Australia: Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Back to reality… oops there goes gravity.

Yep, it was definitely happening.. On this trans-global bus trip I had experienced the visual beauty of the Iranian desert, the snow capped peaks of the Himalayas and the damp jungles of Indonesia but as our bus drifted out of the desert and into the green outer suburbs of Adelaide it hit me. The only scenery that lay between my bus seat and my home in Sydney was a boring stretches of highway and suburbia. The bus trip had been reduced to a rudimentary bus trip between Australian state capitals, which is as exotic (and scenic) as a bus trip from say London to Birmingham or New York to Baltimore. It was hardly inspiring.

Our first stop was the city of Adelaide on Australia’s south coast. They say it’s the city of churches, because, as you guessed, it has heaps of churches. It’s holy. And it’s the only Australian city to not be colonized by convicts. The lack of angry convicts building a city meant that today it is a very orderly and planned place. But this planned orderliness has given Adelaide a negative image from Australia’s capitals. You know they threaten you by saying one day you could spend a week in Adelaide. Ouch.

We then followed the coasline of Australia along the stunning Great Ocean Road marked with sheer cliffs and ‘The Twelve Apostles’, a series limestone stacks which jut out of the ocean. I think originally there was twelve but through erosion there are only eight left. I wonder how many other ‘apostles’ have to fall before someone brings an action of false advertising? Which apostle would be left? Would that apostle brag to the other apostles in heaven? Maybe put it at the top of his resume? Why would you need a resume in heaven?

Twelve Apostles

We then passed through Melbourne and headed north towards Sydney passing through our country’s capital Canberra (built in 1927 and is even more planned and boring than Adelaide). By the time our bus was pulling into the outskirts of Sydney I was pacing the aisle like a giddy schoolgirl.

Passengers were crying and hugging each other at the thought of leaving each other after spending three months traversing the globe. The bus pulled up outside the Opera House on a rainy Sunday afternoon and I threw myself off the bus to hug my family dearly. It had been two years but after looking out over a rainy Sydney Harbour it was good to be home. If someone had thrown my bag on the bus and told me that the bus was doing a U-turn and driving back to London I would have done it all again.... Well actually I wouldn’t have but I guess it’s a dramatic way to end a blog.

Finally after three months and a countless miles (10562 to be exact) we arrived in Sydney!

P.S. On a side note I want to thank my very dear friends in New York who suggested I write it, and to everyone that took the time to read my meanderings. Finally to myself... I know it's been nearly 10 months but I am so glad I finally finished something that I started. Hoorah!

Australia – "I still call Australia home'.

Outback Sunset

I beamed as our small propeller plane touched down on the tarmac of Darwin airport. Our flight from Bali was a short hop over the Coral Sea, landing in far north Australia. I was thousands of miles away from my Sydney home but I didn't care. After two years living overseas, I was physically back in my country. I was in a land where the phrase 'Ava a go ya mug' made sense, where no one made impressions of my accent, a place where everyone knew the second verse of the national anthem, and it felt grouse (great).

But I am in Darwin – capital of the Northern Territory, essentially the frontier country of Australia. It's like a New Yorker arriving via Alaska, or a Londoner arriving via the Shetland Islands. Yes, you technically are in your country but you are definitely in the wilderness.

Jeez, Darwin was hot. Not the dry heat that baked the rest of the country. No, here was the humid and sticky heat that blankets everything, generating sweat on sweat. I’m actually sweating now - a droplet of sweat just dripped off my forehead and blotched the writing on this page. It would be poetic to say that my drop of sweat had actually fallen on the written word sweat… but it didn't.

Some facts about Darwin… Um, it used to be called Palmerston, and was decimated by Cyclone Tracey on Christmas Day in 1974. It was Australia's worst natural disaster and the city had to be totally rebuilt. So my image of Darwin consisted of a once quaint little tropical town with fibro houses perched on sticks that had been rebuilt into a concrete metropolis, which would withstand the most harsh huffing and puffing from any pesky cyclone.

