following day we got to experience some local culture in Luang Prabang. Every year at the end of the rainy season Luang Prabang holds a boat race and the whole town goes into festival mode. So the day of the race we headed out to go see what all the excitement was about! It felt a bit like Paddy’s Day!! I could hardly walk down the street with the amount of people walking around. And EVERYONE had umbrellas with them. Asians don’t like to get tanned or have dark skin so most of them walk around on a daily basis with an umbrella...now everyone knows that this can be a problem at home with hair getting caught in the spokes every now and then. Now imagine being in Asia where everyone is little...and the problem doesn’t so much involve trying to make sure you don’t end up with a bald patch as trying to ensure you come home with sight out of both eyes at the end of the day!!! The other thing I noticed as we were walking down to the river was the sound of shuffling; they just do not lift their feet at all!!! Even above the sound of people talking and music coming from stalls and bars and restaurants I could still hear the shuffling! And of course once I noticed it I couldn’t ignore it!! When we got down to the river we had to try find ourselves somewhere to watch the racing from and luckily we found a little riverside cafe that had one empty table in it with one stool...so about 8 or 9 of us piled in and suddenly stools and chairs appeared out of thin air so we all got seated and waited for the excitement to start. I’m afraid if you’re curious about who won the race that is not information I can give you, partly because I gave up watching after couple of hours in, and partly because I just didn’t bloody understand it!! When we arrived we could see there was about 10 different boats (each with a spectacular 45-50 people in each boat!!). We thought the race would start, they would all row to bejaysus and then we would have a winner. Oh no no no no no, not in Laos! In Laos they had two boats race against each other...so I presumed it was heats and the winner would go on and the loser say goodbye. Oh no no no no no, not in Laos!!! In Laos it’s not just the first person across the line; the boats are also give points for technique, how the team looks and a million other things that I can’t remember!! Some of the races were not so close with one or two of the teams speeding ahead of their opponents, while other races were really even and right beside each other the whole way up the river. I have to say, even though I didn’t understand what the heck was going on I still enjoyed watching it. Watching roughly 50 people in perfect synchronisation rowing a boat at the speed they were rowing at was truly admirable, not something I could do and they obviously practice a lot to get so in synch. However as admirable as it was, after watching for a couple of hours I got slightly bored so decided to go and explore a little and left the riverside to walk back up through all the stalls....cue shuffling and unsafe umbrella usage! It was a good day though and nice to see something completely random and see how into it the locals were; one of the teams must have had a fan club because on the opposite side of the river to where we were and a couple of hundred meters down we could hear them screaming from the moment the boat started until it crossed the finish line!

The following day we left lovely Laos to head back into Thailand. We had a sleeper bus that night which was a nightmare! Gone were the recliner bed thingies and instead we were on a normal size coach with normal chairs...and if this wasn’t uncomfortable enough we then saw the people who worked on the bus bring plastic garden chairs on and stuff them in the very narrow isle down the middle of the bus! It was crazy there was people everywhere and right beside my seat I had a woman get on with 3 kids, a 12 year old, a toddler of about 3 and a baby only a couple of months old. I couldn’t believe that they were going to travel on a bus overnight, but they seemed to be used to it as they slept the whole way while I didn’t get a wink of sleep! Whenever the bus stopped for a pee break or a food stop getting off was a nightmare, having to climb over chairs and wake sleeping people and children! Thankfully the nightmare finally ended and when we got to the bus station we were transferred from there into mini vans that were going to bring us to the border. The border we crossed was the most unique border so far as when we stamped out of Laos we then got in BOATS which took us across a river (the Mekong I think) and when we got out of the boat on the other side we were in Thailand! It was pretty cool really. Once we were all allowed back into Thailand we were into tuk tuks to bring us to a hotel to wait for mini buses that were going to bring us to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is a fairly busy place and very popular on the tourist route. UKtoOz don’t usually go there but because of the China disruption our new route brought us to it. I spent the first day or two just relaxing and managed to fit the cinema in (Final Destination!). One evening some of the guys went to traditional Muay Thai Boxing but I wasn’t that interested in it....so went to the night market instead!! I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again but if I was on a different type of trip and not living out on one bag with limited space I would have spent a small fortune!! They had so many amazing things there and I wanted so much of it. When we first arrived at the market it looked like quite a small one with stalls lining the pathways, but as we walked it seemed to just explode! We reached a large intersection and every road we looked down had stalls for as far as we could see, and then the basement of all the office buildings around us also had stalls in them that seemed to go on forever! Needless to say we didn’t even get to explore a small portion of the mall...I think if I had gone there everything for a week I wouldn’t have seen even half of it!! The main activity I did in Chiang Mai though was go zip lining in the jungle which was absolutely amazing! When we got there we were all harnessed up and got our helmets (complete with dodgy blue dinner lady hair nets!!) and then we were giving a safety talk. There was a little to remember but mostly it was “don’t touch the zip line as it will chop of your fingers”, so it was fairly easy to remember that one! And then we started on our way! The course was amazing with around 20 platforms as high as 40 feet up a tree with zip wires between the trees. The guys with us would clip us on and then we just had to let go and we’d zip through the air to the next tree where another guy would catch us and stop us from ending up like a pancake against the tree truck! We also abseiled a couple of times, with the last one being a 40 foot drop which was quite the experience! The whole day was brilliant and we managed to finish up just before the rain started so it was good timing! No one sustained any huge injuries although there were a couple of dodgy landings and the guy who was catching us almost got flattened a time or two and got the odd kick in the shin! It was definitely worth doing it though...and not every day you get to say you swung through the Thai jungle!

The following day we were leaving Chiang Mai on a night bus so the day was spent going to the cinema (Fright Night!) and then wandering around Chiang Mai a little bit...honestly didn’t find anything too interesting but I will admit I probably didn’t look as hard a s I could of if I had been properly interested! The night bus was....ok!!! I actually managed to sleep for a couple of hours...though I did almost kill an American! We got on the bus at 7pm, I was sitting down at the back of the bus one row from the back...and in the back row there was an American guy. He found a friend somewhere else on the back row and until 1am he did not stop talking! The bus driver turned off all the lights everyone was asleep or trying to sleep or reading or doing a quiet activity and this gombeen was talking at the top of his voice. I experimented and put my IPod up to its highest...and I could still hear the fecker!! Some of the other guys were up at the front of the bus and when I told them about him they all said they thought it was a radio playing because it was nonstop! I wouldn’t have minded it so much if he was actually saying something interesting but he was talking complete and utter crap. He was talking to an Eastern European girl and ended up insulting her after saying something about the war, he was complaining that when he was in Bangkok Khosan Road was full or Irish and English people and he didn’t find a single American, and then I also heard all about how the Americans are brilliant and although the rest of the world wasn’t happy with the war on Iraq he was absolutely sure that there was WMD somewhere in the country. But his gem of the night had to be when he started talking about his “mystery illness”. He told this poor girl that there was something wrong with him but the doctors didn’t know what. He kept getting pains in his head, and the doctors sent him for all kinds of tests and couldn’t figure it out, and when he worked out he was always short of breath. My theory was that he was short of breath cause he probably didn’t shut up talking while he was on the treadmill and the pain in his head was him having to listen to himself and never being able to bloody escape it!!! The bus stopped of r a break at 1am and I hoped beyond hope that when we all got back on he would be quiet....alas it was not to be and he talked for the first half hour and then low and behold there was sweet sweet silence and so there was sleep for me!!

