Hello everybody!

Okay so I have been traveling since February 2nd now and this is my first blog post! ...appalling I know! But I'll try and make up for it and pick out the best moments I've had over the past 2 months or so.

So far I have to say that it has all been fantastic. As cliche as it sounds, I've met some amazing people and seen some amazing places and I can't believe I'm already half way there. To start off with, I realise that I was taking a giant leap to go all that distance on my own, I was nervous and excited, but took an initial lapse in confidence when I had my first breakfast in my hotel in Bangkok. Jetlagged out of my mind and wandering down to a dinning room that held a buffet that consisted of 80% food that looked like it was from another planet, I took at least 20 minutes picking out what I should have to eat. The food on the whole was pretty good that morning, and would get better and better as I travelled more and more throughout Thailand (pretty much all the Pad Thai and Massaman Curries I had throughout were incredible) but that morning unbeknown to me I picked out a soup, or so I thought, that was actually some kind of pink mayonnaise. I basically had no idea what went with what and I got some funny looks that morning...

Later that day I went to Vimanek, also known as the Teak Palace. The next tour was at 10.15, and I bought my ticket at about 10.17. I was fiddling round with all the stuff in my bag as I had to get my wallet, phone and camera in there as it was not allowed for things like that to be taken into the palace. So I was rushing doing that whilst following the group of people that were following the tour guide, without actually looking who the tour members were. To cut to the chase, it was a private tour for a group of about 25, 65+ Americans.
It was a bit late to turn back so I thought I'd just tag along. They didn't notice I was there at first, but one realized
and started speaking to me. He turned out to be a bloke from LA and fitted the stereotype of the ridiculously conservative American who kept speaking to me about England without knowing much about it. He constantly kept referring to Great Britain as 'you Brits' and literally said, 'you come over to my country and take all our Oscars don't you?' as if it was me!! He seemed really bothered about it so I apologised on Kate Winslet and Daniel Day-Lewis' behalf. Saying that, there were a few more people who were very very friendly who I got speaking to. One of which thought I was from South Africa........bloody Americans!

So initially, I was on my own, full of mayonnaise, verbally assaulted by an American, and in a single room. Something you should never do as a lone traveler. So a couple of days later, I started a 29 day tour of Northern Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia with a group of around 15 people. A few of the 'standout people' that I met from the group were Pauline (the guide from Chiang Mai), Erin (from Canada), Oli from (Surrey), and Chris (the windiest export from Canada who I had to share a room with).

During that month I did many many things (as you've probably seen in the pictures). I bamboo rafted and rode an extremely hungry elephant in Chiang Mai. He used his trunk to get bananas from us literally every 10 seconds; the trunk was like an animal itself. Travelled in a slow boat down the Mekong River. Went to the waterfalls in Luang Prabang and swam in a lagoon. Went tubing in Vang Vien, into Vietnam and nearly got run over in Hanoi, lived on a boat for 2 days and saw some phenominal geological structures in Halong Bay (just amazing), got a suit taylor made in Hoi An, visited the Cu Chi tunnels and War Museum in Ho Chi Minh city (fascinating! was all basically constant propaganda of hatred against the Americans), took a boat to the Mekong Delta to the rice factory, into Cambodia and went to Phnom Penh and visited the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng prison (again fascinating but horrific), and to the stunning temples in Angkor Wat near Siam Reap in Cambodia.

That month of travel was just amazing, and I'm sure I've missed loads out as it is impossible to sum up everything in one paragraph. After those 30 days I was back to being a lone traveler and I headed straight to Ko Tao with the intention of completing my Open Water PADI diving course. I stayed there for 4 days and did a total of 4 dives all together, 2 at the White Rock and 2 at the Twin Peaks. Without doubt one of the best things I have ever done as it feels amazing that I could go anywhere and have that freedom of being able to dive into a completely different world. I saw some amazing colourful fish, a stingray, a couple of seahorses, so much coral of every different colour, it was just brilliant and hopefully I'll be getting my advanced on a liveaboard in Cairns.The only downside was that I was peer pressured into wearing a bikini top for my final 2 dives by the 5 lads wearing frilly dresses I was diving with. My favourite was hairy northerner Steve who decided to wear, I have to say, wore an outstandingly pretty lacey dress. The problem was he genuinely thought he looked amazing and refused to take it off even after we got off the boat and even wore it to sign to recieve our open water qualification. He was comfortable in that for far too long.

After Ko Tao, I got the bus down to a beautiful island called Ko Lipe and met Pauline from the tour, along with her mates Sue and Paul. We spent a couple of days there and went on a day snorkelling trip around the nearby islands where I saw better fish and corals than in Ko Tao it has to be said. Definitely one of my favourite places so far as it was pretty much untouched compared to most of the islands around Thailand which are getting more and more touristy.

Following Ko Lipe, I said my goodbyes to Pad Thai, Massamans and Thailand and I traveled into Malaysia, Penang where I met up with a Spanish girl on the bus called Lucia. We stayed here for a couple of days and had amazing food. One meal was off a side street from a Muslim owned stall and just had the most amazing curry. The other was at Kapitans where I had the most amazing garlic naan.

After Penang, I got the bus to the Cameron Highlands, one of my favourite places so far. I stayed in Father's Hostel for an extortionate 2 pounds a night, (I complained when I left). Here I met a few nice lads, Dustin (Canada), Tobi (Germany) and Sam (Warwick). I initially went on a countryside tour, where I met Dustin, went to a strawberry farm and had the most incredible strawberry milkshake, an insect farm where I got assaulted by a small Malay man with a Scorpian as his choice of weapon, a honeybee farm (nothing special tbh, all the bees are gonna be dead soon anyway...just kidding I had some nice honey there) and the Boh tea plantations where I had a nice cuppa. The next day myself, Sam and Tobi walked did a bit of trekking. Up ahead we bumped into an older man who I will call 'Boris' for the purposes of this story. He was from Russia. He spoke about 4 words of English and appeared to be lost; continuously looking at his map, shrugging his shoulders and going "I don't know, I don't know!" So now there was four of us and we managed to hitchhike back to Tenah Rata. When we jumped off the van Boris said to us, "you like Rum?" And so we all ate a lot and drank copious rum thanks to Boris! I'll never forget the randomness of that whole situation.

It was then onto KL where I met up with Laura from the tour. An amazing city and got some great pictures of the Petronas Towers. After KL it was Melaka for a few days which was a nice enough town. All I ate here was chicken and rice in China Town for 60p at a time. Sounds simple but the most amazing tastiest thing ever!!!

And now I am in Singapore! Another amazing city and one I wish I had more time to spend in! My flight to Melbourne is tonight (1st April 2010) and where I will meet Pete, who I went to school with to begin the next chapter of my travels. We will travel the East Coast of Australia for 3 and a half weeks and then New Zealand for 4 weeks and will be home on 29th of May.

Always missing all the family and friends from back at home but not so much that I cannot wait for Aus and especially New Zealand. The main aim there is to dive the barrier reef in Cairnes, complete the Tongariro Crossing and skydive Lake Taupo.

I'll do my best to keep you updated from now on!!

xx