http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/WildcatMike/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from WildcatMike en-us Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:41:27 +0000 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:41:27 +0000 Hello all yes I am still alive and kicking after my last venture into south east asia. As I sit here in Melbourne on the first real day of daylight savings time I sit back and think about all the fun hat was had and all the beers that were consumed. After a month of being back in Australia I have finally started to get back into the swing of things with work and school stuff. I planned on submit http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-388098.html i know its been a while. To tell you the truth though in the five months that i have been here i really haven't done too much interesting stuff. That has mostly been due to complications with my student loans as well as an overall lack of funds but now that the summer is upon us in the southern hemisphere and i have been working to save a little bit of money I will finally be able to explore a li http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-352347.html I know its been a while and I apologize for that but I have been super busy getting settled in and also adapting to the Victorian winter man its cold here I guess after four months in SE Asia and then a few weeks back in San Diego during a heat spell my skin got a little thinner cause I have been pretty cold the whole time I've been here. Thats not to say that I don't like it the city is gre http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-304587.html My last day in Ubud was pretty cool Got to check out the monkey forest and watch monkeys pester other tourists who held large amounts of bananas in their hands. Pretty much sat and watched the monkeys for a few hours and laughed myself to the point were i seriously had the monkeys pretty bewildered not to mention the other tourists and local Balinese people. After Ubud I had the pleasure of retu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Lovina/blog-283974.html Sorry its been so long since i sent a blog but the place where i have been for the last 12 days has had pretty suspect internet as well as being very costly so i just decided to skip it until i got to a place that was much easier to send pics etc. But with all that I had a great time in the Gilis. I mostly stayed on the biggest one Trawangan the biggest and most geared toward backpackerspeople http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Ubud/blog-280638.html It has been a fun filled few days since i last sent a blog. Recently I had the big 27th birthday which was a lot of fun and also a little scary I'm in my late 20's that must mean that i have to turn into an adult sometime soon I guess. The day after my b day was a little rough I had to go and buy a new camera since i sat on mine at like 5am after a very emotion filled version of Oasis's Don't http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Kuta/blog-275758.html After a pretty rough night sleeping at the airport in Hanoi my flight was at 6am and it takes an hour to get to the airport from downtown so i figured that i didn't want to wake up at like 3am to leaveIt was really wierd everytime i would get comfortable they would make me get up and move like 20 feet down the way i don't really know why the airport is really small and there were only a few p http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-272631.html After Spending a few more days in Hanoi we finally got to see the magnificent Halong Bay and it definitely didn't dissappoint Very beautiful cliffs and peaceful conditions made sure that we had a great time on the trip. We ate lots of really good seafood and had our fair share of beer but pretty much just had a good time relaxing in the sun and enjoying the beautiful landscape. When we got back http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-271504.html After leaving Cambodia and heading to Vietnam I spent a few days in Saigon not really doing too much saw a few museums got ripped off the usual. I also did a bit of shopping and trying not to get hit by people on motorbikes not the easiest of tasks. It was so hot in Saigon that i had to finally break the bank and stay in a room with ac. The first night i stayed i tossed and turned through swe http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-269906.html The other thing that i did was check out two sites of mass genocide in Phnom Pehn and its outskirts. I kinda knew what to expect going in after seeing both Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps your never really ready for what you see in these places. I went to the killing fields first and was pretty upset at what i saw. lots of open pits where people were thrown into mass graves. You could se http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Phnom-Penh/blog-265943.html I did have some good times in Phnom Penh sure its crowded and does get a little boring and also frustrating with the constant questioning of motorbike or my favorite of smoke but the best was I got the superskunk my man which i thought was not only riduculous but also kinda funny. I guess that i look like the typical American pothead. I was also offered numerous other drugs from cryst http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Phnom-Penh/blog-265374.html To tell you the truth the 5 days that i spent in Sihanoukville were pretty uneventful. This is shown by the lack of pictures that I posted. Sure i spent plenty of time on the beach and also plenty of time on said bars on the beach but as far as doing anything of cultural relevance it just didn't happen. My day would usually start at around 11 or 12 followed by a quick lunchbreakfast and then on http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Sihanoukville/blog-265286.html If you can guess which one of these two places in siem reap i spent more time at then you know me better then you think. One is as backpacker bar that is a bit overpriced serving buckets of cheap booze and red bull can i ever escape and the other is a super famous temple complex and the biggest tourist attraction in all of Cambodia. If you guessed the temple then you would be wrong i spent the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-262317.html After spending a rather uninspiring two nights in Vientiane traveled by sleeper bus down to Pakse which is the close to the 4000 islands area of southern Laos. That was interesting as the oversold the bus and wanted me to sleep in a 3 foot buy 3 foot box with another person ended up sitting in the very back where i had at least a little bit of room to stretch the legs felt sorry for the perso http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/South/Si-Phan-Don/blog-259931.html Thats a friends reference for those who don't know. Now I'm not the biggest friends fan but i would guess that the locals who own the restaurants around town think that all of us crazy falang love it. People do nothing all day but hang out at the restaurants and watch stupid sitcoms all day. Thats the end of my rant As i did spend far to long in Vang Vieng then i am definitely one of those peop http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-257306.html I left from Chiang Mai at about 930pm with a couple of girls who i met who went to SDSU small world and headed to Chiang Khong were i was too cross the border into Laos. I can only say that it wasn't the funnest experience the roads were really bad like dirt and rocks and just overall in really poor condition. Not to mention the guy thought that he was running a rally course what was supposed http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-253957.html Have spent a few days here in Chiang Mai after a not to bad night bus from Bangkok. The bus was pretty much empty so i got two seats all to myself and even got to watch the new die hard movie in Thai yeah the only thing that i could understand was McClane. Still not a bad bus ride much better then the ride to surat thani anyway So what have i done here in Chiang Mai Not a whole lot. Mostly http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Mai/blog-251556.html Hello all When i left you last i had just got into koh phi phi and was probably complaining about how expensive it was... well i'm still complaining about how expensive it is but at least it is absolutely gorgeous This island was really beautiful and had lots of stuff to do on it besides the usual stuff that i did on Koh Pha Ngan. The first day that i was there i pretty much just explored the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Western-Thailand/Kanchanaburi/blog-249209.html Thats what i told the taxi driver as i left from Hadd Rinn when he asked me if i was going to Thong Sala. Everyone makes mistakes Anyway had an absolute blast on Hadd Rinn and drank myself silly so silly in fact that after a week there and two moon parties i got pretty ill. So ill that i had to get outta there before the full moon party. Had fun drank numerous buckets and stayed awake waaayyyy http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Ko-Phi-Phi/blog-247795.html Hello all and welcome back to Mikes travel blog. I know that it has been so long since you've all heard from me so rejoice and hear of my travels in SE asia After arriving at LAX for my flight to Hong Kong I was rewarded with a canceled flight and a 75 hong kong dollar about 10 dollars food voucher which i used on a fine meal that consisted of noodles and some kind of fish ball not to bad but http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Ko-Pha-Ngan/blog-244334.html