Our destination after the night bus was Kanchanaburi, famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai. When we arrived we were greeted with little wooden huts out over a tributary of the river. The rooms were lovely, and I was slightly amused to see that the water from my shower went straight through the plughole and down into the river! The following day myself and Joe went on an organised day trip to see what Kanchanaburi had to offer. We were only there for one full day so we had to see as much as we could in that day...and we saw a lot! We were collected at 8am and our first stop was the Erawan Waterfalls. The waterfall was beautiful and on 7 different levels. So instead of there just being one big long waterfall there was little ones in a forest at the side of the mountain. We walked up to the 4^th level and each different stage was gorgeous. The sun was beaming that day and it made the surroundings amazing. I tried to paddle my feet at one of the levels but there was lots of little fish in it and they nibbled on my feet when I put them on which freaked me out so I pulled them straight back out...needless to say I now know I will never be able to have one of those fish pedicures!!! When we were finished at the waterfalls we were brought to the Hellfire Pass. The Hellfire Pass is possibly the most famous section of the Thailand-Burma Railway that was built by Prisoners of War and Asian labourers during World War 2. The railway was 415km long and was built in less than a year and the Hellfire Pass itself was built after 12 weeks of round the clock work by POWs and Asian labourers. The Hellfire Pass is attributed to the nightmarish scene that was played out there every night during the most frantic stage of building. The prisoners were extremely emaciated and still working round the clock. At night the pass was lit us with flaming torches so they could see what they were doing and people observed that it looked like a scene from hell. I can only imagine that for the prisoners themselves, it felt like hell as they were working under extreme conditions in searing heat and all the work was done by hand. So in order to blast out the rock through the mountains to allow the train tracks to be laid they had to manually drive a drill into the rock. They did this by one prisoner holding the drill bit and another hitting it with a hammer. When the bit was in far enough they would remove it (as long as it didn’t get stuck which often happened) and then drop dynamite down the whole. One the dynamite went off and the rock cracked and crumbled, they would then have to manually clear the rock away by putting the smaller bits of rock in steel carts that were on a small track to be brought to the bottom of the mountain and then bigger rocks were rolled over the side of the mountain. We learned all this information in the museum and then walked down to the pass itself and it suddenly became blatantly clear what the prisoners had gone through. The rock walls on either side of where the track used to lie must have been about 50 or 60 feet high and 1 good couple of hundred of metres long. All along the rock we could see marks left from where the drill holes and blast cracks were and once or twice we spotted drill bits that had got lodged in the rock and were still there. It was amazing to see it and to understand how hard it all must have been. When we were finished at the Hellfire Pass we were brought to the Krasae Cave and the last remaining wooden bridge on the railway line (all the rest have been replaced with stronger structures if they are still in use). The cave was just one massive chamber and is now a Buddhist Shrine but during the war and the building of the track it was used as a hospital, which standing in it is kind of hard to comprehend. The wooden bridge winds around the side of the mountain and the guide told us that it is surveyed at least once a year to check for any weak struts and anything that doesn’t pass the test is replaced, but replaced with wood. I unfortunately couldn’t find out how much of the bridge is still original but I still liked that they were keeping it as wood. After walking on the track for a bit we then waited at the station for the train to come. We were on the train for about half an hour and then it was back onto our mini bus to go to the last stop on our trip, the River Kwai Bridge. I have a vague memory of watching the movie Bridge over the River Kwai when I was a kid but I can’t remember the full story. If memory serves me correctly it was about POWs plotting to destroy the bridge they were being forced to build. This makes sense as we were told that the POWs often sabotaged the building works of the railway as they knew it was being used to transport arms and supplies to aid in the war. They had to be very careful that the sabotage was not obvious as if they had been caught they would have been punished so they used different methods like using weak wood pieces or not reporting dodgy bolts and things like that. I think in the movie they just planned to bomb it. Again I could be totally wrong with this...I’m sure someone with a better recollection will correct me (and I would greatly appreciate it too!!). The bridge itself is slightly underwhelming for all the fuss that is made about it! But it was still cool to see it and to know some of the history behind it and the railway in general.

The next day we were moving on again and heading to Ko Samui. We first had to get back to Bangkok to meet our night bus and this is where things got slightly messy! Our bus driver was not happy with taking 10 of us in his van because his piece of paper said he had only to take 9; there are 20 of us in the group so 10 in each van made sense to everyone except him! After a few phone calls and him seeing our refusal to move out of his van, he eventually started driving. We could tell he was in rather a bad mood with the whole situation and instead of dropping us to the travel office in Bangkok he got us to Khosan Road and told us to get out. So we did...however the other mini bus driver did what he was supposed to do and so we had a situation where none of us knew where we were supposed to be or where to find any of the others! Some of us went scouting to see if we could spot the other van but in the end it was the wonders of Facebook and wireless internet that allowed us to make contact with Rachel and figure out where we were supposed to be! It was all a bit exciting really and made our short stop in Bangkok slightly more amusing than it would have been otherwise! The night bus was rather uneventful (no annoying Americans thankfully!!) and when we arrived at our stop we had a couple of hours wait for the next bus that was going to bring us to the ferry port. Then it was another bit of a wait till the ferry was due to leave and after a little less than 2 hours on the ferry we docked at Ko Samui. The last leg of the journey was tuk tuks to bring us to the accommodation where we all pretty much grabbed something small to eat and then crashed out in our little beach huts! When I woke up I went for a little walk to explore...and ended up walking nearly 3km and finding a massive Tesco store!! Now at home I would not be in the slightest bit excited about Tesco, however here it is a different kettleofish as Tesco meant the possibility of being able to get (ahem) underwear in non-Asian sizes and bras with actual sizes!! After a little exploration (and a purchased or two) I wandered the 3km back...to find everyone getting ready to go out for dinner so I dropped my bags and walked half the way back again to head into town for something to eat! After dinner I headed home after wiping myself out with all the walking!!

