2006jotravelbug

When heading to Phuket i understood that it was far more developed than any of the other islands we had visited previously but when we arrived i couldn't believe how big it was or how busy. It took us nearly 2 hours to drive to Bang Tao the area we had decided to stay passing through heavy traffic and towns, such as Patong. We had chose a great place to stay, Bang Tao is a much quieter area of Phuket and has several very expensive resorts set up behind the beach. Unfortunately we were not staying in one of these but at Bangtao Lagoon Bungalows that has a mix of fan and aircon bungalows. We had booked into the fan bungalows at 630 baht a night which we thought a right bargain as they were nice, ... read more

Everyday of this trip i realise how lucky i am but some days i get the feeling that im the luckiest person in the world and today was one. We have spent the last few days on Langkawi, an island off of Malasia. We were incredibly lucky to be able to stay an extra couple of nights as with the Chinese new year everywhere is booked up. We are staying in chalets on the beach and each night we fall asleep with the sound of the gentle waves lapping on the beach and each morning we are awoken by the sun rising. The place is perfect, beautiful white sandy beaches that are extremely quiet and a great beach bar literally 10 meters from our room that sells tiger beer at the equivilent of 50p a bottle. ... read more

We purchased a hop on hop off bus pass in Cairns that would take us down the East Coast back to Sydney. We jumped on the bus early last Saturday morning and headed 'down the Highway' to Mission Beach. We were picked up by our hostel at the bus stop and spent the next few days relaxing in Mission Beach at Scotty's Beach House, the best hostel we've been to so far. It was so relaxing, the staff were friendly and they even carried my bag to my room for me. There was an amazing pool with a log across the middle that you can battle your opponent with inflatable noodles, so i spent the next fews days messing around in the pool knocking Gaz off the log and playing volleyball. Cassawarries are about 6ft tall ... read more

We excitedly walked to the wicked camper depot in Melbourne to pick up our campervan and head off on our 7 day road trip to Adelaide along The Great Ocean Road. We realised it was a bit hit and miss what the campervan would like as we had a seen a selection of them while in Australia but we filled in the forms and the lady took us out to our Campervan, an orange and blue camper called 750 Rebels. We have later found out that 750 rebels is a group of hiphop artists from Bribane and Carins. I fell in love with our camper and after collecting all of our stuff together Gaz was to drive the first leg of our trip down to Geelong. It only took an hour or so to get down ... read more

After the New Year and the cockroach incident we made a swift exit from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. We caught the train from Sydney and after a little snooz i woke up to see a differnet landscape to that of the coast. The scenery was beautiful with mountains that glowed blue from the eucaliptus oil and a little town called Katoomba with lots of little cafes and a coutryside feel. We jumped off the train and headed to our hostel (central backpackers) that we had regretfully booked into for 2 nights. I have learnt my lesson now - never book into a hostel for longer than 1 night unless you have checked it out first. . Unfortunately it rained for pretty much the whole 3 days we were there but that didn't stop us. We ... read more