Grand Cayman

So we got up early to catch the hotel shuttle to Chicago airport, and caught the 7-40am flight to Charlotte Airport, and from there to Grand Cayman Airport, only a couple of hours away. We were greeted at the airport by a couple of Cayman guys playing caribbean music at passport control, and this summed up the chilled back nature we were going to get well into on the island. We then met my uncle, Easy Deezy, who took us back to his apartment where I would stay, as well as another apartment next to his that Grieve and Walmo had to themselves. We got settled in, hit the beach and had a swim. You know, chilled stuff like that. We then watched some basketball and had dinner at a local sports bar, before Easy took us into town so we could have a look around the nightlife Cayman had to offer. The few bars we found looked alright, however Grieve and I in our (awesome) basketball shorts and trainers weren't going to get in to anywhere. So we caught a taxi back to the apartment, and hit bed. Today has included sunbathing, sleeping in late and TV. However Grieve and I did play a couple of sets of tennis, and Walmo went for a quick swim so we did do SOMETHING. Almost. Tomorrow however we plan to check out Georgetown.

Kansas Part 2 and Chicago

Thursday started off slowly, as the girl we were meant to meet had apparently forgotten she had a soccer match that day...I don't think she realised she was missing out on meeting THE English. So we decided to get out of the house anyway, with Grieve going to play 5 a-side soccer with Steve on this team. Walmo and I however decided to go to the local YMCA, which had its own basketball court. After playing basketball for 2 hours, waiting expectantly to play against some "G's from the hood", we got our chance and made a good name for English Basketball. And white guys. We came back in good spirits, as Grieve had scored 2 in his game, and got changed quickly before Millie picked us up for the college party. Pre-party beer pong was followed by a typical college party, and finally we were known as "The English" to everyone there, with various people coming up to the three of us saying "Hey aren't you that English guy?". Indeed we were. A fun night ended with a group of us going to a diner aptly named "Chubbies", where we had a very early morning full American breakfast. Friday was once again a very late get up, however we had the Kansas Royals baseball game in the evening. After the three of us once again schooled some Americans at basketball at the YMCA, we got ready for the baseball. It was a great atmosphere when we turned up, with many people arriving way before the game to have a few beers and set up barbecues in the parking lot. The beginning of the game raced by without any result, however it soon picked up, and we all began to get more and more into it. Grieve helped the cause by buying a Kansas City Royals top, with the player's name "De Jesus" on the back. With that, we became die-hard Royals fans, any announcement was met by the three of us shouting "Royals!", with the team shortly racing to a confident victory over the Colorado Rockies (Rockies suck!). After waiting around for the traffic to disperse and soaking up more of the atmosphere, we headed home. Saturday was our last day in Kansas, and we spent most of the day checking out a museum downtown about an American ship that had sunk in the 1850's in the Missouri River. While interesting seeing all the things they had salvaged from the wreck, we couldn't help laughing at our very eccentric tour guide whose stories involved what seemed like (Walmo esq) dance moves. After checking out the open market, we headed back to get packed before having a final meal with Steve's family. After that it was time for the MEGAbus to Chicago City, which proved to be an easy journey despite the fact that each of us got a total of only about an hour-ish sleep each. Chicago greeted us at about 6am, and we soon found the train to take us to the airport, and from there we caught our hotel shuttle (well, banged up van) back to the "O'Hare Garden Hotel", where we dumped our bags. However, on arriving there we found a "Hooters" resturant right next to the hotel= dinner sorted. For those of you who don't know what Hooters is, it is a standard American restaurant with the difference that all the waiters are girls, and these waiters don't exactly dress formally. Internet it. We then bought an all day train pass for $5, before going to check out Chicago city centre for a few hours, including the Navy Pier and the Trump Building. Pretty tired from the night before, we called in a day later that afternoon (after some basketball kit shopping of course). We got the train back to near our hotel, and after a quick power nap we headed to Hooters to "watch" the basketball game on that night. We then hit bed pretty early as we had to get up around 4-50am the next day for our flight to Grand Cayman.

Leaving Utah and on to Kansas City

So after our late get up on the Sunday morning, we secured some more chilling time at George's before tidying up and heading out to the Salt Lake City Airport Inn in the late afternoon. After checking in George drove us into SL city centre, where we said our farewells (to him and the tank of a car we had become accustomed to driving) before heading to the main Mormon Church to see what was going on down there. We spent a good few hours there, being approached by many a "sister" trying to teach us more about their faith, while also wondering whether we would like to get into the religion any more...we didn't. However besides some of the absurd Moron stories and our inital laughing fits at some of our own Mormon jokes,we did all find it pretty interesting. After wandering around the city centre, seeing the Utah Jazz basketball stadium among other things, we headed back to our Airport Inn for what amounted to about one and a half hours of sleep before we had to get up for our flight to Kansas. Depsite tiredness however it was an easy flight, with one change at Denver, and once we were at Kansas City Airport we were greeted by Steve (who, Walmo and I decided, was extremely alike in almost every way to Grievzy's Dad Gary!) Once in the car we had a quick drive through Kansas City, Steve knowing more about it than our tired brains could take in (or probably our awake brains for that matter) On arriving at the house, we met the family, including Donna's (Steve's wife) parents. After chatting with them for a few hours, we made ourselves comfortable and hit bed early. Our first news on Monday was that various people had heard of our arrival, and were keen to meet "The English Guys". So after getting slowly out of bed on Tuesday (we had got into KC late on the Monday), we met a friend of the family called Millie. The day consisted of us being shown around Kansas City by her, before going to her house, meeting her sister and other friends, and Grieve and I becoming undisputed Beer Pong champions. Good day. Wednesday was another late start after a strenuous night the day before, but after getting some breakfast we decided to check out some of the Kansas City culture. So the three of us and Steve went to the Negro Baseball and American Jazz Museum. After being accompanied down the street by a (nice enough) guy from the museum encouraging us to come experience the jazz scene at 2am that night, we thought it best to head back, as we had a barbecue at a one of Steve's family friend's houses. Although it had begun pouring down with rain, it was a fun night, as we met two of the boys of the family around our age, and with the added contingent of their friends we had a brief look around the local plaza, before seeing a film. After sharing some of our Asia stories with the two brothers, we headed back to Steve's, looking forward to meeting more American "fans", as well as the college party that awaited us tomorrow.

Park City, Utah

'Arches National Park' proved to be yet another haven for endless photographs of impressive rock formations (most arches.. due to the name). With Walmo still being camera-less; Felly and I perfected the art of walking up to a sight and taking a snap (or even occasionally doing drive-by photos) whilst many anorak wearing men spent minutes with their flashy professional cameras to get exactly the right zoom and angle. A look of bewilderment would often grace their face as a young Brit would seem almost careless to the quality of his photos (rest assured that our photos are tip top). We then hit Uncle G's Chevrolet Suburban for the 6 hour drive back to Grieve HQ USA in Park City (just outside Salt Lake City) - With George catching up on his sleep in the back; Felly bore the brunt of the driving, clocking around 4 hours of driving time with me taking on the responsibility of co-pilot (choosing the music). We reached Park City well in time for dinner, and after a brief cameo appearance from Auntie Trish (who was flying out to LA the next morning to see Catherine) we went for a bit of grocery shopping before going to bed.