The following day was great fun! 9 of us decided to head out on mopeds for the day and to explore Ko Samui. In the morning I had to make the decision to get one on my own or to ride with someone. After having a go on Kev and Brian’s bikes I decided to share with Rachel so once we were all sorted and everyone was ready we headed off. We didn’t have a map so didn’t really know where we were going...but it’s an island so we couldn’t get too lost really!! We headed up north first to find the Big Buddha...he wasn’t hard to find he was absolutely massive! While we were there we sponsored a tile for their new temple so when the temple is built next year there is a roof tile going on it with a drawing of our truck on it and 9 of our signatures! While we were there we stopped for a cold drink in a local cafe which turned out to be owned by an English couple. We got talking to them and the lady very kindly offered to show us to some local temples. So she hopped on her bike and we followed her down to a complex that had about 6 or 7 different temples in it. After that we headed back down towards the south of the island, but on the coast road this time and so we were able to take in the fabulous beaches and the amazing blue water. We then decided that instead of stopping at Lamai, where we were staying, on our way back down we would drive though and try to find the waterfall. At this point Brian very kindly let me have a go on his bike on my own and I had loads of fun on it...although typically as soon as I decided to try it on my own the road turned into potholed, flooded dirt tracks! We made it back onto the main road and started going up the mountain. We stopped at a little waterfall along the way which was more of a water trickle and then I got back on the bike with Rachel to head further up the mountain. Unfortunately we didn’t find the waterfall and instead ended up in the hell that is a durian plantation! Durian is a fruit that they are crazy about over here but they smell like a mixture of puke and shit so landing in a forest full of them was not something I would like to ever repeat again!! We made our way back down to the main road then and relaxed for the rest of the evening. The following day was Rugby World Cup Day and also Bui’s birthday celebrations. So we started off the day with a KFC lunch and then headed back to the beach huts to watch the rugby. Unfortunately due to the US Open being delayed they had changed around the TV schedule so the restaurant in the beach huts couldn’t actually show the match. So it was a quick dash back into the town to go to the Aussie bar. We made it back down just in time for the end of the opening ceremony and the start of the match. Once the match was over it was time to get ourselves ready for the UKtoOz race night! All my years of working in Floods paid off when I became bookie for the night, and in true UKtoOz style the bets were placed in drinks! Needless to say I set a few rules...mainly no each way betting as I was sure after the first couple of races I wouldn’t be able to calculate, even with the aid of a calculator, what a half, never mind what a quarter of anything was!! We had a great night! Our “horses” were windup toy chickens. We had a list of names that kept with the chicken them such as “Poultry in Motion”, “Rooster Red Rum”, Secret Recipe”, “Atilla the Hen”, “An Oeuf is and Ouef” and “Quick Chick”.  We had a “race course” that was about a foot long as the chickens tended to change course or die half way but in every race we landed ourselves a winner. We even managed a couple of photo finishes and at one stage a dead heat!! You’d think there was actual money involved on the night with the amount of cheering that was going on! And to truly make the event authentic, everyone had to wear a hat. We had a great collection, some people collected flowers from the garden and made hats, we had a top hat that was about 3 foot high, there were fan hats, big gaudy coloured hats and a couple of hats that could pass as normal ones that would be acceptable to wear in normal everyday life! I ended up with a purple theme without knowing it as I had a purple hat, purple top and when I took out my fan it was point out to me that that too was purple! So to make myself truly heinous due to the clash of shades of purple I went and put on a pair of purple trousers and my purple scarf. Overall I would say I managed to end up with about 10 different shades of purple on me in one outfit...not something I would normally strive to achieve but it gave us all a laugh and managed to prove that yes, purple IS my favourite colour!!! The night was a great success and everyone went to bed with at least one win under their belts...and a number of drinks in their bellies!

The following morning was a very slow, tender start to the morning for me on account of the night before! I do remember ending up in a ridiculous situation in the middle of the night where I had to get up to go to the loo. In our huts there were big mosquito nets over the beds so it wasn’t an easy task to get in and out of bed in a full state of sobriety. So you can imagine that after a few drinks it was a lot more difficult and when I tried to get out I kind of managed to bounce myself into the net forgetting it was there, and got slightly tangled up in it...think fish caught in a net and you will get an idea of my situation! I eventually managed to free myself and also managed to get back into the bed with too much difficulty where I returned to a glorious slumber! I managed to make it down the town for one of the rugby matches the next day but other than that I took it very easy! The following day though was the Irish match and I was so nervous! We went to an Irish bar to watch it and there was a good crowd in. The only disappointment was dinner! Kev ordered the beef Sunday Roast and when that came out we all suddenly decided we were hungry! A couple of others ordered only to be told there was no beef left...so they had to make do with the roast chicken instead. That too looked and smelt amazing. I wasn’t hungry so decided to wait a bit to order...and when I did I was told that they had just sold the last dinner!! So no Sunday Roast for me! Luckily I had perused the menu and found chicken balls, chips and curry sauce...so I got those and felt like I was eating a Hanks (local Chinese take away in Clondalkin for those of you who are unfortunate enough not to have experienced a Hanks!!!). The Irish match was great to watch but my nerves were shot to pieces watching it and seeing them mess up!! And that marked our last day in Ko Samui and our last day in Thailand!

The couple of weeks in Laos and Thailand absolutely flew in. I was amazed by Laos. When we drove in I didn’t expect it to be so mountainous after how flat Vietnam was. The tubing was an amazing experience, both because it was something completely different and also because it was a breathtaking setting to be in in the first place. It was also great to see more of Thailand after falling in love with Bangkok. Chiang Mai was a nice place to relax and take some time out and Ko Samui gave us a great chill out place but we managed to fit in some adventure at the same time with our scooter day. And I loved seeing Kanchanaburi and learning some of the history of the famous railway and the town itself. Once again some amazing countries and places to visit and more memories to have!! Next stop is Malaysia, country number 18 out of the 21...scary to be so close to the end but also very exciting!!!

