Having A Jolly

Fear... It spread over us like a disease. How were we going to cope?!

We’d become quite settled into the Asian lifestyle. The sun shining everyday, drifting through towns, countries, lying in, doing what we wanted to do, eating out for every meal, spending little on accommodation, clothes, trips...

How were we going to adjust to the winter weather? How were we going to be able to go back to work after six months frolicking about in Asia?

Given, we weren’t going home... we were going to Sydney. It was still daunting.

We’d have to stay in a hostel!! Horror!

Luckily everything is so cheap in Asia we’d been spoilt rotten. Now we’d have to share with other people and have a shared bathroom!

We booked a hostel in Kings Cross called the Jolly Swagman. The dorms were girls or boys only and there were four per room. Not so bad. I still wasn't particularly looking forward to it. What if there were weirdos living there or we didn't get on with our room mates?

Assuming we’d stocked up on winter clothes in Bangkok, we got off the plane to find that what we had imagined would be suitable was completely not! It was freezing!
Okay, okay.. not as bad as London in the height of winter, but still it was a shock to the system!

Walking through seedy Kings Cross, past strip clubs and tacky shops, I felt even more nervous.

We planned to stay in the hostel maybe a week or two, work, then find a flat. That was the action plan.. but I should've known our plans never stick!

The hostel was was clean and cheap and we were only sharing the room with one other girl.

A few days after arriving I had my birthday. It was the first time I'd ever had a cold birthday. We went to a museum and afternoon tea at the Victoria ballroom (yes I know it's more 85 than 25 - but I enjoyed it) and then we met up with my friend from university, Sophie, in Darling Harbour and got on the cocktails! I had a great night and was very tipsy indeed!

A few days later we realised we needed to find work, our purses were being stretched to the limits. Everything was just so expensive. Gone were the 50p Pad Thai noodles and the 10p bottles of water.. It was stressful for a couple of weeks but then work started trickling in and we could afford to live again.

Sydney is cold in winter, expensive and completely different to Asia, but the thing that has been making it for us is the hostel. We’ve made a great gang of friends. People come and go, but the majority of people just hang out and have a laugh. It’s just like being in halls at uni!

‘So how long have you been staying here then?,’ we’d ask the residents. Some would say 7 months. How could anyone live in a hostel for that long, we would have wondered before. But now we understand.

We've discovered Goon! It's wine in a box.. cheap and nasty, but it gets you drunk quickly and it doesn’t break the bank balance at 10 dollars a box.

There is a variety of ages in the hostel, but mainly young people. It's incredibly sociable, so you’re guaranteed to never be lonely.

There’s a TV room with bean bags in it. They have a $3 pizza night on a Tuesday, where you can get 2 slices of pizza, a beer, then everyone goes to World Bar and you get two free drinks and free entrance if you are a lady and if you are a man free entrance and one free drink! Men have been known to dress as women and try their luck!




The last couple of weeks a group of us have been going down to Bondi Beach. The weather has been gradually improving. Although it’s ‘winter’ you can still get away with sitting on the beach, maybe with a cardigan on!.

There have been pub crawls, nacho nights, BBQs, popcorn and dvd nights. We had a great time at the pirate party in World Bar, everyone made the effort to dress up and all the different hostels in the area came to the event.

We've had a bit of a taste from home. Our friend Hayley, who I went to primary school with, has been in Australia for the last two years. She has loved the hostel life so much that she’s been hanging out with us and even staying, we've snuck her in!

My pal Mel, who I went to college with, came over with her boyfriend and enjoyed a hostel night out with us! Lynsey's parents came to see us aswell. They were good sports and even attended a hostel night out and pizza night! We took them to World Bar where you can get teapot shots (you freepour the drink into shot glasses from the teapot, I don't know the point but it's fun!) It comes with a card saying stating that it's illegal to drink from the spout - but you see the odd rebel breaking the rules!



I was full of fear before I came, worried I wouldn’t be able to cope with working and adjusting to the weather. These things have become almost irrelevant.

So all in all so far.. success story.

I think we may just live the hostel life forever!

Rose Tinted Glasses

Dear Vang Vieng,

How I loved you...

The tubing, the weather, the night life, the atmosphere, we had some great times...

It was sad to leave you, I had to tear myself away, it was hard but I had to move on, it was for the best...

But I missed you too much, so I went out, bought new dresses, had my hair done, I was so excited. It wasn’t part of our trip but I thought what the hell, just one last time just to see you again...

So I went back but it just wasn’t the same..