Landing in Darwin I found out that the function hall adjacent to our hotel was the lucky venue of Darwin's annual ‘Pimps & Prostitutes’ dress-up ball. Apparently the thrill being drunk dressed as a pimp or prostitute sells a lot of tickets in Darwin (enough so that the event was able to score the talents of Hollywood Z-grade actress Tara Reid to MC the night). Now, around the turn of the century Tara was quite the tabloid fodder in Hollywood, but after the unfortunate events of a bad movies and a bad boob job, her career has since taken a nosedive. So much so (and no offence Darwin) she was reduced to hosting room of wannabe pimps and prostitutes in outback Australia. She needs new management. Still I can't talk, what have I done? Not got a bad boob job at least.

After experiencing cyclones and prostitutes, we were to head south. First past Alice Springs and Uluru, then down to Adelaide where we were going to follow the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne and finally up the highway to Sydney.

Upon leaving Darwin, our bus shot out into the vast expanse that is the Australian outback. Like many Australians I had never been to the outback, only seeing it through the optic of Hollywood movies and Animal Planet. It is the great unknown that lays yonder the city suburbs. It is where people have properties the size of Belgium. It is just a big, well… nothing. By actually being in the outback I discovered that this 'nothing' contained shrubs, red dirt and was littered with random petrol stations stocking overpriced food, colorful attendants and broad claims that they are the last fuel for an amazing amount of kilometres.

Crickey! Feeding the crocs in Outback Australia

It seemed like a contest between these stations as to who was the greater last resort, with their driving motivation being the fact that YOU were the last remnants of civilization before being launched into the nothingness of the red centre. Wouldn’t it be funny to open up a petrol station next door, reducing your neighbour’s sign from ‘Last petrol for 500km’ to ‘Last petrol for 5m’? Funny. Wow, using that theory you could open up a petrol station in space and have the sign that 'Last petrol for…?' Apart from bragging rights, I can’t really see this idea getting off the ground as even by using modern technology, it would be hard to establish a full service petrol station in space (cleaning windscreens in zero gravity?) and your business would be decidedly sparse (bar the occasional Russian cosmonaut and the cashed up space tourist).

Anyway back to earth, the point of my story is that the Australian outback contains vast amounts of nothing. But we did see some not nothings (does that make sense?), like Kings Canyon and Uluru. Kings Canyon is (as you may have guessed) a massive canyon that you can climb and look out over the immense stretch of nothingness. It was formed a bazillion years ago, and unlike it's Great Arizonan counterpart, Kings Canyon was only open to tourism in 1961 when an entrepreneurial couple from Sydney decided to ditch their jobs and capitalize on this natural tourist attraction. I like the thought of just giving op your job and opening up a natural tourist attraction. Imagine using that as a threat to your boss; 'don’t push me! I'll leave. There's a weird rock formation in the Amazon with my name on it, I swear'.

Rainy Kings Canyon

Uluru is the big red rock that is inventibly coupled with every tourist broadcast of Australia. It's our hardest worker in tourism. Apart from Finding Nemo in a great reef or looking at an oddly shaped Opera House, this big ugly rock was a prime reason for beckoning tourists to make the long plain ride to our shores. I had only experienced it in cheesy post cards in Sydney, but to see it up close… wow. Seriously, who would have thought that a piece of geology would be so amazing? I mean it's just an old rock. An old rock surrounded by tourists. Screw the quaint Kings Canyon couple, Uluru caused a tourist metropolis of resorts to crop up around it. I am talking about full five star resorts.

Who in their right mind would want to visit a resort in the middle of a big red ‘nothing’? Well apparently everybody if that ‘nothing’ was next to a big red rock. It stands out so much in the nothing that you can see it from several hours drive away. It takes about two hours to walk around, and midway through the walk you're more concerned about the army of flies nesting in your moisture than the big red rock. You can officially climb it, but the park owners close the hiking route if it is to hot or rainy. It's not a difficult climb but due to its steep incline and wide physical spectrum of tourists that climb it every year, several annual climbing deaths inevitably occur. Near the rock there is a large sign stating the local Aborigines do not like people climbing it because it is considered sacred but I was told that sign was just used to dissuade people from climbing because the Uluru National Park can't deal with the headache caused by dead tourists. Hmm. Anyway, check out our big red rock. Amazing.