Vietnam

The next stage of our journey brought us to Vietnam, a country I was really looking forward to seeing. The border crossing was very easy and we sailed through in about an hour or so. The one thing I do remember from the border that brought me a bit of amusement was due to the fact that we were on the public bus the whole way through the border. When this happens the people who work on the bus help all the passengers through the border by gathering the passports and all that kinda thing. At this border when we were stamped out of Cambodia we were getting back on the bus to drive through the short no man’s land to the Vietnam side of the border. As we got back on the bus a guy who worked on the bus was collecting all the passports. This guy was dressed in ¾ length trousers and had a big massive straw sombrero type hat on his head. Every single person who got on the bus did that thing where you could literally see their thought process as they looked at the guy still holding onto their passport, they look at him with an odd look and then glance at the pile of passports he already has and then reluctantly hand over the passport...then run onto the bus and ask their friends or the bus in general if they had also handed over their passports to the dodgy looking dude at the door!! I went through this whole process myself but once I was on the bus and looking out the window I found it quite funny to watch everyone else do the exact same thing!!! Anyway once we were through the border they started playing Avatar on the TV screen which I was quite excited about as I hadn’t seen it since I went to see it in the cinema...but unfortunately I fell asleep!! When I woke up I looked around and discovered we were in Ho Chi Minh City!! Straight away it reminded me of Seoul in Korea and I got a good feeling about it straight away. Once the bus made it through the traffic and the endless barrage of mopeds we headed to our hotel. Once the rooms were sorted it was time to go and try find some food. Luckily enough there was a restaurant and bar 2 doors up from the hotel and due to hunger and tiredness we decided to do the easy thing and go there. This place we found was called Godmothers and became our home outside of the hotel for the few nights we were in HCMC. The first night we were there the food was gorgeous and with our meal we got a drink...this led to a second drink...which led to free shots from the bar...which led to ANOTHER drink...and you can imagine that this vicious circle continued until we were 5 free shots in...which got stronger every time!! The staff also brought us out a complimentary fruit plate which was just yummy! Then we copped onto the Connect 4 boards on the bar so we all started playing that. At this stage more of our group had joined the 7 of us who had headed out for dinner and we ended up with quite a fun night on our hands!! I’d like to say we stayed out until the wee hours of the morning, however having headed out at about 6.30 for food we were all home and tucked up in bed by about 10.30!!!

We obviously still had some sense about us when we got home from the bar though as we all managed to book a day trip for the following morning!! The day trip was to the Mekong Delta and involved an hour bus ride first before getting on the boat. I was slightly green on the bus journey but made it without incident...much to the relief of Rosie who was sitting beside me!!! The day trip was really good, we got in a boat which brought us out past Dragon Island and Turtle Island and we kept making our way towards Unicorn Island. When we got here we got off the boat and went to see bee hives and taste honey tea. After that there was a walk through the island which was really nice. We walked to a canal through the island and it was so picturesque. Most people when they picture Vietnam think of the palm tree lined canals with the little boats and tiny Vietnamese women in them with the cone hats on their head...at least I know that’s a picture I had in my head of Vietnam...and this tiny little canal in the middle of the island made that stereotypical picture come to life! It was amazing; there were loads of little boats with 2 people in each of them waiting to take us all down the canal to see more of the island. I really enjoyed that part of it...even if it did involve another minute boat!! After that we went back on the big boat to go to the next island where we saw how they made coconut candy. I’m not a huge fan of coconut but tried it anyway and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t taste of coconut at all!! It proved to be quite tasty and slightly addictive!!! Then it was back on the boat to go for lunch which was a rather uninspired affair with stodgy rice and suspicious looking chicken!! After that we were back on the main river for a look around before going back to an island for a tropical fruit tasting and some traditional Vietnamese music...which was...em interesting!!! The instruments one dude was playing were fascinating to look at but the sound from one or two of them were slightly piercing so I can’t say that I found it particularly relaxing!!! Then it was back on the boat to head back to the mainland. There was another hour bus journey to endure and then we went to Godmothers for some food (avoiding alcohol completely except for the shot they gave us!!) before going to bed for an early night!

The following day was explore HCMC day!! Once we were all up and ready we headed out for a little tour of the city. We started off down at the Notre Dame Cathedral, which isn’t a patch on the one in Paris but was still a nice building. Just across from that was the French style GPO. I really liked this building and when I went in I felt like I had walked into the Dublin GPO!!! It had all the wooden counters and steel bars just like Dublin, and I also noticed that it even had the little wooden phone booths that are in Dublin...although granted there was an ATM in one and computer terminals in some of them!! We went to grab a bit of lunch then before heading down to look at the Reunification Palace. Myself, Rosie and Kev decided to go in while some of the others went on down to the War Remnants Museum. The guide book said that the Palace had been untouched since the 70s and was like a time warp....I was not disappointed! As soon as we walked in we noticed the clashing colours and rooms decorated in the exact same shade of awful yellow or green from the carpet and curtains to the chair covers and wall paper! It was slight overload in some rooms!! My favourite room though is the room I have affectionately dubbed the Austin Powers room as it would not be out of place in one of the movies. It came complete with circular leather sycadelic coloured couch, ridiculous lamps and light shade and tacky wooden personal bar in the corner! And I’ll just remind you here that this was the PRESIDENTIAL palace...where the president actually lived and met with other royal and political people!!!  The palace comes complete with a movie room, heliport and on the 4^th floor a dance hall and casino. A war bunker was also built and completed in 1966. The bomb shelter was built by President Ngo Dinh Diem after the palace was bombed by his own troops in an attempt to kill him. While the new palace was ordered to be built in 1962 by the president he never got to see the competed article in 1966 as he was killed in 1963 by his own troops. The bunker itself was very impressive with a number of tunnels and a large concentration of different telecommunication rooms. All these are also preserved perfectly since the 70s so we again got to see the old style phones and the big communication machines that they used throughout the war. The palace has been known by a number of different names over the years from Independence Palace in 1975 when communist tanks crashed through the gates, and Norodorm Palace, when it was used by the French Governor-general of Cochinchina in 1868. When we finished exploring the time warp we headed down to the War Remnants Museum. This was an experience not unlike the S-21 prison in Cambodia. It consisted mostly of photographs from the war which showed the affects of chemical warfare used by the US such as Naplam. When Naplam was dropped it would literally wipe out everything in its path. Whole forests and jungle areas were wiped out within minutes. Crops and livestock were destroyed and it affects the people in a horrendous way. The Naplam would burn through the skin and not only would it disfigure the person; they were then contaminated by it and now pass the contamination onto their children. Even today children are being born with disabilities and disfigurements as a result of the chemical warfare. Some of the pictures were very hard to look at and it was heart breaking to see that it still affects people today, but the very last room we came to was a display of how people who have been affected by it are still leading a normal life. People who have been born in the last 20 years or so are now working as teachers, there was one guy who was born with no arms who taught himself how to be a carpenter with his feet and he now carves the most exquisite beds and furniture. Another person again without feet, is an artist and there is a girl who has her own classroom in a local school where she goes to teach the children in the school how to read. Although there was a lot of information to take in at the museum and a lot of it was quite disturbing it was nice to finish on a happy story as such and to know that although people are still being affected by it they are not letting it ruin their lives or letting it stop them doing what they want to do. The museum also had an outdoor display about the tiger cages that prisoners were kept in. These cages were about the size of a coffin and rather than being wooden they were made of barbed wire. Up to 7 prisoners used to be in one cage and left there for hours or even days at a time. We also saw the guillotine used by the French which was lasted used in about 1968.

