Western Australia

After my few lovely days in Singapore with perfect 30 degrees heat, I travelled overnight to Perth. When I arrived at the extremely unpleasant hour of 4.15am, the first thing that struck me was the cold, and this stayed with me for the duration of my time in WA! To most people from England, 18 or 19 degrees doesn't sound too bad, but for me, it was 10-15 degrees less than what I was used to. My body was so confused - why wasn't I sweating constantly anymore?! On my first day in Perth, I had to make a quick dash to the shops to stock up on jumpers. Horrible!

The second thing that struck me was the cost of everything. Again, if I'd come straight from England, it would have seemed reasonable to maybe a little expensive. But after living on 7 dollars a day in Cambodia, and now being barely able to afford a McDonalds for 7 dollars, it was horrendous! My money situation isn't the best at the moment, and that's putting it lightly. In other words, I'm broke, and being in this country is NOT helping!!

But now let's move on to the positives. The people, for a start. Everyone was so friendly! Wherever I was, bus stop or art gallery, someone would stop to have a little chat. It was lovely (and obviously a massive change from being in countries where this is just not possible). Their kindness was overwhelming as well - I stayed with couchsurfing hosts for the entirety of my time in WA, and I was put up in million dollar houses, given my own bedroom, fed, driven around, basically treated like an old friend. It was wonderful, I had such a good time and just wish I'd had more time in WA.

So, I spent my meagre 8 days in Perth, Fremantle, Hillarys (a Perth suburb where the million dollar house was) and the amazing Margaret river. Perth is a nice city, it has a great art gallery with lots of aboriginal art in, as well as lots of cafes and restaurants. Plus a Nando's, which was extremely exciting and which I enjoyed thoroughly on my last night with my wonderful CS host in Perth, Amy.

Fremantle was the sort of place that I could see myself calling home, mainly because it reminded me so much of Brighton, my favourite place in the UK. It had a great weekend market on when I was there, and the city had a chilled out vibe, with cafe's sprawling on the streets, competing with all the quirky alternative shops. My CS hosts for Fremantle and Hillary's were a Swiss/Irish couple who ended up in Hillary's catsitting for a friend, so I was lucky enough to spend 2 nights there with them in the gorgeous house by the harbour. They took me on one of the days to a park/ cemetary. Doesn't sound like the kind of place you would necessarily choose to go, but actually it was great as it was filled with kangaroos, literally hundreds of them. Being springtime as well, it meant that there were loads of joeys in their mother's pouches, with their little heads sticking out. We got to sit just a couple of metres away from them, it was such a great experience!

My next stop was staying with a couple in their 70's, Jack and Carroll. They were very much environmentalists, all about using sustainable energy and recycling, looking after the community garden and preserving Australia's wildflowers. On my first day in Margaret River, I went on a wine-tasting course day, as this is what the area is famous for. As soon as I touched down in Oz, I made the most of the things I missed in Asia - namely wine, cheese and salt and vinegar crisps! So, the wine day was perfect for me. We went to 3 wineries, a cheese factory, chocolate factory, liquor factory and a brewery, and tried 40 different wines during the day. As you can imagine, from starting at 10.30, everyone was a bit pissed by the end of the day! It was a bushtucker tour that I was on, so during the day we also got to try kangaroo (nice), emu (pretty bland), and a witchetty grub (absolutely VILE!!!!).

In the evening, I went back to Jack and Carroll's rather the worse for wear, and then went off to see a modern take on a Midsummer Night's Dream at the local theatre (Margaret River had a lot of arty things going on there, as well as being very much a close-knit community). None of us were particularly impressed by the show, but at least it added a touch of culture to my boozy day!

On my second day, I went into the nearby forest with Carroll, who was incredibly knowledgeable about the native plants and trees, naming most of them with both their common name and Latin name, and explaining to me which plant family they were in and how you can tell. To me, they all just looked like weird trees or pretty flowers so it was such an education! Plus, in Margaret River they had some unusual weeds - lillies and fresias being two! I personally thought they looked lovely, but apparently they were killing off the native plants so the locals weren't too happy about that.

I hope one day that I'll go back to WA with more time and more money, as it seemed like such a great place to explore, and there wasn't the drunken backpacker scene that's almost inescapable on the east coast. It was so refreshing to stay in houses rather than hostels and spend time with locals rather than travellers, in fact my whole time there was a highlight. 

Malaysia and Singapore

After saying in my previous blog that I hadn't heard many rave reviews about KL, I would have to say that I felt the same. It was just another city really, the only really special thing that I saw were the Petronas towers, which are as cool as you would imagine! Plus, inside, there was a Topshop!

Anyway, I stayed for just one night in KL, and had a very interesting incident in the night were a guy woke everyone in the dorm up by rustling the dreaded plastic bags after arriving at about 2.30am, to then tell me repeatedly that I was in HIS bed and needed to get out. Like I was there just to warm it up for him ready for his arrival! I told him no many times (didn't swear at him shockingly) until he finally gave up and got in the top bunk, and then left about 4 hours later. What a bloody weirdo.

I then hot-footed it over to Melaka, which is a lovely albeit very touristy UNESCO site. There was a great weekend market there, in which a 60-odd year old man had a party trick of pushing a hole into a green coconut using one finger and obviously some kind of jedi mind trick. It looked ridiculously painful, but I was suitably impressed. The food was darn good too - Malay/ Chinese fusion food such as laksa (a seafood noodle soup dish) and cendol (ice shavings with coconut milk and what looked like melted palm sugar).

