The Big Trip...

Hey everyone

So, I left bangkok at 6pm and did not arrive into Chiang Mai until 8am the following day. Luckily i had 2 seats to myself on the overnight bus, but the air conditioning was at full blast and some random Thai film was blaring in my ear, so all in all it was not a very pleasant journey!

I went straight to my hotel and was pleased with the quality of the place..so far so good with teh travel agent i booked this leg of my trip with. I didn't do much that first day as I was completely exhausted, so I just took a wander into town where it became apparant that the Thai New Year water festival was already in full swing. After getting completley soaked (and i was unarmed so it was really unfair) i headed back to the hotel and just chilled by the pool for the rest of the day. That night I had been handed a free Kantoke dinner evening by the travel agent because i booked a lot with them, so at 7pm I was picked up and taken to this huge dinner thing. I have never been given so much food ever, but it was all really good, and once everyone had finished their meal, thai dancers came onto the stage and performed some traditional dances. Then we went outside and some performers did some fire dances which were really spectacular.

The next day I went to an all day cookery class which was really worthwhile. They picked me up at 9am and we got taken to the cookery school. This time I was safe in a car with the windows locked, so we did not get wet en route. The drive was so random...thousands and thousands of people had lined the canal that circles the city of Chiang Mai and all had water guns, big buckets of ice cold water, or mere water balloons. It is the most bizzare thing I have ever seen.

At the cooking class we made green curry paste, pad thai, green chicken curry, papaya salad, spring rolls, banana fritters, basi chicken and some more things i cant rememeber. Oh, and we ate everything we made, so I was completley stuffed by the time 5pm came and it was time to go home. I met some really nice people on the course and we all headed out to the Night Bazzar that evening for a little bit of shopping.

The following day I was starting my trekking through the jungle, and this was definately an experience. The people all going on the trek from my hotel didn't speak much english and I thought that I was in for a relaly boring 3 days, but we met up with another van load of poeple and they were all really nice people. On the first day of the trek we drove for 3 hours in an open top car (yup, thats right, we got drenched going through the streets of chiang mai, and teh villages surrounding!) to the elephant park, where we rode on elephants for about 1 hour. This was awesome and a great introduction to the trekking. After some lunch we drove to teh start of the trek and then the hard work began. On that first day we literally climed a mountain for 3 hours and I was completely ready to pass out by the time we got to camp. Once we had relaxed for a bit, our guide took us round the village that we were staying in and explained to us the life of the hill tribes which was really fascinating, and I will tell you all more about that wen i get home. It was early to bed because we were so exhausted. The following day was another full day of hiking up and down mountains (i can;t decide which is better..going uphill or downhill because my knees still hurt!). This day was pretty uneventful. The final day was te best...we only walked for about 2 and a half hours and then we went swimming in the most beautiful waterfall to freshen up. After that we drove to the bamboo rafting and we all got on huge bamboo rafts and got taken down the river for about an hour. This was so so strange because the water festival was still in full stride adn lining the river were thousands of people all throwing water at the poeple on the bamboo rafts. I think we were dry for the forst 30 seconds. All along the river they are having a party, drinking beer and eating chiken, and they were including us the whole way...random Thais were coming up- to our rafts with big glasses of beer and handing them out to us...it was so much fun! Its really hard to describe what it was like and unfortunately i do not have any pictures because my camera would have broken with all the water....its just teh biggest water fight and drinking festival ever known to man.

Once back safely in Chiang Mai we all had hot showers before meeting in teh town for a group dinner which was really nice. We stumbled upon a thai boxing match as well and a lady boy parade (ye, there are loads of lady boys here, its very strange and it is really hard to tell if they are real women or not!).

Yesterday i just had a chilled out day and i spent most of the day by the swimming pool having a well deserved rest from the trekking. I met some really cool people and we just did nothing all day which was luxurious. At night me and Luke took his moped into the town (probably the scariest ride of my entire life..thought we were going to crash and die because the traffic here is manic) and we got some thai massages for like 4 pounds. Bliss. We then met up with some more people from the pool and all went out for dinner and did a bit of shopping in the night bazzar. It was a good day.

Today I am starting a 3 day journey into Laos which I am really looking forward to. Hope everything at home is okay and please keep in touch.

Love Danielle xxxxx

Hey everyone

Well i am safe and sound back in the Northern Hemisphere ( ) after a 25 hour journey from Fiji. After being knocked back when asking for an upgrade (yet again..u gotta ask) i realsied i was in the very back seat of the plane and the seat did not recline! i was not a happy bunny. On the plus side i watched some great movies, saw an amazing sunset through the plane window and got chatting to Rob who was sitting next to me. On arrival into Bangkok, me, Rob and some other random girl with a backpack all got into a taxi to the Khoa San rd (backpackerdom). 800 baht, 2 toll road costs, and 45 mins later we were at the hotel and ready to crash. Hotel was absolutely stunning (i had decided to splash out a bit for my first 2 nights) and slept like a baby.

