Happy reunions!!!

Not much time, so I'll try to keep it short. Diving at Koh Samui was absolutely awesome. The visibility was sooooo clear, lotsa fishies and cool cool coral, made it the best diving experience I had. The photo on the right shows one of the many dive sites I went to. There's this rock in the middle of the sea which is just covered with coral all the way to the bottom (about 40 meters deep). You dive alongside this rock, which from below sea level, is just a massive coral-covered-wall, all the while looking around at the zillions of fish twirling and zirling beside you. Other than that, there wasn't much to do on Koh Samui and actually, that's the only thing on Koh Samui was diving, eating and sleeping (with the occasional pooing and peeing in between).

From Koh Samui, I flew to an island in the west, to Phuket where I would meet up with Robert, Patrice and Laura. Yayyyy. In Phuket, we continued the whole dive-sleep-eat routine for a couple of days. The rest of our time there, we spent exploring the islands around Phuket. On the left, a pwetty sunset from Kata beach, where we stayed.

From Phuket, the four of us flew back to Bangkok, where we would spend a few more days till Laura and Robbie had to go back to home. To add to the fun, Erwin messaged me he was in Bangkok as well. We met up in Bangkok again after missing each other for about 3 weeks. So yay for happy times :)!

Erwin took along two friends he met in Bangkok, Whan a Thai girl and Jesse, her Canadian boyfriend. We went for a night out in Bangkok's red light district, which was quite interesting, to say the least. It's just so weird there. I can't help but feel sad for the girls there and to see what they have to do for money. On the other hand, I can't help but be bizarrely fascinated, by the numerous uses of the female genitalia displayed there. I won't go into all the details, but think smoking cigarettes, trumpets, whistles, candles, darts and balloons. Oh yeah, and bananas too.

Jesse told us, most of the girls come from very poor villages and by doing the job they do, they're able to support their whole village with food and supplies. The village justify their girl's line of work, because of all the good karma she acquires by taking care of the village and actually worship the girls for doing so. On a lighter note, left you see Substitute-Dennis (a figurine Erwin kept with him, while missing me) standing around in the red light district.

During the days we spent our time being a stereotype tourist by visiting temples, buddha-thingies and shopping. Picture on the right shows all of us at Siam Square, where they had a stunning photo exhibition, "Earth from above".

Erwin's off again and will stay a month longer in Thailand than planned. Robbie and Laura are going home today and Patrice and me will be off to Chiang Mai for a few more days in Thailand. Most likely, this will be the last blog post I'll make till I get home. Can't wait to meet everybody again, yay for happy reunions! So thanks for reading and see you soon.

Sunrise in Koh Samui


One of the many islands around Phuket. The movie, "The Rock" (starring Sean Connery) was shot at this very same location.

The happy couple and our tour guides, Jesse and Whan


Night shot at MBK, huge shopping centre


Erwin misses Chantal


The top part is actually an antenna and the building doubles as a weather station as well, opposed to being merely a temple (as most people think).

Another temple-thingie


The king ordered this temple/tower to be made after seeing the movie "Wizard of Oz". He was so inspired by the movie, that he made this structure to resemble the wizard's tower. The building is made out of solid gold and to provide him with enough gold to create his masterpiece, he ordered every citizen of Bangkok to hand in their golden fillings. The fillings, he ordered to be melted and all together it was enough gold to finish the 'golden tower'.


The building on the left was build recently. The king ordered the construction after seeing an episode of MTV Cribs and figured he could not be outdone by some random NBA player. (on a side note: MTV has yet to visit the king's crib)


Another view of all the temples.


Here we see the 'Wizard of Oz'-theme returning; the building in the foreground is decorated with 'flying monkeys'

All by my lonesome self

Well, that's it for Australia. Last two days were pretty relaxing and I'm looking back at two months of pure fun in Aussie. I'll certainly be back some day to visit other parts I've missed so far. Erwin is just insanely positive about the whole west coast, so that's for next time (anybody wanna join me? :) ). Although Australia's been great, I'm looking forward to go to Thailand now. Two months of Aussie is quite a lot and I could use a change of scenery.

Anyhow, before getting to Thailand, I had a stopover in Taipei, Taiwan, where I spent 1 day. The 10 hour flight was mostly spend, watching movies (crappy ones, mostly) and before I knew it I had arrived already.

Didn't do that much in Taipei, unfortunately. It didn't stop raining till the moment I left Taipei again. And aside from people at the airport and hotel, nobody speaks English. Which makes it quite hard to order even a freaking McChicken.