The next day we thought it was best to go back to basics and practice the art of 'chilling'. Playing some xbox360 and watching basketball on the TV - it was a less than strenous day. We went and got some pizza for dinner and the 4 of us chilled some more... George more and more getting the hang of it!

Friday was invariably more constructive. The tripod left George to do some work and we drove down to Main Street, Park City in 'the tank' to see a near deserted city centre (as it was low season; the ski season and finished and the summer season was yet to begin). Being the only tourists there we felt slightly more in place as we traversed the shops for a short while before driving on to the 2002 Winter Olympic Park which was even more ghostly. We blitzed through the museum and checked out the ski jumps before heading off to our next must-do attraction: Wal-Mart. Walmsley who had never been to a Wal-Mart before was less than impressed and claimed that the Baldock Tesco was bigger. We then refuelled at Taco Bell (another American fast food chain we wanted to tick off our list) before heading back to the house. The evening consisted of a few beers and a game of Monopoly... Felly won the game with myself coming a respectable second. George posed little threat in 3rd place... and Walmo.... well he might want to rethink doing Economics at university.

Today we decided it was time to do some exercise... we drove down to Wal-Mart; bought a basketball and hit a local park for many games of 1-on-1 basketball (winner stays on) the lack of oxygen in the air due to the altitude definitely took us by surprise as we were all gasping after a few minutes. Being the true lads we were.. we soldiered on for a few hours and called it quits when Walmo got a black eye for being stupid enough to think he could beat me at basketball. We got back to the house, iced Walmsley's eye... played xbox for a bit and went out and got some takeaway Arby's for the four of us. Tonight we played another game of monopoly.. this time I secured victory.

Tomorrow we're going to stay in an airport hotel in Salt Lake City in preparation for our 6am flight to Kansas City where we're going to stay with my dad's best man - Steve (and family!).

San Francisco, Las Vegas and Utah

After seeing "nightmare on elm street" we got our stuff together and said our farewells to Catherine and LA. We caught our bus with little problems and after our many strenuous rides in South East Asia there was little to complain about. However, our bus arrived at San Francisco at 5am instead of 9am. This left us with alot less sleep than we intended and stranded at San francisco bus station till stores started to open. After trying to sleep on the bus station floor to kill time and get some valuable sleep, we were soon told to get up of the floor or leave. Therefore we decided to hit the city and head down to the piers until we could be picked up by Ian (a Grieve family friend). With it still rather early in the morning there was little to do but eat and sit in an american diner burning time till eventually we were kicked out. As things started to open and no hope of being picked up by Ian until 4ish, we decided to hit alcatraz an island which had served as a high security federal prison until the 1960's. After checking out the cool views from the island and the eerie prison cells we headed back to mainland for some food and to meet up with Ian. We eventually met up with Ian, after a long day walking up and down the piers countless time, who drove us over the famed Golden Gate bridge and to his supposed small suburban town (population 60,000) just outside San Francisco. It was not to hard to settle down in with the family who kindly put us up for the night. Especially with comfortable seats, tv and a basketball court just a short walk away. The next day we slept in till midday due to a nackering day before and quickly caught a ferry in to San Francisco to see the rest of the city. After catching a tram through the centre of the city we spent the rest of the day walking around and just checking out the sites. Seeing a gay rights march, China town and little Italy. Catching a ferry ride back we spent the remainder of the evening chilling back at Ian's and getting ready to wake up at 4am for an early plain flight.



Las Vegas and Utah

We arrived at the airport early in the morning and headed to the United Airways check in desk. After giving our details we were told that our information could not be found. As we all started to panick and think maybe we had booked some dodgy flights on the internet we look slightly closer at our tickets. To our great relief they said US Airways and not United, obviously it was to early in the morning for our brains to function. The flight seemed almost 10 minutes with me passing out as soon as i sat in my seat. However, we were all excited to be waking up in vegas and caught a shuttle to Hotel/casino Excalibur on the Strip. With us waiting to be picked up by Grievzy's Uncle "George Grieve" and age being a major issue we didn't spend to long in any casino. We walked down the strip with all our baggage (looking a bit ridiculous) and checked out the famous casinos such as Caesar Palace, where we got a bite to eat, and ended up at venetian hotel/casino watching some basketball playoffs. George Grieve then picked us up in his chevrolet suburban and drove us all the way to Zion national park in Utah. We checked out some of the views by car and then procceded to find some food and a lodge for the night. Waking reasonably early for a big day of sight seeing and trekking. George guided us into Zion national park and took us on a moderate trail to Angel point. However, with George telling us some true stories of men getting hands trapped under bolders and cutting them off to survive, i was a bit skeptical of what lay ahead. But the trek proved fun and the view at the end was spectacular. We continued on through the national park and saw more impressive sights with my poor english being little justice for what we saw. With some great photos we had to get moving as a long drive lay ahead, if we were to get to Bryce Canyon (another national park in Utah). We arrived at Bryce National park and drove round checking the views which just seemed to get better. With another big day ahead of us we decided to find a place to stay which turned out to have an all you can eat buffet. Like usual we tried to make the most of our money and stuffed ourselfs to the point where we could hardly moved. We woke up the next day to our great suprise with heavy snowfall. This left us skeptical if we would be able to trek round Bryce National and check the famous hoodoo rock formation. Hanging around the hotel the weather started to clear,thankfully. Therefore allowing us to proceed with a quick trek around the hoodoo rocks. The weather continued to change from snow to sun which made the trek even more astonishing along with the alien rock formations. There was once again a big drive ahead of us, so we started our drive to arches national park taking turns driving the chevrolet...sweet. Arriving there every hotel/motel appeared to be full and after a worrying period we found a single spare room. Tomorrow we have a day of seeing the sights of arches national park.

CHAPTER 2- Los Angeles

So the next stage of our trip has begun-America. We set off early in the morning of Saturday May 1st towards Heathrow, our bags full of clothes rather than mosquito nets and over-sized medical kits. After an easy check in, we had a few hours wait before we got our flight to LA airport. While we were slightly down about not being able to stay with Grievzy's cousin, we had a few ideas of where we were going to stay. We ended up, after a long wait for a shuttle bus that never came, in a hostel near a place called Inglewood, very near Compton as we found out. After getting checked in, we had our customary chilling period, before decided to take a power nap before possibly meeting with Catherine Grieve. However, after waking up at 4am the next day it was clear that wasn't going to happen, and so after a few more hours sleep we got up early, and heading to a place called Santa Monica, meant to be a "more agreeable" place (to be fair we were kept up a lot of the night by sirens in this Inglewood area). The day was mainly made up for us walking around the beach area, checking out the famous Santa Monica Pier, before heading down to another beach area called Venice Beach. We also managed to find a a bunch of classic "Gs" playing basketball on outside courts. Finally after going lobster red on the beach, we hit a cafe to wait to meet Catherine Grieve and then take a ride through the Hollywood area in her blue hummer, which made us feel pretty damn cool. We then had some lunch in the Beverly Hills area, and with our best British accents we explained our sleeping situation near Compton. We were then all good to stay at Catherine Grieve's that night, which was great. We headed back to "the ghetto" (though everyone who lived in LA thought it was a really rough area, we hadn't really experienced that bad side) to get our stuff, then hit Catherine G's place. That night we chilled on the rooftop pool in LA, before heading out to get some food. Monday, we headed out to get some food, before walking around for 3 hours trying to find the CBS studio to try and get on a live audience for a show. However, once we found it, there was only "The Price is Right". Still, we had walked around a lot of the surrounding area of Hollywood, checking out the Walk of Fame and other sights (and Grieve and I really thought we saw Johnny Depp). We hit back home for an extended chilling session, and a Pizza Hut delivery. Tuesday and Wednesday our main attraction was hitting Universal Studios to see what that was all about, with such rides as "The Mummy" ride and the "The Simpson's Ride". The two days were good fun, however our faces took a hit, sunburn-wise! Yesterday night we headed to a small gathering at one of Catherine G's friends houses, which was good to meet a few other people from LA. Today we are heading off to San Francisco on a night bus, having seen a lot of the cool sights around LA, including today seeing "Nightmare on Elm Street" in the Chinese Theatre, the place where a lot of the premieres come out in Hollywood.