 That evening we all went out for dinner and by pure coincidence found a place that was showing a friendly between England and Wales (rugby!). That night there was also a friendly between Scotland and Ireland so all 4 teams were represented so there was a bit of craic going on....and it didn’t help that Ireland lost to bloody Scotland...Rhona was a very happy lady for the rest of the night! When the matches were over we all went back to...yes you guessed it, Godmothers!!! And another great night followed, which was rounded off by a great catch up with Triona on Skype...with a good internet connection!!! Next day was an extremely chilled day for everyone with hangovers being an issue for some people! But that evening some of us mustered up the energy to head to the Sheraton Hotel for cocktails at dusk overlooking the city from the 23^rd floor. It was really nice and the city looked amazing at night with all the lights. We knew straight away we were in a posh place as even though it was 2 for 1 cocktails (which was just as well as the cocktails cost about 6euro...we’re used to paying maybe about 2 or 3 euro these days for cocktails!!!) they only brought out one cocktail to us all. We all sat looking a little confused but as we were in a posh place decided not to act like penny pinching backpackers and we didn’t say anything. Then as Rosie finished up her cocktail the waiter whipped over with her second one ready to go! It was then we realised that the place was so fancy that rather than giving you two cocktails at once and have one get warm or sitting there too long they just watched the drink and when it looked like you were ready for the next one it appeared by magic!!! Like I said...it was a posh place...not something we have been used to for these last few months!!! When the sun had set and we got some lovely pictures we then headed to a local Vietnamese restaurant. On the walk there we passed by the Opera House which was a gorgeous building all lit up. In the restaurant everybody else’s food was lovely, but I seemed to pick the dud of the menu and ended up with what can only be described as a rubber fish cake! We all did get quite excited though about the fact that there was brown rice on the menu and after the first initial “Oh, its 3,000 more than white rice”, we copped on and reminded ourselves that this was the equivalent of 10cent and we could probably afford to splash out!!! When we were all finished it was time to go back to the hotel and pack up and get ready to leave Ho Chi Minh City. I really liked it there and if HCMC is a sign of what else was to come in Vietnam we were all guaranteed to have a great 2 weeks!!

The following morning we were off to Mui Ne, a beach resort on the east of Vietnam. I was standing at the bus stop and some of the other guys started to walk up...and then I thought my eyes played a trick as I saw Greg following up the crowd!! I ran up to give him a hug and say welcome back and nearly got myself killed in the process as I stopped to hug him in the entrance to the bus station. Greg’s mum Wendy was with him. They had arrived in HCMC the previous evening and had surprised everyone with their arrival! Wendy had always planned to come out for the SEA leg of the journey but when we lost the truck and Greg it was all up in the air but luckily it all worked out in the end and they are with us for a few weeks. We then all hopped onto the bus and got a surprise when we discovered that it was a sleeper bus. A sleeper bus is...well you can probably imagine...it’s a bus you get if you’re making a long journey. It’s not like a normal coach bus; it has two levels of what I can only describe as bunk beds! They are somewhat comfortable...but only if you are a little person less than about 5’10!! Any bigger than that and it’s a case of not being able to straighten the legs at all!!! So we all piled in, learned quickly how to climb onto the top level and get out of the way of everyone else ASAP and we were on the way! When we arrived in Mui Ne I fell in love with it straight away. We were staying in a resort that had its only little private beach out the back...it was about 20 steps out my bedroom door...as Mam and Dad can both testify to as when I was talking to them on Skype I took the laptop for a little walk outside to show them the little bit of paradise that I had found!!!! Once we were all settled into our rooms me and Joe went for a walk up the beach to explore a little bit. When we turned around to go back home we saw that a massive storm was moving in over the bay. I can’t really describe it except to say that there was a perfectly circular cloud coming in which was really dark close to the land and went different shades of grey as it went more towards the sky. The best way to get an idea of what the heck I am talking about is to have a look at the pictures on Facebook! When we got back to the resort, everyone else was out on the beach looking at the storm too. The wind really started to pick up and sand was being blown against our legs...which kinda hurt a little! Then it started to drizzle at which stage we all took our cue to leave and went into the restaurant to watch the rest of the storm unfold. The rain poured down and it was amazing to watch the cloud move over the bay and then for everything to go back to normal like nothing had happened! Day 2 in Mui Ne was spent doing absolutely nothing! I went to the beach, went for a little walk in the town and didn’t find anything too interesting, then went back to the beach, then out for dinner and then to bed!!! So that day really did feel like a holiday!! On day 3 in Mui Ne some of us went for a trip to the sand dunes. The first ones we went to were the white sand dunes where we could get sheets on plastic to slide down the dunes. A couple of the lads got them and we all went up to watch them. We had great fun up there with everyone giving it a go but by far the star of the day was Bui! I will try my best to describe his amazing dive but I have a video that I will email to people so you can all truly appreciate his acrobatics!!! When we first started up there some of the local kids were pushing the lads off till they got the hang of it. Then once they got a bit of confidence they started pushing themselves off by putting one knee on the board and using their other leg to push off with. Bui went to give this a go but when he pushed off he managed to propel himself in such a way that he planted his face into the sand and his body flipped over in spectacular style!!It wasn’t so much a back flip as a neck flip! We all saw it and of course our first reaction was to laugh, then we checked if he was ok and then we laughed again!! He just lay on the ground for a few seconds before coming back up to us and showing us a face full of sand!! We left soon after this as we were pretty sure no one could top Bui’s moment. That evening after dinner I went to sit out on the beach for awhile. As I sat watching the waves I was mesmerised with how the sea would go perfectly calm and then the waves would just appear up out of nowhere. As I watched them I started noticing that every now and then the white tip of the wave would be a luminous green colour. At first I thought it was just my eyes going funny as I had been watching the waves for so long but it kept on happening. Rosie came out then and I tried to point it out to her but it was gone before I could explain  what I was seeing but she saw my face and said straight away, “yeah the waves light up”!!. So I was pleased to learn that I wasn’t going mental. Apparently it is phosphorus or something along those lines in the water that causes it to happen. I don’t really know what it was and to be totally honest I don’t really care, I was just glad to have seen something like that and found it absolutely spellbinding!

Next morning we had to leave our little paradise to head to Nha Trang. We were on a sleeper bus again and it was slightly awkward as there seemed to be very little storage space on the bus for our bags for some reason. So all the bags got piled on the front of the bus and then shoved down the aisles once we were all in our bunks. As the journey progressed we discovered the reason for the lack of space....the storage of the bus had been stuffed full of deliveries that we were dropping off along the way. There were boxes and packages appearing left right and centre...and then we arrived at a little garage...and they proceeded to pull 7 bike chassis out of the bus! So the reason for no storage then became blatantly clear! We arrived in Nha Trang once all our deliveries were made and sorted out the hotel rooms...and got a lovely surprise when we discovered that the hotel had a lift so we didn’t have to trek up a few flights of stairs with our bags on our backs (little things people remember!!!).  That evening we got Nha Trang off to a similar start to HCMC with a quiet dinner affair turning into something of a boisterous night out...and once again we loved it! Luckily there was no boat trip scheduled for the following day so after a relaxing brunch myself and Joe went off to explore Nha Trang...and explore we did...we “explored” so much we managed to walk ourselves off the map that the hotel had provided us with and after walking for 2 hours looking for a left turn we eventually gave up and started looking out for a taxi. It turned out we had walked to the edge of town and had basically walked around the ring road of the town.