Tom Foolery at Uluru

Another highlight of the red centre was the remote desert town called Coober Pedy whose residents live underground. Yep underground. With an outside daily temperature of 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) it makes more sense to dig your house where the underground temperature is a milder 25 degrees (77 degrees Fahrenheit). It's also the opal (a precious stone) capital of the world. When the locals want to extend their house/cave, they simply dig another room and it's common for them to find more opals in this excavation worth in excess of $100,000 US. Imagine earning money to expand your house! Why, everyone would live in a cave mansion! It's also devoid of any vegetation. The first tree ever seen in the town was welded together from scrap iron. It still sits on a hilltop overlooking the town. The local golf course - mostly played at night with glowing balls to avoid daytime temperatures - is completely free of grass and golfers take a small piece of "turf" around to use for teeing off.

Coober Pedy is the earth’s closest equivalent to the surface of Mars, and apparently the similarity between the surfaces is so strong that several Hollywood films set on Mars have been filmed there. Notably, this includes the 2000 film ‘Pitch Black’ starring Vin Diesel. I personally haven't seen it but I understand that it's set in the future on a Mars-like planet. Once the filming was complete the crew decided to just leave their props behind. The locals were only more than willing to have a mark of Hollywood in their desert, adding to the alien landscape by the town being littered with deteriorating spaceships.

To enjoy our night on Mars we decided to head to the local pub and binge drink with the locals. I stumbled home blurry eyed and managed to find the right hole in the ground that was my hotel. Two other backpackers decided to stay back until the pub's closure. Several hours later, these two guys were so drunk they couldn't tell which hole was their hotel. In a drunken search they started to walk out of town to the great expanse of desert, only to turn back to the lights of town when they decided they didn’t want to die of exposure. After another fruitless search around town and the temperature dropping rapidly (it surprisingly gets brutally cold in the desert) they shivered and stumbled to the only piece of shelter in their drunken vision - a spaceship. They climbed into this abandoned Pitch Black prop and tried to sleep between its thin plastic walls. Unable to sleep and to conserve body temperature, they did what any two straight guys would do if they were lying in a spaceship in the middle of the desert - they embraced each other. We found them the next morning (only meters from our hotel) asleep in each other's arms. And apart from the Brokeback Mars connotation, I am envious that this is one story that they can tell the grandkids about. 'Grandson, if you're ever stuck in the desert about to die, just find a spaceship and hug the bejesus out of another man...’ ‘Uh… okay Grandpa?'

Bali: Indonesia. 'Hi Guys, I'm a western tourist. Please love me.'

The English have Ibiza, the Americans have Cancun and the Australians have Bali. I'm talking about destinations where our tourists can go overseas without really leaving the country. We do it for the novelty of saying we are flying overseas, only to land in a beach location surrounded by other like minded individuals (stereotypes) of the same nationality to get drunk and have fights with. Oh, and the alcohol is much stronger and cheaper there too. What would our respective nations do if we couldn't take advantage of neighboring countries poor economies? Pay full price for our beer? Act ignorant to each other instead of the locals? Never! I am sure that every one of the locals despises us but musters a warm smile and bites their lip on the account of us being a lucrative cash cow.

The only problem with Bali is that unlike the Spanish of Ibiza and the Mexicans of Cancun, the Indonesians have taken to the annoying habit of blowing us Australians up. This has happened twice in the last couple of years, most notably in 2002 when a blast outside the popular Sari nightclub killed 88 Australians. But with our loud, arrogant, beer guzzling, gutter spewing culture infecting their beaches, can you blame them? In truth, it's not the Balinese that hold a strong anti-Western sentiment but rather the small but violent Islamic faction Jemaah Islamiyah that orchestrate the bombings. They did it again in 2006 (an incident which was coincidentally caught on camera by a German tourist).

Recently the Balinese authorities have detained several Australians on drug smuggling charges. Most notable is Schappelle Corby, who was caught with several kilos of marijuana stuffed into her luggage as she was coming through Bali customs. Evidence strongly suggests she is innocent and that the drugs were planted by drug running baggage handlers in Sydney. But an Indonesian judge dismissed this evidence and she is spending the next 20 years in a Bali prison. Also nine Australians (called the Bali Nine – go figure) were caught leaving Bali customs with large amounts of heroin strapped to their bodies. As their guilt wasn't questionable, some received life in prison, others are going to face a firing squad. Anyway, this was the next place I was about to go.

