Time for a spot of work!

Folks,

I'm not going to lie to you all, if indeed anybody still checks my blog. At times the blog has been a burden to me and clearly it still is, I had planned to post at least another five entries on my travels but I just haven't got round to it. Originally I would have posted even more. I would prefer if the blog was more spontaneous and less rigid if I'm being honest. That's what I intend for it to be in the future though.

Suffice to say I'm well behind posting anything further than the Thailand Part I entry. Since that time in Thailand I've been to Lao, Thailand again (Part II obviously), Malaysia (in total about four months, I travelled around for two and mostly hung out in Kuala Lumpur for two), Indonesia (two months) and now I'm in Perth, Australia (about three weeks). If you wish to see an exact list of the places I've been to please refer to my journeys to date entry and look at the countries above on the list. My oldest sister, Denise, lives here so I've been fortunate enough that she has let me stay at her house.

I'd love to be able to post on the places I've been in these countries as I've had some amazing experiences. However at the moment it's not possible - I might do so in the future though. In the meanwhile if you are considering travelling to these countries get in touch and I'll give you my thoughts and opinions on where to go and what to do. Either that or we can chat about it the next time I see you :)

As I expected, eventually my funds began to run low. I can't believe it is almost the end of November, time is moving so swiftly, I left Ireland in January! An English friend of mine (Gary) in Kuala Lumpur had a job in Perth lined up. When he was telling me about the work and the money I said to him, wow that's good stuff, if there is an opening for work please let me know. Later that evening Gary asked me was I still in interested in the work and obviously I was. Turns out Gary was missing his girlfriend back in England and wanted to go home instead of taking on the work. Garys people talked to my people and now I have his job! Thanks Gary!

I flew to Perth a couple of days later and stayed with my sister. However, I flew into Australia on a tourist visa so legally I couldn't work in the country. The guy organising the work on the farms insisted on me getting a working holiday visa, a visa to work for 12 months here. So I had to fly back to KL and get a new visa. I didn't mind much, apart from the costs, I got to see my friends in KL again for a few more days and have a laugh. Obviously smoked more weed, a hell of alot actually :)

Originally I was looking to go working in Korea, teaching English, but I decided to put that on the back burner for the moment. The work in Australia was about to start and the work in Korea wouldn't have started until March. Additionally I wouldn't have found out if I'd get the job until January! Besides, I can always reapply and at least now I know more about the process and such. The work I have is due to start within the next few days. I'll be working on grain farms here in Western Australia for the next three months. Think I'll be able to earn in the region of about 8,000 AUD.

With that money I intend to get back on the road and travel to Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and possibly Bangladesh. Before that I'll be back in Malaysia to visit some friends and will likely skip up to Thailand to visit my Irish friends Joe and Shane. I hung out with these guys through Viet Nam and Cambodia and we kept in touch. They came to work in Perth and I've been lucky enough to meet up with them again over the past few days and create more banter! Great lads, like brothers to me.

Anyways, that's the update from my side. Please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch by sending an email to liamoconnor2001@yahoo.co.uk . Apologies if the formatting of this post isn't too hot - the blogger site seems to be rejecting or simply not implementing all my format changes (such as basic ones like paragraph spacing).

Peace,

Liam O'Connor, travelling hobbit

Thailand - Part I

Bangkok

Took a flight from Phnom Phen to Bangkok as I was sick of buses and, besides, travelling by land you only receive a 15 day visa. Travelling by air you receive 30 days. When I got to Bangkok I was pretty tired and had some downtime. I did go to Phat Phong with a friend (Ron) which was quite a horrible experience. Basically the epi-centre for sex tourism in Bangkok. It was like a slap in the face! “You want see ping pong show, sir” was constantly whispered to us. Pretty much all the bars we wanted to go into were go go bars with girls dancing on tables.

We honestly only wanted to go out for a drink! We swiftly ended up back at the guesthouse. We originally went out as we believed it was far too expensive at the guesthouse and, besides, we wanted to see what it was like out in the Bangkok nightlife. The prices were quite steep as well considering where I had spent the past two months of travel.

We did go visit the reclining Buddha, the palace (without entering) and some temples. Took a nice cruise up the Chao Phraya river to get there which was refreshing and away from the hustle and bustle of the mostly narrow streets. Avoided the notorious Khao San road mostly but did wander there to see what all the fuss was about. The Phad Thai on the street was great for 25 BHT. To be honest I was more interested in getting to Ayutthuya, the old capital. My stay in Bangkok was a short one, only stayed four nights but I'm sure I'll be back in the future.

