….but the chaotic Asian traffic conditions are sama sama. Tomorrow I leave
Phnom Penn for a couple of nights in the Mekong Delta, ending up in Saigon
where I meet Iain for the next leg of the journey.
Jane decided to go home a few days early but we had a fabulous time together
and she was a fantastic travel buddy…not to mention a trooper at six months
pregnant!
After a day in Bangkok at the floating markets and cocktails on top of the
city with Coggers, Our rough route in Combo begun overland to Battambang
with a border crossing at Poipet. No worries at all but one hell of a
contrast in development the minute we crossed the border. After a night in
sleepy Battambang we took an 8 hr boat trip to Siem Reap (awesome) and then
spent 3 days in and around Angkor Wat. We then bused to Kratie in the N/E
and saw the Irrawaddy dolphins at sunrise – very special. Then down to PP
for a few days which we were really impressed with. Then charming Kampot en
route to the beach at Sihanoukville where we were not so impressed. So
after a couple of days back in PP and a full day cooking course today, I
leave Cambodia.
Impressions of Cambo – peaceful, good humoured people, adorable kids, poor
infrastructure, excellent development work in country, flat landscape,
yummy, different food, relatively expensive due to US dollar, great capitol..

I just got back from 2 weeks in paradise - though some parts are slightly
commercialised paradise.
I had a couple of days in Bangkok before Una arrived and decided to book a
Spice Roads bicycle tour around the city and in the less touristy parts -
awesome - a little freaked as we wove through jungle 1.5m off the ground on
raised cement footpaths but it was a nice change to the hassles of Bangkok.
After Una miraculously made the connecting flight to Phuket we decided to
stay one night at Kata Beach (near Patong) OK but probably won’t go back.
After a massage we boarded the slow boat to Koh Phi Phi in the Andaman Sea
for 5 glorious days - met some lovely people - loads of US students on
Summer break but generally great people and not too built up. There was a
lot of evidence of the Tsunami and reconstruction continues still to this
day. I loved Phi Phi and will definitely go back.
We caught the ferry to Krabi and flew to Koh Samui in the Sth China Sea for
a week. We stayed in a comfortable hotel in Chaweng Beach (the main beach
where you hear via loud speaker about the champion of champion Muay Thai
boxing fight every night….all day, 100 times a day) and proceeded to eat,
shop, sleep, sunbathe, sleep, eat, sleep, shop - we did a couple of day
trips to the marine park and went kayaking and snorkeling and met some
lovely English ladies and a German couple. Oh we also caught a Katui show (
lady-boy cabaret) in Lamai Beach - so great, very funny and so well done -
some of the men/women were stunning!
Una and I then flew direct to Bangkok - the political tensions were fairly
subdued at that stage and we enjoyed an amazing night at Sirocco rooftop
restaurant and bar atop State Tower - thoroughly recommend it as it ROCKS -
we felt like movie stars and enjoyed amazing service, food and wine. I flew
home without delay only to find that the political situation degraded
significantly almost immediately after I left - good timing I say!
I’ll be back in the region for NYE 08 on Koh Phangan with Lucretia and Craig
- wahoooo!

Hey there!!!

We stayed at Orange River that (Ewan Macgregor) night and had a massive
night - cool place before spending a couple of nights in the Stellenbosch
wine region, did a few wine tours and drunk - I mean tasted - a lot of
wine….quite good but nothing compared to Australia’s Margaret River. We
finished up the tour with a couple of nights in Capetown. Unfortunately I
didn’t get up Table Mountain as it was closed, however the city is really
stunning, great shopping, beautiful waterfront and pumping night life with
lots of hot, diamond miners sons buying drinks!
Jody and then departed Cape Town and spent a long 8 hours in Johannesburg
airport - duty free shopping- then arrived in Perth exhausted. Welcomed by
Kev and Chrissi and had an awesome, late, wine filled night catching up. It
was nice to be back in Oz after so long away.

We entered Namibia in the north and spent a few days in Etosha NP. It was
my favourite NP because each campground has a water hole and hide set up
with a spotlight. Each evening everyone quietly (beers/G&T in hand) make
their way to the hide and watch as all the animals visit for a drink. I
went back one night after dinner and stayed til 2 am just watching heaps of
different animals visit and interact - elephants and rhinos hate each other,
hyenas…well everyone hates them…all sorts of antelope and a big male
lion. Etosha was also special for me as we saw a leopard - our guide Thabi
has been doing our tour for 8 years and that was his 2nd leopard sighting -
we were all rather excited!
We then headed south, Namibia was my favorite country but it is ALL desert!
Long days driving through nothing. But sometimes beautiful nothing, very
extreme climate and stunning endless dunes - lots of sunsets and sunrises to
get up for. We stayed at Sptizkoppe where we trekked in to the rock cliffs
to see 3500 yr old San Bushman rock paintings. Namibia also has very
diverse and still strong traditional tribes. We met Damara (descendants of
the San Bushman - the ‘Gods must be crazy’ people - 8 different clicks in
their language). Also the Herero and Himba tribes (see photo’s). Very
surreal to be in a small town supermarket when a traditionally dressed Himba
lady (laplap, lots of jewelery and covered in red ocre) walk past filling
her shopping basket! We stayed in a very cool town called Swakopmund where
I went sandboarding - got the fastest speed for the day - 77km/h on my
tummy!!! We stayed in Sosousvlei where there are the most beautiful red
dunes and where the trees don’t decay as there isn’t enough water vapour in
the air so 4000 yr old dead tress stand in a weird sort of natural
graveyard. We visited Cape Cross, drove down the Skeleton Coast (lots of
shipwrecks) and stopped at a huge Cape Fur Seal colony (very very stinky!)
Our last night in Namibia was at Fish River Canyon (2nd largest canyon after
the Grand) awe inspiring.
A funny and relevant story… when we were crossing the border back into
South Africa and the truck was getting inspected, a group of 5 bikers and a
support veh pulled up next to us. I was checking out one of the bikers who
took his helmet and jacket off when I noticed that his t-shirt said
‘Macgregor’. I thought to myself - ‘that’s funny, he even looks like Ewan
but is too skinny and short’. Well…. when my mate Amy came over all
giggly and excited and I noticed a few others staring at him I figured it
must be him. So I waltzed on over and introduced myself and had a nice wee
chat! Turns out they were shooting the final stages of the Long Way Down
(seq to Long Way Round). Awesome guy, very down to earth and funny and
seemingly genuine, looked you straight in the eye when chatting to you…I
think I did very well to contain myself, I was cool, calm and collected
though I dare say blushed in his rugged, ‘I just rode across the desert on a
motorbike’, deep blue eyes kinda way. I turned into a gushing school girl
as soon as I got back on the bus and everyone excitedly wanted to know what
we chatted about…funny.