Kuta beach

To be honest, I didn't have really good expectations coming into Bali. I imagined it would be like Ibiza and Cancun but it was a mandatory step overland from London to Sydney, so who cares if I didn't enjoy it – I was nearly home. I was expecting to see the loud, drunk ugly Australian stereotype, think (Kath and Kim and their cousin Bruce) but I was pleasantly surprised. On arrival I did the typical Bali things – a massage, the buying of a genuine fake Rolex watch and the attending of nightclubs where the local Indonesian men swamp Western tourists on the dance floor. Interestingly, I arrived in Bali during "schoolies" week. Schoolies week is similar to Spring break, where high school graduates invade Bali to take advantage of cheap massages and strong alcohol (like me!) Indeed, they added a youthful exuberance to our nights out. Interesting.

After spending 24 pleasant but unremarkable hours in Bali, I appreciated it for what it was – a habitat for drunk Australians. I boarded a plane to make the short flight home.

Singapore: A guide to shopping mall living.

So who here likes travel packages? You know the type where you pay a travel company to take care of all your accommodation, meals and sightseeing so all you have to do is turn up? Hands up! No, put them up where I can see them. Actually I can’t see them because this is just a blog. A blog that isn’t funny. I guess I like these types of packages, as I paid for one to take me from Ko Phan Nang to Singapore (about 750 miles away) in time for a date to meet a friend (in less than 36 hours).

A Thai travel agent sold me a $45US package which would take me to Singapore via a cruise ship and luxury VIP air conditioned coach in less than 32 hours. In truth, the cruise liner equated to a slave ship. I slept on a grass mat on the lower decks which were too narrow to stand up. It was like I was on the Amistad, I was going to start a rebellion with the other backpackers to overthrow our Thai slave owners but I was too tired after the Full Moon Party. Actually I didn’t mind the cramped space, as I was accompanied by a large number of Irish backpackers who brought out a case of beer and a wooden drum. The lower deck was transformed into the vibrant lower class decks seen in the Titanic. I would have got up and danced like Leonardo Di Caprio except I there was no room. Who knew the peasant life was such a party! My VIP bus turned out to be a small minivan where air-conditioning meant sticking your head out the window. (I wanted more for my $45 god damn it!)

The journey also meant changing vehicles three times as I passed from Thailand, through Malaysia and into Singapore. The Thai travel agent failed to mention I would be sitting at random bus stops for hours while I waited for the next leg of the trip, but at least they got the 32 hour bit right. I guess I can say that I have been to Malaysia, but it only involved screaming down a highway at 100 miles an hour in a minivan. They do, however, have good bus stops and their billboards are in English. Wow I’m an observant traveler.

So, after glimpse of Malaysia I arrived in Singapore at 6am and met up with a good university mate who I hadn’t seen in four years. He was an Australian expat who grew up in Singapore moved to Sydney for his university degree and then returned to Singapore for work. Interestingly, he told me that in Singapore you only pay 8% tax, and that it’s one of the world’s major shipping ports. Ooh and did you know the country is only 240 square miles? And in WW2 the Japanese invaded it riding bicycles?!

It's the Wiggles of apartment blocks

So I spent a couple of days in Singapore. It was pleasant – a far cry from the slums I had previously visited. Walking around the city gave me the feel of a big shopping mall. It was orderly and sanitized (chewing gum is illegal) and all that was missing was cheesy mall music and parents with prams parking spaces.

In Singapore I played a bad game of Mini-golf and saw a 3D film called Extreme Log Ride. Well what other type of log ride would you want to take? Duh! I also saw the Disney film Enchanted. I’m a man. And I brought a USB stick that gave off a light peppermint scent to relax you. Talk about funky Asian inventions!

I headed to Singapore’s impressive airport (free massage chairs and movies) and caught a plane to Bali to rejoin the other Ozbus passengers. Wow, didn’t I just write a great blog!

Simply recounting events makes for damn good reading… (insert sarcasm).

Me interesting.

Thailand : Ko Pha Ngan. Trouble in Thailand.