Ayutthuya

It was cheap to get there from Bangkok on the local train. Amazing to take a train for 1.5 hours that only costs 15 BHT! Ayutthuya lies north of Bangkok and the journey was an easy one. We did get third class tickets I suppose. Still, not bad at all. We got a Tuk Tuk for 40 BHT to the hostel, after the usual haggling over the price.

The ruins were great to see, much prefer old ruins to modern day temples. I do like history though so that's only natural on my part. The ruins looked even more impressive at night, with the lights poignantly directed on the sites. Ayutthuya is relatively small so only spent a day and a half there, getting a night train the following day.

The night market was wonderful for food and as always is the case in Asia is the cheapest available. Always so much on offer and cheap. A spicy curry with rice 35 BHT and chicken skewers were 5 BHT each - wonderful dinner!

We biked around this small city and took pictures of the ruins. The biking itself was glorious, splendidly sunny and thoroughly enjoyable. We biked til about 18h00, stopping to take pictures and to go for a walk around ruins in places. We stopped at a peaceful Buddhist temple and grounds in the beginning and relaxed there for a time. Saw some Elephants as well but I was quite unhappy at seeing them being chained up and looking rather miserable. All in all I think we covered between 8-12 km on a 'culture vulture' day. Not bad and great exercise. Unfortunately things turned a little sour when we got back to the hostel. The rain began again and this time it started mildly enough but gathered momentum. Thunder and lightening swiftly followed.

The rain continued and was really heavy prior to leaving Ayutthuya so our last few hours were spent watching Japanese pranks dubbed in Thai! Japanese humour is eccentrically funny! The train to Chiang Mai wasn’t great and was delayed, arriving after midnight into Ayutthuya. The carriages kept on crashing into each other when the train was coming to a stop so wasn’t easy to stay asleep.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai itself – the capital of the North – was relatively relaxed compared to the craziness of Bangkok, which of course was a relief. The moat, where most of the backpacker hostels are situated, was a little confusing and caused me to get lost a few times. You think you are at the right side to get back to your guesthouse but clearly are not! There is plenty of ruins to see in Chaing Mai but when the weather is so hot and you have just came from the ancient capital motivation may be wayward. We stayed at Same Same guesthouse, Julies guesthouse was full - a very popular hangout spot in Chaing Mai. Same Same had free wi-fi and the beer was strong and cheap so not bad! Red horse was about 8% and only 40 THB! The weather was incredibly warm during the day.

My time in Chiang Mai was relaxed, apart from visiting a few temple ruins I didn't do much sightseeing but then I knew I would be returning to Chiang Mai at some stage. I was eager to get to Pai, a place I heard so much about..

Pai

Pai is a small hippy town three hours North West of Chiang Mai. The roads are extremely steep and full of twists. Being hungover is not advisable. I wasn’t so didn’t bother me so much but others on the bus were feeling the strain from their stomachs and had turned a grayish colour. I had intended on staying two days in Pai prior to arrival. By the time I had made it to the bamboo bridge a guy told us about on the stop off half way the plan changed to a four day stay. In the end I stayed eighteen days I loved the place so much. I only really left because my visa was running out and I’d have to do a visa run or pay a fine of 500 baht a day!

After spending so much time in big cities or even simply cities it was wonderful to be at a location where after midnight the streets are literally deserted. No one around. The population of Pai is circa 5,000. I did have a scooter crash which was a pain but the wounds were relatively superficial. The annoyance was more that they that the major cuts were on my hands so I was bandaged up for about 9 days to protect against infection. Also, I was on anti-biotics, again for infection, and couldn’t drink during this period. In hindsight this was actually an excellent turn of events. I had been drinking far too much, as everybody tends to do on holidays. However, I had been travelling two and a half months and with drinks before I left Ireland I would estimate I had drank 75/80 days, which is a tad excessive I believe. I got a tattoo in Pai which I am very happy with and it always makes me smile when I look at it.

The tattoo is in Japanese and means “peace, love”. These are two characters I will never get bored of, no matter how old (or young) I get. Days melted away in Pai, mostly playing chess and smoking joints in the evenings with Filip (Belgian) and a few others. We had a few parties but not that much, the guys were more interested in getting stoned by the bungalows which of course was fine with me! When the day finally arrived where I had to go and do a visa run to Burma I really didn’t want to do it but had to. Then Rafa (Rafael, Belgian) wanted to do a boat adventure in Lao after we had heard the idea from Rob, a young English guy who had done this already. We decided to go for it and I got my Chiang Mai ticket changed to one going to Luang Prabang by slow boat the following day with Filip, Rafa and Eithan.

Until next time, ciao everyone..

Peace,

Liam O'Connor, travelling hobbit