http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/TravelGoon/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from TravelGoon en-us Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:46:34 +0000 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:46:34 +0000 Well time to go home. In the end my trip lasted 603 days. I've been to 23 countries and boarded 31 plane flights my bag was only lost by an airline once. About 10 months were spent in New Zealand where I had 3 different jobs. I've read about 30 books taken 10 hours of video footage and I'm guessing about 6000 pictures. And I did it all with no broken bones and only one trip to jail.So I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/North-Holland/Amsterdam/blog-183980.html Well after finally ridding myself of my frickin job again I'm back on the road. For the last 30 days I've been bouncing around Indonesia specifically Bali and the tropical Gili Islands. My first stop was Kuta Beach where I met back up with Alan for the first time in 6 months. Kuta is the most popular travellers spot in Indonesia. It has really good food nightlife and plenty of really pushy http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/blog-158172.html After leaving Indonesia I returned to Malaysia for the second time during my trip. It was almost a year ago to the day and it was pretty cool to be back in Kuala Lumpur walking around the same streets remembering all the good times. I had 6 days before my brother Richard came to meet me and had a lot of fun meeting new people and playing lots of pool. But since I'd already seen most of what I wa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-164754.html After 18 months on the road I finally made it to Europe. My delirious flight from Kuala Lumpur to Vienna went smoothly after fortunately realizing at the last minute that it left at 2 am on June 3 not 2 pm. Missing that flight would have been such a pain in the ass not to mention costly. It was a little sad and oddly enough a bit intimidating to be leaving Asia. But of course at the same tim http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Emilia-Romagna/blog-171855.html When we last left off I was in Ferrara. Going there to visit Marcello was a very spontaneous decision that turned out to be a highlight of my trip. As soon as we got to his place we set up a table on his patio and decorated it with fresh crostini bread pasta with homemade pesto prosciutto and a bottle of nice cool white wine. Just a typical lunch. Followed by some espresso of course. Then his m http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Sweden/Stockholm-County/Stockholm/blog-178691.html Okay so maybe this won't be the most exciting entry but fuckit. Life is kind of normal these days. Well not really normal. But more normal than it's been. I guess. And honestly I really don't have the energy to properly explain what this experience of living and working in Auckland has been like. So I'll just stick to the basics and talk about nonsense and save the rest for when I publis http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Auckland/blog-126129.html But of course I knew there would be consequences. Complete disregard for any sort of balance between work and play must have its price. Ignoring the need for an income and living purely on impulsive and often completely irrational desire for over a year straight surely cannot go unnoticed. It hasn't. Coming back to Auckland over 2 months ago by myself feeling very worldweary and with my tri http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Auckland/blog-107323.html Well ok technically I am back in New Zealand now I didn't have time to get this posted before I left Asia. We left China on the 16th and flew to Bangkok from Beijing and now it's the 20th and I am in Auckland. But mostly this blog is about China. That place is freakin crazy and so I figured I'd get the last entry from Asia posted before anything nutty happens here in NZ. Returning to Bangko http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-96170.html We're in Hanoi just got here this morning after a 14 hour overnight train ride. Since my last entry we have been moving relatively quickly through southeast asia. Alan and I have until October 16 to be in Beijing for a flight back to Bangkok and we are definitely not used to operating under a deadline. But funds are running low and I'm not done travelling just yet. I needed to figure out wh http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-90550.html Yeah we're in Laos. It's really nice great scenery and great food. Lots of French influence on the cuisine here cheeses baguettes croissants etc... And everything is super cheap. It's amazing. But it's been a while since my last blog entry so I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on.Basically after renewing my Thai visa I went with Alan to Chiang Mai on an overnight bus from Bangkok. I http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-83135.html I've been in Thailand for quite awhile already. So long in fact that my 30day tourist visa ran out the other day. Thankfully Alan mentioned it to me the day before it was due so I made last minute plans to leave the country and come back with a fresh stamp in my passport. After visiting a travel office the cheapest and fastest way to do this was to simply pay 600 baht take a 6 hour bus ride http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-76682.html Borneo was not a place I planned on going. No particular reason but originally we just figured that after we got to Singapore we'd wind up heading back up through Malaysia on the way to Thailand. There were a few things we could have checked out Melaka the Cameron Highlands Penang.... but the reviews we got from other travellers didn't have us itching to go there. Not that they sounded bad http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sarawak/blog-68086.html Well well Malaysia. What the balls is going on I have no idea but it's really cool. If you've been to Asia you have an idea what I'm talking about but if not then no amount of writing can properly explain it. I'll try anyway. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Kelantan/Kota-Bharu/blog-63666.html Ahh Australia the land down under. Here are some fun facts The toilets flush clockwise just like the US. Nobody and I mean nobody drinks Foster's beer. And I haven't seen a single person throw a shrimp on a barbie. Or wrestle with a crocodile. Or get eaten by a shark.Needless to say I was quite disillusioned. I'm starting to think you can't believe everything you see on TV. We did h http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-56995.html Yeah that's me doing the biggest bungee jump in New Zealand the Nevis bungee 440 feet. All 3 of us came back to Queenstown yesterday so we could jump together and at 8am this morning we found ourselves on a 40 minute offroad bus ride up a mountain to the bungee site. It's hard to explain how utterly terrifying the jump was. The trick is to just forget every bit of common sense and human http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Queenstown/blog-50700.html A couple days after I posted my last blog entry I left the orchard. I wish I had some funny story to tell you like I got fired for throwing apples or something but unfortunately I don't. I left because my allergies were killing me on the farm and after a week of sneezing 24 hours a day I just had to get out of there. I honestly wouldn't have left otherwise apple picking is garbage but we m http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Christchurch/blog-47336.html Is this really possible Do I really have a job picking apples on a farm in New Zealand Do I really know how to operate not one but several different types of tractors Am I really working for a guy who regularly takes his dogs on pig hunts and told me that living in the country is about being able to wake up in the morning and take a piss on your front lawn with nobody around for more than http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/blog-43353.html Well we made it to Wellington the capital city of New Zealand and our last stop before we go to the South Island. I just left the bar where we watched the Super Bowl and it was surprisingly good. There were lots of people that came out. For some reason most were Steelers fans. Which was fine because East Coast unity takes precedence. We happened to run into our friend Randy who we met in A http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-38918.html Hello all. Right now we're in the city of Taupo. We just got back from a 3 day hike in Tongariro National Park which was amazing. And hard. To lighten our packs we left our tents at the hostel and stayed in the huts along the way that are maintained by the DOC. They are pretty well maintained and clean but the facilities are minimal. For example they have a couple gas burners but no pots http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-36511.html It's been awhile since my last update but we've pretty much been in the middle of nowhere. Auckland was so much fun. Our hostel rocked. It was called the Fat Camel and the setup was great each room was like a suite. It had a living room kitchen and bathroom with 3 dorm rooms around the living area. We were there for a total of 6 nights and became friends with almost everyone in our suite. http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-34761.html