The year kicked off with a visit to Melbourne and some of the hottest weather i’ve been in since coming to Oz. Melbourne lived up to it’s hype and i really liked the place. I would have loved to of spent longer there as the city is a very cool place, and i loved walking through all the lanes passing the small bars and cafes Melbourne is famous for. We also chose the worst time to do some shopping, and it was the first time i had to purposely walk in the shade and hop into shops just for a nice bit of air conditioning!

On top of that there was a quick trip up to Brisbane for a friend’s engagement party, a festival up the north of NSW and my introduction to Aussie Hip Hop, and our most recent trip, our summer holiday to Darwin.

It had been a while since going anywhere so when June finally came along i couldn’t wait to get on that plane for the four hour trip to the north of the country. There were seven of us going in all and the trip included a 3-day tour through the Northern Territory, my first visit to some proper Aussie outback and hopefully to see some Crocs!

Before the trip we had a couple of days in the main strip of Darwin, staying in a hostel. It was fun going back to the backpacker lifestyle, and the area reminded me a lot of Khao San in Bangkok and Vang Vien in Laos. Darwin itself is a tiny place, so there was literally one road of bars and restaurants where all the travellers would hang out. To be honest the place wasn’t quite what i expected but we were only there for a couple of days, and i was keen to see more of the country rather than the city anyway.

Needless to say the tour was awesome. On the first day we headed to some amazing waterfalls and got to chill out at the pools and perfect my canonballs. My highlight though was getting onto a boat and looking out for Crocodiles down one of the many billabongs running through the area. At first it didn’t look like we would see any, with the tour guide giving the old excuse “We saw loads of them this morning!!!” but thankfully a few minutes later we got to see a couple of beauty’s chilling out on the bank. It was amazing to get right up close to them, and my new camera lens came in very handy.

The evening’s we spent at camping sites dotted through Litchfield and Kakadu national park, and the group all got a go at a playing a Didgeridoo, another tick through my list of things to see and do in Australia. Surprisingly it wasn’t as hard as i expected and i’m now keen to bring a Didge back home with me to annoy all my family and friends.

The second day was somewhat of a history and culture lesson, as the tour guide took us through an area of Kakadu which held lots of various aboriginal paintings on the rock walls and weirdly the ceilings too. To be honest he went a little overboard and it turned into a series of lectures which were interesting at first but a bit tedious after a while. On a number of occasions i freaked out when mosquitos started homing in on my face and i think i was good entertainment for the rest of the group as i jumped around swinging like a crazy person.

The last day of the trip was a walk through the bush to a waterfall but it felt like we were walking for hours. Finally getting to our destination we were gobsmacked at how amazing the waterfall and pool looked. It’s just a shame the water was so damn cold otherwise i could have spent all day there. If we had got there a few hours later it would have been perfect, though the tour guide and i both had the same ideals close to our heart. Get there before everyone else as people suck. Just as we were leaving a horde of other tour groups started arriving, so i was glad to have got there early in the end.

Sadly the tour had gone by far too quickly, and before we knew it we were on the long car ride back to Darwin. Instead of a hostel though, we had a lovely apartment in one of the northern suberbs directly opposite the sea waiting for us. It was in a lovely quiet area and the sunsets each evening were beautiful. The remaining days of the trip we spent doing absolutely nothing other than basking in the 30 degree weather each day.

All in all it was a great trip and flying back to a cold and wet Sydney was a depressing sight, never mind the fact work was waiting for me the next day.

The good news is my first trip home is slowly approaching, and i can’t wait to see friends and family who i haven’t seen in nearly two years now. On top of that i’m heading to Ireland for the first time with Lorna and i’ll be showing her the delights of my home town in Essex. I’m still working out what they are.

Applying for a visa

Currently Burma doesn’t allow visa on arrival, so for us the easiest place was to apply at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok. Grabbing a taxi from Khao san, you should be able to get there for no more than 100 Baht.

When applying for the visa you’ll need a scanned page of your passport. There is a restaurant down the road who have a photocopier and charge about 20 Baht a copy.

Make sure you also have two passport sized photos with a WHITE background. Though we never tried they have a sign at the visa office clearly stating they don’t accept any other coloured backgrounds.

Apparently they do not allow anyone who is a professional journalist or similar into the country. This posed a problem for G as she is a writer, so our advice is to enter a different job on the visa application form. We’ve also heard of them searching your name online to check so as a precaution we recommend you edit or take down any sites that may disclose your occupation e.g. linkedin.

We applied for a same day visa, which means you must apply between 9 and 12 and the visa should be ready for you to collect between 3 and 4. Same day visa’s cost around 1200 Baht.

