* December 7 - 11 - San Francisco * December 12 - Fly back to NYC I flew from Australia to LA and then on to San Francisco to visit my friend Yuan. He picks me up from the airport in a convertible - but I was still in shock that it was so cold. Actually, it really wasn't, but I think my blood must have thinned out in the dry heat of the Australian summer. It was still quite beautiful and sunny - the whole time I was out there. I thought I should appreciate it as I was [View Full Entry]

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* November 19 - Dec 7 - Return to Melbourne for last couple weeks of summer down under * December 1 - 2 - Mornington Peninsula * December 7 - Flight to San Francisco I returned from Adelaide to spend the last couple weeks in Melbourne. We made one last little excursion to Mornington Peninsula outside Melbourne. These were a pretty quiet couple weeks, but I enjoyed it - I soaked up the sun as much as I could. It was hot and the flies were out. It was strange to think of this year coming to a close. It [View Full Entry]

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* November 5 - 6 - Rainbow Beach with its 72 colors of sand * November 7 - My last trip on Oz Experience to Noosa and a night in Brisbane - Done with the Backpacker Experience Down Under! * November 8 - 12 - Reuniting with old friends Sanjeev and Danielle in Adelaide and visiting Tash and Dom * November 13 - 17 - Camping on the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia * November 18 - Back in Adelaide * November 19 - Back to Melbourne Done with the Backpacker Experience Down Under I got a Greyhound bus down to [View Full Entry]

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* November 1 - 2 - Airlie Beach * November 3 - 5 - Sailing aboard 'Powerplay' in the Whitsundays Check out this cool video I uploaded from one of our dives in the caves - having a little fun with a sting ray. No, didn't want to end up like Steve Erwin, but you have to really mess with them for them to be aggressive! Queensland is full of these fun diving and sailing trips out to the reef or the beautiful Whitsunday island. I did take a really amazing boat trip in the Whitsundays. Highlights like this trip [View Full Entry]

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* October 29 - Oz Experience Bus to Townsville and over to Magnetic Island * October 29 - November 1 - X Base at Magnetic Island I arrived in the early evening on Magnetic Island and stayed at this backpacker resort called Xbase. Actually, it was quite a good deal by Australian standards. I decided not to do any diving here - although I heard that the Yongala wreck was absolutely amazing. I met a few friends - Jay from Sydney and Maria from Germany and we ended up renting a Moke to cruise around the island. I was worried [View Full Entry]

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*October 25 - 27 Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef live aboard dive boat trip *October 27 Cairns *October 28 Day trip out of Port Douglas, Queensland - diving on the Great Barrier reef I flew up to Cairns from Melbourne on Wednesday night. Early the next day I left on a two day dive trip to the Great Barrier reef with Deep Sea Divers Den. The diving was beautiful, especially the last two dives at a site called Troppos on Norman Reef. The weather was absolutely perfect, virtually no waves, little current, great visibility, warm water, and lots of [View Full Entry]

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We flew down to Melbourne to see Shan and meet up with Jen's cousin Julia from Germany. It was wonderful to finally unpack my backpack, wear 'nice' clothes again - even wear makeup and not look and feel like a dirty backpacker. After over 8 months of traveling, all your stuff tends to get quite worn and acquires a special something that can only be described as a backpacker's funk. I basically just chilled out for the first couple days here - relaxed and did a lot of laundry! In Australia, it is quite luxurious and after staying in some pretty [View Full Entry]

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*Sept 21 - 25 SydneyWe finally said goodbye to Southeast Asia. It was so strange to leave Asia and get back to an English speaking country. Arriving in Sydney at the same time as about 50 other international flights, we stood in the immigration line for about an hour and a half - and that's before even getting to the baggage claim. We then waited in another hour long line to get through Australian quarantine. I was surprised at how unorganized all this was. I lost Jen in all the madness and ended up meeting her outside the terminal. Immediately we [View Full Entry]

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*Sept 5 - 10 Chiang Mai *Sept 11 - 13 Pai *Sept 14 - 16 Chiang Mai *Sept 17 - 20 Bangkok After getting the hell out of the rainy border town of Mae Sai, we caught a bus down to Chiang Mai, the largest city in the north of Thailand (and Thailand's second largest city after Bangkok). Chiang Mai is just beautiful, known for its several hundred wats - I hate to admit this, but by this point in the trip we were a little watted out - exhausted quite frankly. But I was really happy to chill for [View Full Entry]

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Sept 1 - Slow Boat to Pakbeng Sept 2 - Slow Boat to Houy Xai Sept 3 - Into Thailand and a bus to Chiang Rai Sept 4 - Jeep tour of Chiang Rai, Hill tribes, the Golden Triangle and up to the border town of Mae Sai Sept 5 - tour of Tachilek, Myanmar and journey down to Chiang Mai From Luang Prabang, we got on the 2 day slow boat up the Mekong to the Thai border. Of course, you could make it all the way to the border in 7 hours on a fast boat, if you wanted [View Full Entry]

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