Macao and Hong Kong

After a 3 hour coach journey we arrived in Hong Kong to be greeted by Hilary and her sister Jil. Straight away we were to get an hour long ferry ride (aptly named 'Turbojet') to Macau - the Las Vegas of Asia. We got picked up by Jil's boyfriend Sergio and his friends in their sports cars - as if it was a scene from The Fast and the Furious. We were escorted in their Japanese tech sports cars through the three Islands of Macao (Macau, Cotai and Taipa) where we looked in awe at the huge neon lights illuminating the giant casinos and surrounding streets. We went for a barbeque where once again we encountered a language barrier - Sergio could speak pretty good English but his friends, such as Wa Jai, couldn't really speak any. Nonetheless we had a good meal - then we checked into our hotel for the 2 nights. From then it was time to hit the casinos - we started at the Grand Lisboa casino before visiting Wynn, MGM Grand and L'Arc casino. Walmo, Felly and I all tried our hands at blackjack, with various different results - I was worst off by being down about 80pounds. At about 4am we decided to call it quits on our casino-crawl and went to bed.

About 12hours later we woke up and went go karting with our boy racer escorts. This was followed by a quick tour of the streets of Macau and a visit to their main historical site - the frame of a cathedral that burned down.. this was coupled with the fact that Hilary and myself might have lost my camera by leaving it on top of the car - fortunately it was left in the back seat of one of the cars. After a Portuguese style dinner we went for a round of bowling - with Mr. Fell coming out with the best score of the day. Afterwards we headed to the Grand Waldo casino followed by the gigantic Venetian casino - where I went on to practically win all the money back I lost the previous night. Once again we lost track of time after a busy day and went to bed again quite late.

The following day we got a ferry ride back to Hong Kong where we went to the police athletics championships to watch Hilary's mum, Sandra, in a cheerleading contest. After her team won the event with a beautiful rendition of Steps - 5, 6, 7, 8 she took us back to the Kowloon side of the river police headquarters where we were gifted with some great police 'stash' - including two polo tops and another t-shirt. With the knowledge we were going out that night with Hilary's friends, we insisted we were to be taken to a cheap place to buy some reasonably nice clothes (compared to the tracksuits/swimming shorts we've continuously been wearing prior to HK). We each bought jeans and a shirt in the market area of HK, called Mong Kok (meaning Crowded Corner), then finally reached Hilary's house outside of the city in a residential suburb called Sai Kung. We had a family meal and then proceeded to encounter 'Ladies night' in the area of Wan Chai. The next day was a bit of a write off, where we mainly watched films on Hilary's projecter screen, but in the evening we went to the Hong Kong yacht club for dinner courtesy of one of Hilary's friends and then it was time for Ladies' night in the area of Lan Kwai Fong! Again, the next day we literally lay about the house and did a little swimming in the pool. We went for a 3rd night out in a row but for the first time we actually had to pay for drinks rather than get the girls to give us their free ones as sadly there were no Ladies Nights going on in the city. After spending Wednesday, Thursday and Friday all witnessing the nightlife - Saturday was actually an open house at Hilary's, as her parents were having about 40guests over. It was really well done with a massive spread of food and drinks - however once again there was quite a language barrier with many of the guests, and moreover we couldn't join in their gambling games as we had absolutely no idea how to play (some sort of mixture of cards and dominoes it seemed). We ended up spending most of our time with some family friends who spoke English and Hilary had a couple of English friends over too.

Today was probably our most productive day since arriving on Wednesday. We went down to the Sai Kung marina for a dim sum breakfast. Then we travelled to a place known as 'Monkey Hill' which was exactly what the name suggests. We walked up a hill which had loads of monkeys around... however quite a few of the monkeys can get quite violent and protective of their territory/family... so when I tried to sneak up to a big monkey that was lying on a picnic table to get a great photo of a chilled out monkey - said monkey became distinctly less chilled, got up and ran at me and Hilary - we both ran off and it took Felly and Walmo a little longer to realise what was going on - and Walmo was hiding behind our newfound alpha male Felly who was waving a stick in the direction of the monkey who'd gone bananas (no pun intended?) whilst rapidly backing away. The monkey then stopped chasing us (perhaps because I decided to put my camera away) and as we all sighed in relief the monkey suddenly started doing some crazy war dance and then ran at us again. This time we decided not to hang around (it was arguably the biggest monkey we encountered) and walked down the mountain extra cautious of the cute monkeys who now menacingly lined the road. After this adrenaline fuelled experience we went to another part of Mong Kok to do visit the night market, then went to the harbour where there is a fantastic view of Hong Kong from across the river. We then walked down the Hong Kong walk of fame (where famous residents have their handprints in the ground) before retiring back to Hilary's - watched the epic Lord of the Rings 2 on the massive projecter screen then everyone went to bed and I wrote this.

It's now hit us how we're going to be back in England in 3 days! Do we really want to go back?

China

Nanning and Guangzhou, China

It's been a long time since we've been able to update the blog as we couldnt access the blog in China due to 'The Great Firewall of China'.
We got the overnight train from Hanoi to Nanning, China without any problems - although we could collectively complete the China Health Quarantine form (where they list a load of symptoms and ask you to tick the boxes of the ailments you have). We arrived in Nanning to find out it was the beginning of a Chinese extended weekend so loads of people were using the trains, so the prices had gone up. We opted out of spending over 200quid for a train ticket to Guangzhou and instead got a sleeper bus there in the evening. During the day, due mainly to the fact I felt really ill and Felly and Walmo were both quite tired, we went to 'Shoppingland' (not quite a theme park) which was filled with Chinese shops, mostly clothes. After going a few hours around the city, Felly and Walmo hunting for cheap t-shirts that they could actually fit into (a chinese extra large is like a British small) and I was always making sure I knew where the toilet was, we got bored of shopping, and headed towards the bus station. Suprisingly we actually were able to fit into the beds, though Walmo didn't get a good night's sleep as he was starting to feel a little under the weather. This meant Chinese buses 1 - 0 Vietnamese buses.
The next day we arrived in Guangzhou and eventually (after many many language difficulties) managed to check into a hotel where we all slept for a few hours in the vain hope of recovery (though Felly wasn't feeling unwell) - however sleep became a tricky feat as Walmo's blocked nose and sore throat meant that he snored like a constipated rhinoceros. That day we didn't really do much, Felly went for a walk at one point, and later on Felly and Walmo went to dinner. Otherwise we didn't accomplish much. The next day I felt a lot better and we were all up for seeing a bit of the city. However as Guangzhou isn't really much of a hot spot for tourists, there wasn't really much to do - especially if you don't speak Cantonese. After failing to find a cheaper hostel for the night, we booked our coach tickets to Hong Kong for the following day then we went to The Temple of the 6 Banyan Trees which was a traditional, beautiful and tall chinese temple 17 storeys high. That night after a very plain chicken and rice we took an early night so we could go to the most beautiful park possibly in the world the next morning before our bus to Hong Kong.