Money

Myanmar’s currency Kyat (pronounced chat) is a closed currency so you have to get it when you enter the country.

Some years ago you could get a very good rate changing via the black market. The government has since cracked down on this so you are better off changing at the airport to avoid any chances of getting screwed over.

At the time of writing this there are currently NO ATM’s in Burma, however at the cost of 10% commission or more, some places will let you get money via your credit card.

You will need US Dollars to change up when you arrive. For the best rate try to get 100 dollar bills. They must have a date AFTER 2003.

They are also picky about the condition of the bills. Try to get them in the best possible condition. Most of ours had a slight crease in the middle which they were fine with, but they didn’t accept a couple which had some creases in the corners and slight marks on them.

We were slightly surprised on the costs of travelling through Burma, and it’s a bit more expensive compared to nearby Thailand and Laos. A mid-range double room goes for about $10 US and meals between $5 and $10.

People

We found the Burmese people to be extremely friendly and helpful. We pretty much had our trip planned out straight away thanks to the advice from our taxi driver who took us from the airport to our guest house.

The staff in all the guest houses were also very nice and helpful, and will happily book your bus tickets and check your flights for you. We even had a monk come up to us in one of the big temples and he took us around and explained it’s history, something that has never happened in all the other temples i’ve visited.

Getting Around

The information in the Lonely Planet guide books about getting the bus are now wrong. They mention getting from Yangon to Mandalay takes 12-14 hours, but Burma has since repaired it’s main highway so it only took us 9 hours to get there. Just make sure you ask for the highway bus as i believe there is another bus which stops a lot more so will take longer.

Burma is a pretty poor country, and you will quickly notice the state of the cars and buses on the roads, however our bus from Yangon to Mandalay was very nice, if not just a bit too chilly from the aircon. Though the bus my friends took from Bagan to Inle Lake was shocking, so be prepared for an uncomfortable ride with no aircon and packed to the rafters with people.

If you are limited on time as i was, you can also get domestic flights between all the major cities. My flight from Bagan to Yangon cost $90 US and got me there without a hitch. Internet is still quite rare to find so you have to book at a travel agency. I can personally recommend SUN FAR tours and Asian Wings airways. Make sure you call the airway the day before to confirm your flight.

Head over to my Gallery to check out some of my favourite photos from my travels over last year.

Here’s hoping for more adventures in 2012!!!

It was the perfect way to bring in the new year and mark my first year since i left home!

Hopefully it won’t be too long before i update my blog again, as i plan to see a lot more of Australia this year with plans to head up to the Northern Territory and a visit to Melbourne. More to come soon!

I’d been worried about the prospect of spending Christmas here on my own but i was glad to hear many of the friends i’d met at the lodge would be in the same boat as me so i decided to invite them all around my place for Christmas Day.

I’d also decided to challenge myself and attempt to cook a traditional roast dinner by myself. I really made an effort and did plenty of research before the day to make sure it didn’t turn out to be a complete disaster. In fact it all went perfectly and we all had a great time sitting round the table, eating and drinking and before long singing some traditional cheesy Chrismas tunes.

With only a few days until NYE i’m really excited about spending it here in Sydney, who arguably have one of the best fireworks displays in the world. I’m lucky to get to see them from a perfect position, at one of my flatmates sister’s apartment so I’m looking forward to trying to get some pictures and will upload them soon!

This past month had been non-stop sightseeing, and i was quite relieved to be heading back to normal life again. Christmas was also fast approaching and i was looking forward to meeting up with Simon and the guys back in Sydney and celebrating New Year with the amazing firework display Sydney puts on.

Before that however i had to get through five different flights over three days. My first was the flight back to Yangon, and this was my first time on an old-school propeller plane. Surprisingly it was a really pleasant flight which got me back to the capital without a hitch. Then as usual i had a mind numbing 5 hour wait with no Internet and only a book to keep me sane at the international airport before catching a flight back to Thailand. This time however there was no way i’d be roughing it at Bangkok for a second time and i instead stayed at a nearby hotel for the night before heading back to the airport the next morning for my first leg of the journey to Sydney.

Crappy Jetstar had altered the flight times since i booked and it meant i had to sit around in Singapore airport for another 5 hours before my flight to Melbourne. Thankfully the terminal had free Internet and i could finally send some messages to friends and family and check out what’s happening on Facebook. Finally getting on the long haul flight to Australia, i then passed the time watching a couple of crappy films and attempting to get some sleep before landing in Melbourne. I then had yet another wait around before completely exhausted and sick of the sight of airports, i finally landed back in Sydney.