Yep, I count myself as a lucky traveler. So far on this trip I have missed a flight, been beaten up by Turkish bouncers, even worse, and been subjected to classy Hollywood films like Coyote Ugly. But now, finally, my bad luck has been passed onto others. (Evil cackle).

After Laos I boarded a plane back into Thailand to the Island of Ko Pha Ngan, the location of the (in)famous Full Moon Party. The Full Moon party is a monthly dance party held on (you guessed it) every full moon. It started in the late 1980s when a group of western backpackers decided to celebrate the full moon by holding a rave on the (then) deserted beach. Over time, word of mouth transformed the event into a major pilgrimage for backpackers and also turned it into one of the world’s greatest meat markets.

The event now attracts a crowd in excess of 10,000 people per party and now has offshoots like the Half Moon Party and Black Moon Party. If that’s the trend, why wouldn’t the local entrepreneurs just have a Moon Party to enhance business? So yes, every Full Moon Party is one of the world’s great dance parties and/or backpacker mating grounds.


The Full Moon Party

I arrived in Ko Pha Ngan a few days before the party (I was told this was the best time to go as the beach isn’t crowded with the mass of seedy backpackers who come in from the mainland just for the party). It was there that I rejoined by the other bus passengers and the series of unfortunate events unfolded.

The main beach is littered with attractions to appeal to backpackers, one of these being a big flaming skipping rope. A one bus passenger enthusiastically (and drunkenly) jumped into the flaming rope and surprisingly showed remarkable athleticism to jump (survive) the fire for a whole minute! It was only when another drunk decide to join him that his timing was put off and the rope badly burned his neck.

Not satisfied with his burn mark on his neck, the next day he decided to get a tattoo of his beloved dog on his leg. The tattoo was initially black and white but he was assured the color would come out in the forthcoming days. It did. It was bright pink. So he spent the full moon party walking around with a second degree burn mark on his neck and a flamboyant dog on his left calf.

Impressed by the flaming rope jump, another passenger drunkenly danced on a table and fell off, resulting in a dislocated shoulder and a dodgy $270US makeshift cast. Another guy got provoked in nightclub by a Thai gangster and drunkenly decided to follow him into a dark alley, where he was greeted by four other Thai gangsters, who then beat him to pulp. His was punched so hard that his tooth cut through his lip. Another trip was needed to the local medical center (gee, they sure loved us.)

The aftermath of a friendly chat with Thai gangsters.

Another passenger got the phrase “Life is a Wonderful” tattooed on his chest in Swedish. Unfortunately, both he and the tattooist knew no Swedish, so his tattoo was just a jumbled line of characters. He thought it was kind of cool having a misspelled tattoo and he used it frequently as an intro line when chatting up Scandinavian backpackers. Ah well, it worked for him.

Another passenger (yep it’s still going) cut his foot while beach swimming on an ocean rock and as a consequence of his rejecting immediate medical attention, he developed a serious blood infection. And finally, another passenger decided to take out his scooter for a morning spin (while drunk) and he drove into wall, badly injuring his foot. Seeing the alarming medical bills the other passengers incurred, he also rejected medical attention, deciding sleep off his serious foot injury causing blood to be spilt all over his sheets. Mmm yum.


Sleeping off a toe injury.

So I’m kinda glad I missed a plane, received a Turkish beating and watched a bad movie. Sure beats burning your neck, dislocating your shoulder, splitting your lip, injuring your foot and displaying flamboyant and misspelled tattoos. Yep, I’m lucky.

I’m not really a fan of raves but I really enjoyed the Full Moon Party, if only to hear the pick up lines heard around the beach. If you’re going to shove 10,000 drunken backpackers together, you’re guaranteed some text book sleaze and damn, was it funny. I saw two Australian guys stopping girls on the beach asking them if they wanted to see them perform a back flip, proposing that one would flip off the other’s back. The girls would reply yes, to which the guys would say “well only if you fuck me first!” Horrified (but sometimes laughing), the girls would walk off only to have the Australian guys make the same to proposition the next passing girl.