The next morning me and Rob met a couple of guys whilst trying to barter for some fisherman pants, and we ended up spending the day together. After some shopping and pad thai for lunch (which costs around 40 pence here) we decided to get into some tuk tuks. For those of you who don;'t know what these are, they are a cross between a car and a motorbike. Basicalyl very fast, dangerous vehicles that transport you around the city for very little money. We wanted to go to see the Grand Palace and th Giant Buddha. They took us to these sites but then insisted on taking us to 2 tailer shops (and they were surprised when we didnt want to buy anything?!), and a temple that not only was closed for renovation, but there was a funeral going on at the same time! There we were...4 travellers clad in fisherman pants and singlets, wearing flip flops..and we just walked into a buddist funeral. Great. We couldnt get out of there fast enough! Once back at the khao san rd we spend about 10 mins bartering with the tuk tuk drivers for the price, and we left satisfied having only paid 10baht (there is about 70 baht to the pound) for an hour long tour of the city. Sweet.

We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon..went swimming etc and then headed out at night back to the madness. We bought noodles from a street vendor and then had some beer on the side of the road. Was a good night, but me and rob were so tired still from the journey, that we left the other guys and went back to the hotel.

Today i am just getting ready fro my trip to Chiang Mai. I leave at 6pm tonight and spend 12 hours on a bus up north, arriving just in time for the Thai new year where there are giant water fights on teh streets of the city for 5 days. i am going trekking in the jungle for a few days whilst i am there before heading into Laos.

Hope all is well at home

Danielle xxxx

Bula everyone!! (hello,welcome,goodbye,have a nice day, whats up? etc in Fijian)

So, I am sitting in Sydney airport after a 4 hour flight from Fiji and i have 4 hours to kill before my flight to Thailand, so i decided this would be a good time to update my blog on the past week's events.

I left Auckland first thing in the morning for Fiji, and arrived mid afternoon. The heat hit me as soon as i walked off the plane which was a welcome surprise since NZ was just going into winter. I had my first expereince of 'Fiji Time' in the airport when we were told the courtesy bus would be picking us at at 4pm, and didnt turn up till 5pm. Great. I must be the most punctual person in the world so this was a shock to my system!

I arrived at the hostel (which was absolutely beautiful) and met up with Claire again. After dinner and relaxing we headed to bed because we were going to picke dup at 7am the following morning to start island hopping.

At 7:45 the next morning, we were picked up (again, fiji time - see above) and taken down to the harbour where we boarded the boat to take us up to the Yasawa group of islands. There are 336 islands in Fiji and they are grouped into 15 lots. We were staying on 2 islands only, but visitng many more.

It took 4 hours to reach our island which was called Nayuna Lailai. Basic does not descibe it. Our room was one big dorm and i had a top bunk with a ladder that i was seriosuly scared would come away from teh bed if i climed on top of it. thsi resulted in a 2 man operation of claire hoisting me up on the bed. Great. The toilets were vile, the place was ridden with mozzies and teh food was pure stodge. other than that we were set in paradise, surrounded by palm trees, crystal clear ocean and probably some of the most friendly people i have ever met. We spent 2 nights on this island. The activities on the first night consisted on a crab race - all very exciting stuff..before heading to bed early. Food was served at 7am, 12pm and 7pm, and everyone on the island sits down together to each meal, which is really nice and it means that you get to know people really well. On the next day we went to the Sawailau Caves which involved swimming underwater to reach into teh caves, then resting in air pockets..was really beautiful. That afternoon we hiked for about an hour to reach the Blue Lagoon and we spent around 2 hours snorkelling in amazingly clear waters before heading back to the resort. That night there were no organised activities, so we took it upon ourselves to creat a bar around a box of lifejackets. there we were, 8 of us, one bottle of lethal 60% Bounty Rum and 3 cans of Coke to mix it with - made for a very funny night. lets leave it at that.

The next morning we headed back onto the boat to take us to the Wanna Taki. This is a liveaboard boat around the Naviti area. We had such fun on this boat. Everyone (24 people) all slept in the same room (and it was airconditioned - such a luxury) and you could snorkel, swim, kayak, fish etc straight off the boat. The views were spectacular and every night we sat on the top deck drinking cocktails and sampling some Kava. Kava is a the national drink of Fiji and its made from some pepper tree roots and water. It tastes of filthy water and really has no appeal. Apparantly, if you drink enough of it then it will make your entire body go numb. There is a whole procedure for drinking the kava, and it is offensive to refuse it if someone offers it to you. The fist night i didnt try any of the vile tasting drink becausei had a dive booked for te next morning, and nothing was going to spoil that!

My dive was off Manta Ray island -another tropical paradise island. the dive was miuch better than my dives in Australia and fuelled my desire to do some more! (this is bad because it is not a cheap hobby!) The rest of the timeon the boat was spent sunbathing and snorkelling in different locations. On our second day on the boat, some of our friends from the Kiwi bus joined us which was a lovely reunion.