Halong Bay

In Hanoi we purchased a 2 night 3 day trip to Halong bay. So on the first day we woke up early in the morning to catch a bus to Halong Bay. The ride there, once again was uncomfortably with seats way to small for our size. However, after a 3 hour bus journey we arrived at Bai Chay to catch are boat which we would take us to Halong where we would eventually spend the night. After several bad experiences of transportation in south east Asia, i was skeptical at best for are supposedly deluxe boat. But are tour guide who seemed reasonable cool at the time, who we nicked name T-Bone, was very positive about the boat. Once we got there we all pleasantly surprised, the crew where handing out face towels and most polite. The rooms on the boat were better than many hostels we had stayed in and the dinning area was very impressive. It wasn't long before we sat down for dinner with are 2 mates Will and Loz who we had met recently on are travels. The Boat ride still failed to disappoint with the food being delicious. It wasn't long before we had traveled through most of Halong and would arrive at Sung Sot Cave. Are tour group of about 18 jumped of the boat to check out the caves. Soon after departing from the boat Felly and I realized we had failed to bring any kind of foot wear and would not be able to go back and collect some. However, we battled through the cave with the 5 of us (us and our new mates Will and Loz) using are imagination at the many rock formations to take some hilarious photos and admire the caves. Straight after the caves we went kayaking around some of the many strange shaped islands and were able to check out some of the small caves that had formed in these islands. I was paired up with Grieve, we checked out most the views, however, it wasn't long before are mature side came out and we started splashing and ramming some of the fellow tour guide members. After kayaking we went back to the boat where we were free to jump of the top deck of the boat and swim around. But with rumors of numerous jellyfish swimming was kept to a minimum. The night on the boat was fun as most of the people in our tour guide we had either met in Vang Vieng or a the drift hostel, it was also the 20th birthday of one of the lads on the boat. This led to a funny night of karaoke and ring of fire (drinking game).

The next morning we left the boat and headed to Cat Ba National Park to trek up Ngu Lam Peak (the top Peak of Cat BA island). I was quite keen for a bit of trekking and all started well. However, on our way up to the top we were continuously followed by swarms of bees. We thought they might disappear the further we climbed, they didn't! They also had a special liking for Grieve who was constantly swarmed and supposedly stung on several occasions while most of the time they failed to acknowledge my existence. A little way from the top we were forced to stop as there was only one small path to the top and countless people trying to get up and down from the top. So in the end with countless bees around and a long wait to the top we decided to head back down. On our way our new hotel we were shoved onto a different bus which at the time we thought was not a problem, as our tour guide T-Bone said he would be waiting outside the hotel for us when we got there. Unfortunately the tour guide members on our bus were less than helpful refusing to speak to Felly. With us only recognising the right place because Felly remembered the hotel name. We arrived with T-Bone are tour guide nowhere in sight. However, reception was very helpful giving us our room keys and telling us the time to come down for dinner. Over dinner we were all looking forward to our next destination of Monkey Island. So after dinner we chilled in are rooms for 45 mins and headed down, all rather excited, to catch our bus at 2:30. Only to find the tour had gone on without us. We talked to reception who let us ring our tour guide. He said that we should of been down at 2:00 and that they had waited for us for 30mins, he also claimed they were already at the island which just didn't make sense. The 5 of us all fairly pissed of walked round town and found a really nice beach where we chilled with a beer and cooled down. Once the tour had returned we went to talk to our tour guide trying to explain, that due to us being shipped on to another bus we missed crucial information about leaving times and he could easily of called up to our rooms to inform us of departure times. However, our tour guide started to shout at us and refused to talk us. After getting nowhere with our tour guide, who we had renamed T-wat instead of T-bone, we tried not to let it ruin our tour and looked forward to the night ahead. We spent the night with 5 girls from Manchester who we had met in Vang Vieng and just coincidentally met in the drift and on our tour. After a late night which was great fun as the town was also celebrating the day Ho Chi Min had visited, we woke up early with minimal sleep. This day was less exciting than our previous days as we were just traveling back to Hanoi with the highlight being Felly's purchase of a gold and blue kimono. Today (1st April) we wait to hear if we can receive a small refund from our tour and wait to catch a night train to China.

Tubing and Ha na na na noi (Hanoi)

So we arrived in Vang Vieng after a few hours on the bus from Vientiane, getting ready for a few days of tubing. After checking into our hotel, the night started quietly with everyone informing us most people were in fact asleep of resting from a day of tubing. However, after visiting the infamous "Q bar" we then went to the "Bucket Bar", deciding to start how we meant to go on. The next day was our first day of tubing, and we thought it best to get tubes. For a quick run down of what tubing is, just type in tubing into Youtube. While being labeled as "tubing virgins" on our first day by a guy who had been there over 2 weeks and being set upon by every bar tender, the day was in fact awesome. However, most of the bars were located within 30 metres of each other, and so for the remaining days we ironically didn't bother with the tubes while...tubing. So, we mostly soaked up the sun at the river and chilled at the bars, while also heading out a couple of nights. After a while we slowly started getting to know most regular people around there, and while it was all great fun, it started to take a toll on us as Grieve had to take a day off while Walmo and I got more and more tired. As well as this, it seems there was a flip flop thief since Walmo's had been nicked 2 days in a row, even after he bought a new pair. We HAD to leave. So, we booked a bus to Hanoi, a mighty 24 hour journey apparently. The few days in Vang Vieng had turned into 6 days. To be fair this was probably one of the last places we would get a lot of sun! We finally got the bus on the Thursday, after a late night all round. This however proved wise as the overall journey turned out to be nearly 30 hours, and with plenty of time to do nothing we could catch up on the sleep we all needed. Still, the beds we were in were not suited for anyone over 5ft 8. After getting to Hanoi, we elected to go to the Drift Hostel, meant have been voted one of the best in the world last year, and after an attempted scam by the bus company we eventually go to our current destination. So, we checked into our dorm, had a look around, and yesterday we went to see the Ho Chi Minh Museum as well as the "B 52" site. Having met a couple of guys at the hostel, we are all going to go to Halong Bay in the north of Vietnam, where we will be trekking and kyacking through the jungle and rivers on the Monday (tomorrow).

Vientiane

After a good night's sleep we spent the next day having our last hours chilling on the Nha Trang beach before embarking on what was to become a nightmarish journey.

We got a sleeper bus overnight to Hoi An (A UNESCO World Heritage City due to it's prettiness, supposedly) but sleep wasn't exactly what the bus seemed designed for. Not only were the beds way too small for us three but we were put at the back of the bus where 5 beds are jammed together. Throw in an American dude and his girlfriend it makes for one cosy night of sleeping. Not to mention the fact that the back of the bus is not only the bumpiest but also the closest to the engine therefore the loudest part of the bus. Felly shotgunned the window seat and I quickly shotgunned having my feet dangling into the aisle; leaving Walmo to sleep in the middle where there was the least leg space. Luckily after about an hour's worth of travelling, the bus attendant told one of us to move into an actual bed in the row ahead. I stepped up and slept in what could better be described as a straight jacket.

