On the move
Hola and welcome to Lee (aka PJ) and Michys travel blog!! PJ and Michy
This is our communication hub for the next 12 months, so please keep in touch, read our travel blogs, and feel free to leave comments/messages so we still feel at home!
We are off around the world and will be back soon!!!
The countries we plan to see are..
Thailand (done)
Laos (done)
Vietnam (done)
Cambodia (done)
Malaysia (done)
Singapore (done)
Indonesia (done)
and Oz!! (done)
Highlights of our trip so far
*Tubing on the Nam Song river in Vang Vieng - Laos
*Watching the sun set over the Mekong river in Vientiane - Laos
*The hospitality of the Lao people especially on new years eve in Vientiane - Laos
*Sailing in Halong bay, with a crew of 5 (only 4 of us) amazing surroundings - Vietnam
*The journey from Muang Khau (Laos) to the border - the views over the mountains - seeing for miles and miles - Laos
*Angkor Wat - Cambodia
*Snorkeling in the lagoons around Ko Phi Phi - Thailand
*Prayer time at Majid Zahir Mosque around sunset in the very Muslim Alor Setar - Malaysia
*View over Mount Bromo at sunrise - simply stunning - Indonesia
**Things that we have found amusing
Lao lady boys - Thais are so much more convincing
The unlimited amount of funny misspelling on notices and signs
The inflated tourist prices for... EVERYTHING
Tuk Tuk drivers on Khao San road asking if me (Lee) AND Michelle want to see 'ping pong show' !
Touts in Laos selling sandwiches shouting - 'Hello Sandwich' , equally pineapples sellers in vietnam saying ' hello pineapple!!!!
'Hello banana' 'Hello motorbike' (touts selling stuff in Hoi An - Vietnam)
Same same but different in Thailand/Vietnam (the locals selling trips/bus journeys)
'You buy water' (street sellers in Saigon)
A notice in a window near Khoa San Road (Thailand) saying 'RAPID STD TESTS'
**What we have REALLY enjoyed so far
Banana Pancakes from just about any street vendor
Beer Lao in Laos!!!
Chang Beer in Thailaind
The climate
Lao Massages (1 hour for 4 quid)
Yummy Fruitshakes in Udomxai (Laos)
Cheese Baguettes from the market in Luang Prabang
Chinese New year in Vietnam ...everyone is sooo happy and kind
The Jacuzzi in Dreams Hotel - Dalat/Vietnam
Vietnamese People are so friendly and welcoming
Urap Urap in Java - tasty veggie meal
**Whats not so good
Finding bugs in the street market food in Luang Prabang (even though we didn't order them!!)
Price fixing in Vang Vieng (Laos)
The minus -3 nights in North Laos and being totally unprepared!!
The dodgey smell of Oyster sauce in general
Ah cockroaches
Indonesian bathroom smells
Should you wish to leave a comment on any of the blogs, its a good idea to choose - leave public comment as you don't need an email address, just add a comment with your name and .. 'ahem' comment!
Travel Blog Posts
A bit late... but Chang Mai!
Published: February 11th 2011Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Chiang Mai
September 4th 2009
We left Bangkok and splashed out on super comfy air condition seats on the sleeper train. We tried to book 2 upper beds but the train was full so we took 1 up and 1 down next to each other... however the bottom bed was so spacey that we both slept in the one bed! We arrived in Chang Mai very early and after shrugging off the pesky tuk tuk driver we headed into town only to discover everyone was asleep. We gave in and walked back to the tuk tuk drivers , made our apologies for ignoring their 'lovely advances' and hired one to take us to our guesthouse the Banilah. It took a while for the guy to find (it didn't help that we didn't pronounce 'Ban .. i.... LAH' correctly) but eventually he ... read more
Returning to the land of Smiles
Published: September 21st 2009Asia » Thailand » Central Thailand » Bangkok
September 2nd 2009
The last time we landed in Bangkok airport was December 2008, the first day of our travels so it was... very strange doing the journey again eight months later. The visa que had not changed and we were slightly worried about our bags doing a million and one turns on the luggage belt as we trawled through immigration. Another sign of our budget improvements we have made during our travels was onward transport to Khoa San road. Last time we hiked a taxi and payed 400 bhat (8 quid) this time we found a free shuttle bus to the local transport hub and endured the rickety 66p bus to our destination. It does feel slightly criminal being back in Thailand, especially around the Khoa San Road area - being our umpteenth visit. There is something about ... read more
August 30th 2009
Our flight to Singapore from Australia was uneventful (thankfully!). However it seems like you are flying for ages. After nearly 4 hours of flying from Melbourne you expect to be somewhere near Singapore, unfortunately the graphic of the plane flashing on the tv screens still show you are flying over Aus! We stayed in Singapore just a couple of nights and then took a bus over to Malaysia and back up to KL. You may be thinking why KL? (after spending a week there already) but to be honest we really didn't know where to head next! There's not much to tell you about our time in KL really. We found a new veggie place to eat - great food and dishes were around 60/70p - with a free Chinese drink. We revisited the mighty impressive ... read more
More Aussie animals as we say so long to skippy
Published: August 30th 2009Oceania » Australia » Victoria
August 21st 2009
