MR D. DOCUMENTS THE SOUTHEAST ASIA TRIP (18-Nov-2007 to 18-Dec-2007)

18-Nov-2007 – AUCKLAND TO BANGKOK

First day of the trip, flights from Auckland-Melbourne-Bangkok.

Hamish and Chris got dropped at the airport in the morning, round 5am (from memory) to catch a 7.40am flight to Melbourne, where we met up with Al. Alex flew from Christchurch to Melbourne all on his own. We arrived in Melbourne at 9.30am and Tuffy was waiting at the gate for us. We had a bit of time to kill at Melbourne airport, so we decided to have our first of an insurmountable number of beers.

With about half an hour until the check-in time closed, we decided to finish up our beers and check-in. Arriving at the Jetstar check-in counter, we followed usual procedures to check-in; producing our air tickets and passports. Everything seemed to be progressing smoothly, until we were questioned about whether we had confirmed departure from Thailand (which we did not). The service woman that she could not check us in until we had confirmed departure from Thailand – news to us! We told her of our plans to just work our way down through Thailand and Malaysia, and fly out of Singapore, but all of Hamish’s phone-voice charm couldn’t get us on the plane. She called her superior and we were still unable to check-in. Panic slowly started sinking in as time was running out for us to make our flight. The service woman advised us to go to Flight Centre to find a cheap flight out of Thailand.

We boosted to Flight Centre and talked to them about flights out of Thailand. The cheapest option they could find was going to cost us AU$400 each – ridiculous price seeing that we were not going to take the flight anyway. Hamish decided to try and find an internet machine in hope of finding a cheap ass flight. After a few minutes, success! Asia Airlines had flights from Phuket to Singapore for THB2200 each. Hamish locked those gears in and we sat there refreshing his hotmail account, for what seemed an eternity, until we received the confirmation and tickets. New issue, how the f@#k do we print them out?! Hamish ran to Vodafone and asked the hotties working there if we can print it out. Second success of the day! At this stage, we had about 10 or so minutes left until check-in closed. Hamish waited for the tickets to print while Al and Chris ran to the check-in counter to line up. This is where things got very tight. We managed to get to the front of the queue, only to have to wait for Hamish. Asty did the bolt down to see what was holding up Hamish; turns out the terms and conditions page was printing first – full page of size 6 font that took over 5 minutes to print. Time was running out, check-in was closing in 2 minutes and still no sign of Hamish or the tickets. Finally, Hamish turns up and we are fully checked in through to Bangkok – 5 minutes after check-in closed. We boost through customs and boarded our flight. There were well deserved celebration bourbon and cokes on the flight over. The in-flight movie was Die Hard 4.0. During the flight, Alex had an epiphany about viewing pictures on a camera and how they should rotate depending on the camera’s orientation. Great idea Al, if it hadn’t been invented a year earlier!

We arrived in Bangkok at 7.40pm local time. The travelators were awesome. Once we cleared immigration we went to collect our bags. We found a conveyer-belt that was stopped, but full of bags. This turned out to be the conveyer-belt that our baggage was on. Hamish and Chris found our bags with relative ease, but Alex struggled. After circulating the whole conveyer-belt a few times, a rather relieved Alex finally found his bag. We exited the airport and were greeted by a wall of humidity. We met a taxi driver who offered to take us into Khao San Road for THB500. Hamish tried bargaining with the driver to take us for cheaper, but Alex just accepted the fare and got in the taxi.

Khao San Road was buzzy. We didn’t have anywhere to stay, so we wandered down in hope of finding a place that had a spare room. Rikka Inn had a room for us, THB1000 a night. We left our bags there while they made up our room and went exploring around Khao San Road. A nearby pub had a live cover band playing, so we went in and had a couple of Singha beers. On the way back to our room, Asty befriended a dude called Tommy who he thought wanted to give him a game of ping pong – Alex couldn’t have been more wrong. We turned in early after a long day travelling. Hamish and Tuffy got to share the double and Chris got the single mattress on the floor.

19-Nov-2007 –BANGKOK

We woke up early on our first day in Bangkok. It wasn’t a great day – overcast with a few showers. Breakfast was had down Khao San Road at D Café. We walked round the streets, but it was fairly quiet – we only saw a couple homeless beggars. To be fair it was only 8am. We decided to take a tuk tuk ride round the town to view some sights. It was a bit of a squeeze in the back of a tuk tuk. To be honest, they weren’t made for us three large lads to be seated in the back, but if families of five could fit in one, the three of us could definitely do it. Our driver, Mr B, offered to take us round to the main attractions for only THB20 – what a bargain! However, there were some hidden strings that we would find out about later.

The first stop on the tuk tuk tour was a visit to the Big Buddha, a huge Buddha that stood outside a temple. All the temples were covered in bling. The second stop on the trip was another Buddha – the Lucky Buddha. This was where the infamous “teacher” incident occurred. We started having a conversation with this random guy floating around the Lucky Buddha who claimed that he was a teacher. We yarned to him about what we wanted to get up to while we were in Bangkok, i.e. get suits made and travel round the country. The conversation seemed fairly innocuous at the time, but when the next two destinations we visited were the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and a tailor to get suits made, Alex became suspicious and thought we had been scammed. Chris agreed with Alex, but Hamish thought that the guy at the Lucky Buddha was genuinely a teacher – 9 hours later, Hamish still argued that the guy was a teacher.

