http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/PJ-and-Michy/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from PJ and Michy en-us Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:55:31 +0000 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:55:31 +0000 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 onwar http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-432259.html 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 AusWe stayed in Singapore just a couple of nights and then took a bus over to Malaysia and back u http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-432256.html 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 bir http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/blog-430624.html 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 fu http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-427790.html Warning this blog entry contains lots of KangaroosOur 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 beforeWe 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 qui http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Grampians/blog-424312.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-424072.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/Little-India/blog-421923.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Sanur/blog-421912.html Call off the search parties we are still aliveWe 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 nothingWell 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 hea http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Ubud/blog-408312.html Our visit to Mount Bromo was amazing mind blowing infuriating crazy white knuckled and a whole lot of other emotions thrown in.Our journey began from Malang. We decided to catch a 3hr bus to Problibingo and then another connecting to Mt Bromo. We did our research before we left and felt confident that this journey would be stress free we even knew which guesthouse to check into.So far in Jav http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Bromo-Tengger-Semeru/blog-408298.html We were rudely woken up at 6 am by our alarm clock what's one of them and it felt really strange getting out of bed early Our cyclo driver who was waiting outside had a tough 2km ride to get us to the train station in time and he didn't make the best start by taking us to the BUS station instead of the TRAIN station still we made it.We decided to try our first Executive train which was by f http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Malang/blog-406427.html Another fun train to Java's second largest city and we have more train stories to tell...As well as all the usual stuff going on we have to add a few updates to our train experiences. Between all of the madness which included more trannies with musical instruments a guy with no shoes and dressed in rags drifted down the carriage like an angel with... air freshener This man cannot afford cloth http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Yogyakarta/blog-403937.html Just before I start writing this blog I thought I'd tell you what we are doing RIGHT THIS MOMENT...Well I'm Lee sat on the bed listening to Three little birds by Bob Marley obviously writing the blog... Michelle is washing underwear and hanging it out in the sun to dry as we have just found out there are no laundry's here and ... basically we have no pants.Anyway.. our trip from Cisarua to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Bandung/blog-403926.html Bogor's main attraction is the botanical gardens and it's a big draw for locals as well as westerners. The packed train certainly suggested that it would be busy. Scores of families lined up along the platform and when the train arrived everyone jumped on. This was our first taste of Indonesian trains and the only ticket we could buy was economy.Trains come in three classes EKONOMI no seat numbe http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Bogor/blog-403912.html Jakarta Sounds cool but is a hole.We didn't have the nicest introduction to Asia's poorest country. Indonesia has its fair share of bad press lets face it. Governments post information on travel websites and deter would be travellers from coming here. However Indonesia has the 4th largest population in the world along with 3 different time zones so its pretty big.. and to put it all into perspec http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Jakarta/blog-402877.html Upon arrival at Singapore's immigration we were diverted into a 'special screening' tent. The effects of the Swine flu are really spreading worldwide and as newcomers to Singapore we were scanned with thermal imaging to see if we had been infected However once we were cleared 'virus free' up next was the drug trafficking check. Michelle breezed through without any questions but Lee was put throu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/Changi/blog-402233.html Our bus from KL to Melaka was strangely an all male all Indian bus .. so when we boarded Michelle took the usual 'white woman stares' in her stride.Malaysia has great transport links and the travelling along the English looking highway only took 2 hours. Another local bus dropped us at the pornographic sounding 'Red Dutch Square'. Melaka is a world heritageUNESCO site and is very much like Hoi A http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Melaka/Melaka-City/blog-398549.html 'mmmmnnnmmmmdumdumdum' the guy sitting next to us had his hands together and head bowed. Tears streamed down his face and people around us took deep breathes. Another bump and the light came on to belt up. The staff looked worried when another bout of turbulence rocked the plane from side to side. Imagine if the engine bucks and we go down the oxygen masks would drop down but that would not save http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-398015.html Suddenly our surroundings changed. One minute we were sat waiting for the mini bus to pick us up surrounded by mountains forest and a cool morning mist... the next being thrown out of our seats by the 2 metre waves on a speedboat to a desert island.The speedboat from Kuala besut to Kuala besar took us an hour and the guys in the port initially decided that due to the storms it was peeing it dow http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Terengganu/Perhentian-Besar/blog-396427.html Taking a local bus to the Cameron highlands was probably not our best choice... after 4 hours of travelling and arriving halfway in Ipoh we were knackered and decided to bed down for the night. A quick look in the guide book and we headed across town towards one of the very few choices of hotels. The place was a dump so we looked at another... which was even worse... the rat traps on the landin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Pahang/Tanah-Rata/blog-395340.html