This is why you should never go back...



The last time we were together it was March, you were sunny all day, every day. The river was calm and not too dirty or fast. The majority of people about were 24/25 or older. All your clubs were open - all of which are outside. You played Drum & Bass and Electro House, everyone had a great time. 18 days of bliss. We partied hard, I just enjoyed being there.

So what happened in July? Did I do something wrong? You rained every day. Every night I had to deal with a complete downpour. The open bars had to be closed because the rain completely washed them out and it ended up like a mud bath. Fun at first but not so fun when my dresses were ruined! The river was fast and dirty.

It was the end of the school holidays and the beginning of University break, so everyone was under 21, which was depressing. It was like a day at the youth club. What happened to the music?! Pop?! It was like going to a cheesy disco night. I’m all for that, but VV you had such a cool image before.... You have changed and I miss the old you.

Despite all these things, I still had a great time. Sorry to be ungrateful. It wasn’t as special as the time before.

I’d still recommend you, and I’d definitely go back to you one day – maybe not in the school holidays or when it’s in the middle of the rainy season.

I do know that I'll never forget you....

It’s time to move on though and this time it’s not so hard to say goodbye.

Thanks for the memories.

Forever yours....

Swapping Tuk Tuks for Tricyclyes

7000 tiny islands make up the tropical Philippines. Often this unique paradise is missed by travellers due to its location in the North East region of South East Asia. It’s not the easiest of places to get to.
To sum up the entire place - unique.
Reaching the capital you feel as though you are on the continent. It has one of the biggest malls, all the buildings have a Spanish twist, there are no temples or mosques but instead grand cathedrals and forts. It’s as though we flew into South America with the shanty towns across the river and instead of tuk tuks are men with tricycles with a slight Spanish lilt. It’s also very Asian – the food, the people, the same dirt roads, the atmosphere.

Manila, South Luzon
The capital, and due to the uncertain political situation it is not advised to go there. We, however, spent a few days in Manila. It was rich in culture. You can visit the Fort Santiago where national hero Rizal was put in prison.
Poverty is everywhere, yet it has some of the nicest and most expensive places to eat and shop.
I’ve never seen so many men carrying guns, it seems as common as women clutching handbags! Signs are dotted around outside shops asking for weapons to be left outside, which is quite daunting. Every security guard carries a 30inch revolver! I’m not sure whether I felt more safe or threatened.
After a couple of days we decided we’d seen enough and wanted to head to a beach.

Mindoro – Sabang and White Beach
Beautiful sandy and tranquil beaches make up this island south of Luzon. We were there during a religious festival, so there were live bands marching round. We barely saw another backpacker. The island did however have older white men with young Filipina girlfriends.
Sabang, the busiest beach has a spiralling close knit centre of lanes, similar to Phi Phi island. This place is the livelier of the two beaches, with clubs, bars and restaurants. White Beach has the nicer beach. Tricycles are one of the best ways to get from beach to beach.
We found the locals to be very friendly here and the beach huts to be nicer than anywhere else. They even included a kitchen which was a novelty for us!

We didn’t manage to get to Boracay the party island. We will definitely have to go back and explore further. Two out of 7000 islands is as good a start as any!

Borneo - The King Of The Swingers

Anyone who knows anything about Borneo knows that it is home of the Orangutans.

These beautiful ginger fuzzy haired creatures are extremely loveable and Borneo is worth visiting just to go to an orangutan rehabilitation centre or orphanage and get a glimpse of them monkeying around.

Borneo also has a lot of other hidden treasure..

We only managed to go to a few places in Sabah (the Eastern province in Malaysian Borneo) here's what we did ...

Kota Kinabulu

The capital. I was expecting something out of the Jungle Book like canopies, greenery and lots of animals. In fact this place is very built up and also on the coast, so there are beaches a plenty.

We managed to stray into the national park to do some canopy walking (which was, at it's highest, 26 metres high). We also managed to see Mt Kota Kinabulu, a mountain half the size of Mount Everest. We didn't climb it, as we thought we'd climbed, walked, trekked up enough mountains/ volcanoes/ hills etc in Asia. We just took pictures from the ground.


Poring

The Poring Hot Springs is a natural bathing place. They have hot springs and also a cold pool. We spent about an hour in the hot water and about half a minute in the cold one. It was very refreshing though.

Sepilok

We headed to Sepilok (which is actually in the middle of the jungle) on a local bus. It was a six hour drive through the meandering mountain range.