Our third day in Nha Trang was by far my favourite as it was the day we arranged to go snorkelling. I’ve never been snorkelling before and was slightly nervous about the whole thing. I knew I would have a life jacket on so I wasn’t worried about the drowning...I was worried I wouldn’t get the hang of breathing under water. At the first snorkelling stop the water was so clear and looked gorgeous. I flippered up and popped on my mask and life jacket and stood at the back of the boat....and just looked!!! After a few minutes I plucked up the courage and got myself into the water. The first thing I did was stick my head in the water and consciously told myself to breath. After the first few attempts I started to get the hang of it so I kicked off and went in the direction our guide pointed us in....and I fell in love with the sea! I have seen plenty of movies and documentaries where people go diving and snorkelling but I had my breath taken away when I reached the coral and it was exactly like I had seen on the TV. The water was so clear that I could see everything and the colours of the fish were absolutely amazing. I just didn’t want to get out; I wanted to keep looking for more and more fish!! After a half hour or so we moved on from the first stop and went to our second stop. This one was my favourite out of the 3 stops as it was only our group there and I found a cluster of little electric blue and deep purple fish. When I spotted those ones I just floated above them and watched them for ages. I also saw a huge blue starfish at this stop and I found Nemo too!!! When we got back on the boat after our 45 minutes there the seating area of the boat had been transformed into a buffet area!! They had set up so much food including a fish dish which was yummy, chicken, noodles, squid, rice, morning glory (type of veg!) and spring rolls! It was all delicious and between the 20 of us we devoured it! It was then time to head to our third snorkel stop which was different to the other two as it wasn’t in a cove or small bay but pretty much out in the open water in a current. The guide came with us on this one and we all followed him while he pointed out different fish and dived down to point them out to us. The third stop was my least favourite for the simple reason that I got stung by a stupid jellyfish!! At the first stop there had been lots of little jellyfish that was like a pin prick if it got us. At this stop a felt something across my stomach and then it started to sting so a used my hand to swipe it away and felt tentacle thingys around my fingers and a stronger sting on my stomach. So a splashed around and flapped my hand a bit to free myself from the tentacles, once I did that a looked around but actually couldn’t see a jellyfish anywhere near me!! I started to think I had imagined it but then as a started to swim off again I could feel the sting on my stomach and fingers so a had to stop for a few seconds to try squeeze the pain out of myself!!! When a got back onto the boat after our exploration (and spotting a blow fish!!) I had a huge sting mark on my stomach and all on my fingers...so at least I know I didn’t imagine it, and thankfully the pain had stopped by then. We also had a tropical fruit party waiting for us when we got back on the boat so we all tucked into dragon fruit, pineapple, bananas and a couple of other tasty refreshing fruits! So my first experience of snorkelling got me a jellyfish sting but that won’t put me off. I absolutely loved it!! After being so nervous at the first stop, at the second one I was the first person at the back of the boat kitted out and ready to jump in!!! I loved seeing all the fish and even something like seeing the coral swaying in the current I found mesmerising! I can’t wait to get to Oz and to be able to do it again!!

The next day we were leaving Nha Trang, however our bus wasn’t till 6 in the evening so a group of us headed off to the mud baths. We all really enjoyed it. When we got there we had to shower first in hot mineral showers and then a dude turned on a big massive tap in a big massive bath and mud started spilling into it! So we all jumped in (about 10 of us!!) and had a mud bath. We stayed in there for about 15 minutes and then it was time to get out shower again and then get into another big massive baths, this time with crystal clear hot mineral water. This was after going through the hydroshower that spurted water at us at high speed and pressure...and those of the group who had some sunburn from the snorkelling the day before did not enjoy this part of it!!! After chilling out in the second bath tub in the sun (this whole experience was outdoors!!) we headed to the hot mineral swimming pool. We were expecting it to be warmish and all just jumped in...Which proved to be quite a shock for our sunburn when it started stinging the bejaysus out of us for the first few seconds after the water hit us!! When we were all swimming pooled out we went and got ourselves ready to head back to the hotel and to wait for our bus.

Our journey that night was also on a night bus and what an experience it was! Once again it was a sleeper but except this time we were actually expected to get a proper sleep on it as it was an overnight bus! When we first got on the bus driver immediately didn’t like me and some of the others in the group as there was a cave type thing down at the back of the bus where there were 5 seats in a row with a low roof and another 5 places above that. It was hot and dark in there so when the dude signalled for me to go into it I just looked at him and said no way. After a few minutes of continuing gesturing on his part and head shaking on my part I just picked a seat, sat in it and looked at him. He either didn’t mind or had lost the will to argue with me without being able to use words so he left me alone....and starting gesturing to someone else to go into the cave!! Eventually we were all seated and the cave was full and we got on the road. We discovered on this trip that the Vietnamese have no concept of personal space!! I had picked one of the upper bunks which proved to be a God send as even though all the seats were taken on the bus the driver kept stopping to pick people up and they put little mattresses down on the aisles for these people to lie on. Now the aisles were probably about 2 foot wide and of you were on one of the bottom bunks one of these extra people would have been literally lying right beside you! There was an Irish girl who got the unfortunate seat of the bottom bunk in the middle aisle, so when one dude popped down on one side of her she just turned on her side to try and ignore the fact that he was so close...however not long after there was another stop and another dude was plonked down on the other side of her. I felt really sorry for her and if that wasn’t bad enough another guy got on the bus and lay down beside the first dude so she had two squashed in on one side of her and another one on the other side. I could tell she wasn’t very happy with the situation and I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t have been either! Of course the other problem that stemmed from this bus cramming was the fact that getting to the toilet on the bus was somewhat of an obstacle course. When it gets dark the driver turns off all the lights, there are people and bags lying everywhere, the driving is somewhat erratic and people are trying their best to keep their balance and not fall on top of someone as they venture for a pee!! I didn’t sleep very well on the bus and the one time I finally started to drift off properly the driver decided was the perfect time for a break and he stopped at a roadside restaurant!! I managed to doze every now and then but it was not what I would call a comfortable night’s sleep!! One thing I do remember from this particular journey was that my IPod fell off my bunk down onto the dude who was asleep in the aisle. When I stuck my head over the side to get it back I was very surprised to see that he hadn’t woken up when it dropped on his shoulder. The people in the bunks on the bottom were also asleep which left me with a bit of a dilemma as to how I was going to get my IPod back!! In the end I had to climb off my bunk and balance myself on the bars/armrests that stop people from rolling out of the bottom bunks. So I had one foot on a balancing beam on either side of this tiny Vietnamese dude and had to bend over without falling on any of the 3 people within my landing zone to get the IPod back! If this guy had of woken up at the moment he would have woken up to a white girl straddling him reaching down towards his face!! How I didn’t burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and wake up the whole but I will never know!!! Anyway in the end I got my IPod back without waking up anyone and I was able to go back to my happy little world of music!! Although I didn’t get to sleep much on the bus I did get to track the full moon the whole way across the sky that night and got to see an amazing sunrise too!

