Delaney
James Delaney Joined: January 16th 2009
Logged in: February 13th 2012
Logged in: February 13th 2012
Round the world in 365 days stopping off at:
Spain-->France-->Italy-->Thailand-->Laos-->Vietnam-->Cambodia-->Thailand(again)-->Malaysia-->Singapore-->
Malaysia-->Singapore-->Indonesia-->Singapore-->Australia-->New Zealand-->Cook Islands-->America-->England -->Turkey
Date I left the UK: 28th July 2008 (Delaney Family Cruise before actual Travel)
Expected arrival date back in the UK: 27th July 2009 (Delaney Family Villa after actul Travel)
It’s finally happened, all that talk of travelling around the world wasn’t just talk! I’m off to the land of the Thai’s first of all. But not for the first time, more of the same same but different and no doubt windmill fuelled dancing madness at the full moon party again is to be expected.
I’ll try to keep it all up-to-date but if I forget or I’m somewhere without internet, (I know, scary) I haven’t gone missing, I’m just busy, no doubt sitting on a beach sipping a cocktail out of a coconut!
Highlights of my trip so far.
- Full Moon Party - sweat band madness (Thailand)
- Camping on The Beach, Maya Bay (Thailand)
- Trekking in Chiang Mai (Thailand)
- Tubing, donuts, whiskey and rope swings + Dentist Chair (Laos)
- Nha Trang - the mighty Vinpearl (Vietnam)
- Rock climbing - RaiLay (Thailand)
- Angkor Wat - History at it’s most epic (Cambodia)
- Meeting Helen in Nha Trang (Vietnam)
- Meeting Helen in Thailand
- Diving SDI course in Nha Trang (Vietnam)
- Diving with turtles at the Gili Islands (Indonesia)
- New Years Eve in Sydney (Australia)
- Seeing a penguin in Sydney harbour (Australia)
- Kayaking down the Me Kong River and falling out on every rapids (Laos)
- Big Budda jeep drive, Jay knows what I’m talking about! (Thailand)
- SE Asia transportation
- New Zealand South Island camper van fun
- Skydiving over lake Taupo
- Nevis Bungee Jump, highest in the world!
- Zorbing in Rotorua, awesome
- Could go on forever so I’ll stop for now
Lowlights of my trip so far.
- 30 hours on a bus (Laoes to Vietnam)
- 28 hours on a bus (Thailand to Laos)
- Death scooter ride, knee and foot injuries!
- Dam rude Indonesian’s people
- Stress to the max of getting a job and a place to live in Oz
- SE Asia transportation!
- Ordering some food and been given desert or something else equally random
What I’ve learned from my travels so far...
- The less rules there are on the road the less accidents there seems to be
- The higher the price the lower the offer for it and just go from there
- The walk away tactic when bartering, ALWAYS lowers the price by at least half
- Asian’s can’t sing as demonstrated by there love and my hate of Karaoke
- 7/eleven’s are lifesavers at times of intense heat -A/C for free!
- It isn’t possible to get bored of just sitting on the beach
- SEA scooter accidents will happen, just close your eyes and hope for the best!
- Squat toilets aren’t fun when drunk and in need of a movement!
- SE Asians have no spatial awareness and walk right into you even though you are about 3 times as big and taking up most of the pavement with your gigantic backpack on.
- Roads are now death walks but I have come to realise cars will always go around you if they can
- Queue’s just don’t exist anywhere but the UK, so now I just barge my way to the front of most queue’s, unless another western gigantor beats me to it!
Travel Blog Posts
Diving in Turkey
Birmingham to Turkey Days by the pool, pool jumping photos BBQ meat and beer extravaganza Pancake hut Indiana Jones 4, girls say no! Day out to chitchavatia, Saklikent Gorge, river town etc. Diving Serious tanning, serious eating!... read more
Everyone has a star!
Pacific Islands all the way to our LAX... The US of A here we come, first stop the home of the rich and famous in Los Angeles and landing in LAX, whoop whoop to the America, burger me! So we’ve got three days to visit three iconic places, first port of call is the Walk Of Fame, which famous person to walk on first… Then onto Universal Studios, back to the future rides, terminators and dinosaurs! Finally, it’s time for the home of the Walt’s in the land of Disney, awesome! We are staying in North Hollywood so should be able to see the sign, if the smog clears that is… Day one and we get dropped off in North Hollywood, aka Dodgeville USA! Our hostel, NoHo is like a loony bin with an old granny ... read more
Muri Beach..
