Live aboard, Sharm el Sheik 10 to 16 May 2009 Now welcome aboard the Snapdragon, my home for the next week. It is a 30 metre long vessel with 4 decks, 6 crew and can hold 20 guests. My week it had 5 including me. So lots of space. At the end I had done another 19 dives, 4 dives a day, bringing my total for the 17 days up to 32 dives. Doubling my amount of dives I had done in the previous 8 years. Man was I stuffed. The dives included; drift dives, cave dives, night dives, boat dives [View Full Entry]

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Dahab, Sinai Peninsular, Egypt 30 April - 10 May The flight out of Gatwick was uneventful and landed about 7.30pm local time in Sharme el Sheik. From there it was one hour and 15 min transfer to the hotel in Dahab. The thing about Egypt is that in 1996 there were some terrorist’s attacks on tourists and now almost all tourist places have check points on the roads leading into towns and cities. It’s a bit weird if you haven’t seen it before, the driver yelling information to the police and then the police yelling back. Can be quite daunting. After [View Full Entry]

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Istanbul Ah its been awhile since my last post, but have been mighty busy. From Cesky Krumlov - spent a few hours on a bus, then more hours on a train to arrive back in budapest. On the way ran into Jeremy who I had hiked up the mountain in slovakia with. It was pretty random - he had forgotten his passport and had to go back to the previous town before getting on to my train. From here we went to budapest, searched for our hostel for a good while, before having some traditional hungarian food, which was huge and [View Full Entry]

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I decide to head back to the Ginger Monkey in the High Tatras - to help Ritchie who had to go to Switzerland for his girlfriends Father's funeral. He had asked if I could when I was there the previous week - and well Wally need some one to watch him for a few days. So I heade back there with Greg who I meet in the hostel the night before and we headed off at about 8 in the morning to get the first train. It took us a good few hours to get there and didnt arrive until about [View Full Entry]

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Bratislava was quick and dirty. The lonely planet claimed trains left every two hours - this is correct except for the 4 hour break they have between 10am and 2pm, so having missed the early trains, I killed some time on the net before nearly missing the next train. So rocked up at the train station with about 40 mins to spare. killed 15 mins waiting at the wrong ticket booth. I was direct to the international and eventually found it 5 mins later. There was a free counter so went up to it asked about the next train. She yes [View Full Entry]

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From Zdair I headed to Budapest to meet up with Kylie for easter. Julia and I headed down to budapest together, we left at 5 in the morning to catch the first bus of the day to Poprad Tatry. From here it was a train ride to kosice and then a train to budapest, were we would arrive by 2pm. We arrived in kosice early and didnt even know we had arrived until the maintenance guys - toldus to get off the train. This was quite difficult because they didnt speak english and we no Slovakian. Eventually got on the train [View Full Entry]

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After the pace and drinking of Krakow, I was due to a break from my holiday. This is where the hostel the Ginger Monkey fits into things. The problem with getting from Krakow to anywhere is that the Tatras Mts are in the way and so you must train or bus around them. The ginger monkey however is perfectly located as a stop over point between Krakow and Bratislava or Budapest or Prague. It cuts down the travel time between this destinations in half. After a 2 hr bus ride from Krakow to Zakopane and the waited an 1 hr for [View Full Entry]

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Oswiecim is a name not many people know, but it is the actual name of the place where the infamous nazi death camps, Auschwitz, Monowitz and Birkenau are located. It started as a POW camp in April 1940, but due to its location and other reasons, it evovled with the assistance of nazi efficiency to murder, slaughter, kill, exterminate jewish people and other people viewed as undesirable. Between all three camps between 1.1 million people and 2 million people were subjected to hard labour, starvation and then the gas chambers to solve what hitler called "the answer to the jewish problem [View Full Entry]

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Today was a slow start due to a few beers the night before. Eventually decided to get out of bed and head out into the day. The weather was pristine! Just absolutely gorgoues. Had a quick walk around the castle, took a few photos next to the statue of Pope John Paul, and then after two hours decide it was time for a nap by the river. 2hrs later hit beer oclock and strolled back to the main square to have a few beers in the cafe we were at the previous day. Service was still Shite! but the beer was [View Full Entry]

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We some how made the train at 11.15 from Warsaw to Krakow - God knows how maybe thanks to Jurian's diligence cause at this point in my travels laziness is starting to kick in. No deadlines, no due dates, no phone calls - except to check in with the olds everyone once in while - but after the passport joke they had had enough of me for a while. 4 hours was the train journey - Rhian and Alex nearly didn't make it, but with 10 mins to go who should come tripping down the escalator with her snowplough on tiny [View Full Entry]

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