At the TAT, we talked to Mr T (the travel agent) about what we wanted to see and do while we were in Thailand. He sorted out a travel package for us that included accommodation, transfers, sights, etc that cost us around NZ$1400. While we were there, Chris started chatting to Mr T’s assistant. She asked him about his “mamma” and “papa” and Tuffy thought she was speaking to Chris in Chinese.

The next place on our tuk tuk tour was a trip to the tailors to get suits made. By this stage, Hamish was pretty convinced that we had been scammed by the “teacher”. We were taken to Chao Phraya Suits to get measured up for suits. They gave us free drinks while we were waiting, which was siiick. The whole process was pretty efficient; we walked round, picked out materials, they measured us up and then we were basically done. We had to return the next day to have a fitting.

After the suit makers, we headed back to Khao San Road to grab a late lunch and wander round the markets surrounding Khao San Road. We meet some random dude who asked us if NZers actually f@%ked sheep or not. After a couple hours wandering, we got a bit thirsty and tired of inhaling pollution, so we picked up a few Chang beers from the Seven Eleven and headed back to the room. Chang turned out to be an amazing beer which would quench our thirsts for the remainder of the time we were in Thailand, and at THB74 for a 640mL, 6.4% bottle, it was a steal. Hamish had a few teething problems with our new favourite beer; he struggled to open them up. Alex provided us with some drinking entertainment by trying to differentiate between Japanese and Asians.

When Mr B dropped us off, he said that he’d come back later that night to take us to a ping pong show on Patpong Road. “While in Rome” kicked into action, so we decided to take him up on his offer. We jumped in the tuk tuk and he drove us round to the ping pong show. Mr B said that if we paid for him he’d come in with us. “Sickety baht” is how much Mr B told us it would cost. We thought sixty baht was pretty cheap, but when it came time to pay, we found out that we had misinterpreted Mr B’s thick Thai accent and that he’d actually been saying “six hundred baht”. Knowing the actual price, Mr B said that he didn’t want to come into the show anymore, so three of us proceeded to go in to watch the show. We could only really describe the whole experience as intriguing. Asty got a bleeding nose (possibly from a diversion of blood), there was over 15m of ropes and chains hidden in mysterious places, ping pong balls flying all over the show and old sifty guys sitting in the front rows. The show started with a “Welcome to Thailand” announcement and concluded with a live display of porn. One of the acts that Alex particularly like was one in which a girl proceeded to light and smoke a cigarette down there.

Feeling a little peckish after the show, we grabbed a late dinner at a 24 hour cafe called Oriental Food and had another brief wander through the night markets before turning in.

20-Nov-2007 –BANGKOK

Alex woke up early this morning and made it his mission to wake up Hamish and me – a lot of “ringgits” occurred. We had breakfast on Khao San Road again; this time at a place just across from the Rikka Inn. The previous night, Hamish was able to get hold of Bubs and Becky who were also in Thailand at the same time we were. We planned to meet them where we had breakfast. Asty had another bleeding nose.

Once Becky and Bubs turned up, we went and found Mr B to take us to the long-boat trip on the Chao Phraya River which runs through Bangkok. All five of us couldn’t fit in the one tuk tuk, so Mr B went and got one of his mates to take the other half of us. We got to the pier and paid THB400 for an hour long boat trip. The boat trip took us along the Chao Phraya and through some feeder creeks. We went to the floating market, the fish farm, saw some of the river-side houses, and got a sweet view of Wat Arun from the river. Along our travel, Alex and Hamish thought they saw Chris’ long lost twin, who was driving another long-boat heading in the opposite direction. We got dropped off the boat trip at a pier near Wat Pho (the Reclining Buddha) – Asty tried to get off the boat before it had stopped.

We got off the long-boat and walked to Wat Pho to see the Reclining Buddha. Along the way we passed a dried fish market that everyone thought smelt like rotten fish. The Reclining Buddha was enormous, about 46m long. After seeing the Buddha, we walked to the Grand Palace, Wat Pra Keow and the Emerald Buddha. Grand Palace was littered with temples, statues, ornaments, etc. The girls had to have covered shoulders at the Grand Palace. It cost around THB100 admission into the Grand Palace. There was a pagoda in the Grand Palace that was completely gold. We saw two armed guards that Hamish insisted he get a photo with.

Mr B and his mate picked us up from outside the Golden Palace and took us back to the tailor to have the final fitting, before we headed to T.A.T. to finalise our travel plans. Mr B’s friend had a tantrum because he was being mucked around by us, so to keep him happy we let them take us to a jewellery factory in order for Mr B’s friend to get a food token. We bought some jewellery and pure silk ties while we were at the jewellery factory.

After the jewellery factory, we got Mr B and his friend to take us back to Khao San Road. We grabbed a late lunch with the girls at a restaurant called Prekab’s Place and did some more shopping around the Khao San markets. We got some awesome sorbet ice cream from a shop around Khao San Road. The girls went back to their hotel, while we went back to Rikka Inn to check out.

Later that evening we caught an overnight train north to Chiang Mai. Once we checked out, we took an hour long taxi to the girls’ hotel to chill and have a refreshing swim in their outdoor pool that was 20 stories up. They were staying at the Bayoke Sky Hotel. After our swim we had catch a taxi to the Hualampong Train Station to catch our overnight train to Chiang Mai. We had dinner at the train station and boarded our train (which departed at 10pm). On the train, Chris was sleeping below a dude who was from NZ called Hamish. We also met some Aussie chicks from Perth. Our carriage was a second class cabin; no air conditioning, just windows. The seats folded down into a bed and the top formed another bed, so there were two people on each side of the train. As we were departing, Hamish and Alex were looking out the window and almost lost their heads from an incoming train. Both got massive frights. The ride on the train was very bumpy. We all tried to get some sleep from around 11pm.

