ErinWhipp
Erin Whipp Joined: April 5th 2008
Logged in: April 17th 2009
Logged in: April 17th 2009
Travel Blog Posts
I arrived in Hong Kong at about 8pm and headed for Kowloon area of Tsim Tsa Su, which is a touristy area and a good place to find budget accommodation. I took the airport express train into the city and shared a taxi with a pastor to get to the place where I would be staying- Chungking Mansions. This is a rundown (understatement!) building with many hostels and guesthouses. The place is swarming with immigration workers from Africa, India, the Phillipines who live in the building. There are long lines to get up the elevators. After checking in, I went downstairs to get some food and was too afraid to get in the elevator to go back up. The robbery still affects me and being in an elevator alone with 6 other African men was more ... read more
Life on the beach is beautiful. After recovering from the full moon party, Catherine and I headed for Krabi, which turned out to be full day ordeal involving a taxi to a ferry, then entering a port and fighting crowds for another sticker (they give you stickers and people point you where to go--they have no faith in farangs' (foriengners) ability to navigate-- the Thai travel system is designed for idiots, they hold your hand every step of the way, which results in a kind of chaos because you don't know what is happening and you are just herded like cattle, which is difficult for me to deal with after months of independent travel. But whatever you eventually end up where you are going...) From that port, we got a taxi to the other side of ... read more
I survived the world's biggest beach party! It was a blast! I didn't end up stumbling back to my bungalow until 7-8am. I met Catherine (Quebec) on the bus from Bangkok and ended up joining her to Ko Phan Ngan, where many flock each month for the renouned Full Moon Party. We decided to try to find a place near Haadrin beach even though we were told that everything was full. After the overnight bus and the ferry, we piled into a truck taxi which was packed with 18 people. They were playing some kind of musical chairs and as the first woman driver got out, and then another woman drove another minute before stopping and a man jumped in. When we were finally on our way, we were unable to make it up the trecherous ... read more
WOOHOO!
I can't remember the last time I was at a party this cool! I LOVE IT HERE! This little village is now highly frequented by westerners who come here for the tubing, and it has certainly lived up to its reputation! This is completely "Erin-styled" fun! Get this: You get a tube and get driven by tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw/3 wheeled motorcycle) to the launch point where you get into the river and float down until the first bar where you will be fished out by men/ young boys with a combination of sticks, ropes and small tubes. They pull you to land, where you can have as many FREE (that's right: FREE!) shots of Tiger whiskey or lao lao (rice whiskey) (both of which leave something to be desired but beggers can't be choosers...) Ofcourse in ... read more
Fisherman
I'm behind on my travelblogs so I will just do a quite blurb to get up to date. Trekking in Chiang Mai was fantastic. I have never sweat so much--it is so humid in the jungle. Riding the elephants was fantastic-- ours had a baby and it could hardly get up the hills. The mother kept having to push it up the hill- it was so cute. We also saw an elephant show, and it was really amazing to see the things that they were able to train the elephants to do-- like play the harmonica and paint pictures! It was really great. The white water rafting was also a blast! Our guide was not exceptional at giving us direction and we kept ending up on the rocks, but he was crazy and really fun. The ... read more
This morning I arrived in the beautiful city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. I took the overnight bus here, and minus flashbacks in the taxi, it was uneventful and actually quite a nice double-decker bus, so the ride was good. I enjoyed the last few days in Bangkok which is such a fun city! I had some good dinners with many fun people. Today, I have just been strolling around checking out the many temples, and looking into treks. I plan on going on a 2 day trek tomorrow- riding elephants, white-water rafting, and visiting villages. It should be great. I'm hoping for a fun group of people. Im starving- it is time to go get some delicious Thai food! Stay tuned for some cool pics! I've got some making up to do!... read more
You aren't going to believe this...it is has been 6 days and I still can't. It took me this long to bring myself to write this blog. WARNING: This may be disturbing, but I think that it will be good to get it off my chest and then I can't forget about it without having to explain it numerous times. On June 17th, I planned on taking the train to Zambia, and I was robbed while in a taxi to the train station. It was in the middle of the afternoon. Luckily, the only thing I lost was $60...no cameras or anything else. I was a mess when I finally got to the train station, but I decided that I just needed to get the HELL out of DAR ASAP, and just be happy it was ... read more
Sunrise
I left Arusha in a hurry to try to get back to get my passport in time to catch the Tuesday train to Zambia only to find that the passport had yet to arrive. I certainly didn't want to spend anymore time in the terrible Dar Es Salaam, so I decided to head to Zanzibar for a few days, and I'm very happy with this decision. There are certainly worse places that you could spend a few days (or 6!) than on the edge of a sandy white beach surrounded by tourquoise water. Did I say it was amazing?! After getting the bad news at the High Commissioners Office, I immediately headed over to the ferry terminal and bought a ticket on the slow ferry to Zanzibar's Stonetown. I met 2 nice Northern Americans: Andrea, ... read more
Safari
Let me just start out by saying what an AMAZING experience safari was! I arrived off the bus in Arusha and I was immediately swarmed by about 18-20 men trying to direct me to a hotel/give me a free taxi ride/ protect me from the others, who knows...they were all talking at once so it is difficult to say, but ultimately they want to get you alone for a few minutes so that they can sell you a safari at a ridiculous amount. I attached myself to the only other foreigners on the bus- a couple from Holland. We were then lead around town, or rather followed by the parade of men who were still all talking at once and getting in my face- not a pleasant welcoming committee although this was their guise. We finally ... read more
The portrait
Now here is a funny one! Im not sure why these things always happen to me, but it makes for good stories. I arrived into Dar Es Salaam, and the LP said that there are shared taxi vans called dadalahs that go into town which are much cheaper than taxis (I always try to use local transportation because it is a fraction of the amount of other easier methods.) So I looked around for the least sketchy person and asked where the stop is. The guy looked about my age (he was 23) and ended up not only showing me the right bus but joining me on it to show me where to get off. This was also good because these vans are small and over packed so I needed someone behind me pushing me in- ... read more
