Mused upon by me at some point, the frequency (around 1 a day) of earthquakes in New Zealand. Naturally, most of them are too small to worry about in any capacity, but the small set of islands in the midst of the South Pacific also is home to an incredibly violent geological past. Lake Taupo, for instance, the giant bullet hole in the centre of the North Island, was created by a gigantic explosion some 25,000 years ago. On my stay on the East Cape, we addressed the numerous safety measures in the event of an earthquake, most importantly, to run [View Full Entry]

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In contrast to the busy tourist bus route of the centre of the North Island, New Zealand's East Cape promised to be a venture into the rural, remote, and beautiful culture, lifestyle, and scenery that makes New Zealand unique. The first night was spend in a tiny lodge, boasting the only wild stingray feeding in the world. Unfortunately they had been scared away by a recent storm and would not respond despite the guide standing knee deep in the sea throwing out fish oil for a good hour. The saving grace was, without doubt, an immense barbeque and mussels banquet - [View Full Entry]

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My main (vague) objective for this trip was to, above all else, have a decently wicked summer. Clearly New Zealand is the place to be, but the reason why I decided to visit the other side of the world escaped me, as I stepped out of Auckland International. New Zealand - possibly officially the furthest country from my home town of humble UK - is of course so far South it is experiencing the bleak midwinter as you read this.* Luckily for me though, Auckland (at least) in winter is indistiguishable from the UK in summer. Auckland is a city pinched [View Full Entry]

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It is worth noting that I am currently wrestling with an onset of what I can only hope is delayed jetlag (although there are a number of things I have done in the last 48 hours that may be responsible), and so this blog may not begin as coherently as may be desired from all you eager readers. Anyway, for those of you who don't know, I am setting off to add the Southern Hemisphere to my conquered places list (a list which currently consists of The Northern Hemisphere ). This begins with a short stopover in Sydney. During the (double [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in this city and, almost instantly, were pleased we had sacrificed the not-oft-recommended Hue in favour of another night here. The town is not huge, and although it has a large tourist population, the locals still clearly overwhelm. The centre of the town is made of many old buildings (probably from some time in the past), and cars and coaches are banned from driving around it - only annoying locals on mopeds and annoying tourists on bicycles plague the streets. After finding a place to stay, we ventured into this old area to look for something to eat. It [View Full Entry]

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The train from Hanoi was, in all honesty, something we had never done before. I'm not the kind of person to pretend I've got an overnight train in Vietnam when I haven't really. Each compartment (because we got the cheaper 'hard sleeper' - hard presumably meaning difficult as opposed to solid) contained six people, and there was no sign of curtains to separate one bed from another. I could have made a social faux pas when I decided I was too hot and stripped down to my boxers, despite the locals sleeping fully clothed. I thought it would be ok - [View Full Entry]

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Currently am sitting in a small (and possibly the only) internet cafe in Hanoi. The only other one I could find was actually a 'Playstation 2 Cafe' that I resisted the urge to enter. The journey here was a long one, but thankfully we made the right choice in getting out of Laos, by flying. Where we made the wrong choice was by choosing an airline that apparently doesn't publish their safety records. Telling the story even more in reverse, we took a third and final coach journey out of Vang Vieng and back to Luang Prabang, for our airport rendezvous. [View Full Entry]

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Tubing - everybody hires a large rubber ring, a dry bag, (and a life jacket if they're cool) and sits on a river. People working at bars on either side try to pull them in. Everyone gets very drunk/wet/muddy. Approaching the shop where we hire our equipment, who should we bump into but the "Whoaaay!" guys from bowling (It's funny. It seems everyone on this side of the world knows what kind of person you mean as soon as you say "Whoaaay!"). It's their second day in a row, and they highly recommend it. We get in the river at the [View Full Entry]

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This is quite a difficult town to spell. It starts off quite hard, but now I'm not actually sure of the exact spelling, so far I've seen Luangprabang, Luangphrabang, Luang-prahbang, Louangprabang, making it all that more difficult. This is one of the main attractions in the country of Laos. Quite a small town, apparently a haven for those tourists who just want to come and enjoy the slow boat before coming and enjoying nice food. Thus, there are more than the average number of middle age people here compared to Southeast Asia in general. Since we decided to do something cultural [View Full Entry]

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Now it was that time everybody looks forward to at one point in their lives - the journey to the 'relaxed' country of Laos. This started by getting into a minibus in Chiang Mai without any seatbelts but lots of legroom. During this few hour journey, where Holly was convinced the driver was falling asleep and I started thinking about death, we stopped at a small shop in the middle of nowhere with many samples of nuts. We also stopped in a market with some women swatting away flies with butterfly nets. In retrospect, could have been catching them for farming [View Full Entry]

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