I'm slacking....

Sorry guys. I've been receiving emails telling me off for not updating my blog. Its nice to know that people do actually read this thing considering the amount of time it takes me to write it all up! Thanks for that!

This hostel we're staying in now has free Internet. I'll try to get a bit done tonight. Just so you know though, I'm in Australia. Weather here is pretty drear - lots of rain, cloud and wind (Perth and Brisbane excluded), but I'm having a good time!

Watch this space!

Asia in summary...

The Highlights
- Seeing Mount Everest in both Nepal and Tibet.
- Getting back down to Namche Bazaar on the Everest Base Camp Trek and having a shower for the first time in seven days!
- Watching the monks debating in the Sera Monastery, Tibet.
- Beijing, what a great city.
- Chilling in Luang Prabang, Laos.
- Swimming in the Kuang Si Waterfalls, Laos.
- Touring the battlefields in Vietnam.
- Sunrise at Angkor Wat, Cambodia.
- Learning to dive in Thailand and swimming with a turtle!


The Low Points
- Suffering the altitude, the cold, a chest infection and diarrhoea in Tibet.
- Northern Vietnam.
- Getting painfully home sick in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
- The bus journey from Siem Reap, Cambodia to the border with Thailand.


Things I will miss...
- The cheap but very tasty street food in Bangkok.
- Cheap accommodation!
- The train journeys.
- The fresh fruit shakes.
- Sunshine, dare I say it... Australia is overcast, cold and rainy...
- You get a lot more smiles in Asia.
- The depth of culture - Australia and New Zealand are babies in comparison.


Things I wont miss!
- Feeling like you can't trust anyone because they're after your money.
- The oppressive heat - yuck.
- The mosquitoes - hate them.
- The Vietnamese food - its far too oily.
- Dodging traffic!

KohTao (again), Thailand.

We wanted to get back to Koh Tao to complete the advanced openwater diving course.

There were five 'adventure' dives to do:

- a navigation dive
You're supposed to learn how to navigate underwater. Reena and I got lost and had to surface! It was absolutely hilarious!

- a peak performance buoyancy dive
On this dive you learn how to improve you neutral buoyancy underwater, so you can 'hover' at the same depth without having to kick and flail your arms about... I still need a lot of practise on this skill!

- a night dive
Terribly scary. I dont like not being able to see much. It was the full moon so there was a lot of junk floating around the water so visibility was pretty rubbish. You get a torch but I would have prefered a flood light! Just at the end of the dive we saw a turtle rising to the surface to catch his breath. Really amazing sight. We all followed and got attacked by a small shoal of fish at the top - weird. Our instructor said he'd never experienced that before and that it was probably due to the full moon.

We headed out just before sun set and jumped in as the sun was setting. As we swam along under water it became darker and darker....

- a deep dive (30m)
I couldn't sleep the night before thinking about this dive. When we had got down to about 27m the water suddenly went cold and visibility dropped to just over a meter. I started to panic.... When you get deeper in the water you can suffer something called nitrogen narcosis. The nitrogen level in your blood rises and can an effect on your brain. Most people feel euphoric. Just my luck that I would be one to get the anxiety! Added to the panic I got really bad vertigo. It felt like I was in a whirlpool spinning round faster and faster. I grabbed Reena's hand and indicated that I needed to go up. It took two instructors to keep me down. Jo pointed to the floor - I realised I was on my side thinking I was vertical. I straightened myself out and sorted my head out! Phew! That was a really horrible experience. You're always told to watch your bubbles to distinguish which way is up, but when you're in a state like that its hard to think clearly. I'll know for next time...

- a naturalist dive
You get to identify all the different fish and coral underwater.

After two days we obtained out advanced open water licence! Yay! Really proud of ourselves :)

A very pretty bird we saw when having our last lunch on Koh Tao.

Koh Phangan, Thailand.

With a bit of persuasion I decided to make the trip to Koh Phagnan for the full moon party. We had heard so many mixed reviews of the night we weren't sure whether it was worth the journey, but one of Reena's friends was there from London and thought that we might as well!

Since we were kicked out of our divers accomodation we decided to take the ferry across on the day of the party, then get the ferry back the next morning hoping that we'd be able to stay up all night. That way we could save one nights accomodation! We made it Haad Rin Beach just after lunch and met up with Cecilia. Am I glad we made the trip over... we spent all day in her hotel pool! Such a luxury for us.

In the evening just before dinner we went out and sat on the beach. We could see storm clouds approaching from Koh Samui, an island just south. The wind picked up as the clouds drew closer and it rained for 20 minutes or so. Pretty cool to watch!


We saw this dead creature on the beach. After consulting a marine life textbook, we decided that it was a porcupine fish. Very sad :(

After dinner it was time to head down to the beach. Apparently at this time of year there are a lot less people about, which suited us just fine. We didn't lose each other once - and there were seven of us! We were told before we left Koh Tao that there was a good chance you'd lose each other in the masses and spend hours finding one another again (if you didn't have a meeting point).

