Joebutler

The last few days have been off the chart of enjoyment levels. We had a really enjoyable night out in Sydneys trendiest bars with two gappies from last year, Henry and Emily. Henry drove us back to our hostel giving us a night tour of all the main sites like the opera house and bridge etc. all lit up and it paid back all the lifts i gave him back to kc. Then we left next morning for surf camp which was a pretty long drive away so i spent it all sleeping on the coach. Spot X was a really cool little place with not much there other then a little mobile home holiday village where the surf camp set up. We had little converted containers which had 3 bunk beds cramed in to sleep ... read more

Everythings still going really well, time is flying by, i swear the days are shorter in the southern hemisphere (or it may just be because most of them only start at midday due to hang overs and ridiulous world cup kick off times) We have been to the southern most tip of Australia and seen its highest mountain already. We've seen tons of Kangaroos, 1 wombat and a few red back spiders. Today we saw the opera house and had a game of frisbee in the massive Hyde Park. We're going out in Bondi tonight and hopefully also catching our second Oz experience bus at 6:30 am tomorrow. This will take us to surf camp where we get our free surfing lesson which should be good. The hostels we've stayed in so far have all been ... read more

HI everyone just to let you know i'm fine and all is well. Melbourne is a pretty cool city, its massive so it took us a while to find our way around. The streets all look really nice clean and spread out. We've been staying in a base hostel and theres loads going on here, it has different activities everyday. We've met a lot of English people and had a lot of laughs with them. Tonight we're going to an Austrailan football game then coming back to watch the first game of the world cup at 4am before leaving to the australian alps at 6:30am, so should be getting lots of sleep tongiht :). We're in Sydney on the 14th so that will probably be my next chance to write. Love Joe xx... read more

We're all having a great time, been to some amazing places. The night life in Koh Samui was brilliant with some great beach bars and pretty big clubs. We found one on its opening night and got loads of free drinks. Koh Tao was a really chilled out place as well and we had some hilarius nights out. The beach there really smelt of fish though. We leave for Australia tonight. All safe and well, hope u are to! xxx... read more

Sorry its been a while but we've had a pretty busy schedule and a few times i've arrived at internet cafes trying to update you but it's been closed or not workng. Not a whole lot more happened in Hong Kong apart from our day trip to Macau Casino where Huw again won a substantial amount of money (over 100GBP) playing 3 card poker. It had the same name but was really different rules and we had no idea what was going on but they kept handing him chips so we kept smiling. We got the plane and hotel transfer in Bangkok fine and it is much hotter here. We found the main backpacker hotspot pretty easily, its just 1 long road called Ko San with all the market stalls and bars along it. We didn't ... read more

After a surprisingly quick 11hour flight to Hong Kong (spent watching Avatar and sleeping) we arrived in Hong Kong airport. First impressions driving to through the city in our taxi were that it looked really clean and also very green. Lots more trees and shrubbery in these really well kept gardens everywhere. The huge skyscraper apartment buildings are set against a backdrop of mountains so its pretty dramatic scenery. The driver found our hostel fine but theres only 1 really cramp little lift that we have to take which normally has a queue. The room is small but alright as we don't need much and it has A.C importantly. We went for a wonder about after putting our bags away and found a really good little noodle bar where we had roast goose in with noodles ... read more

I'm now back home and back to work. It was brilliant to be back and see everyone again but i had my first day back at work today and already miss travelling. Delhi was really good and we saw so many fascinating places, like the place where Gandhi was shot and also a tomb that was older then the taj but looked just as beautiful called Humuyens tomb. I also went to an IPL match (on my own as the girls didn't fancy it) which was so brilliant, such a party atmosphere and the music hardly stopped. But the cricket was really exciting anyway and Matthew Hayden hit some huge sixes with the revolutionary new bat that nobody ever used before. I saw Murilitheran bowling as well which was cool. Disaster struck when i was leaving ... read more

Sorry its been a while since my last entry we've been on the move so much and also getting on and off trains at ridiculous timings has messed about my body clock a bit. I have seen soo much since my last entry so this one maybe pretty big providing i have enough money in my wallet to pay for this slow connection. From Goa we got the train to Mumbai where we stopped for a few hours. It was still enough time to meet up with an a volunteer i met before and he showed me round the major sites like the gateway to India and the Taj hotel, which was the one attacked by terrorists. I was surprised how much of the city i could have mistaken for London as many of the big ... read more

The last few days in Goa ahve been probably my best so far in India. Goa is just such a magical place and i love it here sooo much. It was well worth the day and a half spent on the sleeper train, leaving at 10:45pm on the 1st and arriving at 5.30am on the 3rd. It was quite comfortable on the beds and they bring good free food, better then you get on a plane. I had a tasty chicken Bryani which i have been eating quite a lot of recently. Its the only thing they have on the menus here which bares any resemblance to a curry house back home. In my opinion the naan breads are not as tasty as the Jalsha's but who am I to judge. They are just a lot ... read more

I will officially leave my Placement on Monday 1st of March so most of the last few days I have been saying goodbye and handing out prezzies to all the wonderful kids i've met here. I don't think there are any that i will be happy to be seeing the back of but there are definitely boys i will miss more then others. At my last cricket coaching one of the boys had got me a little gift and the coach gave me a card which everyone had signed so that will be really nice to look back on. I have a had a bit of a cold recently but its starting to go now and i didn't have a temperature or anything. This weekend we're going on another trip similar to last weekend where we ... read more