All of this however was manageable. The main problem was an incessant beeping noise beeped every second at a high pitch - much like an alarm intended to wake someone up from a sleep. I got about an hour's sleep that night.

We arrived in Hoi An all a little grouchy and tired not knowing exactly what our plan was. We wandered around the quaint city for an hour, seeing the market and the Japanese Bridge (so famous in Vietnam it's on the 20,000Dong note); then we got a taxi up to Da Nang, the major city in central Vietnam. We then bought a bus ticket from a travel agency swarming with kittens from Da Nang to Vientiane (800mi from Nha Trang). We got on the bus a few hours later to Hue to find out when we arrived that because the bus driver was driving slowly we had missed our connecting bus. However it took then 15minutes for one of them to finally explain to us what had happened. Pretty annoyed we were forced to check into a hotel for the night - although thankfully for me I got to catch up on some much needed sleep. After many jokes, mainly revolving around the fact that Hue is pronounced Whaayyy; we were ready for our next mammoth bus journey. This time, leaving Hue and changing buses at a city named Vinh, near the border.

We arrived at Vinh at approximately 1am where a bus heading to Vientiane was waiting, with a few seats left. Bus company employees told us not to bother going onto this one as we had paid for a sleeper bus with beds, and a sleeper bus was arriving in about an hour. This gave us time to have dinner and chill. At about 2.30am our sleeper bus arrived. The same employee who told us not to bother to get the last bus to Vientiane then told us, laughing, that this bus to Vientiane was full. Not only was it full but 4 people were sleeping on the floor so there was literally no space. Luckily there was a Korean tour group parked close by so we eventually managed to swindle our way onto their tour, as they too were next stopping in Vientiane. Joined by a fellow traveller named Nathan from Brighton, we eventually were able to sleep on a bus without worry.

After border control and a further few hours travelling through the country to the capital - we arrived 10km outside of the city where were we left on a roadside of a highway. Luckily we waved down a tuk tuk after about 15minutes and got to the centre.

Today we're getting a bus to Vang Vieng, home of the infamous Tubing; where everyone goes on the river with a tube, stopping at bar after bar after bar. Sounds like something we'd do.

Nha Trang

Over the past several days we have been chilling in Nha Trang. The place has been thoroughly westernized with lots of western restaurants and bars to go to. Most of our days have consisted of similar routines. Mostly waking up and chilling at the beach for a couple of hours and then headed out to see what the night life has to offer us, with felly doing the odd bit of scuba diving and us exploring to see what the city has to offer. The night life has been great with some great parties at the local sailing club and numerous busy bars such as "Why not Bar" which have provided nights of hilarious entertainment meeting plenty of new people. However, we have stayed far longer than intended once again. This became obvious when we started to walk down the street with most bar staff knowing us. We have finally bought tickets for a night bus tomorrow heading to Hoi An. We're now ready for some good traveling after our short break, especially when we need to be out of Vietnam and into Laos by the 22nd.

Ho Chi Minh City

After waking up at some god awful early hour in the morning to catch our bus, our hotel concierge told us that the 7am boat was full up and they booked us on the next one at 11am instead (thanks for telling us guys..). After going back to the room to sleep for a few hours we headed down a little fresher and took an hour's minibus to our boat.
We found out that the other bus of people had broken down, and we didn't get to embark on our 3hour journey until about 2pm (we were supposed to arrive at our destination at 3pm). This was no real problem as it was a time to eat/sleep/chill/tan. After cruising down the river we arrived in Chau Doc, Vietnam at 5pm - secured our sleeping arrangements for the night then hit the town...... except there was nothing in the town to do - so we went home again. The next day again we had to wake up at a silly hour in the morning for a 7am departure time - we visited a local Cham village and subsequently went through the river people's houses to a fish farm where the net income is a staggering $400,000 a year. Not bad for the old Vietnamese women who owns it. We then got on a minibus with zero leg space for 3 hours to a random city where we finished our triangular movement with a 5 hour journey on a much more spacious bus to Ho Chi Minh.
After getting a hostel room on the 7th floor with no elevators we hit the town. Sampling the local nightlife we decided to move on to the renowned "Apocalypse Now" nightclub with some Australian fellas we met in a bar (unsuprisingly). We have noticed a trend of how to pull women in different countries - in the west the male has to do all the work. When we came to Thailand and Cambodia the women approach the men but now in Vietnam I was taken aback when some guy comes up to me and says "This is my sister... she likes you". This was arguably too easy so for a change I actually felt bad saying no to someone. When the club closed we were talking to some Belgian people who Felly had met and they lured us to their hotel with the promise of a pool party (in hindsight; why there would be a pool party going on at such an early hour I do not know). On the walk there I was razzing out some french to the natives and I was pleased to hear that my English French accent was both adorable and very attractive (which is in my eyes better than speaking perfect French with no accent). We arrived to their hotel which just so happened to 5* called Legend hotel. As it happened, the pool was indeed closed and whilst Felly and I tried to persuade the security guard to allow us to go in; Walmo was cowering in the hotel lobby. After not even bribing seemed to get this untouchable guard to allow us in - we bailed home.
The next day was somewhat of a write off as we didn't get too much sleep the night before and Walmo was feeling a little queezy. We had a chilled evening and booked tickets to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels.
Today Walmo felt he wouldn't be able to last if he came to the tunnels so he stayed at home whilst Felly and I visited the underground tunnels - fascinating but we were both too big to fit through the last section of tunnel. Tonight we are getting an overnight train to Nha Trang - Vietnam's answer to Sihanouk Ville and Koh Phangan, a good place to chill on the beaches and party at night.

Phnom Penh and Sihanouk Ville

We had booked a driver to drive us round the main sights in Phnom Penh, and so we got up early on the Monday to go and visit the infamous "Killing Fields", as well as other memorials to the vicitims of the regime of the Khmer Rouge. The Killing Fields were where many Cambodians, who were seen to be enemies of the party doctrine, were taken and executed by the Khmer Rouge. This proved pretty chilling, not least because the first memorial in the area was a tower of skulls of the vicitims killed, ranging from 5 years old upwards. After looking around, we went to a small musuem, before leaving for the next memorial, and old school turned tourture chamber during Pol Pot's rule. Known as S21, this was even more vivid, as most of the area had been left exactly as it had been after the Khmer Rouge demise in the city in 1979, with old school black boards next to leg chains and barbed wire. While all this sounds highly depressing (and to be fair some of it was) we found it really interesting as we got to get to know quite a lot of the history of the country we were in. We left there for lunch, before visiting the Imperial Palace of Cambodia and the National Musuem. While these too were impressive, by the end we had been overloaded by history, with Walmo remarking that his brain "hurt"from over use. He had a small point however, so we played a few relaxing card games, before heading back to the hostel to shower and crash for a few hours, before eating near the centre of Phnom Penh. Knowing we had an early start, we hit bed. AFTER chilling. However, with promises of a 8-15am bus, we got up early, only to be told we had to wait until 1pm for a bus to Sihanouk Ville. After waiting a while for a bus, we arrived in the South of Cambodia at 5pm, been shown our room by a guesthouse staff that we duely dubbed "Chuckles", as while we all know how funny us 3 are, she seem to find anything we said hilarious. The fact that everytime she came to our room we were topless/trouserless watching tv probably had something to do with her embarrasment. We think she loved it. Anyway, we hit the bar, where we found out beer was 62 cent. A good night ensued, and we hit the local beaches to have a look around. We all returned differing times however, Grieve and I were too busy finding fellow lads, while Wamsley had gone AWOL. The next day was unproductive until the evening, as I was the only out of bed until about 3pm. We wandered down to our local beach, "Victory Beach", sunbathed and ate, while trying to be convinced by local Cambodians to get a massage. We passed. After trying to throw Walmo in the sea, we headed back to the guesthouse, chilled then headed to the bar for a pub quiz. It must be noted that most of the questions were way before any of us were born, and while we only got 11 out of 50, the top score was 26 out of 50, with at least TWO groups coming behind us. Oh yea. Grieve got MVP for his 5 right answers, while I came second...with 2. We got help with 3 of them. Walmo got a question about HURDLES wrong, while I got an obvious HISTORY question wrong. We preceded to head out, getting some food late in the evening, before hitting a casino with a Tuk Tuk driver. We placed our huge bet on the Roulet Wheel...and won double our money. With Grieve remarking how his 10 whole dollars was the best note he had ever held, we hit bed hard. Today, got up quite early, and got a bus back to Phnom Penh, where we are now. Plans are to get a boat up the Mekong River into and up Vietnam.

