Dan and Kim

Working at the Green Ant Cantina After a week of being in Cairns, me and Daniel both got jobs at the Green Ant Cantina which is the best Mexican in Cairns. I’ve been working as a waitress and Dan as a kitchenhand. Our time at the Green Ant has been great. 18 weeks has gone so quickly and we’ve made some great friends whilst we’ve been here. Our manager Lisa is originally from Huddersfield and moved to Australia 4 years ago. She said she only employed us because we’re Northern and since we’ve been here her accent has become stronger and the Aussies have been struggling to understand our conversations. We spend a lot of time out of work together and she’s been a bit of a tourist guide for us both. She drove us on ... read more

1st Woke up feeling feverish and tired, couldnt eat all day and spent most of the day asleep. I had all the symptoms of malaria and seeing as i hadn't exactly been keeping up with my tablets i was very worried. We went to reception and they sorted us out a lift to the doctors but when that was closed we had to go to the hospital. Once there i was examined and told that i had to wait longer to see if my fever hung around and if it did to go back to the hospital. I was hoping that it would go soon. the taxi driver wanted 1000 bht for the lift but we refused and paid 500, it wasnt exactly far he was just ripping us off. 2nd Still felt like shit, forced ... read more

19th So we arrived in Surat Thani at 5 a.m. not a good time when you've had hardly any sleep and it's surprisingly cold. We got herded into a small open bus station that was more of a shed. Our onward bus wasn't until 7:30 so we had a bit of a wait. After an attempted sleep our bus turned up and got us to the ferry terminal, from there we were off to Koh Phangan. We arrived on the full moon party island with blistering heat and plenty of sun, but by the time the tuk tuk had got us to our accomodation it had started pissing it down! great. We'd booked a bungalow with a sea view and the place was pretty spacious and the views were unbelievable. We caught up on sleep and ... read more

13th March We were up early to get breakfast before we set off towards Pak Beng. the boat was big enough for us all to spread out and relax. We were on it from 8 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. and i was glad we had enough to keep us entertained, we'd bought books, sudoku, ipods and cards, but it was still boring and most people slept for the whole day. Not much to say about the whole day, we arrived in Pak Beng which was a town with not much to do in it. For tea we both ate buffalo, Kim's was curried and mine BBQ'd. To relax we went to the only bar in town, which turned out to be more like a drug den, we didn't stay long after we'd been offered coke, met ... read more

7th March we were supposed to meet at 6 a.m. to leave for Laos, but an alarm clock malfunction meant we were woken at 6:30 by the hotel reception speaking what sounded like half English and half mouse. It was a 7 hour drive to Laos and we were going along nicely until a puncture saw us stranded in the rain at the side of some unknown Vietnamese highway, it took all of 20 seconds for local children to crowd around and stare. I seemed to attract alot of the attention, the guide explained that it was because i was being compared to a movie star, who was overweight, like me, and excellent at kung fu, not like me. We soon figured out that our bus driver had not a clue about changing tyres but we ... read more