20-Nov-2007 –CHIANG MAI

The sleep on the overnight train was fairly rough; Asty likened our sleeping quarters to that of a concentration camp. Asty woke up again early again – around 4.30am. We were all up by around 7am and the waiter came round to take our breakfast orders. All three of us ordered the American Breakfast. Our waiter insisted we buy him a Chang beer to share with us. It seemed many of the locals loved
their Chang beer. We did so and played a couple games of cards with him. The toilets on the train were pretty primitive – a hole in the floor in which any excrement would fall onto the tracks below. There were some sweet sights along the trip of rice fields and small towns along way. The rest of the train trip was spent playing 500 with the other Hamish.

We arrived in Chiang Mai at around 1pm and were picked up by a minivan. This was the start of the hilarious misspellings of Hamish’s name (referred to as the “Hamish” issue from here); the dude picking us up had a sign that said “Welcome: Party Mr Wamish Wright”. The van first took us to the Chiang Mai branch of the T.A.T. to finalise our trip and then the Holiday Garden Hotel where we were to be based while at Chiang Mai. We checked in to the hotel and got our second taste of the “Hamish” issue. Alex claimed first shower that was cold – justice for claiming the first shower!

We jumped in the back of a “taxi” and had lunch down in the Old walled city in Chiang Mai. Emails and bank balances were checked in an internet café after lunch and then we went for a wander through Chiang Mai to see the old fallen down temple. It was getting dark, so we left and picked up a bottle of Thai rum for THB220 to smash back in the hotel. This is when it started pissing down with rain. We flagged down a tuk tuk and headed back to the hotel. Our tuk tuk driver didn’t know where he was going; as a result Hamish and Alex got drenched, but Chris (sitting in the middle) was sweet.

Finally made it back to our hotel and had a wee kip. We set up a wakeup call, but still managed to oversleep. Tuffy was a zombie when we got the call to wake up. We shuttled to the night market, where we got a feed at a seafood place. We did a bit of shopping – buying some t-shirts and singlets, etc. Alex bought some magic rings with aspirations of becoming a magician or something. Chris thought that when you bought “black/white” DVDs it is the picture quality that is black/white, when in reality it is just the covers that are black/white. After a while, we headed home and went to bed.

22-Nov-2007 – CHIANG MAI - HILL TREKKING

The day started at 7.30am; we showered and went to the hotel’s buffet breakfast. Alex wanted some toast, but it never came. Hamish offered to get some toast, but he also didn’t get any. A green van picked us up, took us to pick up a few other people and went to the market. We got some awesome deep-fried banana and pumpkin. One road that we travelled down had a ridiculous number of pot-holes.

We stopped on the side of a random road and started marching down this track to a random hut. At this hut, we found out that this is where we would be doing our elephant riding. We were given lunch here, before we got to ride elephants. Asty got allocated the baby elephant. The ride took us through a river where the guides stopped us and the elephants had a water fight. Hamish got drenched by Chris’ and Hamish’s elephant soaked others. Hamish’s guide, Johann, tried to get his elephant to throw Hamish off. We got back to the hut and Asty was given some bananas to feed the elephants.

After elephant riding, we met our group and our tour guide. Our tour guide was Mr Smith and our tour group was us three, three French travellers (Benoit, Iza and Marie), an Australian couple (Tom and Jacquie), and Benjamin from Austria. The truck took use to where we would begin our hill trek. They dropped us off and then we began trekking. After a few hours, we stopped at a small waterfall, where most of us had a quick dip. After the swim, we had a short walk to a nearby village where we would be staying for the night. There was another group staying at the village that night. There were five kiwis in the other group. One guy was called Malcolm Golan, a geologist who new Chris Speedy. His wife was a physio who knew VPT, Sincock and Bubs. We had dinner at the first village and then a few beers around the fire, which was on a balcony built solely of wood and bamboo. Later on in the night, we got amongst some Sang Som Thai rum/whiskey. Mr Smith, and another tour guide Mr K, brought out some raw buffalo with chilli, raw pork and cooked buffalo blood for us to try.

Darkness fell and we had no torches. Hamish, followed shortly by Chris, went to bed. Alex stayed up getting on the rice whiskey; this would be the start of a very entertaining night for young Alex. When he finally stumbled back to our bamboo hut, he couldn’t find his bed. “F@%k, f@%k,...” searching for his bed. He felt Chris’ arm, “What the f@%k is that?! Who the f@%k is that?! WHAT IS THAT?!” He finally found his bed, but woke up during the night to go for a piss, fell off a ledge and the whole bed finding process repeated itself. In the morning, Chris woke up to find Alex asleep between two mosquito nets, with his trackies pulled up to his knees. When asked why he had his trackies pulled up to his knees, Asty said he was cold and thought chickens were attacking him. He had not realised that there were blankets provided; Chris looks to the foot of Alex’s bed to find a neat pile of blankets still folded. What Alex thought may have been his bed, turned out to be one of the German travellers’ beds. Chris, laughing hysterically at Alex, makes the floor shake with his laughter and wakes Hamish.