On the beach I met three Dutch girls looking for their friend, Susie. After a short description I told them I hadn’t seen her. There was also an American guy in the nearby surf who assured us he hadn’t seen her either. Suddenly the surf receded, only to reveal Susie on her knees servicing him. As the surf rolled back up to his waist, the guy went bright red and again Susie disappeared. Oh, Susie! Don’t you know about the tides – you would have got away with it if it wasn’t for the pull of the moon! It’s actually remarkable how Susie could hold her breath and stay on her knees in the surf… Susie sure was talented!

There’s also a darker side of all the full moon party… I met a girl who said that she was sitting on the beach when a seemingly polite Australian bloke (there’s a theme developing here) sat down next to her. Only seconds into a conversation he pinned her to the ground and started to undo his belt buckle. She quickly kneed him in the groin just as a policeman appeared, who accused her of assault. Luckly a ladyboy saw the whole event and told the policeman the full story. Phew.

Yes, so I finally had some luck in not getting injured and I enjoyed the Full Moon Party! I’ll be keen to go back but I’ll be wary of flaming ropes, flamboyant dogs and back flipping Australians!

Oh, and I wasn’t the Australian mentioned in both of these stories.

Laos – Picture yourself on a tube on a river.

So Laos hey, how about it? Well it’s a country in the middle of Southeast Asia. It’s about the size of Utah but has very few Mormons. This would not be surprising as it’s located on the other side of the world from Salt Lake City and with a large number of people living in huts; there are a great shortage of doors to knock on. It’s also one of the five communist countries in the world (can you name the other four?) and was the most bombed country in the Vietnam War. The country also recently featured on the top of the New York Times most desirable holiday destinations over such places like the Maldives and Chechnya. (Not really.)

And that was the end of my Laos knowledge. A Dutch backpacker told me it was also the world headquarters of opium dens... I told him that it was the size of Utah. He wasn’t impressed.

So I left Bangkok with three other travelers on a Lao Airways propeller plane bound for the capital Vientiane. Vientiane was nice (if not a little boring). It’s like Bangkok without all the spotty backpackers and Calcutta without people crapping in the gutters. It was great to be away from the hustle and bustle of overpopulated cities. The Laos people (the Laoceans?) have spotless cities. I was impressed. But I do understand that India has over a billion people so I’m sure they would encounter toilet problems.

So after spending the night in nice hotel (only $3US a night) we decided to head north to the town of Vang Vieng, We were going to travel in style on the local bus. We paid our 48c and headed off. I was in seat 40F (actually it was more like a park bench), and my traveling companion (seated in 40G) was a chicken named Alf. His name wasn’t Alf but I think if I had a chicken that’s what I would name him. So, the journey took about four hours and we passed though the spectacular scenery of rice paddies, children herding cattle, and farmers with those funny pointed hats. It was like a scene out of a Vietnam War film, except without the helicopters, gunfire and the war.

Vang Vieng is a sleepy town located in the middle of Laos. It's perched on the Nam Kong River, which is home to the unlikeliest pub crawl in the word. It's this beer crawl that's the fundamental reason why Vang Vieng attracts so many backpackers (apart from a stunning scenery, cheap alcohol and accommodation). Basically you hire a large inflatable tube for three American dollars, and the float down the river. You float the past stunning scenery, over a few rapids as you lie back and fry in the Laos Sun until you hit a line of bars on littered on either side of the river.

As you float past, enthusiastic bartenders throw out a long stick and pull you in where you sit on the river bank binging on ridiculously cheap alcohol. (A bucket of Red Bull and a hefty amount of bad vodka cost two US dollars). And so you float from bar to bar chatting with other backpackers about how good it is getting drunk next to a beautiful river in Laos. More crucially, at each of these bars are ridiculously high rope swings that hang over the river. Basically you climb up a rickety wooden ladder and swing of a large rope and fall about 30 feet into the river. These swings get progressively higher, the further you get down the river, until they are so high that it’s practically impossible not to land in the river without hurting yourself. By the end of the river nearly everyone is alcohol fuelled and thus perform amazing acrobatic moves to show off to their adoring fans watching from their Red Bull and vodka buckets on shore. Think alcohol, swimming and swings is a lawsuit waiting to happen? Me too.

Not one to miss out on immature stupidity, I eagerly involved myself in showing off my signature swing moves. These included the air guitar, the orangutan, and finally, the-stupid-drunk-Australian-who-likes-to-show-off-on-a-swing-and-accidentally-land-on-his-doodle. And true to the name on the last swing, that is exactly what I did in front of a live audience. Oh yes, it hurt, but it was fun.

