EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE As soon as we set foot in Jean's place in Noumea, we were off again to party. Jean's girlfriend is a couples dancing aficionada and we hopped all evening from rock'n roll to swing, salsa, waltz, tango and whatever else, genuinely undisturbed by our total ignorance of the conventional steps, and fully enjoying making total fools of ourselves on the dance floor. Sunday was as the Lord had intended it to be: a day for resting, napping, uploading photos, eating cro [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE Some friendships take months or years to build. Others are obvious from the first minute you meet someone. So enters Sally in my life one May day (no pun intended) just a week before my departure from Paris. It was picnic season, Canal St Martin and Montmartre, and I had not laughed that much and that hard in a long time. And if Australia had not been on my itinerary, I probably would have added it just to visit Sally in her lovely countryside bed & breakfast, [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE Once the trip for Fraser Island was booked up, I enjoyed two days of doing nothing in blissful solitude: three-hour long walks on the unending beach, watching kite surfers play with the breeze, dogs running after their ball, kids and their parents building sandcastles, teenagers rehearsing a hip-hop dance routine, schoolboys and their fathers playing rugby, birds looking for food in the sand, fishermen surrounded by patient pelicans, and more beautiful sunsets. [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE I could barely believe my luck, once again. A sailing trip in the Whitsunday Islands is a must-do on the backpackers route, and it usually cost around $400 (Aussie dollars) for two days of being sandwiched in a big sailing boat with 20 or 30 other backpackers of diverging interests (binge drinking often being one of them), fed with summer camp food, and taken to beautiful but well attended areas--I know, because I overheard conversations while queueing for the [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANÇAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE Australia was pretty much an empty slate for me: apart from kangaroos and koalas, and big boulders in a desert, I had no idea what to expect, so I just spent my first day walking around town and collecting every possible brochure from the tourism office to figure out roughly my next two weeks of adventures, getting ice-cream (for the price of a hotel night and dinner in Thailand, ouch!), and getting over jetlag. Strolling on the city's boardwalk, I observe the [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANÇAIS PLUS BAS JUST A FEW MORE PHOTOS HERE You have been numerous in voicing your concern for my silence, and I thank you for this. I am glad to reassure all of you and inform you that the reason of this silence is not trouble nor malaria--it is mainly because I have been way too busy. As a travel mate told me the other day: "Traveling is no vacation!" Indeed it is not. That is, if vacation means relaxing by the pool and taking the time to read a book, take a nap, bum around. I do manage to [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE The minute I met Phil, he cracked a witty joke and I knew we would have a good time together. Phil and I have at least two big things in common: divorced, and affected by a serious case of travel bugs. Phil used to be a high-ranking purchasing director for an electronics parts manufacturing company in Wales. He had picked that career in part for its high income potential, which would allow him to send it all to hell early enough in life and go traveling. Which [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS Saying goodbye to lovely Chiang Mai... One of the most difficult things about leaving Chiang Mai after two weeks, apart from having to bid farewell to all the wonderful friends I have made there, and to the internet cafe guy, and the morning croissant lady, and the Smile Guest House staff, was to repack... The Sunday Market have taken a toll on my budget, but mainly space and weight in my backpack, which could barely contain everything, and when it finally did with some help from above, I could barely lift it to my shoulders on my [View Full Entry]

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EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE So the first available bed that first night in Chiang Mai might have been cheap, but it wasn't very nice at all (Banana Guest House...), so I start my first day by room hunting and end up at the Smile Guest House, where 225 baths (about 4,50 euros) gets me a light, airy and comfy room, complete with swimming pool and staff who seem to have given the place its name. Once settled in, I indulge into a spa extravaganza: more than 3 hours of pedicure, scrub, aromath [View Full Entry]

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MORE PHOTOS HERE In Luang Nam Tha, I check in Zuela, a lovely wood and brick guest house, probably the cleanest and nicest place I've stayed in so far in the region, if not the cheapest. In the lobby, I meet Jackie, an outgoing Aussie who came here for the same reason as me, trekking, and is looking for companions to bring the cost down. We both sign up for a 2-day trek that will take us through the jungle to an Akha tribe village, where we will spend the night. The Green Discovery staff warns us about the c [View Full Entry]

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