23-Nov-2007 – HILL TREKKING

Everyone woke and had a good laugh at Asty’s expense. We had breakfast, packed up and then left for a full day’s trekking. We wound our way down through the hills from the first village and stopped at a sweet little waterhole round 11:30 for a swim. There was a mint little waterfall that you could jump off. Alex took the dodgy slide off the waterfall into the shallow water. After the boys finished up swimming, we started to climb up hill to another village up in the hills. The village was busy harvesting corn, well, hitting dried corn with sticks to get the kernel off the cob. We stopped here for lunch. One of the Germans had a bunch of pens and pencils that they offered the kids in the village as presents. The kids were super-excited by the gifts; they grabbed the pens and pencils, ran off and started drawing all over themselves as they had no paper to scribble on. There were pigs and chickens everywhere in the village.

We finished up lunch, some people had quick toilet stops, and we left. Mr Smith told us that today was going to be a hard day’s climb. We had to climb around 300m up to get to the next village which was around 800m above sea level. We left the village and started walking up this single file, overgrown track. We hear some commotion up the front of the group; Benjamin, who was overly paranoid about how snake are everywhere and how poison they are, tears down the hill with Iza in tow yelling for the guide. “Where is the guide?! There is a snake! There is a snake!” Mr Smith races up the hill to find an irrigation pipe with a leak in it. Benjamin was paid out and pranked about snakes for the rest of the trip. Everyone calmed down and we continued our very steep and big climb, the hardest by far, but there were still some fairly big climbs to follow.

In fading light, we made it to the next village where we were to stay for the night. At the entrance to the village was a local store; we stocked up hard on the junk food, grabbed a few beers and a bottle of rice whiskey. We smashed the beers with dinner, which was by candle light. The local kids came and put on a show for us; they were just after money we decided. After the show, we started to get amongst the rice whiskey. Mr Smith was chippered with some opium, but had too much and vomited. We had a look, before caving and paying THB50 for all three of us to try it. The whole experience was wicked. We lay down on this mat in the bamboo hut, tilted our head to the side and had this long thin pipe put in our mouths. An old lady sat with the other end, packing the pipe. She would make sucking noises to signal that it was time to inhale. It was quite a buzzy feeling really; a little lighter than weed, but still the same buzz. Alex was too hammered to feel the effects of the opium. We tried playing mafia with the Frenchies; the language barrier was interesting. Al found his bed – big accomplishment!

24-Nov-2007 – HILL TREKKING - CHIANG MAI

Bloody chickens kept us up from around sunrise, so any chance of a sleep in was lost. When everyone finally started to get up, we were cooked up a breakfast of eggs on toast. Alex sat on Hamish’s cup of coffee… Hamish attempted to tell Mr Smith a joke; “How does the chicken cross the road?” – he had no punch line "... it was a rhetorical question..." Chris asks where the eggs came from – meaning locally grown or from the city – Alex and Tom crack up “…from the sky…” After breakfast, we started 1½ hour descend from the village down to the river, where we would be doing some white-water and bamboo rafting. As we were walking down this semi-steep hill, Benoit spontaneously took off, basically running down the hill. We caught up with him, when we reached the bottom. As we were walking to the river, we past some elephants that were grazing amongst the trees. Nearing the river, Benjamin finally ran into a snake, although it had been run over by a truck.

We made it to the river and went white-water rafting. Asty was surprised that we all got wet whilst rafting… Benoit trid to take Asty down, but he held on. Hamish took Marie down on the raft invasion. Benjamin was constantly yelling “SCHEIZER!!” when we were heading down the rapids.

Once we finished white-water rafting, we then moved on to bamboo rafting/sinking. The bamboo rafts would spontaneously start sinking. Marie bailed when we hit a rock. We had lunch when we got to the finish – also had ice cream and beers to celebrate the end of our trek.

We jumped back into the van/truck and bounced down the pot holed road back to Chiang Mai. We got back to the hotel and took our first craps for three days. Chilled out in the hotel for a couple hours to reenergize, then went into town and had a cheap ass dinner – THB50 for meal and a beer! We cleared our emails, before heading to the fallen city to check out the lantern festival parade. Picked up some Chang beers from the Seven Eleven and hammered them while the parade was on. Wandered down the road and saw a shit load of lanterns flying in the sky. Hamish got a lantern/hot air balloon and lit it. We watched as others crashed and burned – one got stuck in a tree and fell an unsuspecting chick.

Found some random cart that sold some amazing banana rotee. We had fireworks thrown at our feet by some random kids. Pretty funny, so we went and bought some of our own. Alex bought some duds, they didn’t light. We got smashed walking round the markets, going from Seven Eleven to Seven Eleven to pick up a new beer. When we were over the markets, we went to THC, a roof top bar. We met a few randoms while we were there, including Josh Stiff (a mate of Richard Drake – possibly one of Hamish’s mates). The pub was packed and there was nowhere to sit, so we sat on the floor. The rest of the night got a bit hazy – no one remembers when we got home or who paid for the tuk tuk… all comad out expectedly.

25-Nov-2007 – CHIANG RAI

Hamish’s alarm went off at 6am. He turned it off. 45 minutes later, Chris’ alarm went off. Now we were late. Still drunk, we raced down to breakfast. Soon after, we were picked up by a van heading north to Chiang Rai for the day. The v
an stopped half way along the journey at a market that had some natural hot pools. There was a chick called Meagan from Mosgiel in our group and a family of 3 from Singapore. We then stopped at another town; Chiang Saen. It was a walled town with an old pagoda. The wall was built around the 1200s.

