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Okay, so I decided it was time for another blog...at last.
My last blog was in Cairns and since then I've travelled quite a long way and I'm going to try and give a brief overview of what I've been up to.
The east coast of Australia was really good fun although the 3 weeks I did it in probably wasn't long enough. From Cairns I went to Airlie Beach which is where sailing boats leave for the Whitsunday islands. I did a day cruise which was good, where I got to see the famous white sand beach, snorkel with turtles and see big sting rays.
From Airlie Beach I went south to Rainbow Beach which is from where I did a Fraser Island trip. This was possibly the best thing I did in Australia and I had a great time. It's a 3 day, 2 night self drive 4x4 safari on Fraser Island which is one of the worlds biggest sand islands. As a group we drove around to amazing lakes, over the beach and through bumpy sand roads. It was great fun and I loved driving the 4x4. I did end up breaking one of the springs at one point but luckily the car was so old that we didn't have to pay. I was very relieved!
From there I went down the coast to the Sunshine Coast which has the most high rise apartments and hotels I've ever seen although there isn't much to do there except shop and go to the beach.
Further down the coast was Byron Bay which is a laid back hippy town that was a lot of fun and I stayed at a great hostel there.
Then I got to Sydney where I spent a few days. Overall, I have to say that I preferred Melbourne to Sydney and the big sights of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were a little underwhelming, maybe because they are so well known throughout the world that I was expecting more. I had a good time there though and I really liked Glebe, which is the area I was staying just out of the city centre.
From Sydney I flew to Singapore on Christmas Eve! By the time I found my hostel in Chinatown it was 12:30 on Christmas Day morning but luckily the couple that owned the hostel were still up and expecting me. Christmas Day was a very surreal day. I met a friend that I first met in Fiji who was there with her family and so I spent the day with them seeing the sights and eating some traditional Asian food for "Christmas Dinner". I spent a couple more days in Singapore after that exploring the city before I caught the train north to Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur. Where Singapore was a very well organised, "safe" city (a little boring), Kuala Lumpur was a little more crazy, especially in Chinatown where I was staying, but I enjoyed it much more and spent 2 days there. I then continued heading north to Penang in Malaysia where I spent a night before continuing my journey all the way to Bangkok in Thailand. I made it to Bangkok for New Years Eve. On the train into Bangkok I met an Australian guy, Michael, who I spent New Years Eve with, which was a crazy night. I spent the next week in Bangkok exploring the place with Michael before heading North on the train to Vientiane in Laos where I met up with Amelie (the friend I met in Singapore) who was travelling Laos at that time.
Laos was a really nice place and much quieter and laid back than Thailand. It is probably the poorest place I have visited but the people there are nice and seem happy. From Vientiane we headed north to Vang Vieng which is famous for one thing...tubing! Essentially tubing consists of taking a rubber ring into a river, sitting in it and floating down stream. In Vang Vieng they have added numerous bars along each river bank to the equation which also include elaborate (but what seemed to be very unsafe) jumps into the water. It was a strange experience but very fun and I had a great time. From Vang Vieng we headed north to Luang Prabang which is an old French colonial town and the influence is still felt today. They like their coffee, they like their baguettes and they like their crepes there. What isn't so french, but what I really liked, was the banana and chocolate pancakes they sell there! In Luang Prabang there are also a lot of Buddhist temples and you can see the monks walking about everywhere. From Luang Prabang my friend headed home and I headed north to some of the smaller villages. These were good to see but it was very cold the further north you went and there were no hot showers. I headed south fairly quickly! My journey north was an interesting one however. It was 3.5 hours in the back of an adapted pickup truck with two benches either side. I was the only foreigner there but I really enjoyed it despite a family opposite me being sick out the side and the fumes and dirt from the road that went everywhere! From there I headed south back to Vientiane where took a 24 hour bus journey to Hanoi in Vietnam. This bus got to the border at 2am, pulled over to the side of the road, turned the engine off and didn't move again for another 5 hours. Needless to say I couldn't sleep and instead spent 5 hours in darkness listening to snoring. It was an experience! The border crossing then turned out to be the most disorganised thing I've ever witnessed and at one point the westerners there got left to walk from the Laos exit to the Vietnam entry in the pouring rain. We got soaked. At this stage I also learnt that the Vietnamese don't like to queue as much as us Britishand intead prefer to push you out the way and wave their passports at the officials. Lets just say, I was glad when it was over and we were back on the bus.
So at 7pm that night we arrived in Hanoi and I have now been here almost a week. The hostel I am at went out for chinese new year and I have also been to eat some snake and see Ho Chi Minhs preserved body so far. Most things are closed for Tet here at the moment though. Tomorrow I go to Halong Bay which is supposed to be really nice and then I head south where I'm hoping it might be a bit warmer.
I don't have long left now so maybe I will be able to get one more blog in before returning back to England.
I hope everyone back home is well and (sorry its a little late) Happy New Year!
Ryan
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