When we arrived in Hoi An at 7.30am we got to the hotel to discover that not all the rooms were ready. So some very lucky people got to go to bed straight away...I unfortunately was not one of those lucky people so had to dump my bag in someone else’s room and find something to entertain myself with for a few hours while I waited for people to check out. In the end I decided to walk down to the beach to have a look as I had heard it was about a twenty minute walk, so I figured a walk would probably do me good after sitting and lying down for the whole night on a stuffy bus! Well a 30 minute walk didn’t even get me close to it! I walked for about an hour or so (no watch on so I don’t actually know!!) and still didn’t make it to the beach. I had also had a flip flop casualty in Nha Trang so I was wearing my dolly shoes with no socks on which started to really hurt my feet. After a few attempts at saying “Ok, I’ll go to this next corner and if I can’t see the beach I’ll turn back”, I eventually did give up and turn back. Of course at this stage my poor little toesies were in agony and they only way I could actually walk was to take the shoes off and do it barefoot!! When I got to the hotel I discovered that I had been gone for nearly 3 hours!! But in those 3 hours someone had checked out so there was a bed awaiting me!! I ran to the room, had a shower and hopped into bed for a few hours of uninterrupted kip!!! The walk to the beach was probably about as exciting as day 1 in Hoi An got as after my nap I just pottered around the hotel and then got take away from a restaurant that evening and ate it in bed watching a movie!!!

The next day was Triona’s birthday!!!! So I got for breakfast and then hung around for a couple of hours to give her a call on Skype. Unfortunately the internet started to be really crap and it was all very jumpy so I didn’t get to talk to her for long. I still laughed though at the few seconds of silence after I greeted her at 7 her time in the morning with “Happy Birthday”. I could picture the thought process she was going through until she finally replied “Orla....is that you??” It was priceless!! After my sisterly duty was done we headed into town for a walk and some lunch. It was on this walk that I had a startling revelation! We got to a sculpture tribute type thing to a guy who had helped get Hoi An its World Heritage Status. Part of the display was a large globe with Vietnam highlighted on it. So I had a look and started to walk around the globe to find little old Ireland...and was stunned to see that I had pretty much walked around it 180 degrees before I found the little island I call home! I had a flood of different thoughts ranging from “holy crap, I’m far away”, to “how did I get this far in only 4 months” and “how did I get this far without flying!!” It was great to see just how far we had actually come but also really, I’m not sure sad is the word but I can’t think of the right word, to realise how far away from home I was!!! Anyway after that little revelation we continued to wander around what is a really quaint village. Hoi An went virtually untouched throughout the war and everything is as it has always been. The old houses are amazing and although most of them are shops now they are still in the old style houses with the original architecture and decoration. The following day I had gone on a bit of a tourist walk by myself. I went to a couple of different places including an old family church, called the Tran Family Chapel which was built in 1802. It was built for Tran Tu, a member of the family who became ambassador to China. I also went to the ceramics museum (the best thing about it was seeing the old house it was in and seeing the exhibition about the restoration of the house itself), a couple of temples and a traditional family home. The house I went to is called Tan Ly House and is lived in by the 7^th generation of the family and everything is exactly the same as it. The house was beautiful and had been designed with such a lot of detailed. There was poetry on the columns but rather than being written it was inlayed mother of pearl, and the writing was designed to be birds in different states of flight rather than just normal writing. I know all that sounds rather confusing but trust me when I saw it was beautiful! The house is quite close to the river bank and so in the rainy season when the flood waters rise the family use ropes and pulleys to haul all the furniture from the ground floor to the upper levels of the house. The main thing I remember about the house was that they mark on a section of wall how far the flood waters rise every year and in 2007 and 2009 the waters reached about 8 feet. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it and was impressed to see how well the house had survived over the years considering the weather it has to contend with!

Next morning I made a second attempt to find my way to the beach...only this time I didn’t walk and hired an electric bike! The bike was great fun one I got the hang of it and a good idea as it was quite hot to be cycling in. We stopped on the way up the road for some lunch and then made our way down to the beach where we got some sun loungers and chilled out. On the way up the road my bike had started to lose a bit of power so I was hoping that the rest while I was on the beach would allow me to make it home before it gave up completely. The beach itself was lovely, golden sands and blue seas for as far as I could see. The weather was slightly overcast but it was still warm and the water was a lovely temperature. We had great fun with Brian and Greg cracking some horrendously bad jokes that we couldn’t help but laugh at...and of course we all people watched and commented on people’s choice of swimwear and hair styles! Then it was time to head back to the hotel to meet Rosie and Dee for some shopping, so back on my bike I got...and after a few minutes the bike properly died. And so I was forced to manually cycle home the 5k from the beach....felt like when I first started spinning all over again...except this time I was sweating as it was about 35 degrees out!! When I got back to the hotel I went straight to the shop where we had hired the bikes from, I explained what happened and she looked at the bike and said “Oh, the wire came out of the battery”. She found it very amusing and started laughing while I was not so amused!! After a short discussion they agreed to refund me some money and then I dived in for a very quick shower and change and us girls went off on our shopping expedition! Both the girls were looking for jewellery; however I was just looking for a place that would clean my bracelet. After 4 months of overlanding it had got rather grubby and wasn’t as shiny as it used to be. So I left it in at a jewellers and she told me they would see what they could do but couldn’t promise anything. After that and when the girls had bought their shiny things we went to meet Greg and Wendy for a drink and some cake! I had a mini passion fruit pavlova (Mam, add it to the recipe book...absolutely amazing!!!) and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for a group dinner that evening. We went back to the place where we had gotten cake in the afternoon and I had a gorgeous tuna lasagne (Mam...recipe book!!!) and then it was back to the hotel to pack and get ready to move on once again!