Cook Islands After leaving New Zealand and a sad goodbye as the country was awesome, so awesome we spent the majority of our money, oops! Moving on, we are well and truly ready for two weeks in paradise. On boarding our Air New Zealand flight NZ46 we get upgraded to first class with leg room to spare and window seats, result! The flight was really nice and was extra nice because of the three small bottles of Merlot we drank, free of-course! We land 3 hours later, but somehow yesterday at 9:30 in the evening and it’s a nice blast of warm air to greet us, bring on the sun! (Yes I did say yesterday, we travelled back in time when we crossed over the time zones, 1 more day of travelling, whoop!) We’re greeted by ... read more
Puzzle World, Wanaka
Christchurch First stop on our NZ adventure was Christchurch other wise known as the garden city of New Zealand. It’s taken us three days of hardcore travel to get to New Zealand and on getting off the plane it was a relief. On walking through customs, obviously nothing to declare we get asked the following: "Do you have any tinnies?" YOU WHA???? (Thinking he wants to know if we have smuggled any can’s of beer with us) "teeeeeennnnnts!!!" the guy says slowly this time, erm, no we have no tents, thank you Mr Officer?! Slightly random question and the accents have already baffled us! After spending up to 10 months in 30 degree Celsius plus weather conditions, it was fair to say we were unfamiliar with the sound of our bones and teeth chattering. Driving from ... read more
Melbourne...
It’s finally happened and we have to leave Sydney and hit the road once again, after packing our bags and saying goodbye to our little flat on the beach in Manly we make the first attempt to pick our very, very full rucksacks… second attempt and I manage to just about steady myself, Helen seems ok with hers, I think she may have sneaked some of her stuff into my bag! Leaving our home of 6 months we get our final ferry from Manly to Sydney Harbour, it’s a mix of excitement and a little nervousness to be back on the road, but mainly excitement. We have to get us and our bags to Central station where we get our overnight greyhound to Melbourne, we make it and decide we are due a beer or two ... read more
1 large beer...
Manly, Shelly and Freshwater beach days Sydney Aquarium Christmas in Australia, surfing on Christmas day New Year at Cremorne Point and madness back in Manly, watched the sun come up on the beach Kylie Minogue - Showgirl Homecoming Tour Acer Arena Palm Beach Home & Away day out Bondi Beach day out Big Day Out Hunters Valley V-Festival Blue Mountains Botanical Gardens Working job for James and jobs for Helen A place to call home, Central Avenue a lounge with a view!... read more
The mighty hippie
East Coast Adventure, Australia 4th April - 14th April Day 1: Sydney to Byron Bay Sydney to Byron Bay, 11 hours of epic road cruising over Sydney Harbor Bridge all the way up the Pacific Highway occasionally seeing koala crossings and stopping for the healthy food hit known as Hungry Jacks (AKA. Burger King!). The hippie campervan we have hired for 11 days is fully equipped, let’s just hope we are ready to be living in a car for that amount of time!! After the initial shock of driving a car again I’m off to a good start by following the gps from my laptop, no map drama for Team James & Helen… hopefully! ;) The Ozzie roads are pretty empty and the driving was easy going, with the addition of their radio stations blasting out ... read more
Last call for Sydney
Finally, we are heading to the Oceania that is Australia and the land of shrimps, barbies and beaches! Landed and stayed in guesthouse called boomerang which consisted of me and Helen heading to Woolworth’s and buying a lot of nice breads, olives and other dips and eating till we fall asleep! Day 2, back to the other member of Team James, the Jay. He was to be found sleeping, shock, at the blue parrot in Kings Cross, we booked ourselves in and went for a beer.... read more
Disney Xmas
Airport bound, one night in the red light district and 24 or so hours Christmas shopping airport style! We arrive in Singapore airport a little exhausted and a little bit crazy from 18 or so hours stuck in an Indonesian airport! We decide we need a bed and find the cheapest place in Singapore is surprisingly the red light district, we weren’t paying by the hour though and got the room for the whole night! Shower, shave and slept like a baby, never felt so good to have a hot water shower before with water that didn’t smell of sewerage! We sleep for a good 12 hours straight and wake up refreshed and full of beans, we have 29 or so hours left till our flight so it’s back to the airport for some shopping and ... read more
Gili Islands, snorkel snorkel
We arrive at the airport, or at least we think we do… we got the airport train from the centre of KL and headed straight for the departure terminal, little did we know we were flying from a completely different airport?! So off we go to get a bus link to the other airport, on approaching the airport we are a little sad as it’s tiny in comparison to the one we just came from, meaning the departure lounge will be tiny too, so no cinema or bars for us!? On getting to the mini airport that is just for Air Asia we find Clare in McDonald’s, pretty much all westerners were congregated here! A few hours in the airport and off to Bali for diving, tanning and lazy beach days, yippee!! The first thing we ... read more
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