Jamesworldtour

So here it is with a bit of sadness it must be said I have reached the last proper destination of my trip-Auckland. For those of you that don't know I've been having some trouble with my eyes again out in the Southern hemisphere and have decided it is for the best that I return home to see someone who knows a bit about my medical history and to see all you lot again ;). New Zealand particularly the south island is a beautiful place with stunning scenary and lots of adrenalin fuelled activities to do so I'll just give a short run down of what I've done and where rather than bore you with intricate little details: Firstly I had my 19th birthday starting at midnight in a bar in Christchurch= very good, before setting ... read more

Helloooo So to quickly pick up from where I left off last time as I have limited internet time.... Brisbane We initially didn't think much of Brisbane, Base our first hostel was rubbish and the city just seemed like any other city in the world..which even by the end the latter is still quite true, although from our second night onwards we had a blast! We switched hostels to be with fellow Oz ex-ers at Bunk which I can safetly say is the best hostel I will ever stay in...the staff were uber friendly,it was very clean and had a t.v room which some cinemas don't even come close to matching-not that we actually spent that much time in there. On our first night though we went for a drink with a dutch girl in our ... read more

Well it's been a little while and there's a lot to get through so it might be a bit sketchy in detail depending on how bored I get of typing :) Kroombit Cattle Station Without doubt the weirdest night anybody doing Oz Experience will have in Australia; the compulsary stop at the cattle farm but with a little bit of Goon, possibly one of the most fun. We arrived welcomed by a roast beef dinner before being given a talk by some old redneck man on what occurs at the station and asking did anybody want a job (got to admit not tempted). The night spilled out into activities including: learning how to whip crack, now an Indiana Jones-esque cracker :). This was followed up by the Bucking Bronco which for all the blokes was possibly ... read more

I think I'm in love with Australia...the people, the food, the lifestyle...everything except the prices;so expensive but this is a bearable grudge when seeing everything around you. Cairns We arrived in Cairns to a stereotypical scorching Australian day, and whilst very, very tired from our night flight from Hong Kong we weren't too tired to noticed the chilled out, resort feeling Cairns has; even if most of the people are tourists. We stayed at a place called Caravella 149 hostel just down from the lagoon and (when) I return to Cairns in the future I will have no hesitations about staying there, even if the owner Gloria has a bit of a pessimistic outlook to life, everything else about it was spot on. By far the highlight of Cairns was without doubt the trip to the ... read more

Hello everybody, well the days of a cheap meal and drink have gone, Hong Kong is so expensive!! It's fantastic for a few days though and if you're affluent then even more so with big named shops enticing you in to spend quite probably all your money. Our accomodation in Kowloon was situated in the Chunking Mansion which is the most derelict, tatty building you have ever seen but the guest house..Ocean View was actually very pleasant and quiet compared with the ground floor indoor market which was fairly intimidating but after the first night you get used to it. Hong Kong in itself however was in no way intimidating, we could walk anywhere and besides the area around Chungking nobody hassled us to buy this and that and it felt great to be able to ... read more

Hi guys...I did start this blog nearly a week ago now yet the computer I was working on decided to crash so from about halfway through the Ha Long Bay stuff I'm actually writing about from Australia...rather than go through and change everything I'll just do my best :) Hello again everyone, hope you are all well. As this is my last night in Vietnam it seems the right time to update the blog with evrything that has happened in the last week from heading up to Hanoi to me sitting with the last local lager I'm yet to sample (Bia 333). On the 23rd we travelled upto Hanoi after arranging flights in Ho Chi Minh. We were staying at a place called Thu Giang guesthouse, located in the old quarter of Hanoi just a few ... read more

Good eve from Saigon (as it is to the locals), It'll probably be best to start this one off with the details of the last few days in Thailand which started with a day of dossing around the pool as our transport for a tour didn't turn up followed by the tour itself the next day after re-arrangement. The planned excursion was to an ancient area in Thailand known as Ayuthaya. Ayuthaya was the previous capital of Thailand and was also home to many of the royals over previous generations (although all I could pick up from our 'helpful' guide was that there was a nice king called mambo no.5...or something like that). A heavily Buddhist area, Ayuthaya played home to some of the grandest (yet wonkily constructed) temples and pagodas you're ever likely to see, ... read more

So far Thailand is the favourite, we have somehow found a fantastic apartment at guest house prices that is just outside of Bangkok but with a balcony that overlooks the skyline...it really is phenomenal and the term apartment isn't being applied loosely to just an en-suite room we have a fully furnished bedroom with plenty of walking space, a very well equipped bathroom with such a posh shower that it may even put the new one in my Mum and Dad's new en-suite to shame (sorry guys :/)...and we have kitchen facilities and satellite t.v that again shows all the football :D (although I have to some extent avoided watching ALL of it so as not to drive Tamara stir crazy and thus have made do with some fairly good films on HBO Out and about ... read more

Well here goes entry no.2....finished an amazing tiny stint in Singapore which culminated in a Singapore sling cocktail :)...Singapore food was amazing; I wish the deli could follow us around the world it was that good and cheap. And thus onto Sri Lanka where the queue at the airport resembled the first page of a where's wally book where they make the first one nice and easy for you;me and Tamara standing out from the crowd quite markedly...so much so that numerous times we were asked whether we were sure we had tickets for the right flight. Still the plane ride was comfortable enough with more leg room than the previous and plenty of tea so I was contented. Arrived at our hostel in Colombo very late, probably about midnight if not later but the beds ... read more

Hey everyone :) Finally settled in at our first accomodation the Drop Inn which whilst pretty basic is also pretty lively. We arrived here last night after the uncomfortable twelve hour flight but on the plus side did finally get to watch The Damned United, 'tis a bit of quality is that. First impressions are very good-the trains are like something out of the future all running on time :O and spacious and the weather is nice and sunny and about 30 degrees so the hat and scarf have been bundled to the bottom of the bag for now. Think tomorrow Tamara and I are going to head fully into Little India and the colonial district and see Raffles Hotel, maybe take in a Singapore sling coctail and ride the Singapore flyer (like the London eye ... read more