The tour that wasn't

We overslept. Again


As a result we missed the bus to our meeting place for our first scheduled tour to James Bond Island. Bye bye 1500baht!

I'm disappointed in our tourguide as we missed them by 5 minutes, he didn't leave any instructions on where to meet them and his phone was off. What the hell?

In the end Tee and I decided to spend a day on Patong beach.

With almost everything to buy on the beach- we didn't have to move off our seats

A bit later a group of guys started playing soccer. Shirtless and muscled- suddenly the heat wasn't only from the sun!

Tee went for a swim a bit later and the guy I'd had my eye on came and chatted to me. I'd been teasing Tharien that I'd happily rub sunblock on when somehow he asked about it and asked if I had any. Seriously? Could the day get any better?

Chatting to Tommy, he is a 22 year old final International Business Student in Malaysia, but originally from Indonesia.

Tanned, charming and intelligent with super long eyelashes. I was itching to run my fingers over that muscled chest and tummy of his, but I had to settle for his arms and the side of his torso.

I made my first barter sale by haggling on a pretty pink beach cover top. I got the price down from 850Baht to 530Baht.

You'll notice in all these and upcoming photos - I am not one of those glamourous bach girls. I have straggly hair and I sweat in humidity - so i do not wear make up, I warned you!

Thank goodness for that top and my sunblock. I have a nasty red sunburn, but considering we were in the water for about an hour and under the umbrella for about 4 hours. I can't say its too bad.

The lesson I did learn: listen when they say to leave 30 minutes before going into the water once having applied sunblock!

I can even see the spot where I rubbed lotion on my leg and scratched it soon after- I have the sunburn in the pattern of the nail marks- hilarious!

We finally got our first Thai massage today. If I thought it would be relaxing- I was soon relieved of that notion!!

Add in some pain, mixed with a bit of contortionism and some elbows, knees, knuckles and other sharp bits and no muscle was neglected. They don't just rub the skin and muscle, they move and manipulate the whole muscle itself!

We paid about R100 for a full hour. You really can't believe the price of things. Deep fried Prawns: R35.

Pineapple on the beach: R7.50!!

All in all, it was a successful day and I can't say I am too sad about not being with the rest of our group on the tour today. Tee and I will be doing the tour on our own tomorrow and afterwards we will be joining the group for a Cabaret show- all She-Ladies. Think this will be fun!

Now its off to bed again- hopefully we wake up on time!

On to Thailand

After an early start this morning, the day seemed to be full of hurry up and waits.


Eventually we landed in Phuket and arrived at our hotel. The sun was shining when we arrived but soon turned into rain as we sat in the traffic jam on the windy road.


The town of Patong was our destination and we have been greeted by the really friendly Thai people and made to feel welcome.

Already dreaming about our first massage, we have just awoken from our mid afternoon nap and will go on to meet the rest of the Contiki group before we spend an evening together exploring the town.

Evening:-

Met our group- of the 30 of us there is 1 New Yorker, 2 Canadians and 3 New Zealanders. The rest are Ozzies.

We had our first dinner on the beach and it was awesome to have the sand sifting through your toes.

I had a delicious dinner of prawns cooked with mushrooms, spring onions and corn with a delicious sauce

The pineapple juice was just too delicious and they make good cocktails too.

Tomorrow we go on a speedboat tour to the famous island seen in a James Bond movie and I am looking forward to lying in the shade of a tree on the beach relaxing with a cocktail in a coconut or pineapple!

I plan on bringing plenty of sunblock and here's to hoping I don't get sunburnt!

The shops are small, and the Thai people are all very relaxed.

I love the fact that we can walk in the streets at night and not worry about being mugged or murdered.

Our tour guide is Ed, he is from Wales but with a mix of a heavy Ozzie accent! You can tell who he takes out on tours the most! :-)

Looking forward to getting an authentic Thai massage on the beach either tomorrow or the next day, but we will probably do it on Patong beach as the view will be amazing and we leave Patong, Phuket day after tomorrow, heading for Phi Phi. So it would be quite nice to have a massage in each place we're in.

Last day in Malaysia

As I write this on my last day in Malaysia I am currently undergoing a form of torture commonly known as Reflexology.


After walking up all those steps and walking most of Malaysia flat, our legs and feet have a taken a bit of a pounding.

I can't say reflexology is fun but I reckon we needed this!

Today we went on our final tour through the butterfly park filled with gorgeous varieties of butterflies flitting around- never sitting still for long enough for us to get a really nice photo.

With all the butterflies gaily flying past our heads, you can't help but want to twirl around and burst into song ala Disney Princess.