Finally into Cambodia

After a bad attempt to get an early night sleep, we got up early very tired but ready to travel. Everything proved promising after a minibus ride to the border town Poi-Pet. However, once again it proved more difficult than expected to cross the border. After some confusion we discovered we had overstayed are welcome in Thailand as are visa had run out the day before...urgh. With some long queuing and a small fine we thankfully got through. On the cambodian side we decided to travel by taxi to are destination of Siam Reap as this would cut down are travel time by several hours, we then watched as a rust bucket or debatably a car approached towards us. We reluctantly got in the peace of metal with Grieve not only noticing severe cracks in the window but the speedometre and rev counter also failing to work, not only this there seems to be no road laws with the only right of way being the beebing of the horn. Fortunately are promised shorter journey turned out to be true and we arrived at a rather pleasent guest house where we then booked a tour round the temples with a 5am start. With an early start the next day and still feeling tired from our travels we decided to get an early night. In the morning Grieve felt rather ill and decided to stay at the guest house, i then persued to get stuck in the toilet with the door not opening. Felly, however, was determined not to travel alone and thankfully bashed the door open (typical forward thinking). Felly and I (walmsley) went about touring the temples, seeing several temples including Ankor Wat at sunrise and the same temple in the film Lara Croft was amazing. With a large amount of the day still ahead of us we went back to check on Grieve who still felt worse for wear. So Felly and I decided to go on to the national history museum which proved most interesting. Later in the day with Grieve feeling better we traveled into town to look around and watch the six nations. Edging to move on we caught a bus ride the next day to Phnom Penh where I was greeted with welcome signs at the bus station. Confused as to weather i was unknowingly a national celebrity we procided to are next guest house where we are know chilling. Tomorrow (1st march) we have a booked tour around the city to see a large number of the surronding tourist attractions.

Still in Bangkok?!?

I would like to take this time to apologise to the hundreds of thousands of readers of this blog who thought we had left Bangkok to travel to Bangkok. Instead; Mr. Fell thought he'd buy a tailor made dinner suit. He arrived to a tailors that had a good reputation wearing a sleeves top and swimming shorts.. Suffice to say he looked out of place considering the rest of the clientele were all at least double our age wearing top quality suits, one of whom happened to have a permanent room at the Marriot Hotel 100m away which cost him 15,000pounds a month, and another worked at the American Embassy in China. An obvious factor in Felly's decision to come to this tailor in particular was because it was also located in Prostitute Central - a well renowned 'Soi' in Bangkok. After Felly's second fitting the following day (yesterday); he and I decided it would be hilarious to go to one of the many strip bars in Soi Nana and tell them it was Walmo's birthday. It was particularly difficult to keep a straight face watching Walmo have all the staff in the seedy bar dancing around him with the DJ playing 'Happy Birthday' and him being forced to go along with it. We then decided not to stick around the area for much longer as the drinks were about triple the price and having prositutes constantly whistling and waving at us became a bit unnerving after a while. We went back to Khao San road and hit the buckets; meeting scores of people on the way.
Today we haven't really done much except for buy our bus ticket to Siam Reap, Cambodia where we will have to get up at like 6am for a 7am departure. I usually go to sleep at that time... not wake up then! Early night tonight for sure.

The capital of Thailand

After going to bed at an actual normal hour we wanted to get up bright and early to go and sort the visas as well as visit the temples. At 1pm we were awoken by Eoin (Owen) who informed us of the time. Our first port of call was a visa centre, and after asking to go to the Vietnamese embassy we were instead convinced to go to a travel agent for the visas who began quoting all sorts of ridiculous prices for the dual entry visa we needed. We instead decided, after advice from Eoin, we would get them on the boarders before entering Vietnam. Needless to say we played the old "We'll think about it" card to the salesman, before catching a Tuk-Tuk away from there with no intention to return. However, it seemed that today we were looking especially "touristy", as our problems with Tuk-Tuk drivers didn't end here. We ended up in 2 tuk tuks, with the promise of only 25 baht (50p) to visit all the temples and then return back to our hostel...obviously something else was going on but while they took us places and we didn't pay we were happy! We went to the "Golden Mount", before visiting "Wat Phra Kaew" or the "Temple of the Emerald Buddha". On entering here we got convinced to rent trousers and a shirt because we couldn't enter the temple without covering our arms and legs. We ended up keeping the trousers as the bright blue and red dragons that covered the clothes got a lot of smiles and comments. One guy said we looked like a boy band...Anyway the attention was something we always like so for 1 quid 50 Walmo, Grieve and I had our own boy band trousers. We then challanged the Tuk-Tuk drivers on why their price was so low, and they informed us that if they took us to 2 places after the temple then they would get free petrol. Reluctatly, and after some comments of "its an experience" we agree, in the knowledge that we would go into these places, pretend to discuss buying what they were selling, then leave. The first was another travel shop, and after some skillful negotiating by Grieve on something we weren't going to buy we were off to our final stop for the other Tuk-Tuk drivers petrol. This stop proved more problematic as it was a suit shop, and after 30 minutes of trying to get out of there Walmo, Eoin and I were being measured up for suits. However, non of us gave any money, intending to check out the reputation of the place before coming back and actually buying one. Well apart from Eoin, but he's Irish. Finally we got out, heading back to the hostel, more chilling before getting ready to hit another part of Bangkok for dinner, near "Little Arabia". Well, after wondering why the taxi driver was smiling all the way driving us there, we found out. The whole area was one big brothel. We quickly hit an Irish Pub, had a few drinks, before decided it was best to stick to what we know and come back to Koh San Road. After visiting Little Arabia (and a side street that what can only be described as "The Hood") we left. Having dinner, we headed out, quickly making the most of Eoin's last night. Photos a plenty, we headed back in the early morning, leaving Walmo speaking with a bunch of Scandinavian guys. Today we have got up late and are now chilling, with Eoin v annoyed about the state he has to travel in. English 1, Irish 0. Anyway I've written a small essay but next plans are Cambodia tomorrow.