We left the boat the following afternoon and headed for our final island - South Sea Island. Now, i am not exaggerating when i saw that we could walk around the entire island in less than 5 minutes. The entire island consisted of the rest or we were staying in and thats it! We watched a lovely sunset when we arrived and then me, martin (my new dive buddy from the trip) and the instructor did a night dive straight off the beach. Well, let me tell you...it was so good that i went to bed that night with a smile on my face. Enough said. The next morning i woke up and had managed to convice claire to do an intro dive (she is scared of the water so this was a major feat for me!) so i waved her off, had some breakfast and then got my gear together to do my third and final dive on Fiji. this was a shipreck dive which was awesome and the deepest dive i have done at 23m. the rest of the day was spent sunbathing, swimming around the island (takes 20 mins) and we had a huge BBQ lunch which was fantastic!

We were picked up by the boat at 5;30pm and it was really sad because we had made so many friends and had to say goodbye to all of them, and headed back into Nadi (pronounced Nandi because thy put a 'n' before every 'd'). It was 7:00pm by the time we arrived back at the hostel, and we had a quick dinner with our friend Ben (someone we met in Queenstown) before heading to bed as we had to get up at 5:30am this morning.

All in all, it was a week of complete heaven (apart from the mozzies on the first island) and i recommend everyone to go there to chill out.

My next update will be from Thailand - take care everone

Bula! xxx

Hey everyone

Hope you are all well and not missing me too much

So, we left Kaikoura in the morning and travelled by bus up to Picton where we would get the ferry back over to Wellington and cross over into North Island. It was a beautiful drive along the coastline where we spotted some more seals (i swear, they are everywhere in NZ) and through the wine region. The ferry journey was pretty (going through the Marlbourgh Sounds) and then it was straight into Wellington. Me and Claire decided that we would spend 2 nights in Wellington because (a) it is a really lovely city and (b) we didnt really see much of it last time acuse we were partying too much..oops! We went to some bars at night before having a reasonably early one. On our free day in Wellington we took the cable car up to the top of the city (its build on a hill) and took some great photos and then had a walk round the bottanical gardens (which seems to be a regular occurance with us in cities!). After this we met one of Claire's friends for some coffee before heading back to the hostel and calling it a day.

From Wellington we journeyed to Taupo again. Our bus driver to Taupo was slightly strange and tried to get us to play wierd get to know you games...we were having none of it! We arrived in Taupo mid afternoon and we met up with LJ (our bus driver through the west coast of South Island) and he took us to some natural hot springs with his new bus. That night we went out for dinner to a really cool Mexican restaurant where they give you free monkey nuts and you throw the shells on the floor (very random, i know) followed by partying with LJ and his crew which was a great night. The following day we had a free day to chill out so we went to the Kiwi House (yes..the bus drivers get houses in some places that they can all stay at and they have sky tv and baths etc - thats a real treat when you;ve been on the road for over 3 months!) Anyway, we chilled out in the house watching movies all day - i have never been so pleased to see a couch in my life (its funny the things u miss!).

We left Taupo the following morning for Auckland and this was going to be our final bus journey with the Kiwi Experience.

There is not really that much to say about Auckland as i have been here twice before. Me and Claire met up with some friends from Queenstown and went out a few nights with them, and spent a great deal of time in the $6 Asian foodcourt. Apart from that, we really just got ourselves ready for Fiji. Claire left for Fiji yesterday and i leave tomorrow. Last night i went out with a group of people to celebrate Ben's birthday which was a great night out but I am very ready to leave Auckland.

I'll update after I have been sunbathing and diving in Fiji!
xxxxxxxxxx

Hey everyone!

Our final day in Queenstown was pretty non eventful...we did our washing, sorted out our bags, had one final Fergburger and said our goodbye's to people. The following day was a 9 hour bus journey to Christchurch. Surprisingly the journey went quite quickly and we actually got speaking to some cool people during the journey. En route, we stopped off to get a great view of Mount Cook which was 'sweet as'! When we arrived into Christchurch we were met by some people we thought we were not going to see again which was awesome, and we all went out for dinner before heading to the hostel bar to see a sweet Juggling show.

On our first full day in Christchurch we went to the gym (felt the need for some excercise for some strange reason!) and then me, Claire and Tom took a picnic to the bontanical gardens and lay there all day. AT night we went to teh bar where they had a Magic show which was pretty cool and then we all went up to the Penthouse (its basically still dorm rooms but on the top floor and they have their own tv room and kitchen - Dave (one of our friends) was staying there so we got to use all the facilities ) with some wine and chilled out.

Day 2 in Christchurch - we hung out around Cathedral Square and went to the markets where we bought some Poi (really hard to describe...kinda like ribbon dancing stuff) and then went back to the park to practice with them. We then had a look round the Art Centre which was really cool. At night, we went to one of the suburbs for dinner with come of Claire's friends (she was working in Christchurch prior to the Kiwi Experience) which was really fun - it was nice to hang out with some Kiwi people rather than just travellers for a change.

Now we are in Kaikoura where we have spend the day chilling out by the beach and continuing with the practice of poi. I dont have enough money to go whale watching so i gave that one a miss. Tomorrow we are heading back into the North Island to Wellington.

Speak soon xxxxxxxx