Siam's gonna be the witness To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness This grips me more than would a Muddy old river or reclining Buddha Well...I can't say Thailand would have been in awe of the display of brain power by these two intrepid travellers (although our spotting of scams was immediate indicating there was some activity happening up there) but Craig and I did rather enjoy seeing both the muddy old river and the reclining Buddha. Maybe the four rather than One Night in Bangkok was the simple explanation for this phenomena. Having indulged my need to refer to a [View Full Entry]

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You know how relaxed you are about your holiday when, after leaving Perth, you land in Phuket. Hmmmmmm, Craig and I scratched our heads. "Where does it say we have a stopover before Bangkok?" "Oh, here it is on the itinerary". "Oh, so it does". "Well, here we are!" Craig and I had been planning this trip since December when we were both living and working in Perth. After attending the 'Railway Stakes' at Ascot in late November, Craig and I discovered our shared interest in the horses. So then we naturally attended a trots meeting. The next step snowballed from [View Full Entry]

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Craig and I chose to get tickets for just one of the disciplines for the 3-day event - the cross country. It was a fabulous day out, and the first Olympic event of our trip. After finding out how to get there via public transport, the whole process worked excessively smoothly. The cross country course was around a golf course at the Beas River Country Club, north of Hong Kong. We were on the first train of the morning, caught one of the many double-decker shuttle buses to the country club, breezed through security and were delighted in receiving our free [View Full Entry]

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Well, I had 2 intentions prior to my visit to Macau. The first was to take in the architecture (given the strong Portuguese influence of years past and the Chinese gambling culture of today) and the second was to jump off the Macau tower, the highest sky jump (on a wire not a bungee cord) you can perform in the world. Craig, on the otherhand, had limited interest in either pursuit but was happy to tag along in the hope of doing a yet more shopping! I really enjoyed the place. Macau is probably not the spot to spend more than [View Full Entry]

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My trip to Sabah will be presented in 3 parts - the Coast (Kota Kinabalu and Kinarut), the Jungle (a night in the jungle and Malay village home stay, the orangutans at Sepilok, and the Probiscus monkeys) and the Mountain - Mt Kinabalu. So here starts part 1..... I arrived in Kota Kinabalu on 21 December 2007 having managed to start and finish packing only a few hours earlier. It was the least prepared I have ever been for an overseas holiday, such a last minute thing. My accommodation was initially a cheap hostel right in the heart of KK but [View Full Entry]

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One of the primary reasons for my visit to Sabah was to climb Mt Kinabalu. At 4,095m, it is the highest peak in the area and therefore worthy of the effort - and the amount of effort I significantly underestimated! Rather than climb up to the peak and back the same way, our group started from the west on the Mesilau trail which is 2 km longer but much prettier than the Summit Trail. So Day 1 consisted of an 8 km trip to Laban Rata. I thought 4 hours would be a good estimate of the time required. I was [View Full Entry]

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Where to start part 2? After a public bus trip to a village in central eastern Sabah, we really started our adventure. Big packs were stowed away, day packs prepared and much DEET applied - we were off to the jungle. We jumped in a boat and headed to our jungle camp where we learned how to hang our hammocks, our accommodation for the night. After mastering that art, we headed down the river in search of wildlife. We saw heaps of macaques, many probiscus monkeys, a few hornbills but best of all Alice spotted an orangutan! He was a young [View Full Entry]

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Well, home at last! At this stage, I have very mixed feelings about being back in Australia. Whilst I did have times during my trip that I wished I was home, these feelings tended to be infrequent and passed relatively quickly. I did have a great time travelling - meeting new people, seeing and experiencing something new each and every day. Still, all good things must come to an end and it is time for me to start replenishing my bank accounts given the severe thrashing they have taken over the past 6 months. On the positive side, in the 2 [View Full Entry]

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Xian - home of the Terracotta Warriors, and they definitely were the highlight of the days Dad and I had in Xian. In keeping with the “Merryn’s budget tours” tradition, Dad and I got to the Terracotta Warriors on the public bus and enjoyed the unlimited time we had at the complex. Most of the tour groups stop for 2 hours, or, if you are lucky, 2 and 1/2 hours. We were there for well over 3 hours. Of course, with Dad and I jostling for the same photo spots, it was always going to be a long stay. I also [View Full Entry]

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After arriving in Beijing without accommodation pre-arranged (sounding like a pattern to you?), I was lucky enough to find a hotel reservation desk at the Beijing train station and was checked into a relatively nice hotel room close to a major shopping area by 8 am! After wandering the local area all day, I went and met my Dad at the Beijing airport. He was able to join me for the final 2 weeks of my trip and China had always been Dad’s dream destination so this opportunity was perfect. After too little sleep, we spent our first full day in [View Full Entry]

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