Bangkok

On our last day we got up to see that our new neighbors happened to be 3 particularly attractive Swedish girls who were very friendly. This made us discuss whether it was worth canceling our travel plans and spending a couple more nights in Koh Phangan. However, the thought of the thousand baht spent on travelling and the fact that our new Irish companion Eoin (Pronounced Owen) had a flight to catch - we went on as planned. We had to get a 3 hour ferry ride to the mainland followed by an hour and half bus ride to Surat Thani train station where we boarded our night's accommodation. About 9 hours later we were woken by the beautiful morning sounds of Thai women trying to sell us things and eventually arrived at Bangkok station just before 11am. We located our hostel just off Khao San road (a notorious backpacker location in Bangkok) and after a wander up and down the road before heading to bed for a cheeky power nap in preparation for the night's events. We got the beers in to watch Everton destroy Manchester United (it was fun being an Everton fan for the night) and then headed to a couple of other bars where we met a couple more guys who Eoin knew from school. After a couple of whiskey buckets each and having great fun haggling with locals trying to sell us wooden frogs we headed to the roads only nightclub where we continously were avoiding the renowned ladyboys. Fell and I (Grieve) were woken by Eoin coming to our room informing us we left the key in the door last night. He then said that him and Walmo were going out (as they are sharing a room on the floor below us), but Felly and I declined as we had a lot more sleep to get. Felly and I then went to Chinatown to witness the end of the ceremonial Chinese New Year celebrations. And after meeting up with our crew we decided it was time to hit up a "ping pong show". Suffice to say we are all now quite scarred after seeing razor blades being pulled out vaginas and sprite being somehow turned into coke, amongst other "party tricks" - my only question is how did these women find out that their vaginas could do such things?! How bored must they have been one day at home...
Anyway that was earlier this evening and the tuk tuk ride home was subdued to say the least. Felly and Eeyore (as we like to call him) have gone to bed and Walmo and I are chilling in an internet cafe, en route to the hostel. Needless to say that none of us are particularly up for anything after our evening's spectacle. Tomorrow we plan to sort out our visas for Vietnam and visit a few temples, and maybe start arranging our travel plans through Cambodia which will begin in a couple of days.

More in Koh Phangan

With hard day of chilling we were up for relaxing some more. However, we still decided to check out the daily beach party which once again proved to be more than entertaining. With Felly and I showing are athletic ability when jumping over a high jump bar on fire and Grieve showing his most impressive musical chair skills. With all of us winning some free drinks during the night we went back to the resort with a hint of satisfaction. Waking up the next day proved tough as always knowing that a hard day of chilling lay ahead, after spending the day in town and on the beach we came back to yet another pool party at are resort. After meeting some really cool swedish guys and after having some fun tiredness once again set in with me heading back to the room and Grieve and Fell spending some at the pool. Unfortunately we had forgotten that we had signed up on a boat ride around the island and were woken up by the banging on the door for us to get up or we would miss it. The boat ride proved that are money had been well spent. With us seeing some awesome views, snorkelling and having a flying fish jump through are boat and over are heads. With the night ahead of us we chilled with some english guys and danish girls playing a couple of drinking games and then finishing the night at the beach. Today (19th) we are finally going to make a move, even though we had some great fun chilling we do miss traveling around and are taking a 18 hour train and ferry trip to Bangkok.

More on Koh Phangan

More on Koh Phangan

So I've decided to write this blog as well, seeing as the beach party last night (15th) was bypassed by Walmo. Not too much to report in this part of our journey, being pretty happy with our current location on the island we have just stayed at the same bungalows for the last couple of days. The Black Moon Party on the night of the 14th turned out to be what we expected- awesome! Meeting many other people at the resort pre-party planning the same night at us, it wasn't long before the night was in full swing, beers and buckets in plentiful supply. Luminous paint seemed a favorite at the pre-party, and it wasn't long before Grieve had hand prints on his guns, and Walmo had fake abs painted on his stomach. Although the paint glowed in the dark, what seemed a brilliant idea on the night turned out to be a nightmare to wash out off the next day... Still, a quailty night, however getting locked out of the room from about 6am until 7-30am because the key was still at the beach with Walmo wasn't the best fun (apart from the mosquitoes who were having a whale of a time).
After having a minimal amount of sleep, we ate breakfast, before Walmo and Grieve hit bed once again-obviously not true ravers. After sleeping until about 10pm, I decided I was too bored to let anyone rest more, and reminded them we had a beach party to get to. Grieve was game, sadly tiredness got the better of Walmsley and he stayed in bed. We then had a few drinks in the bar with guy we met from Ireland, and also one of the resort staff who informed us in detail and over about an hour of his many female exploits from the resort...awkward. Another good night ensued, with various challanges set up by the beach staff such as shooting a volley ball through a net to win drinks (even with our insane basketball skills we were all useless) and jumping through a hoop of fire. Tiredness set in, and I walked back to the resort leaving Grieve and our new mate from Ireland (Owen) to party some more. Today was a bit of a write off in the morning, however we decided to actually do something, hitting town to find some flip flops as well as going to the west of the island to check out a awesome beach, with picturesque tropical island scenery. After more chilling, we decided that after tonight we wanted to get check out west Thailand before going onto Bangkok, as although chilling is fun we all almost preferred travelling around a lot. Maybe go snorcalling tomorrow, then hopefully to west Thailand to see some more awesome beaches.

Koh Phangan continued

Koh Phangan continued...

So Grieve, Walmo and I ended up chilling out in the bungalow for a while, before the group decided to make a decision (!) and go somewhere a bit more tourist friendly. So we got another water taxi back to Hat Rin, the first beach we had come to on our arrival to Koh Phangan. Here we were instantly mobbed by a group of people trying to get us to come to a resort a bit further from the beach. The free taxi there and promise of "The Original Pool Party" that night sold it to us, and while we were unsure if it would be anything like the photos they had been waving around, on arrival we weren't dissappointed. In the "Coral Resort" we had our own room with air con and ample chill area, and while I had to share a double bed with Walmsley, its not like we weren't used to it... Anyway, we got the chance to sort our bags and re-charge cameras etc, before going to get dinner by the beach in the resort. However, tiredness had hit the group, and after a beer at dinner we went back to the room to get ready for the party, only to fall asleep. So psyched were we by the thought of a pool party, we ended up sleep until nearly 2am. Lucky for us the party was still in full swing, and being the "lads" that we were, decided to go anyway. After being there for a few hours, we hit the room again, remarking how while it had been fun, getting there before 2 am would have made it slightly better. We got up in the morning refreshed, intent on making the most of the Black Moon Party tonight. We did some more chilling (and as remarked by a certain Easy we had now got this to a fine art), before heading into town to have a look at a few shops and get some money. With little success, we played some cards in a cafe, before coming back to the resort, and hitting the internet. Our future plans include the party tonight, and as it is the start of Chinese New Year (14th to the 17th of Feb) should be pretty sweet. We then may stay here an extra night before returning to Hat Yun for a night or so. Soon to move on to Bangkok.

