Back to Blogger

Just another quick post to say I am back online and posting again after a long delay of re-acclimatisation to life at home. Sorry for the delay to everyone and I hope to have some new and exciting posts up soon...
To start you off, i've just put up a few shots from NYE on Sydney harbour where I watched the fireworks with my beautiful girlfriend and some other friends.

The Perhentians

Finally my time had come to meet up with amie and coming into coral bay on perhentian kecil Iknew I had chosen the perfect place to spendtime with her. Soft sandy beaches surrounded by coral reefs with all shapes, sizes,and colours of fish is a simple way to describe the perhentians, and here I stayed for two weeks with Amie and my sister. We snorkelled with turtles and reef sharks,walked and kayaked to empty paradise beaches, and drank beer on the beach at night by small candlelit tables. Locals on the island were super friendly and the vibe for the place was super laid back... the sort of place you could spend a month doing nothing but snorkelling and sunbaking. I left the Perhentians feeling happier than ever.

Erawan Waterfall, The Bridge Over The River Kwai, and Kanchanaburi

Back in Thailand after Nepal I was a mix of emotions, loving the familiarity, the fruit, and being one step closer to Amie, while missing the mountains and my friends from Nepal. Staying only one night in Bangkok I took off to Kanchanaburi to see Erawans 7-tiered waterfall. The pictures say more than I can really, so all I will say is it was a beautiful and relaxing place that I am glad to have visited. After the waterfall I went to see the bridge over he river kwai and rode the infamous death railway, looking at the hills of nearby myanmar as I bounced along. Kanchanaburi is one of the quietest places I have been in Thailand and also one of the most laid back. If I return to Thailand I will certainly be going there again. Leaving the little town however I was really happy, knowing that I was on my way to seeing Amie

To Bodhnath

After spending two weeks trekking in the empty himalayas followed by some time wildlife spotting in the largely deserted Chitwan National Park, coming back to the tourist district of Kathmandu's Thamel suburb was too chaotic for my mellow mood. Instead, I spent just a few days in Thamel's busy little streets before heading out to Boudhanath for somewhere a little more peaceful. Here I spent my time circling the stupa, visiting Tibetan gompa's, and relaxing at my hotel reading. Whether it was something in the air or the simple fact that I basically had a week to do almost nothing, I have to say that my time at boudhanath was some of the most relaxing days I have ever had while traveling. One day I even managed to sit in on a Tibetan Buddhist prayer session, and as the only tourist in the back of the large monastery I felt like I was witnessing something truly genuine.

Pokhara & Chitwan

Pokhara, the city on the lake. Pokhara is a quiet place with not a great deal to do but the atmosphere and the views are really great. Spending most of my days doing all my shopping (with the help of my Nepalese trekking guide who got me local prices) I also managed to get out of Pokhara slightly and visit two nearby tibetan settlements. The settlements were basic and the people very friendly but the vibe of it all was still very depressing, a people living displaced is never a happy sight.
From Pokhara i was lucky enough to see views of the full Annapurna Range as the clouds cleared one morning while I was there for the first time in 4 months!!
It was in Pokhara that I purchased my 'Bagh Chal' board game, a Nepalese classic similar in some ways to chess or checkers, where one player is the tigers and the other the goats.
In Chitwan national park i managed to see wild Rhino's charge (from the safety of elephant back) and river crocodiles. Apart from this however, I was not too impressed with Chitwan, a town that seemed to be a backwater of the world and as national park that we as tourists barely scraped the fringes of. Compared to Borneo Chitwan was almost pathetic, only the Rhino's and the friendly local people made it worth visiting.

Kathmandu, Rafting and the Annapurna circuit, part 1

It felt good to be arriving in Kathmandu, to be away from South East Asia for a while and back to a place that I love so much. This time Kathmandu seemed much more peaceful than the last time I was here, most of the people happy that peace was now here between the Maoists and the King. Tej picked me up from the airport and so far his service has been excellent. Filling in my time in Kathmandu I walked to Durbar square, visited Patan's Durbar square, and went to see the Burning Ghats where funerals are held and where Nepal's most holy Hindu Temple lies. I wandered Thamel's shops but did not have enough money to buy, and I read for several hours by the light of my head torch after a heavy downpour of rain put the city into several hours of blackout. I really enjoyed my time in Kathmandu but for me it was also mostly just a prelude to my time back in the mountains....
Before setting off on my trek around the Annapurna circuit I was booked in for a one day trip of rafting down the Trisuli river. I had read the scenery around Trisuli was not so nice but I found it to be absolutely beautiful. The rafting itself was loads of fun, wet season conditions making for big rapids and for several occasions when we all had to dive for cover into the raft. I was not so happy being placed in a raft full of Indian tourists that included an old mother who should never have been in the river and never once even made an attempt to paddle, and another young man who skimmed the surface with every stroke, essentially doing nothing. But in the end it didn't matter, rafting was just so much fun regardless. Unfortunately I did not get any photos as taking my camera into the raft would have been suicide, but I have my memories...
After rafting it was time to start my trekking in the Annapurna region. This time of year the weather was very cloudy as it is wet season but the clouds that kept the mountains hidden also kept the tourists away. For almost three full days I walked without seeing another tourist, past waterfalls and picturesque villages. My goal was to make it over the high pass of thorong-la, and despite being bedridden for a day with some unknown illness that had me in a terrible state I recovered and crossed the pass in just 7 hours. For me, I must say I preffered the scenery of the everest region to the Annapurna's but I must also admit I did miss alot of the bigger mountains this time around because of cloud cover.
Fin.

Bangkok, My Second Home

Coming back to Bangkok was full of mixed emotions for me. It felt good to be coming back to somewhere familiar and where it is easy to do things, but it also felt a bit of a shame to be leaving the peaceful slow pace of Laos and Cambodia. Coming from these two countries, thailand's relative affluence to these two nations was starkly evident. While in Bangkok this time I visited the Moon bar at the banyan hotel for views of the city from the 59th floor, which was incredible. apart from that i've had a drunken khao san session and some massive catching up to do on flights etc..
Tomorrow, I leave for Nepal.