We had an early start the next morning but the joy of public transport meant that the bus was about an hour late so we were all just milling around reception getting rather bored. Eventually our bus arrived and we were pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually a normal bus and not a sleeper bus! The bus journey itself was relatively uneventful however when we arrived in Hue the bus driver got a bit stroppy when Rachel told him that he was supposed to take us to the hostel rather than just drop us at the bus stop. He got off the bus and stood on the other side of the road but Rach told us all to stay on the bus and to make sure no one started to take our bags off. After a number of phone calls and a few irate gestures and some shouting from the bus driver he eventually dropped us to where he was supposed to. We were staying in hostels in Hue and some of us were in a 14 bed dorm. We hadn’t had a proper hostel stay since Istanbul so it was a bit of fun to all be in the same dorm...even though we only had one shower and toilet between us all!! Once we were all settled in myself, Rosie and Wendy went for a bit of a wander and walked down towards the Citadel to see where it was and how much in it was. Hue, like Hoi An, is a Unesco World Heritage Site and tourists go there, according to the Lonely Planet, to see something of old, pre-communist Vietnam. We then stopped along the river bank for a drink and a chat before heading back to the hostel to get ready for Kev’s birthday night out! I have to say I was very proud of how well we managed to coordinate the showers and a very orderly queuing system was formed. Of course all this organisation meant that we were ready a lot earlier than any of us had planned so the party started a bit earlier! Poor Kev was on a cycle of beer shot, beer shot, before we even left the hostel as the hostel has a spinning board with lots of flavoured vodkas that ranged from butterscotch or apple, to one called arse (vodka with fish sauce!!). We then left the hostel to head to the DMZ bar where we got free Long Island Ice Teas and graffitied the wall a bit in honour of Kev’s birthday. We then eventually made it to the restaurant we had booked and were pleasantly surprised as the guy in the hostel told us it had a menu of Vietnamese street food. When we got there though it was white table cloths and 3 couples having nice romantic meals...needless to say they seemed to speed up their consumption pace and left possibly a bit sooner than they had planned...there were 16 of us after all!! We had a really nice meal, the food was gorgeous and we all cleaned our plates, with some of the group tasting other dishes on the table and ordering it in the middle of the meal as the food was so tasty! When we had finished up dinner we then headed off to Why Not Bar. We had been to a Why Not Bar in Nha Trang and had a great time so we decided to test out if this one was just as much fun!! When we had been in the DMZ bar earlier in the night we had bumped into some overlanders from another company called Odyssey that we had met way back in Goreme in Turkey. So on the way back past the bar we told them where we were headed and they followed us down a while later. One of the guys, Ben, was Irish and me and Dee had a great time chatting to him without getting the piss taken out of our accents! Ben had obviously been subjected to similar slagging as someone said the word film (pronounced fil-im by us Irish people apparently!!) and he was delighted to hear someone else say it!! After a few drinks and a few games of pool there Kev decided he wanted to go to Karaoke...and so at 1.30 in the morning Kev, Joe, Dee, Ben, Bui and I walked around Hue to a karaoke bar. In all honestly it was great fun! I’ve never really done karaoke before and when we first got there it looked like we were walking into someone’s house but when we got up to the room it was all kitted out with a big comfy sofa, space to dance around and a couple of microphones. The singing got off to a great start with Kev getting 100% for his rendition of La Bamba! I gave Bippity Boppity Boo (from Cinderella!!) a go...god knows why a song like that was in a karaoke book but by far the best song of the night was Bui’s selection of Livin’ On A Prayer where we all sung at the tops of our voices. We also did a group choice of YMCA...to which there is a video, however after several attempts by different people to get it online it’s just taking forever so you might just have to miss out on the wonder that is the UKtoOz music video!! The night was rounded off with group collaboration once again of Lean on Me...And then the people kicked us out of their house and we toddled off home!! It was a night of epic proportions and Kev had one heck of a birthday night out!!

The next day myself and Joe went off to explore the Citadel.  Construction on the Citadel began in 1804. The outer wall is 2 metres thick and 10km long, it also has a huge moat that is 30 metres across and about 4 metres deep (the moat is now overgrown with fantastic water lilies). At the centre of the wall facing the river is a 37 metre high flag pole...I couldn’t quite comprehend how high it was till I was standing right beside it. Although I could see it from pretty much anywhere in the city, as I walked towards the Citadel on the first day, I just thought I was really close to it because the flag was so big, but in fact I was still rather far away!! The flag pole has had an eventful life, built in 1809, extended in 1813, knocked down by a typhoon in 1904 and rebuilt in 1915...to be destroyed again in 1947. The actual one that exists today was erected in 1949. The Citadel was bombed heavily during the French and American wars and only 20 of its 148 original buildings have survived. We had only planned on being there for a short while but it was a really nice place and we sat down and took our time enjoying it. We found a little cafe to sit down with a cold drink overlooking the water lily covered moat and just soak up the atmosphere for a couple of ours. The Citadel was beautiful. A lot of the buildings were destroyed during the war but some of them have been restored so it was lovely to see the old style buildings. We then headed back to the hostel for a meeting with Rachel where she told us that the next leg of our trip over the border into Laos was going to be a scheduled 24 hour bus journey! We then had the choice of adding a further 4 hours onto that to get us to Vang Vieng or else we could make an overnight stop in Vientiane, however there was a possibility that our rooms wouldn’t be available at 7.30 in the morning, our schedules arrival time. After being the victim of such a fate in Hoi An I voted to add on the extra 4 hours and just go the whole hog and the majority won out so we have an epic 28 hour journey ahead of us!

The next day I got up and pottered around the town a little and then a group of us were going on a dragon boat trip on the river. It was really nice to relax and take in some of the scenery without having to walk around in the heat. We went to the main pagoda in Hue, called Thien Mu Pagoda. It is at the top of a hill but luckily it wasn’t too big a hill to get up to. It was quite impressive, a 21 metres high octagonal building, 8 stories high. This was also where we saw the car that a Buddhist monk drove to Vientiane in the 70s and burned himself alive in protest to how Buddhists were being treated because of their beliefs. When we were finished at the pagoda we headed back to our boat and back to the hostel to pack up. That evening then I went for a lovely meal where I got Cordon Bleu, veg and mashed potatoes!! One of the best meals I had had in a long time!! I’m really starting to miss being able to cook for myself and having normal food like chicken and potatoes...suppose it’s the Irishness coming out of me!!

And so that is pretty much the end of Vietnam, aside from the bus journey which I will tell you all about in the next blog as I think this one is just about long enough already!! I have to say I have absolutely LOVED Vietnam! I have seen many different sides to it, from the busy city of Ho Chi Minh, to beach resorts, the protected Hoi An and the great fun and nights out in Hue, everything has been just amazing. The only rude people I have encountered here were the bus drivers...but then again I guess I would be kinda moody too if I had to drive hours through the night with a bus full of sleeping people! Vietnam is definitely on my list of return places...and for those of you who want a new wardrobe my advice is to come to Vietnam for a holiday with an empty suitcase, go straight to Hoi An and get everything you could possibly need tailor made for you in am matter of hours. Kev got 4 full suits made for him in 24 hours!! They make everything from bikinis to ball gowns and everything is exquisite...and reasonably priced. So in a few years time when I head back to get myself a fab wardrobe made I will let you all know and we can all go on the biggest shopping spree holiday that you can possibly imagine!!!