Backpacking

Good Morning

I thought i'd just write a quick blog to say we made it to Australia. (GMT +10 for anybody who wants to know), fairly interesting trip across from Singapore complete with no sleep and customs problems.

Singapore airport is impressively large, you get access to both terminals once you've passed through immigration although the second of the 2 is a 15 minute walk away down moving walkways. We were very early for our flight though had time to explore a bit.

Now anybody who's flown Ryanair or Easyjet will know how uncomfortable those seats get after a while. Originally our flight was supposed to be opperated by Qantas but a few months ago it got changed to its budget subsiduary JetStar. JetStar is exaclty like Easyjet. Small seats, no legroom and no entertainment, perfect for a flight of just over 7 hours. Actually I can't complain about it that much, because we got to the airport before check-in opened we were first in the queue and managed to get emergency exit row seats, lovely lovely legroom!! And they even provided in flight meals for free which i wasn't expecting.

Our first experience of Australia was the flights first stop in Darwin at 4:30am. Nobody was allowed to stay on the plane and everybody had to take all their bags off, go through security again and then wait for an hour to get back on the plane. I don't think anybody was particulalry cheerful at that particular point.

Entry into Australia proper in Cairns was a fairly lengthy process. First immigration which we passed through smoothly, followed immediately by further questions from another immigration official after our passports had been stamped. Sniffer dogs checked our bags, further questions by a 3rd immigration officer asking the same questions about who we were and where we had come from and then finally customs. We joined the queue expecting to just have our bags scanned at quarantine (they are very strict about what you can bring in that might contain bugs or seeds) but that wasn't to be. We were all pulled in by customs, asked to individually identify our bags and had our passports taken away to be checked. I guess because we had come from Asia that they were looking for drugs. They did a pretty thorough hand search of all our bags [Hi - Woodie here. At this point I would like to add that my bag wasn't checked, so I just sat back and chatted with an immigration guy about Cairns, looking pretty smug!] but giving them some credit they were always nice about it and actually engaged us in conversation during the whole process. Other countries should learn about that one!

Well we've been in Cairns for a couple of days now. We actually haven't done that much. Just been wandering and realising quite how easy it is for money to disappear. We're intending to go diving tomorrow so I expect next blog after that. We're taking the underwater cameras this time so we'll try and get a few pictures.

Right, well best not waste the sunshine, i'm off for a swim!

Chris

Morning All,

We are coming to the end of our fleeting visit to Singapore today so I thought I would update you all on what we have been up to.

Singapore - and I think we all agree - is probably the best city that we have visited so far on this trip. At first I thought that it would be just another dirty city with lots of skyscrapers and not much else. But Singapore has really suprised me. It has a very multiculural society and more importantly, all the cultures live in harmony beside one another. The atmosphere here is friendly and relaxed, the big skyscrapers are not so much an eyesore as a well thought out archetectural landscape, and with lots of parks, trees, and plants lining the roads, you can almost forget the hustle and bustle of normal city life. But most of all, my favourite thing about this city is that it is CLEAN - a somewhat alien concept to us recently!

The hostel we are staying in is very helpful and friendly and has a real travellers vibe about it (Sleepy Sam's, if anyone is planning on visiting soon), and it is nestled on a pedestrianised street in the heart of Little India - Woodie is finally getting his long sought after curries!

Yesterday (Tuesday) we all decided to go to the shopping malls dedicated to electrical goods. After browsing all the floors and trying out (although very unsucessfully!) our haggling skills, the one person that actually came out of there with a purchase was me! Bet you all didn't see that one coming! So I am now the proud owner of a Nintendo Gameboy Micro, only available in South East Asia on limited edition - it is very cute.

Once in the city centre we visited a kind of exhibition where the government has planned out the development in Singapore for the next 30 years! It is actually quite interesting to see, and they have even made a wooden small scale model of Singapore with all the changes in place.

Still feeling the cultural vibe, we decided to take a look in the Asian Civilisations Museum. We were ushered on a guided tour with a very hyperactive and enthusiastic tour guide, called Susan from New York - you can imagine the type!! - which provided us with much amusement when she called an Argentinian couple Spanish, and thought that a guy from Holland and a lady from Norway were from the same country! Despite this fact, the tour was actually very interesting, taking us through the different parts of Asia and explaining the origins of their societies, and of ancient civilisations. It was definitely worth the $4 student ticket (god bless IYTC cards!) that we paid.

Although our time here in Singapore has been short we have all enjoyed ourselves and I wish in a way that we could've had a few more days to look around. But alas, our flight to Cairns leaves at 10pm tonight to start the next leg of our journey. So I am allowed to be unleashed in the shopping heaven that is Orchard Street for the rest of the day, before we make our way to Changi airport (a shopping experience in itself, I am told) to abuse the duty free.

Hope you are all well at home, and are looking forward to the next installment from Woodie, of our time in Cairns.

Lots of Love

Laura x x

Hi Everybody

So it's back round to my turn to write some blog.

