7th April 2005 South-West London, England. I spent much of yesterday and today doing a 24-hour Big Bus hop-on hop-off tour of London, and quite enjoyed it. Have learnt that most of what I thought was London is actually the city of Westminster, and that London City is actually quite small at only about 1 hectare or something. Have seen almost all of the usual tourist sights, such as: *Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament Square *the Tower of London *the London Eye/Millenium Wheel *the old and new London Bridges (neither very impressive) *the Tower Bridge (very pretty, what I wou [View Full Entry]

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5th April 2005 South-East London, England. I've arrived! I had so very many last-minute half-forgotten things to write about Thailand. But now it is all in the past, forgotten. London fills my head to overflowing. I had thought it was Spring here (again making incorrect assumptions about the weather of another country, lah), which it actually is, but that doesn't stop it from being possibly the coldest place I've ever been. I stepped off the plane from Bangkok in my ghekko top and a light-weight skirt.... and with all the jackets and woolies packed deep within the bowels of my packpack [View Full Entry]

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3rd April 2005 Bangkok, Thailand. Well, I've mentioned before that the motorcyclists here are crazy, and there's so very many of them! Soooo having tried my hand at the tuk-tuk experience and enjoying it, I decided to risk life and limb on the back of a bike. And as with the tuk-tuks, I loved it! I ended up on one of the slimmer bikes, unfortunately, and there were a few moments going over bumps and such that I was convinced I was about to go flying off the back of it, but nup! My bikey-dude (much more exotic than 'driver') was [View Full Entry]

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2nd April 2005 Bangkok, Thailand. Well I sorted out the glasses and all, am being ripped off but not in the mood to care. I went on my first tuk-tuk ride last night and it was freakin' brilliant!! I want to buy one and take it home! My driver, a fairly young guy, was absolutely maniacal, swerving in and out of traffic like we were on a motorbike, and overtaking almost all the other traffic on the freeways! It was a total thrill and I absolutely loved it. Mind you, he did try to rip me off, but hey, you gotta [View Full Entry]

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1st April 2005 Bangkok, Thailand. Well, all amazingly good things must come to an end. I had to run back to Bangkok to try and get the prescription glasses, which I'd forgotten about, made. Koh Chang was absolutely brilliant. I spent the day after my last journal hanging out in the sun (now regretting that, my legs and face are very scary) and updating journal and then off to the sauna after 4pm. I hadn't really thought that through, and when I got there was walked through the treatment etc and prices, and was a little weirded out by the idea [View Full Entry]

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30th March 2005 Koh Chang, Thailand. So today I packed up my stuff and finished up my room bill and all and took off on the dolphin package with a plan to go straight to Lonely Beach, which had been recommended to me, instead of staying longer at White Sands. I wanted to see more of the island than one beach. So I loaded up all my bags into the jeep (I was the only one booked that day for dolphin swimming - they don't have very good advertising and most people no doubt never realise it's there) and off we [View Full Entry]

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29th March 2005 Koh Chang, Thailand. After a very late awakening I hung for a bit and then took off to try my hand at Elephant trekking. I ended up getting dropped off at wrong beach - did I mention that they don't have traditional taxi's here, just share-taxis which are utes with seats along the edges? Anyway, they do. So I ended up at Klong Prao, which turned out well, because it was there that I saw the sign for a 'Swimming with Dolphins' package. Worked out the details ad organised it for the next day before catching another taxi [View Full Entry]

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28th March 2005 Koh Chang, Thailand. Firstly I should mention to the guys back home that most of these journals don't get written until days later - I just date them as if they were current - and so lots of the little details that I wanted to mention get forgotten. But I met up with the gils (crappy keyboard again, warning) again the next night after lazing about and doing little other than walking and sightseeing. We had a lovely dinner and drank and walked and ended up outside this adorable little bar-type-establisment down the south side of White Sands [View Full Entry]

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March 27th 2005 Koh Chang, Thailand. Well so much happens so fast and most of it will never get recorded. Ce'st la vie. But to give you a quick refresher course, this is what my last few days were: I ended up making a very bad choice of accommodation when I got to Khao San Rd, I had known that at some point in my journeys I would be...slumming it majorly...but this was just gross, and I sincerely hope it's the worst dive I'm fated to end up in. I did actually ask to see the room and it seemed okay [View Full Entry]

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March 25th 2005 Bangkok, Thailand. Well, still here. I thought I'd be on my way to Pattaya by now but got the bus times mixed up - that's okay, though, I hadn't actually bought one anyway. So now am staying at the Rainbow Guest House, just off Khao San Rd, and it seems okay though the bed is only a little softer than the floor - literally. I went down to ask if that was the bed or if it was a base and the mattress was coming up later...apparently not. I only spent two minutes in there but it seems [View Full Entry]

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