We also paid a visit to the Bird Park. Being the largest covered bird park in the world, it houses a host of birds: parrots, peacocks, Hornbills (Malaysia's national bird) etc

The heat put a bit of a strain on us today and the sweat was literally running in rivulets down our body.

A lovely Arab couple asked us to pose with them for a photo and I was pleasantly surprised that the lady lifted her veil for the photo.

A couple of waterfalls made the gardens very picturesque and Tharien avoiding falling on her bum.... 4 times!!

We had 30 minutes to explore the gorgeous orchid gardens (they are actually called the Hibiscus & Orchid gardens, but we never saw any Hibiscus plants- which are actually the national flower) I strongly suspect that we missed an entire section of the gardens, but by that time I think we were just exhausted from the heat and loss of water.

We came back to our hotel and promptly fell asleep to replenish our energy levels.



Our last night was spent eating sushi, with ice cream (not our usual donut tradition) for dessert.


Yummy ice cream



We browsed by the huge, multi storied electronics mall and stocked up on another memory card for our camera as only a few days into our holiday we have used up almost all our memory capacity!

A quick visit to the pool refreshed us- for once we were actually cooled down! Thank you to the kind gentleman who allowed us 15 minutes in the pool after closing time had already passed.

Puppy dog eyes always work!

The Royale Bintang hotel has been a great hotel to stay at, with everything a traveller needs: WiFi access, a spa, a gym and a pool and extremely friendly staff who have helped us with everything we have needed.

I didn't expect to enjoy Malaysia as much as I have as it was merely supposed to be a stop over to Thailand, yet I have been thoroughly surprised!

The nightlife is infectious. The shops all stay open from 10am-10pm. With some establishments only closing after midnight.



The people mostly speak english, which has been a great help and overall have been very friendly and helpful.



I highly recommend stopping by for a visit as you won't be disappointed!

Malaysia Day 2

Took in a Malaysian cultural show tonight.


Was a nice mix of Malaysian, chinese and indian dancing. Its amazing how the cultures all live harmoniously and have embraced each others cultures.

Colourful costumes and traditional dancing made this a very enjoyable night!

The city is so pretty at night. Fairy lights hanging from the trees and fake blue and white trees- yet it works!

Dinner tonight was not as nice as the prawns and rice last night but nevertheless, it was good

The humidity here seems to make me hungry all the time! Perhaps all the walking has something to do with it? :-p

There is a donut shop here that has the most awesome donuts- light and fluffy with a variety of toppings. Everytime we buy 1 and eat it, we wish we’d bought another!

The coffee is not the best though- we finally went and bought ourselves a Starbucks because we both seem to be having coffee withdrawals!

While getting our Henna tattoo today a little boy came up to me and asked me for a photo. I smiled at him and then he hid away- probably took a lot of courage to ask me but when I looked again, he was gone. I wish I couldve found him again for the photo because that was so sweet of him to pluck up the courage!

Off to the Bird Gardens tomorrow and we’ll also get to see the orchid gardens and butterfly park. Should be a pretty day.

The travel diaries begin!

Hello everybody!
I am back from my travels! I am browner (marginally) have puffier hair (extremely) a case of pimples (humidity will do that to you) and an oversized tummy due to the amount of food I ate while away.

I kept a travelogue (sometimes very vague due to exhaustion) but could not seem to get it updated to Blogger, so here are the posts I wrote - hope you have fun with me on my travels and I hope you don't get tired of hearing all about my trip!

Day 2 in Malaysia and we have gone from not having any sleep- to oversleeping this morning.



From not having any money from the ATM to swiping our credit card gleefully at a pewter factory - a spending frenzy.


To be fair: how often are you going to come across an original handmade, airtight pewter container? My point exactly!

This container has 4 sides, each depicting a different flower. These flowers are represented in Chinese Art & literature as the 4 qualities believed to be traits of a gentlemen or scholar:
Chrysanthemum:- Personifies simplicity, honesty & perfection.
Bamboo:- Resilience & Humility
Orchid:- Perfect cultured individual due to the orchids beauty & fragrance
Plum Blossom: Perserverance, courage & willpower

This is something I will be able to pass on to future generations & I am so glad I bought it!

This pewter factory is one of the largest factories in the world and all the pewter items are handmade. The craftmanship is exquisite - we all had a go and it was not as easy as you wuld think.
Each worker gets their andprint on the walls of the museum once they have been there for 5 years - which I thought was a nice touch.

For Tee’s birthday I bought her a gorgeous set of chopstick holders- 2 pewter fishes. Lovely in their detailed prettiness.

We visited the Batu caves (after a 272 stp climb) and snapped some shots of the various gods.

We also got ourselves gorgeous Henna tattoos.

Tonight is a cultural tour of Malaysia and a visit to another temple.


The city is not very pretty, but the sights out of town are beautiful.