I’d had an amazing time this last month seeing more of SE Asia with the guys and i already now can’t wait to book another trip away. For G and Joel, after Thailand they would be heading back to Japan for another ski season (lucky buggers) and Ray would be heading back to Malaysia for work. I’ll miss the guys but can’t wait to meet up with them again one day somewhere else in the World!

I soon found out that from all the worrying, we found the Burmese people were some of the nicest we had encountered on our whole trip. Even our taxi driver who took us to our guest house from the airport was very friendly and extremely helpful. He recommended how many days to spend in each place, and we quickly had a game plan on when and how we would get to the different places. He also seemed convinced i would make an excellent Tennis player. Because i only had a week before my flight home, it meant we only had a few days in each place we wanted to go to, so once we got to our guest house it was time to start organising our bus journey to our next stop Mandalay.

Thankfully the Lonely Planet guide had been wrong on their information on buses around Burma, and the country had since improved it’s roads. Instead of a hellish 14 hour bus journey to Mandalay, it was now a 9 hour overnight ride. We actually found that quite a lot of our Lonely Planet guide was out of date and Burma had since changed quite considerably. Even when we were there Hilary Clinton was visiting the country and the military government had since released a number of pro-democracy politicians from prison.

Walking around the capital, it had a feel very similar to India (so Ray and G told me) but thankfully without the huge numbers of people. It was definitely a very poor country, and most of the cars and buses on the roads were in a terrible state. Joel was very amused to find a lot of retro cars that he had driven back in Australia. It was also very sad to see many beggars walking around the streets, and one boy even grabbed on to my t-shirt and refused to let go which really shocked me.

Another similarity to India was the amount of people chewing ‘betel nut’. This was actually Areca nut wrapped in betel leaves, and chewing them apparently produced a mild stimulant, but worst of all caused the guys to constantly spit bright red stuff all over the ground, making it look like the paths were covered in blood.

First thing to see in Yangon was the Shwedagon Pagoda, considered the most famous and sacred of temples in Burma. Once we got there we were surprised how massive the area was, and along with the huge golden Stupa, apparently containing the hair and walking stick of the Buddha, there were many other shrines and temples for people to go and pray. This was our second encounter with friendly locals, and a monk kindly walked us all around the complex to explain the different areas and it’s history.

The next day was a fairly laid back one, and apart from booking my domestic flight for the trip back to Yangon in a week, we had a short walk around before heading off to the bus stop for our overnight trip to Mandalay.

The bus taking us to Mandalay was surprisingly nice and apart from the aircon running on full blast it was a pleasant journey. Arriving in Mandalay that morning, we were soon mobbed by taxi drivers and with the help of a monk we managed to get a decent price to our guest house in Mandalay. The vehicle taking us was the most ridiculous thing i’d ever seen, it was as if a truck had been zapped by some kind of shrink gun, but thankfully with bags and all we just about managed to fit in and it got us there safely.

The past few weeks of our trip had been non-stop travelling and sightseeing, so getting to our hotel in Mandalay we realised we were all pretty drained and decided that we would chill out for a couple of days to get our energy back ready for Bagan. Apart from having a wander around the town after reading the LP we were keen to get check out the Moustache Brothers. These were a famous group of guys which back in the day used to speak out and joke about their military government, which on a number of occasions got them arrested and sent to prison. Nowadays with them all getting on a bit, they performed to only tourists to avoid getting in any more trouble, and it was the strangest show we’d ever seen. We all came out at the end wondering what the hell we had just seen, as it seemed to be a mix of broken english jokes and random dancing from different members of the family at their back of their house.

The next day we had another walk around the city, before jumping onto the boat that would take us down the Irrawaddy river towards the ancient city of Bagan, not before G took a painful tumble down some slippery stairs slicing her fingers up, ouch! It certainly wasn’t as picturesque as our slow boat in Laos, but thankfully Ray and G had plenty of gadgets to keep us occupied, and i spent the whole time glued to their iPad playing games with a constant supply of tea.

Arriving in Bagan we were greeted with our transport that we would be using to get around for the next two days, a horse and cart! This was definietly the most exciting part of Burma and the next day we were up bright and early, and our drivers had our day planned out with which temples we would be seeing. With there being nearly 2 thousand, they had chosen some of the best ones and even a few we went to would let us climb to the top so we could get amazing views of the area. I was surprised with how many tourists were around, and unfortunately becuase of this many of the temples had been surrounded with markets and locals trying their best to get you to buy something. After a while it got quite annoying being hassled when all we wanted to do is check out the temples. Later in the day we then headed to one of the bigger temples so we could check out the sunset. Annoyingly i didn’t get any decent pictures, and i was jealous of all the expensive camera equipment people were carrying around with them. My only respite was sniggering to myself as i watched them struggle to climb up the steep stairs carrying SLR’s, huge lenses and tripods.

