One Day in Bangkok

Hello Everbody! Sawat-dii kha!

I have finally embarked on my OE and so far this is all the Thai I know. I have just arrived in Bangkok this morning after 2 1/2 wonderful weeks in Oz. I stayed with my sister, Kirsty, at her flat in North Fitzroy in Melbourne (she is nursing there). It was great to catch up with Jane, Rach and Greg, Nat, Jackson and Jenny. When I first arrived Kirsty and I set off with a nursing friend of hers to drive the Great Ocean Road. We hired a car and stayed a night in Lorne on the way. The Twelve Apostles were very impressive. Other than that, in Melbourne, I ate alot (with Jane's help), didn't drink enough and even did some house cleaning and cooking to earn my keep (it felt alot like home really).
After a week in Melbourne four of us (Kirsty and her nursing friends, Phil and Sarah) flew to Brisbane and headed straight for the little hippy/beach town of Byron Bay. We had beautiful weather and even managed to be active. We camped at the Arts Factory backpackers which had a beautiful, large bar and restaurant and a great uv lit movie theatre with fluffy black and white animal print couches. Unfortunately the camp ground was situated in a bog so it was well known for its mozzies. Met a few funny people including this little 17 year old mc from the UK who had just been battling on MTV, she entertained the whole camp for a night.
On our second night we were the first in Australia to see the sun rise from the top of Mt Warning (we started climbing in the dark at 2am). Later that day I also learnt to surf, and yes I stood up and I loved it. We spent a day mountain biking through the rainforest and swimming in freezing water holes with names like Cold Figs (well thats what our aussie joker guides called it anyway). Kirsty and I visited Nimbin (thought of you Hazel), it was actually the 30th Anniversary of the Aquarius Festival that turned Nimbin into a little hippie town in the hills totally devoted to the legalisation of Marijuana. They've pretty much achieved that in Nimbin anyway. It's also well known for it's annual Mardi Grass festival. hehee.
Next we drove to Noosa which was alot ritzier than we were used to and the weather turned bad which made camping impossible so Kirsty and I had a night at her snowboarding friend, Siobahn's house while the others had a romantic night in an apartment. We got drenched while walking through a National Park and we both managed to get a leech each when we visited a waterfall - yuck! Good practice for the Asian monsoons anyway. Our last night was in a trailer park overlooking the Glass House Mountains (great mountain names Captain Cook).
I've just had a great weekend with Mum and Dad who are visiting Melbourne and said farewell last night at 12.15am. I actually got the date wrong and left a day late cos of that time - easy mistake really! No worries though.
Its at least 30 degrees in Bangkok and the hotel pool is hotter than the air. I'm treating myself to a nice room for a couple of nights while I acclimatise. The taxi ride from the airport was fine apart from being taken on a toll road which added to the set price - I was very paranoid about being ripped off. I met a couple of kiwi chucks from Whangarei at Immigration who know all my cuzzie bro's. I might meet up with them when they get back from 10 days in the Hill tribes. All the signs in the street are written in Thai script so aren't too recognisable - there's even Thai script on this keyboard. I'm building up the courage to venture outside cos I'm starting to get quite hungry. I sort of thought there would be foreigners everywhere but there are still alot more Thai, apart from around here, the Khao San Road area. Its quite interesting from my hotel room window anyway, I saw a man make a little fire on the pavement and proceed to very methodically burn peices of gold paper, he can't have been cold so I don't know what that was all about. There is a little gold shrine on the roof opposite, and a few mangy dogs lying around in front of buildings.
My plans so far for asia are to head to Cambodia first then Vietnam, Laos and back to Thailand to go to the beaches. For now my ETA for London is the last week of July for a week and then straight to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival in early August.

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