We then travelled further north to the Mekong River and the Golden Triangle. We went on a river cruise that went up and round the Golden Triangle. The boat trip passed the Paradise Hotel/Casino – the only casino near Thailand. Paradise Hotel is actually located in Myanmar. We then got to stop off over in Laos, only for half an hour though. It was still enough time for us to try snake whiskey.

As we got off the boat, there was some dude selling souvenir Golden Triangle saucers. On the base of the saucers were our photos! They’d secretly taken photos of us before we got on the boats and made the saucers up while we were on the trip.

We had a massive buffet feed for lunch at a sweet place that overlooked the Golden Triangle. Hamish was harassed by bees. Following lunch, we bundled into the van and headed to Mae Sai at the Thai/Myanmar border. We had a wander through the markets; Hamish got harassed and chased by some watch seller – Alex and Chris come to his rescue and purchased some watches.

Next stop was the Karen hill tribe village, where the long necks and the big ears live. We got to look through their village and take some photos with them. Afterwards, we got into the van and headed for home. Hamish invested in some pineapple food – massive fail. Kept it pretty quiet this night – we were pretty knackered.

26-Nov-2007 – CHIANG MAI - BANGKOK

Had a sleep in this morning; it was our first decent sleep in a few nights. Grabbed breakfast down in the hotel restaurant and then taxied into town. Got dropped off at an ATM to grab some cash and then we went to an internet café to check emails, etc.

Later, we decided to check out Doi Suthep, so jumped in a tuk tuk and headed up… well we thought we were. Instead of taking us to Doi Suthep, the driver had driven us to some random jungle bungy jump. “This isn’t Doi Suthep!” “Oh no, no, tuk tuk no go up hill.” Douche bag. In the end, the driver just to take us back to the hotel.

We chatted to a taxi driver at the hotel and organised a trip to Doi Suthep on our way to the train station. In the process of cancelling our pre-booked shuttle to the train station, Hamish left the tickets at the hotel – pass the blame? Finally, we made it to Doi Suthep and had a wander round. The temple was way up on the top of a hill that looked out over Chiang Mai. The view would have been mint, except the smog made it too hazy to see the city. Met the taxi driver at the base of a massive flight of stairs and headed to the train station, via the hotel.

We boarded our train and killed time by playing scum and poker. A random dude turned up to claim his seat on the train, so we made space for him. Alex kept putting stuff on the dude’s seat; he thinks we are paying for our meal. The random guy was just standing there waiting. The train meal was a fiasco; none of us got what we ordered and different parts of each meal turned up in different waves, so half of our meal was cold. After dinner, we played some more scum with a Dutch couple, Ferry and Susan, from Utrecht, Holland. Chris though his name was Freddie and kept calling him that. We played from the top beds. Once again, it was a very bumpy trip and we get very little sleep.

26-Nov-2007 – BANGKOK

The train arrived at Hualampong Station at about 5:45am. We spent about half an hour trying to hail a taxi to take us to PJ Watergate Hotel, where we were to stay for the next couple nights. The hotel was in a different part of the city to Khao San Road. Because it was so early, it took us ages to find a place for breakfast. After walking off breakfast, we headed back to the hotel to shower.

 Feeling clean and refreshed, we taxied to the sky train. Not 100% sure which station we got on the sky train at, but later we went to Jim Thompson’s house. Jim Thompson was an American who sparked the Thai silk industry. We had a bit of difficulty actually locating Jim Thompson’s house, but when we finally found it, we felt about 20 years too young; nice house, but pretty boring.

Sky trained to check out the snake farm. We grabbed BK on the way and got to the farm too early for the show. Back to the sky train and headed to Sukhumvit Rd to check out the street markets there. Bought a few things and then back on the sky train to the catch the snake show. After being too early, we missed the first 10 minutes of the show. Saw snake milking, where they extract venom from the most poisonous snakes. We got a photo with a massive snake, Hamish got a photo on his own as well.

We had to jet back to the tailor to have our final fitting; got free beers again! The fitting took a little longer than we thought, so we ended up getting a fair few free beers. The tailors needed to make a couple small adjustments, but then they would send our suits back to NZ for us. We decided to walk to MBK to have a look around. Chris claimed to be an authentic tuk tuk driver, started heading in the completely wrong way, and proceeded to rip the map in half. MBK was huge; there were floors and floors of shops. One floor was completely dedicated to cellphone accessories. Another floor was dedicated to food; we had a massive feed on this floor. Asty thought he got shafted when he asked for a hot tom yum soup, until he got towards the bottom where all the chillis were. Hamish gave Sam Phampho a call, as he was back in Thailand for the summer, but he was too knackered from working all day.

The taxi trip back to the hotel was anything but normal. Hamish demanded that we put the meter on, but the taxi driver refused. The taxi driver started yelling at us and when Hamish attempted to get out, the psycho driver threatened to slap Hamish’s head off. We agreed to pay the freak THB100 and he dropped us back at our hotel. We got back to find our washing packaged in individual bags. Nothing much happened after; had an early night.

28-Nov-2007 – BANGKOK - KANCHANABURI

6:30am start. Chris gets into the shower first, out at 6:45am. Hamish next, gets out at 7am. Alex gets in at 7am, has a shit and 2 minute shower. Hamish battled with the ridiculously low bathroom door frame – smacked his head a couple times.