I spend my little time I had wandering about in the neighborhood (see picture above) and went to the top of Taiwan 101, world's tallest building. Well, 'officially', it's world's tallest building. Currently, a taller one is being build in Dubai. Since it's not in use yet, it's not officially recognized as the tallest one yet, but will be once finished. Anyway, the view was nice, although really cloudy and smoggy (see pic on the right). I stayed to watch the sunset, but it was kinda lame due to all the clouds. It just turned dark all of a sudden :(

With all the rain and not much to do, I wasn't too sad to leave Taipei and head towards Bangkok. I have one day in Bangkok, before I'll take another flight to Koh Samui, some island in the east. I spend last night in a ridiculously large hotel room, including a living room and kitchen. I seriously have no clue what I would ever do with all that. So, although quite pointless the room was nice and needless to say I slept like an angel. See movie for a quick tour.

I'm off to the airport soon, to catch my flight to Koh Samui. There, I'll do some diving, YAY! Finally something to do :) and I'm really looking forward to that.

View from Taiwan 101 at night


Some random temple in middle Taipei, with Taiwan 101 in the background



Taiwan 101 from the ground

Old fashion, good times

Soooo, with Erwin off to Perth, I figured I'd finally have some time to catch up on some well deserved sleep, while staying at my family in Sydney. I couldn't be more wrong :), didn't really matter much though. I had some good-old-fashion family-time-fun, instead of sleep and besides, who needs sleep anyway. I got to see a State of Origin (rugby) match in Sydney. Our team won and I made a whopping $1 profit by betting the game. Goooo Blueees!!!

The actual reason I went to Sydney was my cousin's wedding, which was pretty cool. Although, they didn't allow enough time for dancing :( By now, you should all know my 'hot-n-dazzling' dance moves and was pretty disappointed not being able to show them off.

With more than a week to go before flying to Taipei, I figured it be rather boring sticking around in Sydney for that long. Luckily, Rob and James (we met in Cairns & Byron) were in Darwin and going to do the Kakadu-tour (a big national park near Darwin). So I booked a flight to Darwin (which is in the north of Australia) and went with them to explore Kakadu.

We had an awesome 3 day trip, driving around Kakadu National park. Good food, fun people, scary huge ass crocodiles and stunning views. The picture on the left shows a view from one of the many lookout points we visited. Since leaving New Zealand, I haven't been very enthusiastic much about the sceneries here in Australia. Kakadu was well worth it though, very New Zealand-worthy that was. Just like the good old times in New Zealand itself :)

I have 2 days left before returning back to Sydney, where I will chill out for a few days before joining with Erwin again and fly out to Taipei.

My cousins at the rugby match. Go Blueeees!

Congratz to the newlyweds: Devie and Denny


KAKADUUU, so yeah, we're at Kakadu

"Rawrrr"


View of Kakadu #1


View of Kakadu #2


View of Kakadu #3


View of Kakadu #4

View of Kakadu #5, oooh sunset


That's what the swimming pools look like at Kakadu


No slides tho, so you have to jump off rocks


Another sunset to end it all

Back in Sydney

Pfffff, it's been a while since my last post, it's just we've been doing so much lately, it's hard to keep up with everything. I flew back from Cairns to Sydney 2 nights ago, where me and Erwin had a huge fight the other night, so he went to Perth on his own (more about that later) and I stayed in Sydney with my family. Uhm, where to start.
....

Nooooo, of course me and Erwin didn't have a big fight.

....
Just look at the top picture, feel the love!!!! Erwin did actually go to Perth without me and is spending his last few days in Australia with Chantal ( and I wasn't invited :) ). Anywayz, as I said it's been a while since I've written anything down and we've been really busy, so let's just start at where I stopped the last post. Which was in Hervey Bay, we just returned from Fraser Island and said our goodbyes to Chantal and Dominique, which was a sad sad moment (Erwin and Chantal are together as I write this, so much for sad goodbyes :p). We did end our trip with a good night out, showing off our dance moves.

The quality's not that good, but our enthusiasm should make up plenty for that. Erwin lifts me up, puts me on his legs, lifts me up again en drags me over the floor underneath his feet to lift me up again (him being very Danny Zuko like and me being more like Olivia Newton-John).

We continued our way up the coast to a small place, called the Town of 1770.
We checked in a laid back hostel and spend a few days there, surfing, snorkeling and being badass (see picture). The hostel was infested with other Dutch people, which is always good for the atmosphere. With a schedule to hold on to, we had to move on and took the night bus north, to Airlie beach.

From Airlie beach we went on a sailing trip along the Whitsundays (a group of islands near Airlie). We already arrived the day before we were supposed to embark and along the day, kept meeting people who would be with us on the boat. Three lads we already met in Noosa were kind enough to introduce us to some of the others (which they had met previously). Already knowing a big part of the group, we were looking forward to go sailing.