We were in for the shock of our lives when the bus driver pulled up at the side of the road and called us off the bus. We'd been dumped in the middle of nowhere. Luckily some taxi man was driving past and picked us up. Realising we had no money we asked him to go via a cash point - which we later discovered, half an hour into the drive, was 12 miles away. Couldn't complain though, the whole trip including the six hour bus ride and taxi via the ATM cost about £10.50!

We stayed in a nice jungle lodge not too far from the orangutan orphanage, and managed to see some of the beasts at the feeding in the morning. They were very curious but at the same time shy. It was impressive seeing them swing through the over growth. Sad to also think that they are an endangered species.

We didn't have long in Borneo this time round. There are so many other things I'd like to do, like see the turtles and go scuba diving (it's apparently a very popular place to go).

I guess I'll have to go back. With so much to do it's definitely somewhere you could go ape.

Gold Digging in Brunei

So we're both young free and single. We were also heading to a place that would be full of rich people, maybe even young single men! Brunei has a lot of oil and the Sultan is one of the wealthiest in the world - he's worth 54 billion dollars (now that is a lot of money). The only down fall was that the whole country has no bars or pubs. In fact Brunei has an alcohol ban, so how on earth does anyone get chatted up?!

Worried that it was too expensive for our budget, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't ridiculously so. I was expecting magnificent mosques and skyscrapers looming over the city.

Brunei, what an anomaly.

It has the potential to be built up and bustling. It was very quiet, had no major buildings except the mosques and it was a little deserted. There were only a few small shopping centres, some coffee houses and a handful of hotels / guest houses.

Unlike the rest of Asia, the roads weren't dirt tracks, they were paved, (this is now how I tell how westernised a country is by the paved roads, trust me it's a novelty!)

It had a beautiful mosque called the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, which was golden domed. We went to see it at night, when it has been lit up and appears to float like an apparition over the lagoon it's next to.

Another mosque worth visiting is the Jame'asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque, which is just out of town and is the largest in Brunei.

I was intrigued about the Sultan. Surely if he has all these grand mosques and is one of the richest men then he must have a splendid palace. We attempted to visit it, but we couldn't see it for the trees.

We did see the other side of Brunei, the poorer side, as in the Fishing Village, which has been there for centuries (and looks like it has too). It seems every country in Asia has a fishing village somewhere. This village in the harbour of the city is basically a floating town, the second largest town in Brunei after the capital. It even has it's own fire station and schools.

All in all the country wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. The people are incredibly friendly. Lynsey and I even managed to hitchhike (that's a lie we didn't, we got lost and a family took pity on us and dropped us back at our hotel! There aren't any taxis lingering around, so we were massively grateful.)

We had a relaxing few days here. We even watched a Tug of War competition in the city's stadium, which was rather random. We even managed to have a look at some muscly young men! So this is where you pick them up!

I felt as though we had a great few days in this peaceful place. Even if I didn't get to actually see the palace or get a proper feel for Brunei's wealth ... I did however hear that the Sultan was divorcing one of his wives .. She was previously a reporter, which I thought was very interesting. Apparently he'd also divorced one who was an air stewardess. I started thinking Lynsey worked for BA and I worked for a magazine... maybe, just maybe, we should hand in our CVs .....

Interesting Indonesia

Indonesia is very much the Australian holiday place. A bit like how us English flock to Benidorm for a bit of sun, sand, English nosh and tacky night life. Indonesia, or Bali even, is every Ozzy's dream place. Surfing the turbulent waves, scuba diving at various spots, white water rafting, hiking up volcanoes and cheesy nights out. There is an abundance of activities (mostly surfing).

Bali

We stayed on Kuta Beach. I was expecting something to rival Australia's Gold Coast in beauty. Unfortunately not. It just had good waves. We got stuck in though and had a surf lesson; this cost 33 dollars at the Big Kuhuna Surf School. They guarantee in the first lesson you will stand on the board, if not you get a free lesson the next day. Amazingly I managed to stand on the board a good few times. I did also get a black eye ... the board went into my eye. I wasn't paying attention and the wave crashed the board into me as I fell off it.

We also went white water rafting where, unlike the one we did in Chiang Mai (Thailand), the water was actually pretty fast and we went over a dam.

The nightlife wasn't really that great here, so we didn't bother going out much. We did watch the World Cup at every opportunity so we did get to drink some beer!