There's loads of guys and girls on the beach flinging fire on strings around their heads (i forget what its called). Impressive though.

The full moon party is an excuse for people to excessively intoxicate themselves (they sell alcohol by the bucket load - literally), and party like crazy the whole night through. Theres different 'tents' down the beach pumping out various kinds of music, from cheesy dance to drum and base. We spent the night working our way down the beach through each one. By 4am I was getting really tired. Some people had already conked out by midnight (not exactly sure what they had ingested!). There is even a designated sleep area in the middle of the beach where you can go and sleep in 'safety'. I just found a quietish spot to set up camp and passed out! I kept getting woken up by well meaning party goers to see if I was ok, which was slightly annoying since I was fine and only wanted to sleep! Reena tells me they kept leaving me free bottles of water - I didn't get any though, Reena drank them all!

The view from 'mushroom mountain' (its easy to guess what kind of shakes they were selling up here), looking across the water down the beach.

On the ferry back to Koh Tao at 7am. Everyone was pretty much passed out on the top deck. It looked like the aftermath on a battle field! I cant help thinking that the guy in the white t-shirt must have had such a sore neck when he woke up...

Koh Tao, Thailand.

Our little hut on Koh Tao.

We arrived in Koh Tao after an overnight bus journey and ferry. Sounds pretty simple... we were lead to believe it would only be one bus for the duration of the trip. Nope. Not one, but three! We got off the final bus at about 06:30.

In my mosquito net! They are such a mission to get into...

We arrived in Koh Tao in the early morning incredibly tired, but were persuaded by a tout on the boat to go and check out one of the diving schools on the island. Once we arrived we were sat down and given a cup of coffee. Before we knew it we had signed up for a course to get our PADI openwater diving licence!

Koh Nang Yuan. An island just north of Koh Tao. This was the site of our first dive - Japanese Gardens.

On the dive boat. Thats our istructor, Adrian, on the left.

The next few days went really quickly. Breathing underwater for the first time is such a peculiar feeling. Every part of your body is telling you that what you're doing is completely unnatural and that you should NOT be doing it. I panicked the first time I went under and had to come up again to the surface, ripping all the equipment off my face and gasping for air! Completely silly because the gear that you're wearing provides you with more than enough to breath on. It took me about 15 minutes of breathing underwater to start to feel a little comfortable. Reena at one point panicked and jumped to the surface. I saw my instructor signal to me to stay down, which I did... and I started to look all around. It was then that I noticed all the little fish swimming everywhere! One even stopped infront of my mask and pood - ha! After learning various skills like what to do when your mask comes off, or if your regulator (breathing equipment) falls out, we were ready to go on our first dive. In all we went on four dives at various sites around the island, down to a depth of 18m. We saw some amazing coral, and lots of colourful fish. My favourite at the moment is the butterfly fish. They mate for life so you can see them swimming around in pairs. When you see one on its own, its very sad because it means its partner has died :(

Just about to jump in!

There was also the trigger fish... While happily swimming along the bottom, I passed this rock on my right. As I looked up I saw my instructor spin around in front of me and signal that a trigger fish was nearby. He then suddenly pushed me to the left. As I looked right this big fat black fish with sharp scary looking teeth was looking right at him. About a second later it darted straight for him headbutting my instructors fins! Apparently they're very territorial fish and will very easily become angry and attack. They swim at you, headbutting you while biting. These fish eat coral... they have really sharp teeth. When we surfaced my instructor told me that the trigger fish was looking at me when it started to get angry, which is why he shoved me out of the way! For some reason our instructor enjoyed provoking these fish. He's really proud of all the trigger fish bite marks in his fins! I reckon he knew the fish would be there!

Our third dive site. Yuan Thien. We got to swim under and between rocks - known as a swim through. Pretty cool! I managed to hit my tank a few times on the rocks above me... I'm not terribly graceful underwater!

Well after our four dives and an exam, I passed! I have my openwater licence now, and have now signed up for the advanced course... which we start tomorrow.

Reena, Adrian (our instructor) and JT (a Noweigan guy who was filming our last two dives). We only found out after the course that Adrian, a Canadian guy, was only 21! He became an instructor when he was 20. You really couldn't tell. It felt like he was about 27 - very professional and he was able to really calm me down underwater when I was freaking out! I feel really proud of him - as if he was like a younger brother. I must be missing Jimbo!

Koh Tao is a really chilled island. All the people we spoke to who'd been to the islands always quoted Koh Tao as their favourite. We can see why. Its smaller, cuter and less touristy than the other islands. Although, if we weren't diving I'm sure I'd get pretty bored here quickly. Not very much to do other than sit on a beach and eat!