The remainder of my time in China ended up being a lot more relaxing than planned, for reasons I will go into later . . . After leaving Yangshuo, I took a minibus to Guilin and then an overnight train to Kunming. The train journey was a similar experience to the Guangzhuo - Guilin one, in that the resounding noises were the ubiquitous snoring, hocking and spitting that by that time I had more or less come to expect from the Chinese, if not gotten used to. Upon arrival at my hostel in Kunming (the most excellent Cloudland Hostel) I quickly [View Full Entry]

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I was a little apprehensive about leaving the Philippines for China, and more than a little sad to be leaving after the amazing and fascinating time I had had on the island. But the time had come to move on, and I was so excited at the prospect of meeting up with Antony, the first person from home that I was going to see since leaving the UK 7 months previously. Just before I left my hostel in Manila, I checked my email to discover a message from Antony, saying that he was stuck in Paris and would not be arriving [View Full Entry]

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Before I get to the main subject of this entry - my journey into the unknown - I want to talk a little about the country and about Manila, as that is the place that I flew into and where I am now. My first impressions of the city were that it is huge, busy and smog-filled but I really liked it. The people have been exceptionally friendly nearly everywhere I have been (sometimes a bit too friendly!), they seemed curious of me and the women love my pale skin! I get a lot of attention walking down the streets here [View Full Entry]

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(Seamless transition from last entry . . .) Byron Bay So, after a long train journey (where, during the last part, I had to transfer to a bus at about 3:45am - not pleasant) I arrived in Byron Bay at around 5:30am. Realising that there are not many occasions that see me up and about at this time of the morning, I took full advantage of this and headed straight to the beach to watch the sun rise. For the first ten minutes or so the birds (of the feathered variety) were my only companions, but it was amazing how quickly [View Full Entry]

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Melbourne After I returned to Melbourne I spent another few days in the city, catching up on doing some of things that I didn't have time to do before I went to Adelaide (the tennis pretty much took up most of my time while I was there the first time!). I only stayed at Stuart's flat another couple of nights, before I moved to stay with a lovely, friendly, upbeat guy called Kim that I had met at a party the previous week. He lives with his good friend Yvonne, who I liked straight away, in a gorgeous city centre apartment, [View Full Entry]

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The following may seem like quite a random collection of thoughts, and they mostly are, but it's all stuff I've been thinking about a lot over the last couple of weeks (and I've had a LOT of alone time to think) so I guess in that way it's all pretty relevant to my state of mind at the moment. It's introspective stuff, so apologies if you were hoping for a detailed entry about Melbourne and I hope you'll indulge me a little navel-gazing just this once. Lately I've been feeling strangely disconnected from travelling and it didn't take me long to [View Full Entry]

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So, where was I? The remainder of my time in Queenstown was pretty restful, with a solo trip to Milford Sound breaking it up a bit (more about that in a minute). Stuart and I went to the cinema a couple of times (finally saw 'Happy Feet' - it's so cute!) and I spent a lot of time just pottering around the town, which had a lovely feel to it. I can't claim to have indulged in any of the extreme sports and activities that the Queenstown region plays host to - I'm just not that type of person! I did, [View Full Entry]

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HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! I've done it again. Left it far too long between entries that it's nearly impossible to remember everything I have done since my last update - but I'm going to try! So, after spending Christmas Day with Kathy and Rob, I picked up the camper van from the depot in Auckland and drove to the airport to meet up with Stu, my companion for the next 3 weeks. At this point I should explain about the camper van. I rented it through a company called Escape Rentals, who convert VW-style vans into basic, mini-camper vans with [View Full Entry]

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Firstly, Merry Christmas everyone! Compared to South America, travel in New Zealand almost seems like cheating: I mean, everyone speaks English, something I had grown so accustomed to not hearing that it is taking a little adjustment to being in an English-speaking country again! Having said that, it is wonderfully refreshing and I'm going to make the most of finding travelling and communicating easy for a while! So, after spending a couple of uneventful days in a HUGE hostel in Auckland (the place had about 500 beds - weird!) I headed up north to the Bay of Islands for a 5 [View Full Entry]

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Now, admittedly I only spent three days in Santiago (and on one of which I opted to take a day-trip to the coast - more about that in a minute), and I think I have been somewhat spoiled by the fantastic South American cities I have visited (think Buenos Aires particularly) but I just couldn't find anything to get excited about in Santiago. It is rather efficient and clean, and is fortunate enough to have the Andes as a backdrop (if the smog lifts enough to be able to see them!) but if that is the best thing I can think [View Full Entry]

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