The next day we decided to head out with our horses again and check out more of the area. This time we got to walk around a local village and see how they made scarves, right from hand weaving the cotton to designing the scarves on the big weaving machines. Afterwards we then checked out a huge underground Monastery and later went to a lacquer workshop where we were shown the process of making lacquer pots, from constructing the pots with strips of bamboo, to the many stages of lacquering and carving the designs, sometimes nearly 12 stages in all! It was really cool to watch the locals designing the pots at impressive speeds and there was even a guitar they had lacquered and drawn a cool dragon design onto!

Time had flown by in Burma with my initial worries it was an awesome experience and i was so glad to have gone with the guys. That evening was to be our last together before saying our goodbyes and starting my hellish journey back to Australia!

Later we all grabbed a Tuk Tuk and headed back to the station to jump on our train. This was my first experience on a sleeper train and i was really looking forward to it. When we first got on it was all seats but a man quickly came round and converted them to beds and unpacked all the stuff for the top bunks, which is where i would be sleeping for the next 12+ hours. I cant say it was the best night sleep, but i was glad to wake up just before we got into Bangkok, and i could check out the Thailand countryside (still flooded in some areas) from the train door nearby left wide open!

This would be my second visit to Bangkok, and we would be staying in our faithful @home hotel, a couple of streets down from Khaosan road. This time though it would only be a short visit, and as soon as we offloaded our bags we headed straight for the Myanmar embassy to apply for our visas for Burma.

There was already a pretty long queue waiting for the embassy to open by the time we got there, and it was a mad rush to get all our documents sorted, as we were hoping to get a same day visa which we could collect later in the day. G had to make a few changes to her blog and linkedin information, as being a writer we heard reports of them refusing journalists entry into the country. Once that was sorted and all the forms were filed in, all we could do is wait until the afternoon to find out if we were successful. We weren’t too worried however, as we’d all decided our back-up plan was to head to the nearest beach!

Most of the day was spent at the hotel catching up on the Internet or wondering around Khaosan road. It was funny to see my suitcase i’d dumped behind the stairs was still there after almost 8 months since we were all here last planning our trip to Koh Lipe. After a quick picture, i left it back behind the stairs wondering when the next time i’d be back in Bangkok. I had enough time to get some Pad Thai from the stalls along Khaosan and experience the familiar sights and sounds of someone trying to sell me a suit, before we were back in the taxi and off to the embassy. We were all really happy to find that all of us had been granted our visa! Another page of my passport now filled in, and Ray and G’s looking even more like it’s about to explode with all their additional pages sewn into it.

With my impending flight back to Australia in just over a week, we decided to head straight back to the hotel and book our tickets to Burma’s capital Yangon (formerly Rangoon) for the next morning. With the country’s closed currency, it also meant a last minute dash to the foreign exchange shops around Khaosan to change up our money to USD which we could then exchange to Kyat at Yangon airport. It made matters worse that with all of us needing to change money, most places didn’t even have enough, let alone the fact the bills could only be certain serial numbers and in near perfect condition. As usual laid back Joel had left it very late to change his money and we were relieved when he came back with his USD.

With everything sorted we could finally chill out for a few hours before it was time for bed and up the next morning to the familiar sight of Bangkok airport!

After the long drive we were all tired and had a fairly early night before getting up the next day to head over to the elephants. Annoyingly we weren’t able to get a ride as you had to book the day before, but we got to hang out with one of the elephants and a particularly hilarious moment was when Joel kept trying to feed it a banana she didn’t like and ended up grabbing it with her trunk and throwing it away! Afterwards the owner came out with a huge bunch of bananas which she happily munched on in front of us.

Once again we didn’t have much time at the waterfall before having to head back to the bus to continue onto our next stop to see Mr. Coffee and his coffee plantation. Mr. Coffee was a very cool dude from Holland (with an awshome dutch akshent!) who had been living in Laos for some time and had been running his coffee business with his wife for about 4 years. Personally i’m much more of a tea person (spot the pommie) but i was really interested to see how proper coffee is made, right from the very beginning of picking the beans. I had absolutely no idea that coffee beans actually started off as red berries! This particular variety that Mr. Coffee was harvesting was the arabica plant and we first headed over to his plantation for some more info and to pick us some coffee beans!