From Hat Yai to Koh Phangan

Hat Yai
We got an overnight bus from Kuala Lumpur to Hat Yai (south Thailand) where the air conditioning left the interior of the bus just over freezing temperature. Instead of the company turning up the heat they gave out blankets, so it more or less was bearable. Suffice to say when we alighted the bus back into the searing heat we were taken aback.
We spend the day in Hat Yai, the cheapest place by far we have been to. The taxis would be a definite health and safety hazard back home, as we just get onto the back of a small truck and hold on for dear life. We arrived at around 6am where nothing was open, so we just headed in one direction until places started opening up. We had breakfast at a local place where nobody spoke english, but was arguably the best place we've eaten so far (also the cheapest as each of our meals were about 60p). We then headed to the bus station to figure out our next journey details. We decided to get a 9.30pm overnight bus to Koh Phangan, a small island known for its parties and good beaches. Ideal. We then headed back into the centre of town in Hat Yai and went to a local market where it was crowded and hot and the locals laughed at us because we looked funny (later on we asked someone why this was and he reckoned it was because we were white and tall, looking completely out of place). This market was actually really cool and totally different to anything in the UK. After the market we decided to chill (suprise suprise) in a bar and play a bit of cards, before walking around town some more - Walmo bought some new flip flops and I wish I did too as mine are almost totally broken now. We then had some more chill time in another bar where we played some more cards - and we noticed Felly was being mocked by the staff because of his untucked indiana jones style green shirt and shorts.
The overnight bus was sadly nowhere near as comfortable as our previous journey. Not only did we have no leg space whatsoever, but the aisle of the bus was crammed full of people.

Koh Phangan
We arrived at the ferry terminal on mainland Thailand absolutely knackered at 3am, with our ferry not leaving till 8am, so it was time for some more cards and chilling. We fell asleep on the ferry over, waking up with the sun blaring down on us, each with peculiar tan lines (felly notably went the reddest with his shoulders being burnt outside of his sleeveless top). We then got the scariest taxi ever where our bags were on top of the cab and we couldnt see them, and the driver went hell for leather round bends and up and down hills, leaving us holding on to anything we could hoping neither we nor our bags fell out. We then had to get a water taxi to a couple of beautiful secluded beaches with no road links to the rest of the island. The place we wanted to stay in which has a load of bungalows is fully booked, but luckily because we're such legends they're letting us crash in their hammocks at night. Last night we went to this all night party - although I didn't make it to sunrise due to being a little worse for wear and tired because of the lack of sleep - the other two tell me that sunrise was a magical experience. This morning I got up out of the hammock and watched the staff do their rituals for Chinese New Year and chilled with some of the other guests till Walmo and Felly arose. We then hit the beach for some quality chill time, playing a bit of basketball and swimming in the sea until we decided to come here to the internet cafe. We're now deciding whether to stay another night in a hammock or head to a more populous area where there's a bigger nightlife scene and a place we can use plugs to charge our various electrical necessities.
The plan now is to head back to the bungalows and, you guessed it, chill.

With the rest of the day ahead of us we decided to check out Kuala Lumpar. So after getting our over night bus tickets to Hat Yai we started to make a move for the famed Petronus Towers. Taking the most direct route we could find towards the tower seeing seeing some cool sights on the way. We eventually ended up at a bar a short distance from the Petronus Towers. The Petronus towers, well lets just there huge and put Mr Fell to shame and inside was a cool shopping area. We then decided to head towards China town and called over a taxi, which was all fine. Then after a 10min taxi drive max we were quoted with an outrageous price with the taxi driver insisting he meant 30 dollar instead of the local baht. Thankfully Grieve decided to step up bullshiting his way through while while felly shoved in some sentences to quick for anyone to understand. The taxi driver eventually backed down realising he was getting no where. After the event we realised that it was still early in the day and went for some of the local food. Once some serious and necessary chilling we continued our journey of touring the city. We continued our sight seeing while gradually feeling more tired and generally sweating obscene amounts. As it came to the end of the day we all agreed that if we didn't have shower before we left an unpleasent bus ride would be an understatement, thankfully we found showers (which will never be more appreciated) shortly before our bus ride. After several hours of the over night bus ride we encountered more trouble at borders but nothing some english charm can't deal with. We're now in the centre of Hat Yai planning to catch another overnight bus to Koh Phanghan.
Update By walmo.

Onward from Singapore

So we decided to get the train to Penang on the evening of the 8th, got all packed up from our hostel after more of what we do best- chilling. Local food was the first port of call, then after a pretty hot walk, got the metro to the train station, where we encountered our first problem. The train only went to Kuala Lumpur, which was over 7 hours south of Penang, and apart from being a cool city to check out, it wasn't as great step northward as we had hoped. Walmsley here demonstated his Geographical skills- "Is Penang in Singapore?". Still, a few remarks by individuals such as "just chill" and "Come on guys, we'll see what happens" encouraged us to press on anyway, with the promise of beds on the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur. Beds we got, and after pretty relaxed security and passport checks we boarded the train, and settled down. Grieve fell asleep, while me and Walmsley chatted to a local about travelling around Asia. Turns out Chinese New Year (11th to the 14th of Feb) could create travel problems, as some trains don't run and others get full extremely quick.
After falling asleep briefly, there was a loud knock at the window and we realised we where on the only ones left on the train- more passport control. This turned out to be the biggest scare of the trip yet, as I had cleverly misplaced my boarder ticket that I got when we entered Singapore, and had to report quickly to the immigration office in order to be allowed out of the city. The chinese couple before we were completly rejected from travelling out of Singapore, and fearing the same fate I started to panic. However, smooth talking and boyish good looks allowed me to get passed boarder control, only to find Grieve and Walmo wandering about the station wondering what to do if I had been arrested. We finally got on the train, and fell back asleep uninterrupted for the remainder of the 8 hour journey.
Currently we are in Kuala Lumpur, about to check out China Town and the Petronas Towers, before boarding a bus and hopefully arriving in Hat Yai tomorrow morning (hopefully because it is a private bus service), a lot closer to our destination of Koh Phangan that we want to get to for the Black Moon Festival on the 13th of Feb.

Next post if all goes acording to plan- Hat Yai!

Singapore

After one long two-legged flight we arrived to our hostel all very tired - no wonder as there was quite a lot to do on the flight. I would definately recommend Qatar Airline to anyone - it was our cheapest option but it was one of the best flights I've been on. Sleeping in a 12 bed dorm just by little India. Last night we went to a hotspot called Clarke Quay where we spent wayyyy too much money on our first meal, and we didn't even drink more than 2 beers each. Nonetheless it was a good experience but we've learnt our lesson to be a lot more budget-savvy.
We're now sitting in an internet cafe opposite the famous raffles hotel. Although to drink a Singapore Sling from its origin would be nice, it is distinctly out of our price range. Although we've paid to stay in our hostel one more night, we're thinking about getting an overnight train tonight to Penang, Malaysia as it is a 14 hour journey and getting it tomorrow would just wipe out a day. The fact that the sooner we leave Singapore, the sooner and longer we can chill on the secluded beaches in Koh Phangan, Thailand.
We're en route to the bus station to find out the length and price of a journey out of Singapore - as we're undecided whether the S$60 price tag on a train journey is a rip off or not.
If we do decide to leave tonight, we'd get a train at approximately 10pm and aim to only spend one night in Georgetown, Penang. This would mean we then leave the following day to Koh Phangan where we will spend a few nights chilling on the beaches and attending the Black Moon Party (13th Feb). This also means that it is unknown when we'll next be able to reach an internet cafe.

All in all we're in pretty good spirits and dealing well with the jetlag, after being a little grouchy for the first 24hours.

This blog was written by Grievzy, the next entry - who knows!

Leaving

So tonight is our last night in the UK for a while! At 1415 we leave on a Qatar air flight to Singapore!

First post of the blog

Welcome to our first entry. There won't really be anything interesting on this page until after we leave on February 7th.

Check out our twitter page though; www.twitter.com/Lads_On_Tour