The whole group together was composed out of 19 people, 4 crew members and 5 pirates. Yep, pirates, ARRRRRRR :) The whole sailing experience was pretty nice and relaxing. Basically, we sailed for a bit, snorkeled, sailed for a bit more, had diner, drank beers, went to bed and repeat the next day. The crew was great, nice people in our group, decent food and a broken toilet which started to fling poo around the loo, instead of flushing it down. So yeah, good times for sure.

Back on solid ground we continued our way to Magnetic Island. A small island along the east coast, where we did our diving course. Long story short, the course, divided in the practical and the theoretcal part, was piss-easy. Both Erwin and me managed to finish the theoretical exam with a perfect score (we're GEEENIUS!).


I'm gonna rush and write up the last part without even trying to be remotely funny and a lot less detailed (just takes up too much time). So, after our dive course we left Magnetic Island and rushed north to our next stop, Mission Beach. Nice and relaxed, but not much to do there, besides skydiving and white water rafting. Sooooo, that's what we did! Erwin expected the jump to be more scary, thrilling, adrenaline-pumping than he experienced it to be, but he looks pretty psyched to me in the video :)

Erwin's jump. Pretty good!

White water rafting was just one big rush. Great, great fun. Not much to add, if you haven't done it before, go and do it.

After Mission Beach we headed to our last stop along the east coast, Cairns. There, we met James and Rob again, which we met in Byron Bay. The four of us rented a car and drove off to Cape Tribulations, the rain forest north of Cairns. It wasn't that bad (at least I had fun), but to quote Erwin's whining: "I'm so disappointed". Rob and James did a hilarious guided tour, but forgot my cable-thingie so will upload that movie some other time, promise.

After all that, it was time for me to say goodbye to the English lads and Erwin. I'll meet up with Erwin in about a week, when we'll fly to Taipei. Going to my cousin's wedding in Sydney and most likely will meet up with Rob and James in Darwin later this week, so i'm not worried that I will get bored. (btw, picture on the right is of Cape Tribulations).

I usually end a post with a bunch of pictures, but really really really can't be bothered to do so now. So just go watch Erwin's picasa thing, most of the pictures should be there anyway.

There are however, still a shitload of videos I didn't put up before. So there you go, enjoy.


Cleaning up the camp site after a nice barbie and loads of fun.



Erwin and me enjoying ourselves on the beach of lake McKenzie (on Fraser)



English lads put our canoes on the other side of the river. Swim dennis and save our canoes.



Me showing how to surf in Noosa



Me showing how NOT to surf in Noosa

A camping we will go

It's been sunny ever since Surfer's Paradise and the rainy days from Byron were quickly forgotten. Arriving in Noosa, we didn't realize it was Anzac day, a day honoring casualties among Aussie and Kiwi soldiers in WWI. As it turned out, all cheap hostels were fully booked by the time we arrived. Eventually, we ended up in a nice motel apartment, which was way over our normal budget. Oh well, we need to pamper ourselves from time to time :) Luckily, we did find a cheap hostel for the remaining two days we would spend in Noosa.

With the great weather in Noosa, we kept surfing two days in a row, although I still suck immensely I got the feeling I'm getting the hang of things and was able to catch a few waves at the end of the second day.

After our surfing sessions, we went on a canoe trip in the bush for 3 days, in an area called the Noosa Everglades. Basically, they put you in a canoe, give you some camping gear, a map and dump you in the river. There was a camping site about 1-2 hours peddling down the river, where we spend both of our nights. There wasn't that much to do around the place, since there's no electricity and we weren't allowed to get a camp fire going.

Scenery wise it wasn't that interesting either, especially if you're used to the views from New Zealand. Erwin and me did have a good time though, tagging along four English blokes: Dan, Elliot, Tim and Tom and had our laughs with a full scale toothbrush competition and jumping around the beach like morons.

Back from the Everglades, we took the bus to Hervey Bay. We had a Nazi bus driver on his period, who ruled his bus with an iron fist. He scared the shit out of me, but got us there in time so I didn't mind him being so mean.

At Hervey Bay we met up with Chantal (from Kaikoura) and her friend Dominique. From Hervey Bay the four of us are going on a 3 day camping trip on Fraser Island, world's largest sand island. We were grouped together with two other Irish guys and two Frenchies, making the eight of us Team Two. That evening we got to know each other a little and were filled in on what we're supposed to be doing on the Fraser. Basically, as a group you bring food, camping gear and booze and self drive a 4WD across the island, camping at different locations each night and have fun along the way.

The next day, we were ready and excited to go and took the 4WD up the ferry to Fraser Island. The plan for that day was to drive inland for a while till we hit the east coast and do some sightseeing along the way. When we arrive at the coast, we drive along the beach up north to our camp site to set up the tents and have dinner.