Then it was back to his house to show us the process of sorting, removing the beans and drying them before finally showing us how they are roasted and cooled, which is apparently one of the most important stages for good coffee!

After watching all of this i was really keen to get some raw beans and try roasting some myself on our barbie for Christmas, but unfortunately with Australia’s anal customs laws, i wouldn’t have been able to bring them through, so i settled for a couple of packs of already roasted beans to try when i got home.

Moving on we then checked out a couple more waterfalls, where i saw the biggest spider i have ever seen chilling out above us in the nearby restaurant. I wish i’d had a zoom lens with me as this thing was ugly. Our local guide told us it wasn’t dangerous but i seriously doubted that. It looked like it could happily eat your face off.

Another long drive finally took us to Pakse where i publicly humiliated myself at the local Karaoke bar our tour guide took us to. Sitting there everyone else was too nervous to sing so out of some unknown courage i ended up singing a few songs before persuading our Swedish tour guide to sing some Abba! After a few more terribly depressing Laos songs (every music video seemed to have someone crying in it) we’d had enough and decided to choose something fun, and what else could you choose other than Vengaboys – We like to party! It was a fun night and good to get out of the routine of sitting around in our room.

The next day we drove to nearby Wat Phou, an ancient Khmer temple not far from the border to Cambodia. Annoyingly this place was perfect for some photos but rubbish weather had finally caught up with us and it rained for most of the time we were there. Then on the way out we saw our second giant creepy crawly. An absolutely massive Centipede with claw-like legs and a huge body. When we got close to take photos the locals were freaking out and telling us to get away. Obviously i had no intention to touch the damn thing!

Afterwards it was a mad dash to get down to Don Det where we would be doing some Dolphin watching. We were really grateful to Charly who managed to get everything sorted on the way so we had enough time before it got dark. This was another time i wish i had a zoom lens, as my 17-50 wasn’t getting any decent photos, but the scenery was beautiful as we floated around the large river seperating Laos from Cambodia. We then had a lovely sunset on the way back to the harbour. A perfect way to finish our last day on the Stray tour, and our last day in Laos.

The guys and i were all really glad we chose to do the Stray tour and although there were a few things we didn’t like, we still had an awesome time travelling with them through the South of Laos. For anyone else looking at doing the same, i would definitely reccommend travelling down from Luang Prabang yourself, and then jumping on the tour at Vientiane. Without a doubt my favourite part of the tour was getting to stay at the local village for a night, something i never imagined i would get to do, and an awesome experience.

That night we all got together for dinner and a few drinks, and we said goodbye to Simon who would be sticking around a couple more days before he headed into Cambodia. For the rest of us it was back on the bus and up to Pakse again where we would cross the border into Thailand and jump on my first sleeper train to Bangkok!

It took a bit of deciding before being persuaded by Joel to catch the Stray tour bus, as he had already done it a few months previously and it was the easiest way to see everything and not have to worry about getting around in the more rural areas and finding places to stay. For the rest of us, this was our first time joining an organised tour instead of doing it ourselves so we had some doubts, but we eventually decided it was the best plan. After some tricky planning and booking with the Stray office in Luang Prabang we eventually met up with the bus as it passed through the Laos capital, Vientiane.

Catching the bus our first stop was some camping at the Tad Leuk waterfall. When we got there it was rather amusing to find out our tents were actually setup in a small building but it was goint to be fun all the same. This was the first evening we got to know everyone on the bus who we would be spending the next week with and was good fun with a couple of drinking games and some card games.

The following day we were all up bright and early and back on the bus, and off to our next stop which was a huge 7Km cave in Kong Lor. Unfortunately we were there pretty late and didn’t get to chill out in the pool nearby but we managed to get through the cave and back just before dark. This actually happened on a number of occassions where we just didn’t have enough time at all the places we stopped at, partly because we had so much stuff planned in the 7 days of the tour, i imagine for the tour guides it was like trying to handle a flock of sheep.

The next day was probably my favourite of the whole trip, as we headed to a local village where we would be spending the night and joining in a traditional ceremony. This was an awesome experience and all of us decided the tour was worth it even just for this, as we would have never been able to do this ourselves. The locals didn’t speak a word of English but it was fun all the same with our tour guide translating for us whist we joined in their ceremony and handed shots Lao Lao whiskey, which tasted terrible!

The next day we headed to another part of the village to check out a 200 year old Buddhist library, which housed some ancient Buddhist scriptures, not before meeting some monkeys in a nearby forest. We were literally surrounded by them at one point, as one of guides was dealing out bananas to them it was literally chaos!

After that it was back on the bus to check out another waterfall in Tad Lo. More to come soon!