As usual, we were running late for breakfast; speed ate until we were picked up by a van. The van was taking us to Kanchanaburi to check out the bridge over River Kwai. We picked up a few other people before we headed to the Allied Cemetery at Kanchanaburi and the war museum. Wasn’t that interesting, so we wandered to check out the bridge over the river kwai (Khwae Yai River). Found the remains of the original bridge (probably the most interesting part…

We were allowed to cross the bridge, Hamish almost bailed on the bridge. Was a pretty dodgy bridge crossing; one wrong slip and you would probably end up in the river. When we got to the other side, we saw some elephants chilling under the bridge, Al couldn’t see them (not surprising really).

The van then took us to this railway station where we would catch the train to the death railway. The death railway was pretty sweet. Passed a Buddha that was embedded in the rock wall. We got to the end of the train trip and our van picked us up and took us to a roadside restaurant for lunch.

Just up the road from the restaurant was this waterfall where we had a mean swim and walked up the hill to where the water source was – basically a hole in the rock. The van took us back to Bangkok and the railway station there. Had KFC for a feed at the station, Hamish saw a couple of his mates there (Nic and Francie). We boarded our train to Surat Thani, en route to Koh Phangan. Hamish sat next to a yank called Matt. This time we got the air-con, first class train carriage – so much better!

29-Nov-2007 – SURAT THANI - KOH PHANGAN

Arrived at Surat Thani train station, where there was complete chaos. There were busses everywhere and no one knew which bus they were supposed to get on. We found our bus and got crammed on like sardines. The bus took us to Don Sak pier, where we caught the ferry to Koh Phangan. It was about an hour and half long ferry trip, so we passed the time by playing cards; Hamish only managed to become president on the last hand of scum.

We got off the ferry and were thoroughly accosted by taxi drivers. Got a taxi to Sea Scene where we were staying. It was a pretty sweet little spot – right on the water and a sweet little beach hut. The water was really warm, so we had a swim and found a sweet rock to jump.

The resort hired scooters for THB200 a day, so we grabbed a couple of those and went to Thong Sala (the nearest town) to clear emails, make calls home. Alex booked a diving trip for the next morning and we grabbed lunch while we were in town. Hamish managed to step in some wet concrete outside the restaurant. Scootered from Thong Sala to Haad Rin to have a look and then back to Thong Sala for a good deep-fried market dinner. We picked up some Changs and headed back to the resort. Hamish and Chris started hammering into the Changs. Alex offered to taxi us into town as he wasn’t drinking because he was diving the next morning.

Whilst we were drinking, there was a massive green stick creature on the door. Chris was petrified; Alex tried to flick it away, but it flew into his head/ear and inside. Alex freaked out; it was hilarious.

We headed into town not too long after the green insect fiasco and played some pool and had some more beers. The first bar we found that was open was dead. There was a massive group of locals sitting in a circle out the back; they looked pretty dodgy, so we just got a couple beers and played pool out the front.

When we returned home, the green bug had also returned!

30-Nov-2007 –KOH PHANGAN

Alex left at 7:30am to go diving. He went to Sail Rock for a dive. The seas were pretty rough and many of his fellow divers were sea sick, but Alex was fine. He got two dives in; the visibility wasn’t great, but Alex said there was still a lot to see.

Hamish and Chris slept in and scootered round the island. We tried to go as far north as possible. Stopped at a waterfall somewhere round the middle of the island on the way, and then tried to go to Haad Rin for lunch. We thought we were going the right way, but ended up going down very steep hill and ended up in a construction site so had to turn round. We ended up at the north end of the island at Chalok Lam. Tried to loop back round the island, but kept running out of concrete road – roads would just end and turn to gravel. Weather turned for the worst, so we headed back to Thong Sala for lunch. Found a sweet little restaurant on the roadside; thought we were paying THB130 for a meal and drink – a little more expensive than what we were used to paying – turned out to be only THB30! Went back to Sea Scene and read our books while it rained. Alex returned not long after and we had a swim when it cleared.

We headed to Haad Rin for dinner. Parked up the scooters and went for a walk. So many places were obsessed with Snoop Dogg. Found a nice seafood restaurant that had a display of fresh fish out front that you could choose and they would cook up for you. We picked out a nice looking snapper – turned out to cost us THB300! Had deep-fried ice creams for dessert and Alex couldn’t fathom how it works. Found a bar that was on a roof and had a few beers and watched fire pois. The beach was lined with little stands selling buckets of alcohol, so we went for a wander before we headed back to the resort. Alex got quite smashed and got snap happy on the scooter trip back.

1-Dec-2007 – KOH PHANGAN - KOH SAMUI

Final day on Koh Phangan. Chris woke up with a crook gut and opted out of the morning adventures in hope of a quick recovery. Alex and Hamish, however, went for a final scooter round the island. They set off for Hat Rin and then tried to go North-East by taking an alternative route that when through the middle of the island. Alex wanted to go down another road, Hamish had his doubts and thought it would end up on the other side of the island – turned out Hamish was right.

We squeezed in one last swim at the beach, before the “shuttle” arrived to take us back to the wharf. The ferry to Koh Samui was relatively fast. We checked into our hotel/resort (Chaweng Villa); this place was off the meter – beachside infinity pool with pool bar. After a late lunch at Ninja Crepes, we had a quick wander through the town before deciding to pick up some Changs and return to our bundalow. Had a quick swim and then cranked into some drinking games (deal or no deal and red/black).

Before we got too leery, we grabbed some dinner at a restaurant a little bit out of town. Hamish got severely punished with his extremely spicy yellow curry, while Alex tried to order the hottest meal on the menu only to receive chicken and cashew nuts.

