Bye bye SE ASIA!

Well, that's it folks! The 'big trip' to Australia via SE Asia is almost over and I'm sitting here in Phuket Airport waiting to board a flight to Melbourne. The travel blog I've been maintaining on Blogger has pretty much come to an end, and I'm returning to my own personal blog on Wordpress.
Stick around - the adventure has only just begun!

Last Day Of The Big Trip

Well, this is it, the final day of our Big Trip from London to
Melbourne. Of course, it could be said that the adventure is only just
beginning, there's certainly a whole lot of things to sort out - not
least jobs (careers?) and a place to live!
I probably won't be posting to this blog with the frequency to which
you have become accustomed, but I will no doubt, be returning to it to
polish it, add detail and add photos as we get them
developed/uploaded.
I hope you've enjoyed the trip, keep in touch - and don't be a stranger! :)

--
Sent from my mobile device

Last day in Thailand.

Today is our last day before we head to Australia to start our new life. Bit of a none day really, spending ages packing our rucksacks (I'm convinced mine is over the allowed 20kg), wandering up to the post office, having lunch, and now - grabbing half an hour in an Internet cafe before we grab a shower at the hotel, and get our 4:45 cab to the airport.
we're on the 21:00 flight to Sydney, arriving in Melbourne just before midday.

Simon Cabaret

No, not a reference to my old mate from Virgin Wines, but the name of a 'ladyboy' cabaret show in Patong.
The show was very family-friendly, and even though we had 'regular' seats in the balcony unlike 90% of the audience with 'VIP' seats, we could see the show quite well - and were safely beyond the reaches of any 'audience participation'. At just over one hour long, the show comprised a number of feather boa based set pieces seperated by a couple of comedy skits including a Tina Turner impression.
After the show an opportunity was given (and missed) to have your photo taken with the ladies. I took a couple of pictures nevertheless, that's one of them above (more on flickr) - would YOU be fooled?

Things I Probably Couldn't Have Made It Without.

[note 'things' rather than 'people'...]
As we reach the end of our (geographical) journey, I thought it would
be appropriate to post a list of things that made the trip all so much
easier for me. I'll elaborate on many of these and include URL's where
necessary once I reach 'home':
Alongside the numerous free wifi access points at virtually every stop
on our journey through SE Asia there's my Nokia N82, opera mini, shozu
(facebook, blogger flickr, and youtube interface), gmail for mobile,
fring, Nokia Maps...
Podcasts:contrastpodcast, mixtape podcast, oldtime RnR podcast...
Websites: Tripadvisor, facebook, blogger...
a Nationwide Flex account; and of course The Lonely Planet!

--
Sent from my mobile device

Beach Bums

22nd November:
I'm sure this doesn't exactly make for rivetting reading, but there was just more lying around on the beach again today.
We're going to see a lady boy cabaret this evening in Patong, so maybe I'll have something of interest to say about that tomorrow. Until then: if I roll over can you put some more cream on my back? Thanks.

Phuket Day 2

21st November:
A nice relaxing day on the beach today. I went for a snorkel around the nearby rocks and was amazed at the variety of fish. At one point I found a cove filled with a shoal of thousands of fish; everywhere I looked I could see nothing but fish, and oddly the water even tasted a little fishy. Which was nice...
Later we ate at Rico's Pizzeria and finished with complementary flaming sambuccas, and ended the evening watching a fire show at Ska Bar (a bar which plays no ska, only bad reggae, natch).

Kata Minta, Kata, Phuket.

21st November:
We've arrived at our 2600 baht (about 5 times what paid throughout Vietnam) a night hotel for the last four nights of our trip. Plan is to chill out, catch a lady boy cabaret in Patong, and finely tune our luggage so as to avoid any excess charges at the airport en-route to Melbourne. The hotel is nice and has cable, air-con, plenty of hot water (a bath!), and is less than 5 minutes walk to the bars, restaurants, and beach. It's also about half an hours walk to the girly bar strip of Thaina - so far enough away from the sleaze.

Kho Phi Phi Don to Phuket.

We took the 9am ferry, finally leaving the harbour at 9.45, and arriving in Phuket at 11, finally getting off the boat and into a minibus around 12. We got to our hotel around 12.30 - despite a minor altercation with the driver who decided he didn't want to take us all the way there.
We're looking forward to some sun, sea, peace, and quiet on the last 4 days of our SE Asia trip. While we enjoyed the sun, food and shopping on Phi Phi, we enjoyed these at the expense of a good nights sleep and any sense of culture. Phi Phi town after dark is a great place to be if you're young, stupid, (sample quote: 'lets party like its 1999!'>'who sang that?'>'I dont know, wasnt it someone cool like Jay-Z?'), like to fight other holiday-makers for free buckets (!!) of 'cocktails', shout at your mates in the streets until dawn, or all of the above. Been there, done that now. Next time it's the exotic hideaway on the Eastern side of the island, with the occasional long-tail journey to fulfill shopping and eating requirements.
Old Leonardo had the right idea...

Last day on Phi Phi

19th November:
This morning Hels took herself off on a Thai cooking course while I fried myself on this beach for a couple of hours.
After lunch (of home made Pad Thai!) we took a boat trip to Monkey Beach, Viking Cave and after a spot of snorkelling (puffer fish, turtles, sharks), to Maya Beach (THE Beach of Leonardo de Caprio fame). I tried to swim from the boat to the beach, but after 10 minutes got bored and hitched a ride by grabbing a rope trailed from a motor boat - much faster!
In the evening we arranged our final stop on our trip - Kata Minta, Kata Beach, Phuket - and caught a bout of Thai boxing at Reggae Bar. Tomorrow at 9am we get the ferry to Phuket.

Phi Phi Rain

A storm rolled in around 5pm, so we bought some dvds, rented a dvd player and caught a couple of new movies: Quantum Solace and Tropic Thunder. The latter was best.

Phi Phi Day 2

This morning I went for a walk up the hill to Phi Phi's Viewpoint, from where there's a great vantage point over Phi Phi town. At the top there's also a photograph of how the town looked after the tsunami of 2004.