We had just two day's left in Australia and we hadn't completed our 'must see animal list'. Zoo's are not really our thing so we headed to a place called Healsville sanctuary which is just past Yarra valley (a huge wine producing region). To be honest there's not much to put in this blog. We arrived early and got around almost all of the park. We fed the Kangaroos, saw a baby Koala, watched the bird show and visited the animal hospital (luckily no operations today!). We had a great day and added a nice inventory of animals to our list - the photos below will tell you which ones. Michelle loves Kangaroos - which she has just made me write. The following day we took it easy before attending another unsuccessful quiz night. This time ... read more
August 13th 2009
We had a week left in Melbourne and opted out of a trip to Sydney, after all we had come to Melbourne to spend some time with Jody and Stuart. So with just 7 days left in Oz we planned a busy week with lots of activities. The guys had returned to work after a 2 week break so it was down to Me and Michelle to organise our schedule. Monday - relaxed after a tough weekend drinking - easy. Tuesday - full of beans we headed out to the Great Ocean Road. Every Australian we met on our travels suggested this popular tourist attraction. For those who don't know.. it's not a theme park, water park, temple or shrine. Its a very long road that basically follows the ocean - the name kinda gives it ... read more
August 1st 2009
Warning this blog entry contains lots of Kangaroos!!!! Our drive from Melbourne to the Grampians took around 4 hours and credit to Jody who did an excellent job of getting us there safe - considering we all had a few drink the night before! We had pre booked a log cabin in a place called Halls Gap which is a village perched in a valley surrounded by huge mountains and vast green landscape. It's quite remote and only a handful people live here, most tourists come for a weekend break and the place has lots of holiday homes and log cabins scattered about. Our cabin was classy. We had a living room with sofa, tv and a gas fire (our saving grace!), two bedrooms with ELECTRIC BLANKETS, a kitchen and a bathroom. The bathroom was a ... read more
Penguins on the pier and it's cold over here!
Published: August 1st 2009Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne
July 31st 2009
Our flight from Singapore to Australia was on our 'international ticket' which meant we were flying in style with Emirates!!! Our last flight with these guys was back in December last year when we flew from the UK (time has flown by!). Emirates are excellent and we were looking forward to their groovy ICE on board system where you can play games or watch brand new movies!! Anyway enough promoting for Emirates... Our flight left at 6pm local time which meant we landed in Melbourne at 7am. The plane was full, the flight crew seemed grumpy and a small child was less than 2 seats away crying most of the time so sleep was impossible ....we arrived in Oz very tired. When we penned our travel route a few years ago Australia was not in our ... read more
July 28th 2009
We had to fly into Singapore from Bali as we needed to catch our connecting flight to Melbourne. It seems Singapore and KL are the transport hubs of South East Asia and we will be back in here again during our trip. Now it would be silly and well..... boring to write a blog EVERY time we passed through Singapore but decided on this occasion we would share just a few exciting details with you... and of course a few pictures! We have tried a few different guesthouses in Singapore and this time we booked a place called the Axis hostel. Michelle had emailed the owner and confirmed everything from Bali so we were relieved when we arrived in the evening that we had somewhere to stay. From the airport we jumped on the super efficient ... read more
So long Sanur as we head for cooler climates
Published: July 25th 2009Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Sanur
July 25th 2009
We arrived in Sanur with 16 days to kill before our flight to Australia. The challenge was deciding which beach to sit on for all those days??.... it's a tough life travelling! ;-) As we strolled along the shore looking at the miles of beach we were approached by a number of touts offering us cheap rooms so we checked a few before finding a little gem tucked away down a back alleyway called Little Pond. The guesthouse had two rows of rooms facing each other with a small pool in between. The rooms were very basic but for 5.50 a night you can't grumble!! Sanur is a very small resort on the opposite side of Kuta in the south of Bali. The resort is pitched a little more upmarket and away from all the Aussie ... read more
June 15th 2009
Call off the search parties we are still alive!! We know its been ages since we last wrote a blog so apologies if you have been eagerly awaiting an update. The problem is we have been in Bali for a few weeks doing absolutely nothing!! Well continuing from our last blog we left Mt Bromo and headed for a small non tourist town called Bangiwangi (great name). It was just an overnight stop before we headed off to catch the ferry to Bali the following day. There's nothing really to tell you about Bangiwangi. We checked into a plain hotel and took a room right next door to a mosque. Naturally we were woken up at 4am by the bellowing prayers. We had dinner in a locals home which consisted of fried noodles proceeded by coffee ... read more
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