After dinner we hit the pubs. Alex wanted to go where the Thai sluts were, Hamish wanted to go where it was pumping, and Chris didn’t mind where they went. First pub we went to was a let-down; there was a power cut and we received rubbish red bulls. We chopped our drinks and headed to the next pub. Alex played a game of connect four with the waitress and Hamish had a random guy put an iguana/chameleon plopped on his head. Played a game of pool, in which Alex dominated.

The third bar was the goods. We chatted to this Irish couple, Joe and Evon. All of us, like all New Zealanders apparently, thought his name was “Joel” which really grinds him. We also met three girls there from Perth doing a similar trip to us. Had a dance with them, after which Hamish lost his memory. Eventually we left the bar/got kicked out/the bar closed – none of us can remember. Hamish tried running away (he insists he was running home). Alex chased after him, but epically bailed. A heated argument breaks out between Hamish and Alex. Chris intervened to breaks up the tension and was praised for his efforts by the nearby hawker. Alex made a bet with Hamish that Hamish wouldn’t be able to remember the fight in the morning. Alex won his bet.

2-Dec-2007 – KOH SAMUI

All of us woke up still very drunk/hungover, but a good buffet breakfast helped that. We spent a lot of the day poolside reading and swimming in the infinity pool. The pool attendant came over and asked if we wanted to play a little beach soccer; we dabbled. Hamish was extremely useless in his hungover state. Expectedly, we got cleaned up.

After exerting ourselves and a quick swim in the ocean, we retired back poolside where Chris and Alex ordered some very expensive (THB 80) orange juice. After a sip, Alex places his cup on a crack in the deck and spills it all. By now, the sun was getting quit warm. Alex ignores wise advice to put a shirt on; as a result he ends up very red…

We had dinner at Ninja’s again. Alex tries to order the spiciest mean again, but noodle soup turned up. The night was kept pretty low key; couple beers and some cards before bed.

3-Dec-2007 – Koh Samui - Koh Phi Phi

Early morning wakeup call at 5:30am. Picked up out pre-arranged breakfast boxes and jumped in our van to the pier, where our bus was waiting for us. The bus took us to the ferry, which then took us to Don Sak. Alex volunteered to provide snacks for the ferry trip. He managed to buy two packets of rotten fish flavoured snacks. “They looked like BBQ flavour”.

The bus at Don Sak took us to some shack in the outskirts of Surat Thani. We waited there for ages and eventually got picked up by a ute/truck that took us around the corner to some transfer shop. Apparently we didn’t have tickets for the bus, so had to purchase some for THB 100, even though we had already pre-paid for our tickets.

A van turned up and picked us up, along with Andreas and two Swedish chicks. Andreas was an English dude who was on his way to Waimate and the two Swedish chicks, contrary to popular belief, were not that hot. There was no air-con in the van, so it was a very stuffy trip to Krabi.

At Krabi, we boarded the boat to Koh Phi Phi. The process to get on the boat was ridiculous; we exchanged our tickets for another ticket, which we exchanged for 20 metres later for another ticket. 10 metres later, the most recently received tickets were torn in half… blatant deforestation.

The boat to Koh Phi Phi was packed, more people than space. We arrived at Koh Phi Phi to find that we had been booked in at Phi Phi Hotel. Checked in and went straight to the pool for a swim. After that, it was dinner time – BBQ buffet, our first proper meal of the day. As per usual, eyes bigger than our stomachs. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel with the aim of heading back out – didn’t happen, we were way too knackered. Instead, we booked a snorkelling trip for the next day and played some cards.

4-Dec-2007 – Koh Phi Phi

First things first, buffet breakfast and check emails.

We met our snorkelling group; Jascha (Dutch), Camille (French), a Shanghai couple, Japanese girl, and two Swedish chicks. Our guide led us to a long-tail boat and we all headed to our first snorkelling spot at little cove on the North-West side of Koh Phi Phi Don. We were able to heaps of tropical fish swimming in the waters and the visibility was amazing.

The next stop was the aptly-named Monkey Beach – monkeys were everywhere on the beach. We had lunch and a snorkel around the rocks. We saw schools of little fish, along with a couple barracudas, and there was a bit of coral around to see as well. Jetting across the bay, we stopped at Short Beach. There was an underwater tunnel that we could snorkel through. Hamish managed to somehow cut himself and also started coughing up blood. Alex snorkelled down to where there was a group of divers.

We chilled on the beach for a bit before heading to Koh Phi Phi Ley. Seas were pretty choppy for our small boat and we all got drenched on the trip to Maya Bay – the beach where they shot “The Beach”. We swam here and our guide tried to take us across the island to a sweet snorkelling spot, but it was too rough for anyone to get through. Instead, we headed to the sunset view point, where we snorkelled and fed some fish. Camille and the tour guide had a (not so) playful Muay Thai boxing fight. It turns out that our guide was a former Muay Thai boxing champ. It was also somewhere round this point that we found out our guide had been high all day. We watched the sunset (behind some clouds which we all thought was land). Heading back across the straight was good fun. The seas had picked up and it was pretty rough, meaning we all got drenched again.

