It's taken a while to update this blog... every time we tried to connect our camera to the PC, we got an electric shock! Seems Laos doesn't want us to share our vacation pics. We're sure you were all preoccupied with the presidential election anyway ;) We crossed into Laos from northern Thailand and took the 2-day "slow boat" down to Luang Prabang-- the standard Laotian tourist trail. Our experiences on day 1 and day 2 of the boat were totally different. On the first day, we got to the pier at 9AM and ended up waiting 2+ hrs for our [View Full Entry]

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After two days in Chiang Rai, we were still recovering from our illnesses but decided we should just suck it up and get a change of scenery. We headed to the Akha Hill House, a rustic guesthouse located about 15 miles into the mountains. It's owned and operated by Akha Hill Tribe people, and sounded like a good (and cheap) opportunity to do some hiking and nature stuff. It was billed as the only opportunity to stay in a hill tribe village without paying for a tour (although they did gladly offer tours for those interested). The guesthouse organized free transportation [View Full Entry]

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After hanging out with the monkeys in Lopburi, we took a 2nd class train to Phitsanulok, a generic town where we spent the night before heading to Chiang Mai. 2nd class was a HUGE step up from 3rd class-- in addition to assigned seats and AC, we even got our own stewardess who served drinks and snacks. Since day 1 in Thailand, locals had been encouraging us to go see Chiang Mai, which is supposed to be more tranquil and historic than Bangkok. We were disappointed to find that Chiang Mai had all of the annoying elements of Bangkok (aggressive touts [View Full Entry]

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So after ten days we finally left Bangkok, via a 3rd class, no AC train north to Ayutthaya. When we boarded the train we found that we were the only tourists in sight (apparently most "farang" spring for the $11 first class tix over the 45-cent 3rd class seats). The announcements weren't very English friendly (actually, only in Thai), but after an hour and a half we thought we had arrived at the Ayutthaya train station after spotting a map out of the train window. After getting off the train, however, we noticed the main road wasn't where it was supposed [View Full Entry]

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Over the last 5 days we've continued to explore the city, spending 3 more nights at the Lamphu Tree House in the older part of Bangkok, and the last two nights back at our favorite "splurge" hotel, the Park Plaza. (We know we are the worst backpackers on earth for staying at a luxury hotel... but we can't resist the TV and plush atmosphere. We may as well do it now before we run out of money!). We decided to see a cultural show to balance out our numerous shopping mall and market trips (other than the ladyboy show, we hadn't [View Full Entry]

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We haven't had a chance to update the blog in a while, mainly since we have been melting in the sweltering heat of South East Asia. It's been a shock, since we came from the perfect climate of Australia's northeast coast. We are finally adjusting to the humidity, and have realized the key is to be in air conditioning whenever possible. Easy in Singapore since practically every building is a new, humongous shopping mall, but a bit harder in Bangkok. Our week in Singapore went by pretty quickly. 4 nights was actually the perfect amount of time for a visit to [View Full Entry]

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The last week has been really busy, and we have a lot of photos to share! Jake decided to sky dive at Mission Beach, one of our favorite Australian places-- it's a pristine beach that is nearly deserted, with laid-back locals and not a lot of development. This location seemed like the coolest place to skydive, since it has great views of the water and the islands, and the landing is right on the sandy beach. Jake decided on doing the 11,000 foot jump, and it began with a scary flight in a tiny plane that wobbled and dropped during takeoff. [View Full Entry]

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After our "extreme" white water rafting adventure in Mission Beach, we set out for Cairns-- gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. We liked Mission Beach, but were happy to leave the "Absolute Backpackers" hostel, with its extreme mildew smell (we tried to spend as little time in the room as possible). We were relieved to be spending our 2 nights in Cairns in our tent, where we know the duvets don't have bed bugs and there is no toxic smell! Unfortunately, our campground was crowded with rowdy, European backpackers who played loud music and talked into the night. You can't win [View Full Entry]

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We made it Kakadu National Park and found it to be even hotter than Darwin (about 100 degrees). The park had tons of wildlife everywhere, but the heat (and terrible mosquitos and flies) made it difficult to enjoy it as much as we wanted to. Right after we set up camp we took a walk to nearby Alligator River, where we saw lots of huge crocodiles in the water hunting for fish. The area was along a 4WD crossing, where trucks nearly ran over crocs while driving through a meter of water to the other side. The first hike we took [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Ayers Rock we headed north, back into the outback (Leslie even drove for about 30 minutes!). Our first stop was King's Canyon, which had a 6km "rim walk" that followed sheer cliffs around the canyon. It ended up being our favorite hike, mostly due to the danger factor of hiking along sheer thousand foot cliff faces. After a few more days of camping we stopped in Alice Springs (the 2nd largest city in northern Australia, with a whopping 25,000 people) to regroup. After cooking our own food for that past week, we splurged at the Red Ochre grill, where [View Full Entry]

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