Well only a few more days until I get home! I'll be in London for a couple of days later this week as well (more shopping!) We had a two day/1 night boat ride- this is just the very beginning of tourist season in Turkey as it is still a bit cold here! The boat did not have ANY inside part- it was completely open and we had to sleep on the deck when it was cold and windy! The first day was okay but a bit windy- some people went swimming (not me!). The night was quite awful as two [View Full Entry]

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Since I'm on an Intrepid tour, we've done tons of stuff the last few days! Saw the Roman ruins at Ephesus, went wine tasting (fruit wines- I'll be enjoying my bottle of peach wine next to the harbour tonight!), and we had a really cool day at Kayakoy. We went for a 3 hour hike through a ghost village (it belonged to the Greeks that were depoted in the 1920s and all that is left is their stone houses and other buildings, home to about 2000 people!) to the cost and ended up at a beach where they had PARAGLIDING! Which [View Full Entry]

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So far Turkey is great! I'm really enjoying the group that I'm with and we are doing lots of interesting things. The first day here I went by myself to the grand bazaar where I just wanted to buy a few items, but ended up with many offers from men to take me out on the town that evening (including guitar playing, dinner, drinks, dancing....). Men also love to talk to travellers about their cousins/friends/own trip to whatever country you happen to be from- most often this is made up (although one man had the photos to prove it to me). [View Full Entry]

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So continuing on to victoria falls.... Victoria Falls has two sides, one in Zambia and one in Zimbabwe. Lots of people and tour companies are avoiding the Zimbabwe side right now but we went there because our guide said that they could drive us quickly out if need be. The town was obviously once quite prosperous but is now sort of a ghost town! We were told that things are improving now, and they are trying to adopt the south african Rand as the currency. We stayed at a campsite in the middle of town and the second you left there [View Full Entry]

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So going in no particular order, this post is about two places in Botswana we visited. In Chobe we did a sleepout inside the park, which was another of the best parts of the trip. We started by doing an afternoon/sunset game drive through the park to the campsite and saw a female lion that had tried to kill a buffalo but did not succeed. She walked down the road in front of us and then lay down next to a tree because she was exhausted from the hunt. We watched her for 30 minutes and she was gasping for breath [View Full Entry]

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Hello :) I'm actually writing this from London, since this is the first time I've had free wifi in almost a month! This set of photos is from Kruger National Park and Blythe River Canyon in South Africa. In Kruger we got an awesome surprise upgrade to these tent-like cabins that apparently cost $250USD a night! Much better than tents. The Kruger night drive was one of the highlights of the trip. About 1.5 hours was during sunset so we saw lots of animals really close to (or on) the road- elephants, giraffes, zebra, antelopes, etc. Then the next 1.5 hours [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick FYI in case you're here looking for trip updates... I leave Saturday May 21, make a quick one night stop in London and then fly to Johannesburg. The tour I'm doing is found <a href="http://www.africatravelco.com/details.php?tripid=000019">here</a>. I'll have internet access at some stops so I may do a quick update, but no photos! After the tour I'm in Cape Town for a few days and my hostel has wifi so there will definetely be updates (and photos) around April 16-19. See you then! [View Full Entry]

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Well I think this will be my last update...for a few weeks, anyways! Haven;t been doing a ton of stuff (since I am in Hanoi for 4 days), just shopping and eating edible food! Wednesday: In the morning we left our boat on Halong Bay and took a bus to Hanoi, which took about 4 hours. After checking in to the hotel I went to Koto for lunch, which is a restaurant similar to Friends in Phnom Penh (teaches street kids how to work in the hospitality industry). Not quite as good as Friends, but still nice to eat at. Then [View Full Entry]

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I've been without internet for a few days now, since boats and stilt houses in Vietnam don't have wifi. They should really get it! I wrote this entry over the course of a few days so all the tenses are off and I can't be bothered to fix them. Sunday: Train ride on the "Reunification Express" from Hue to Ninh Binh. The train was a long ride- over 10 hours. There were compartments with 4 people in each, and two beds on top of each other on either side. So this meant we could lie down, but if we wanted to [View Full Entry]

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More Hue! I haven't slept as well as I am on this trip since I got Daisy. Who knew a cat could be so disruptive! Today was a motorbike trip day (which I plan on buying when I get back to Canada...). First we took them to the boat pier and got on a boat for a short trip down the Perfume River to a pagoda. Of course on the boat there was a lady trying to sell us all kinds of things but she mostly ignored me (I must look too young/poor, lucky for me). Sellers don't bother me too [View Full Entry]

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