I decided against the ever popular Baz Bus (a bus that goes from Cape Town to Durban and allows people to get on & off at all major cities along the way) and instead decided to take a shot at public transportation and hitchhiking. The Garden Route is the stretch of South African coastline that extends from Mossel Bay to Storms River. It features beautiful beaches and warm water of the Indian Ocean and ends with the Tsitsikamma Coastal National Park region. My first leg of the trip is from Cape Town to the beach community of Wildernes. I bought a ticket on the Intercape bus for the 7 hour trip. It was on a Sunday and the bus dropped me off at George, a sleepy little town about 13 kms from Wildernes. Once I got ... read more

We were shuttled from Jackalberry to the Ngala lodge, the final game lodge of our trip. And as luck would have it, the best was saved for last. Ngala, meaning "Lion" in the local Shangaan language, is the only private safari reserve in the world-famous Kruger National Park. Ngala Private Game Reserve is host to two exclusive properties - classic Ngala Game Lodge in the north and contemporary Ngala Tented Safari Camp in the south. Ngala has exclusive traversing rights over 14,780 hectares (36,506 acres) of Kruger's two million hectares (4,940,000 acres), one of the richest and most strategically important wildlife areas on the continent. We were lucky to get Dyke as our guide who I am sure was a Jedi in his previous life. Thanks to Dyke and our trusty spotter (I forgot his name), ... read more

I touched down in South Africa at 6am local time and was glad to find the hotel my parent's had booked was only 60 meters from the terminal. I quickly entered the room at the luxurious hotel and headed straight for the hot water shower (my first in weeks). I laid down on the soft bed in the hotel room and pondered the fact that the Asia portion of my Round-the-World trip had concluded. I was now on the Dark Continent and new adventures awaited me. A few hours later, my parents arrived. We only spent the one night in JoBurg (we visited the Nelson Mandela Square for dinner at a steakhouse called the Butchershop) as we had a flight to Kruger National Park early the next morning. The short flight to Kruger took about 40 ... read more

Caught the overnight bus from Bangkok down to Phuket and then jumped on a ferry to the island of Koh Phi Phi. Once I arrived, I walked the narrow paths of the island (no cars allowed) and bumped into my Irish friends from Mu Nei, Vietnam. I settled into the Island Guest house (once again, no hot water!!!) and immediately set out to sign up for a scuba dive the next day. Having not slept much on the overnight bus, I called it an early night after taking a short stroll around the island and beaches. The next morning I awoke early for the dive. I went to a small restaruant for breakfast and found they had ESPN. So I enjoyed some college football bowl games before heading out for the dive. A group of 6 ... read more

Grabed the afternoon bus from Phnom Penh up to Siem Reap (I decided to pass on the boat trip which I heard was long and costly). For some reason there were a lot of mozzy's on the bus so I spent the 6 hours killing them as they flew by my window. I arrived at Siem Reap as the sunwas setting and I grabbed a scooter ride to the Happy Guest house as recommended by Beatrice (from Sihanoukville). I did not know at the time there were two Happy Guest houses but oh well. After dropping of my stuff, I headed to town for some food. The city center was very busy and much more upscale then I had imagined with a few streets closed-off to cars. These streets housed lots of bars and restaurants with ... read more