I had an early start that morning as I seemed to do every day on this trip. I packed up my gear then went down stairs to wait for my car to be delivered at 8am. Naturally the car company was late with delivery, but it was a cute little car none the less. I departed the hostel thinking, I knew the way out of town, but I must admit I was a bit nervous driving on African roads for the first time and this probably lead to me missing the turn off. I was on a one way road and couldn’t turn around so I took a road on the left that took me into a produce market area. I couldn’t find an exit so I wound down my window to ask directions of couple ... read more

The Anstey Beach backpacker hostel in Durban is mainly for surfers and is far from the city centre so there is not much to do nearby except surf, so I booked myself on a tour to the Sani Pass and Lesotho (pronounced Lesutu). I was picked up around 10am and was driven to a meeting point where I was joined by two Brazilians called Luiz and Luiz, we then headed to Underberg where we joined a German couple, bought some takeaway for lunch then transferred to a four wheel drive vehicle. We drove for perhaps twenty minutes spotting a large troop of baboons cavorting around on a golf course before arriving at the South African border post. After taking care of formalities we began the steep climb up through the mountains to the Sani Pass, it ... read more

I purchased a ticket for the South African hop on hop off backpacker bus service, which will allow me to get on and off the Baz Bus anytime I wish over the next two weeks. This morning I will begin to travel the Garden Route between Cape Town and George which is the jumping off point for Outdshoorn pronounced Oatsweren. The trip was long and a bit boring, taking most of the day - the countryside was very similar to rural South Australia so it wasn’t overly interesting to me, although I did see a troop of baboons, a few elephants and numerous ostriches which was pretty exciting. Eventually we arrived in George around 4.30pm and were met by a shuttle which would take me through the mountains to Oudtshoorn which means Old Horn in Dutch. ... read more

Woke at 5.30am and packed up to go, the hotel rang us again last night they just dont get it, I have tried to explain over and over that we no longer need a vehicle to the border. We have stayed an extra night but I have not paid them any extra, they will still make a few dollars out of us from what I paid originally for the car so stuff them. Our Tuk Tuk arrived on time and we headed to the airport, arriving about 10 minutes later, I must admit I was suffering from paranoia and expected to be dragged off by the police at any moment for not paying for the hotel room. Eventually we checked our bags in and passed through immigration, I felt some relief but we still had 90 ... read more

The weather is much cooler today unfortunately we were woken in the night by a large rat trying to chew a hole through the ceiling, it ran off but came back again a short time later so we changed rooms for the remainder of the night. After we showered and ate breakfast we packed up our belongings and waited for our Tuk Tuk driver who arrived at 7.30am. We said our farewells to Pete and Jones (Pete said that we were the first volunteers at the sanctuary to ever go visit the temples) and then headed south away from Phnom Penh to visit some temples. The first stop would be Phnom Chisor built in the eleventh century, the trip to the temple was bumpy but the villages we travelled through were pretty the houses all built ... read more