I had a brand new experience in Melaka as well - bed bugs! In one night, I managed to find 2 rooms with them in after surviving 8 months bug-free! The owner of the guesthouse was very apologetic and put me up in his much posher second guesthouse, and as I was about to leave to go to Singapore, gave me an envelope containing a full refund. So  I won't complain too much about a few bites on my arms and a restless night!

Another new experience came my way in Singapore - couchsurfing. I don't know if you've heard of this crazy, wonderful, hippy idea, but it's a website where you make a page about yourself ( a little like myspace) and then look for people in the area you're going to who would put you up on their sofa/ spare bed for a few days. I met a lovely girl called Christel and stayed with her family, who fed me delicious cake and curries and spoilt me rotten. I was staying there with another CS'er, and the three of us went to Singapore zoo for the day. It's an amazing zoo as there aren't any cages - the animals have open enclosures, separated from the humans using moats and hills. It was brilliant. We saw a particularly disturbing thing happen which might stay with me until the day I die - a mandrill get all agitated, then pleasure itself, then eat it's own love juice! Sorry to share such a disgusting thing, but it made us laugh for the rest of the day!

Singapore is one of my favourite cities that I've visited on this trip - it has a great blend of old colonial buildings plus super-modern architecture, and they've kept as many green spaces as possible, rightly earning it the name of the garden city. Plus the food is a mega fusion of all the yummiest Asian food you think of, and there's a lively nightlife scene - what more could you want? In my opinion, it's a bit like Hong Kong but nicer.

Thailand and Penang

Gosh, it's been a long time since I got around to writing on here, shameful! An awful lot has gone on in the last month or so - I spent a wonderful month volunteering at S.C.A.O near Phnom Penh, and still miss the children terribly. I then moved on to Siem Reap, where I spent a miserable time feeling very ill and wondering how long it would take the staff to find my rotting corpse in my room if I died. The joys of travelling solo! I got over it in a couple of days, and managed to squeeze in a day trip to the temples of Angkor. Angkor Wat was obviously impressive, although the scaffolding all over the front of the building detracted from it's splendour somewhat. I was particularly impressed with the Bayon temple, which was basically an old king's face made to look a bit Buddha-esque sculpted on every side of every column around the temple. The 'Tomb Raider' temple, aka Ta Phrom, was also very interesting to see. It was definitely a case of nature - 1, man - 0!

Anyway, after leaving Siem Reap I took an agonising 12 hour minibus ride to Bangkok where I stayed with my lovely friend Sophie in her flat. Not only did she take me in and show me the joys of Swensens (ice-cream parlour) and Sizzler (amazing salad buffet place), but she also helped me get a job for next year at her school! I'll be teaching year 6, which will certainly be a change, and it's only for a term, but still I'm really looking forward to it. We have weekly fancy-dress party plans for the duration of my stay, I can't wait!

Anyway, back to the tourist trail. I hopped on a delightful train to Chiang Mai and had a LOT of fantastic experiences in a very short space of time - elephant trekking, white water rafting, ziplining, playing with tigers, jungle trekking (a short trek so it was good!) etc etc. Please check out my facebook photos to see more. The hostel I stayed at, A Little Bird Guesthouse, was also great and I met a lot of fun people there. Plus they have excellent burritos in Chiang Mai... just a little bonus! I also did a cooking course while I was there, which fuelled my love for Thai food. Sometimes it is way too spicy for me, but otherwise it's delicious!

After all these action packed adventures, I decided to go and take it easy in a little hippy town called Pai for a few days. There's not much to do except hire a bicycle or scooter and ride around, meet people, chat about nothing, listen to people play the guitars, and generally just chill out. A lot of people get stuck there for weeks and months, and I could easily have been one of those people if I hadn't been on a tight schedule by this point. It's so strange to have very little flexibility now, but money is so tight and time is also running out quickly, and yet I still have so much to fit in!

After Pai, and a very strange day involving brief entries into Myanmar and Laos as part of a visa run with style, I briefly went back to BKK to get the aforementioned job, then went down south to Ko Phangan. If you've heard of the island, or read the lonely planet, you may well just think full moon party and generally craziness are the only things on offer there. Not true, happily! I stayed well away from the annoying 19 year olds and had a very relaxed time on the North-West of the island. I drove a scooter for the first time there, which I enjoyed so much that I kept the scooter for 5 days, and just beach hopped and explored the waterfalls. The beaches there were unbelievably beautiful, I've never seen such white sand and such clear water. I was going to island hop but once I found my paradise there, why bother?

After 6 blissful days, I decided I probably should move on, and that's brought me to where I am now... Georgetown, Penang. I really love it here, there is a massive Indian and Chinese influence, so the place is always buzzing with activity, and the food is spectacular. I've met so many interesting characters as well - if you ever go, go to Jim's Place and meet the man himself. I'm not sure if I could describe his character, but let's just say that he is full of character, and nonsense, and unusual opinions. He calls himself Sir Jim and has his own quotes written on the walls, which he regularly refers to during conversation. One of those people who you only meet when you travel! He had another very interesting friend, who apparently had once been certified insane, was covered in tattoos, had lived on the streets, been in prison, but yet was very enjoyable to talk to and had a lot of similar opinions to me! Maybe that should worry me...

Anyway, I'm about to leave the crazies behind and get a train to Kuala Lumpur. Not heard rave reviews of the place yet, so I'm just going to have to get there and find out for myself!