Convict
Conor & Vicki Joined: August 17th 2008
Logged in: April 4th 2011
Logged in: April 4th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Sunset on Maya Bay II
We flew into Bangkok from Singapore and this was our first real taste of South east Asia. We decided to go to the Khao San road because this is one of the cheapest and most popular places to eat and find accommodation. Khao San road is some people's worst nightmare but for us it was very interesting. You could walk up the street and be disgusted and entertained. There is always something new and shocking and it is a backpacker's Mecca. We stayed here trying to find our feet in Thailand and trying to map out a route. It didn't take us long to work out the best way to get around the city and we found great food stalls with tasty and cheap dishes. This is where we got our love affair with Thai food ... read more
A convoy enters the city
Another bus was required for our departure from Vietnam and entry to Cambodia. We arrived into Phnom Penh a feeling a little uneasy because of what we heard about tourist theft and because time was not necessarily on our side we knew that this country would be more of a flying visit compared to most of the others. After one night in Phnom Penh we got a bus to Siem Reap. The poverty of the country struck us and its people are clearly still recovering from its tragic recent history The journey to Siem Reap was an interesting one. Within 10 minutes we heard a choke followed by a splash. A local guy had just thrown up and was running down the aisle with a trail following him. Testament to the Asian's inability to travel. As ... read more
Senior resident in Hoi An
Our next stop on the south east Asian leg was Vietnam! We arrived into the capital city, Hanoi. Our experiences here were less than positive with the locals. It seemed that the term "keeping your wits about you" developed here and we tried to avoid being taken advantage of on more than one ocassion. We also found it slightly more challenging to get a taste for the local food than in some other countries. In fact, on our first night we ate pizza, a cardinal sin for those trying to get into the cultural and culinary nuances of each of our many ports of call! We had heard so many great things about the country so we didn't let our initial impressions besmirch the rest of Vietnam. Onward Christian soldiers! South to Hue on an interesting ... read more
Vientiane
Having left Australia, we spent two nights in Singapore and then moved into Thailand. After 10 ten days in the northern part (blog to follow), we made our way into Laos. Our first stop was the country's capital, Vientiane. What first struck us was the French connection and as soon as we got off the bus there were people offering us baguettes. They were short of having a string of onions around their neck. Formerly under French control, Laos has plenty of Gallic flair and is a lot more laid back than the two previous south east Asian countries we had encountered. With croissants and coffee for breakfast, baguettes for lunch and an abundance of French restaurants to choose from for dinner, it was difficult to keep with with our tradition of avoiding Western food. With ... read more
Roos ready to rock
Well here we are again. After a long recess(ion) we're back and full of the joys of Spring! Having spent a fantastic month making our way around New Zealand we jumped across the drink to see what their bigger neighbour and rival had to offer. It turns out there's quite a lot and at the end of our time here we see that we'd need considerably longer and a lot more cash to see it all. We arrived into Melbourne and checked into a hostel in the area of St Kilda. Firstly we were surprised by the amount of Irish in Melbourne and although we had been forewarned we still gasped at all the county colours we saw throughout the city. Vicki didn't realise so many GAA teams existed. There were quite a large number of ... read more
Bay of Islands
Well it's been a while but here's another installment of our journey around the globe Since our last episode, we have left the vibrant and seductive shores of Latin America, traversed the Pacific Ocean and lost a day of our lives in the process thanks to the complex policies of crossing the international dateline. The 11th of February 2009 is a day that did not exist in our lives. We arrived into Auckland from Santiago, Chile on the 12th February. This was a big change having spoken mostly Spanish for the past 5 and a half months and it took a little getting used to, conversing in that forgotten language you call English. As luck would have it we arrived on the hottest day that Auckland had seen in something ridiculous like over 100 years. We ... read more
What can we say?
Having gotten a good sense of what Argentina had to offer from Buenos Aires we left the capital and headed a little north west, bound for the city of Cordoba. We knew it was the home of the famous Ernesto 'Che´ Guevarra and a few other big Latino names so we figured it´d be worth the trip, if only for a few days to see what the place was about. When we arrived in the hostel we were asked "Why Cordoba?" and the unfortunate thing about it was these were locals... It soon became apparent why they put the question to us. It´s a university town and popular among Argentinian students for that reason. One day we headed out to a smaller local town and a bus journey that was supposed to take 1 hour took ... read more
The sun comes out
After crossing the border and saying goodbye to our friend, Brazil, we entered Argentina via the town of Puerto Iguaçu. This is the stop-go spot all tourists will spend at least one night in before seeing the national park´s famous waterfalls. The falls border both Argentina and Brazil but from what we heard the Argentine side was the one to see if you could only see one side. We don´t know whether this is true or not as we only saw one side but either way it was fantastic. When we arrived into the town the first thing to hit us was the heat. It was sweltering and we were delighted to find that our room had air conditioning. This is a luxury that we haven´t always been lucky enough to enjoy. One afternoon, Conor was ... read more
What a surfer!
After we left Rio we took a hop, skip and jump a few hours down the road to a town called Paraty. Upon arrival we realised that our time in Rio had taken its toll and our mental calendars were a bit sideways. We got the dates wrong and we weren´t actually booked into the hostel. With it being the busiest time of the year we were told that there was no room and they offered to allow us sleep on the floor of the balcony. What with all those scourges of mosquitos in the area this would´ve been a bad idea so we were pushed to fork out a little extra and stay in a local guesthouse. The sun was in full effect when we arrived but this was a luxury short lived. Within an ... read more
Rio is beautiful
Having flown to Sao Paolo from Santa Cruz in Bolivia we made our way to the infamous Rio de Janeiro by bus. On the bus we were given what we can only liken to a party bag containing sweets, crackers and a little bottle reminiscent of the wee vessels of Cadet coke we would guzzle as nippers. We arrived in Rio on the 23rd December and this would be the longest we have stayed in one place since studying Spanish in Guatemala. It was nice to finally have somewhere to set up camp for more than just a few days. Our accommodation certainly fit the description of a party hostel and the precious cannabis plant growing by the hot tub reinforced that idea to all who stayed there. At one stage when the plant had fallen ... read more