We're just coming to the end of an interesting few days in Kuala Lumpur. The first thing I should say about it is that it is scorching here at the moment. It's hitting about 35 degrees in the heat of the afternoon which in the middle of a big city is a little bit more than is pleasant.

It's a very strange city actually. There are massive sky scrapers everywhere but then the city is actually very very green. There are still more trees than there are buildings and there is acutally a patch of forrest right in the middle of the city that is being preserved. We've spotted wild monkeys crossing the road and heading up into the trees and plenty of birds and insects. There are signs up when you enter the forrest warning you to be careful of the snakes and the scorpions. It's refreshing to see that a big city is actually taking care of it's wildlife and parkland and not bulldozing everything in sight.

We've been round to see the sights. The telecom tower is the 4th tallest in the world, the view from the top in the evening was pretty spectacular. Kuala Lumpur is also home to the Petronas towers. These two towers were the tallest buildings in the world until a 2004 I think (the sign of an oil company doing rather well for itself!). They don't let you go right to the top but they do take you up to the skybridge on the 41st floor which connects the two towers and allows a good view over the city aswell.

Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia in general is a very multicultural society. There are three disctinct groups, the chinese, the indian hindu and the muslim communities but all seem to co-exist perfectly well whilst each still retaining their individual identities. We went across to Little India one night in search of a good curry but actually came away disappointed. All we could find was row upon row of textile shops.

Speaking of shops, this is something that Kuala Lumpur does very well. They've some of the largest shopping centers that i've ever seen. There is one called Times Square which has 10 floors of shopping and an indoor theme park complete with large rollercoaster running very close to the walkways. Unfortunately the themepark has been closed for maintenance since we've been here so we didn't get to ride the coaster.

All in all it's been a good experience in Kuala Lumpur, there have only been a couple of things that has made it perhaps a little more difficult than it should be. Crossing the road has become an artform. They don't beleive in pedestrian crossings that work, every road is a main road and getting from one side of the street to the other is often quite a challenge. They also seem to be firm beleivers of paths that either stop alongside the main road forcing you to walk into the road or they just generally don't go anywhere in the first place. But it hasn't been that bad getting about really. The public transport metro and monorail has been very good even if you do have to buy a new ticket every time you take a trip or change lines. One final night here now and then off to Singapore tomorrow, we've decided that we're going to go by bus as the trains in this part of the world are very very slow and the bus looks more comfortable. Plus there is the added bonus that the bus station is the other side of the road from our hotel, so it's just laziness really!!

Well that's it from me for now. Next update in a couple of days about Singapore I expect.

Chris

Laura has just spent quite a while adding some of our photos on to the website. I've put a few of them on to the blog but the rest of them are in the gallery section for you all to see.

I don't think it's particularly easy to find the gallery from the blog home page so just to make it nice and easy for you all......click the link below

http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/gallery/users/teamnojob/

Chris

Hello again,

A lot has happened since our last brief update, in particular our current location which has shifted from Thailand to Malaysia. Further good news is that we all passed our Open Water Diving course (with varying degrees of success - I drank half the sea for example).

We took our diving instructor Kung out for a few drinks to celebrate which turned into a mini session by the end. We reckon he hustled us drinks wise, he was struggling with beers but then got us on Thai rum (Sangsem) and coped a lot better. Needless to say we were all surprised by his prowess with some rum, Sprite and small bucket of ice.

After Koh Tao and diving, we got back to the Thai mainland to get a sleeper train down here to Malaysia. As we waited on the platform the Orient Express turned up and they watched us waiting as they ate their over priced dinner - which amused us. Eventually our train turned up and we all had our own bed compartment with curtains and windows and stuff - very nice. Apart from the loud noises and shaking we may have got a good nights sleep but hey ho!

We arrived in Butterworth having gone through immigration some four hours earlier (fairly straight forward affair really) and found the weather in Malaysia to be very hot and humid compared to what we're used to. It wasn't the sort of place to hang around in so along with a couple of American hang-ons (Dan and Justin) we got on a boat to Penang more specifically Georgetown. This was quite a big port once but has floundered (like the Empire).

Georgetown isn't the nicest we've decided, but is ok. Our hostel is cheap and friendly and very ample in headroom. Laura and Locky got a moped today to explore more of the island and found some nice things apparently but also got a bit sunburnt (much to my amusement). I explored Georgetown some more on foot - which turned out to be a bit of an error really - not much to see other than a 5-storey shopping centre which was quite modern and nice - not a patch on the Bullring tho!

Next stop for us is Kuala Lumpur on another sleeper train. We're quite looking forward to this one, with soaring skyscrapers nestled between lush green it should be a nice contrast with our other big city experience of Bangkok.

I know we promised some photos and they're coming soon. We've got a few diving shots (or wetsuit shots) which will please you and we'll also try and get some more stuff on as well. Sorry for another rushed blog - we're all quite hungry now so are gonna shoot off!

Until next time -
Hugs and Kisses,
Woodie (with Laura and Locky perched on each shoulder)