The first of our problems started, when we realized we forgot the cheese and ham at the hostel. We had some real good mayonnaise and ketchup sandwiches (with salt and butter for extra taste) for lunch and spent the afternoon at Lake McKenzie. Supposedly, the lake is so clean you can drink from it and to be honest the water tasted pretty damn good. Anyway, the picture on the left shows our group at the lake. Going from left to right, we have: Fabrize, Simon, Peter, Me, Erwin, Dominique, Donal and Chantal.

As I said, the ham-and-cheese-thing was the first of our problems. Not long after leaving Lake McKenzie, we got stuck in the soft sand for the first time. We managed to push the car out quite easily though and were on our way to our first camp site with a bit of a delay. We were a bit worried however, as the car didn't handle itself as well as we thought it would. Chantal took the wheel and drove us enthusiastically through sandy pathways towards the beach, shouting "Aaaahhh, the car's not responding, ooooh, the car's not steering!" which made me put on the seatbelt a bit tighter than was needed :). We got stuck once more, right after we changed driver and after some more pushing we finally reached the beach.

We drove on the beach for quite some time till we got stuck once more, but this time we got stuck good. It was already getting late and we were running behind on schedule. Normally, we couldn't care less about the time, but it's a bit of a pain in the ass setting up the tents and cooking in the dark. But even more importantly, the tide was coming in. The beaches are only accessible for a certain amount of time, when the tide's not at its highest. Since we were running behind schedule, we were pushing it a bit and we saw the beach getting narrower and narrower. Luckily, some helpful people pulled us out with their 4WD and had a look at our car. According to them, our 4WD wasn't working and we've been driving in 2WD mode all the way till this point. It made sense we got stuck all the time.

We were sent to a mechanic who lived along the beach near where we were stranded. Now, I've met some weird people in my live, but this guy is certainly in the top 5. The guy lived in some run down shack, the yard was filled with broken cars and two dingo's were walking around the premises, which we think he kept as pets. The first thing he said (I couldn't actually understand his accent or what he was saying to be 100% sure): "You lot've come at a bad time. I'm grogged, it hasn't been this bad in years". He was standing there: bare feet, beer in his hand, dirty sweater, messed up hair and generally the looks of a drug addicted bum. Later on we heard, the crazy mechanic, already lives on that island for 25 years and is drunk about 24/7. They just use him, because he's dirt cheap (they pay him in beer or he forgets he ever did anything).

Anyway, he crawled under the car with a screwdriver, banged around a bit, crawled back up and stated the car was fixed. It was a temporary fix though, but would get us home. When asked if we could safely drive with it and whether it could break down again, he gave us some cryptic answer about planes being able to drive on the beach as well, but of course they have propellers (yes of course, why didn't I think of that). Well, we decided to take our chances, worst case 4WD breaks down and we'll just get stuck somewhere again. We were running behind schedule and couldn't make our way up to the camp site up north, because of high tide. So we changed camp site and would sleep at the site where we would have slept the next day and sleep at the site tomorrow where we supposed to be today.

With the 4WD fixed, driving was a lot easier and it made sensed we got stuck all of the time without the 4WD. We got to the camp site and finished setting up the tents just before dark. We cooked some pasta, had some beers and went to bed at a decent time.

The next day we did a bunch of sightseeing along the coast and ended up at our second camp site without much problems. That site was actually a lot nicer, as it had barbecue facilities, a lot more spacious, a ring fire and *yay* showers! We had a delicious dinner with the barby that night and sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows afterwards. We ended the night looking at the stars that night. It's just so amazing how many stars you can see over there.

I woke up early to catch the sunrise and was glad I went up going, as it was cold and dark when I woke up. We visited some other sights the next day and headed back to the ferry to get back to the mainland. Back at the hostel we were greeted by ham-and-cheese, which we gratefully binged on.

All in all, the problems we had, made everything more adventurous and turned out for the better anyway. I had a great time over there and am looking forward to all the other stuff we booked. The next few days are probably going to be a bit more relaxing and we have a sail trip planned in about a week. I'll just wrap it up with a bunch of pics of Noosa and Fraser. We made a shitload of great pictures, just too many to put on here. So check out Erwin's Picasa-thingie if you want to see them all. We have some funny movies as well, but you'll have to wait for those a bit longer. They're worth it though, promise :)

Our room in Noosa, every hostel should be like that.


Drinking with our roomies in Noosa


T-bone, the local drunk and village idiot, showing fancy dance moves

Toothbrush competition

Messy campsite at the Noosa Everglades

Everybody! Puuuuush! (wait a second, who's taking this picture?)


Lake McKenzie


Dominique: I hate sand
Erwin: I love how sand rubs in my swimming pants


Peter McDonald, the crazy Axekiller, uhm I mean Mechanic

Sandmen at Lake McKenzie


A shipwreck along the coast of Fraser Island


Go Dutchies!


Roasting marshmallows at night

Me and Nemo enjoying the sunrise


Partying in Hervey Bay