I distinctly remember standing there, trying to play volleyball on one of the riverside bars (looking through drunken eyes) at idiots throwing themselves off the swing in the hot Lao sun, thinking that life doesn’t get much better than this. (Shows my ambition in life). No, but seriously, I think everyone reading this should press that little red cross in the upper left-hand corner of this window , turn off their computers and by a one-way ticket to Laos. Actually, it might be wise to buy your ticket on the web before you turn off your computer, but now I am just being specific in my long-winded and not funny explanation that Laos is an amazing place that everyone should go.

Why was Laos the number one pick of the New York Times a must see international destinations? Apparently it's what Thailand was like in the 80s before it became a backpacker Mecca. Actually, but I've got no point of source to back that point up, but seriously visiting Lao is something everyone should do before they die, along with taking out the trash and filing taxes.

Another humorous event in Vang Vieng was the owner of the $5 US a night hotel I stayed in. He was 5” 7, 20 year old Laocean man/boy named Ong. Ong's English was surprisingly good and I asked him if he had taken English lessons, but he told me he learnt it entirely from watching MTV, (in particular from watching rap videos), resulting in his integrating of lyrics like “mo-fo” and “tap that ass” into his daily vocabulary. It was funny to think that rappers like 50 cent would use these words to describe the harsh ganglands of Queens New York, whereas Ong used it to express his life in picturesque Vang Vieng.

Ong told me he set up the hotel as a way of meeting the western women. Ong would stand at the reception desk, wearing his white suit and gold chains beaming at every girl that would enter his field of vision. When I checked in, Ong decided that I would be his wingman for the duration of my stay so my response was to sneak up to my room when he wasn’t looking in case he would recruit me for a wingman expedition.

One night I wasn’t so lucky. I had come back late one night and been spotted by Ong, who said that we must cruise the streets looking for some “honeys”. We headed out, but being so late everything had shut, Ong decided to tell me (in chronological order) every western women he has “tapped that on the floor’ …his list was rather short. We hadn’t even made it to the end of the street before we turned around and headed back to the hotel.

Back at reception, Ong decided that we would watch a “special” Family Guy DVD. I sat down on the foyer couch and as the TV player came to life, like ninja’s, seven of Ong’s friends appeared out of nowhere and crowded on the couch next to me. Not surprisingly the “special” Family Guy DVD” turned out to a old porn film aptly titled “Yank my Doodle it’s Dandy”. Just like little children, Ong and his friends would “oooh” and “aahh” at every appearance of female genitalia. Midway into the first scene Ong, pulled out some Opium (the Dutch guy was right) and passed it round his friends. Choosing not to smoke heroin, I sat their politely, arms crossed, watching the antique porno.

While I was sitting on the couch, the four other Western girls that were staying at the hotel to came through the reception. They all stopped in unison and said “Hey Andrew”, and then their eyes passed over the porn, opium and then back to my red face. I said hey and gave them a polite Queen Elizabeth wave. Looking confused they all said “Uh, I’ll leave you to it” and briskly walked up to their rooms. Yep, it was damn embarrassing. And for the rest of my time at the hotel, every time I passed them in the hallway I would go red. They probably thought I was a sleazy pornographic loving opium smoker. And that is totally untrue, I would never smoke opium!

In my remaining time in Vang Vieng I also went caving and rented a motorbike (by motorbike I mean a bicycle with a basket). I am scared of motorbikes. I kayaked back to the capital Vang Vieng and caught a plane back to Bangkok

Posing on a motorbike. I can't ride motorbikes. I am scared of them. I'm a real man.

So, in Laos I landed on my doodle and was an unsuccessful wing man for a wannabe player, and basically had the time of my life. It was definitely the best country I have visited so far on this trip. Totally amazing. Everyone should go. Especially you ladies, let’s go right now, I know this hotel owner I could hook you up with.

Bangkok: One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster.

Yes, I know it's been months since my last blog. I had them written down while I was travelling, but I just have been too busy (lazy) to publish them on the internet. But now I am motivated, (cue 'Eye of the Tiger'):



Bangkok: One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster.