Mount Bromo

The best thing about Indonesia in my eyes. We decided to get an over night bus to east Java to climb Mount Bromo - an active volcano. The mountain is freezing so we had to purchase scarves, gloves and hats. At 4am they pick you up from your log cabin to take you up the volcano to see the sun rise. This was unreal - hence why I got a little too snap happy. The place was crowded so we were lucky to get a good spot.

After this you go visit the crater. It's a steaming crater too and the views are out of this world. My breath was completely taken away. It was phenomenal and to say it was stunning does it no justice, words cannot even express it. To finish off we had a nice horse ride down the volcano.

Yogjakarta

We stayed here for a couple of nights to visit the legendary Borobodur, a 9th century Buddhist temple. It is described as the Angkor Wat of Indonesia. It's not as spectacular but definitely holds it's own in architecture and grandeur. We also tried Python and Cobra here (which tastes surprisingly like chicken ... maybe we really are living in the Matrix). I also had my hair re-bonded for about 20 pounds (this process basically is where a chemical is put onto the hair to permanently straighten/ relax it until it grows out, it's a couple of hundred pounds in England, so this was a bargain!)

Tulamben
This is an area in northern Bali. Here I did a wreck dive. There was a warship called the Liberty that sank just off the coast here. It now has beautiful coral covering it and hides a massive selection of fish within it's ghostly remains. We managed to see a stingray and even a baracuda. It was nice to try a different type of scuba dive.







We didn't get to go to Jakarta or even the Gili Islands. We will definitely have to go back to Indonesia on a visit. I'm guessing that when we get to Australia there will be lots of cheap holiday packages to Indonesia, seeing as the place was swamped with those from down under. If we're living over there for a bit then maybe Bali can become our new Benidorm.

Swarve Singapore

Getting off the bus and looking around what was in front of me I had to blink a couple of times, as I didn't feel as though I was in Asia any longer.

No dusty dirt tracks but paved streets. Everything was signposted in English. It was very modern and clean.

I can only describe Singapore as Glamorous.... Glamorous Singapore... Here's why...


G is for Glitzy. There's valet parking, security on the complexes. Walking into the huge malls I felt as though I was walking on a red carpet. Everyone looks the part - i.e. swanky - in this cosmopolitan city.

L is for Lucy, our friend who lives there. Thankfully she put us up, as otherwise trying to find a guest house or hostel would have been tricky and cost us a bomb! Unfortunately poor Lynsey had to go into hospital with Gastric Enteritis, so we ended up spending a lot more time in Singapore than we planned. When she started feeling better it was great to do girly things like go to the cinema (we watched Sex And The City 2), we went for sushi, we went for dinner, we went shopping, had our eyebrows done. Just nice normal girly things that we couldn't really do elsewhere in Asia like at home.

A is for Appetite. This definitely came back. I spent a lot of time cooking, either for when Lucy came home from work and just for fun really. We had two roasts in the space of a week! We also went out for dinner. We went to Lucy's favourite restaurant RAW, which is so quaint and also nice and great value for money.

M is for the Marina. It is so pretty, with tall skyscrapers such as the boat building and a big statue of the Merlion.

O is for Organisation. You cannot buy chewing gum, there is no litter on the streets. They have traffic lights and zebra crossings that actually do what they are supposed to (a rarity for Asia). It is a very safe place with very little crime.

R is for Raffles Hotel. This is a colonial style hotel dating back to 1887. Known for being prestigious and upper class. You may not be able to afford the 350 pound-a-night rooms here. However it is a very popular tourist attraction. There's a court with Tiffany's jewellery shop and also a souvenir shop. We just admired it from afar during the day.

O is for Out of town. This place more than anywhere I've been in Asia had a really Chinese feel to it along with a western feel to it. 5 million people live in this island country. Most of them Chinese, Malay, Indians and white. 42% of people living here are foreigners.

U is for Universal Studios. We did not visit this place so I can't actually comment, but they have one here. So maybe you can go and then let me know how it is!

S is for Shopping. There are over a hundred shopping malls. If you have the money - unlike us poor backpackers - then you will really appreciate it here.


On top of the glamour and architecture in this modern city, there was an okay night life - Clark Quay and the Loof cocktail bar are some of many places to visit. It was also an excellent way to spend a few days in the middle of the trip despite Lynsey being poorly. We watched a lot of telly and just chilled out - in Lucy's apartment with the swimming pools, squash courts, tennis courts ..... just like home (not really!). We had a lovely time, we did do one touristy thing - we went to the Night Safari, which was really fun, even though the animals like tigers and lions roam freely near the walkways. How they don't attack anyone I have no idea - maybe like Singapore they are sophisticated too!