And quoting the chorus of the horrendously cheesy 1984 track ‘One Night in Bangkok’:

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster.

The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free.

You'll find a god in every golden cloister.

And if you're lucky then the God's a she, I can feel an angel sliding up to me.

Does this chorus have any thing to do with my time in Bangkok? I guess. But suppose I just wanted to mention an amazingly cheesy song in my blog – if only to expand the reader’s knowledge in crap music.

Anyway moving on... Ok, think of a segue… Bangkok hey?

I was especially excited to get to Bangkok. The city has so much to offer: beautiful people, spotless streets, cheap food, amazing nightlife and it’s inspiration for cheesy 80’s tunes.

Bangkok represented a symbolic part in the progression of our London to Sydney journey. A part of the trip that I found interesting was the changing appearance of the locals as we headed further east. The locals had gone from European to Middle Eastern to Pakistani/Indian and now to oriental. We had truly arrived in the Far East. In regards to time zones I was only a few hours behind Sydney. I could ring my family at a reasonable hour. I was definitely nearing home.
The whole bus was also happy to arrive in Bangkok as it was our first time in a few months that we were able to meet other backpackers. Places like Iran and Pakistan don’t scream out as backpacker territories (which may be a good thing) so it was nice to be in another backpacker Mecca.

Our hotel was near the famed Kaho Sanh Road – the epicentre of Bangkok’s backpacking industry. This road is littered with stalls selling such things as cheap Pad Thai, henna tattoos, pirated DVDs and my favourite – fake IDs. I spent a few dollars on getting a fake student card which proudly displayed that I went to Harvard University, while another member of the tour got a fake doctorate in Neurology from Cambridge. Why do you need an education when you can get instant qualification and a tan in Bangkok?

We were approached by an enthusiastic taxi driver offering to take us to a “Ping Pong show. For those who don’t know about a ping pong show, I recommend you rent the classic Australian film ‘Priscilla Queen of the Desert’. For those that can’t be asked to pay the rental fee, I’ll explain.

In a word it's a sex show, (actually that's two words). Basically, you pay to see local Thai women shoot ping pong balls and other projectiles out of a certain part of their body. What part of the body? On the whole, I would say it wasn’t their big toes. Not that I found that particularly titillating, but I suppose I was curious and as they say, “when in Rome...” (…Did the ancient Romans have ping pong balls?)

And guess what… It wasn't titillating. You paid your money at the front gate and escorted into a small neon lighted theatre, complete with arena seating. As you sat down, one by one, Thai ladies appear on stage performing a variety of acrobatic genital feats. As the advertising suggested, one of them shot out a ping-pong ball, one blew out candles on a birthday cake, one smoked a cigarette and another one pulled out a streamer and wrapped it around one of the poles on the stage (similar to rhythmic gymnasts at the Olympic Games).

But while these acts required undeniable skill and muscle strength, it was kind of unsettling to look at the Thai women’s bored and disinterested faces. This was their day job: to entertain gawking tourists who would undoubtedly go home and write blogs and tell their friends that they saw flying ping-pong in Bangkok. Sure, these women have feelings too. God, am I sounding too preachy? (Also the fact that the song ‘One Night in Bangkok’ was playing on repeat didn't help the atmosphere either).

After the Ping Pong show, we headed out to Gulliver's Tavern – a lively place on the end of Khao Sanh road. Twas lively place that was open late. After spending an hour binging on Thai beer, we looked around to notice that there were very few Western women in the bar. And as we were surrounded on the dance floor by local Thai ladies it became apparent to me (I'm observant) that this bar might be a hub for Western men to employ the services of local Thai women.

Like the bored faces at the ping pong show, there were two sides to the working Thai woman. One other backpacker went back to one of the women’s house and by house I mean a small shack next to a railway line. Seeing the abject poverty that her and her family lived in wasn’t much of an aphrodisiac. The glamorous (?) image the Thai girls portray to Westerners was far the from harsh reality that some of them lived in. Geez aren't I poetic.

Is this a man? Aren't you supposed to look at the hands?

So it can be said that in my one night in Bangkok, the world was my ping-pong ball, candle and streamer. And yes, that was much more interesting than a plain ol' oyster.