Back on main land, we headed back to the hotel to shower and change. Jascha and Camille were keen to try out the all-you-can-eat BBQ place, so we met up there. During dinner, Camille had issues with understanding how we couldn’t eat and drink at the same time. We decided to hit up the bars with these guys. Tiger bar for a few Sangsom buckets was the first stop, then to a reggae bar where we could watch some muay thai boxing. Amateurs were able to get up and fight, which was pretty entertaining. There was some big yobbo tourist, who had beat Camille on a previous night, who got his arse kicked by this tiny little dude. The yobbo only had one move really, a roundhouse kick. We watched another fight where a chick got kicked in the head by another chick. As soon as it happened, the first chick started apologising. At midnight, the bar gave out 200 free buckets. We managed to get in on that, but they were rubbish. We talked to some annoying Swedes and a dude, Dave, from Scotland. Hamish left fairly soon after finishing the buckets. Chris left no long after and somehow found Hamish (who had gotten lost). Alex stayed out, but somehow managed to find his way back.

5-Dec-2007 – Koh Phi Phi

Alex woke up at 7.45am very very hungover. He had booked up a diving trip for the day. Battling, he couldn’t find his camera, but Chris, half asleep, found it straight away.

Alex got two good dives in. Visibility was around 15 metres and a lot of fish were about. They were taken to a spot at Koh Phi Phi Ley, near “The Beach” beach. Al had to have a lie down at lunchtime as he was so hungover. He couldn’t talk… 

Meanwhile, Hamish and Chris had a decent sleep in to avoid having hangovers. Chris woke up at 10:10 am to discover that they’d missed breakfast. Not a lot of action back on main land; a bit of laundry and mindless wandering.

When Alex returned from his half-day dive trip, we had a swim and a wander up to the view point and watched the sunset. This seemed to be a very popular idea with many of the tourists. It was a tough climb, but well worth it. Alex had issues with facial expressions and arm placement in photos. After the sunset, we headed down to the 2004 tsunami memorial. We had dinner at a very scummy all-you-can eat sushi place and then returned home to crash. Alex must have eaten something foreign, as he was completely out of it when we got back to the hotel room.

6-Dec-2007 – Koh Phi Phi - Patong Beach

We woke and had the last good breakfast before catching the early ferry to Phuket. There was a lot of confusion around which boat people were supposed to be on. Two boats were moored alongside each other. The first boat was headed back to Krabi, while the other was headed to Phuket. You had to go on the first to get onto the second. Hamish missed this fact, only getting onto the first. No one told Hamish he was on the wrong boat until Chris and Alex yelled out from the other boat.

The boat took us to Phuket, where we then got into a van that took us to the Mermaid Resort at Patong Beach. We had a sweet pool outside our room, so we had a swim and played some ball in the pool. Al threw Chris a wide ball and Chris took an amazing catch, but split his elbow open on the side of the pool. He went back to the room to clean it up, but fell faint in the process (not good with blood).

We had a wander to get some lunch and patch up Chris’ elbow. The shopping area wasn’t that far away, so we had a shop for the afternoon. All of us ended up buying a lot of DVDs. The walk actually ended up being rather sizable. We picked up some Changs on the way to our room. Around 9:30pm we got the munchies, so went to grab some dinner and then decided to hit the night life.

There was a huge debate about where to go. We somehow managed to end up in some Aussie bar, where a babe from Canberra would talk to Hamish. On transit between bars, we bumped into the W.A. chicks that we’d met on Koh Samui. They had no recollection on meeting us - gutted. After a few too many drinks, we headed home. Alex set an alarm so we wouldn’t miss breakfast.

7-Dec-2007 - Phuket

We woke up pretty hung, had breakfast and then sat round the pool reading til somewhere round 2:30pm. We had lunch at a different place to yesterday. Chris ordered pork with vegetables, but actually got vegetables hold the pork. We checked emails after lunch and went shirt shopping. We spent ages shirt shopping, but came out with some good stuff. Tired and stressed from the epic shopping we shelled out for authentic Thai massages. The massage ‘rooms’ were essentially a series of mattresses separated by curtains. We were each directed to a separate ‘room’ and asked to remove our clothes. We decided down to punters was far enough. Alex, the raging bull, got special sound effects from the customer next door, who had obviously asked for the ‘special’ massage with the happy ending. “You finished now, you go shower.” Chris, the sleeping elephant, thought Alex had asked for the ‘special’ massage. Alex defends his new nickname, claiming his masseuse was extremely hot.

Feeling a bit peckish (and, for one of us, a bit drained of blood) after our massages, we grabbed some dinner, before heading back to the hotel for an early night.

8-Dec-2007 – Phuket-Kuala Lumpur

Today, we left Thailand for Malaysia. We got up at 6:45am for a 7:15am departure by van. The van was pretty small, so for 3 relatively large guys, we were pretty squashed in the back seat. The van took us to somewhere just outside of Krabi. Here we switched into an even more cramped and non-air conditioned van. This van took us to Hat Pai, where we again changed vans. The new van was much more spacious, and air conditioned. It was also much speedier than our previous two vans. We crossed the border between Thailand and Malaysia. It was amazing how relaxed they were at the border; we had stuff to declare, but they still put us in the express green lane.

The van took us to a massive bus depot in Butterworth, Malaysia, where we had to wait 2 ½ hours for our bus to depart. We played ‘contract whist’ (essentially Up & Down the River) with Mick and Jenny from England. There was some little random local kid running round begging for loose change. We finally got on our bus to Kuala Lumpur. The bus was three seats wide – one on one side, the aisle, and two on the other side. The air con on the bus was ridiculously cold. We had an extremely chilly sleep, Alex especially. He had packed his jersey in his stowaway luggage and not until the morning was he aware that he had Chris’ air con pointing towards him or that Hamish had a spare jersey in his backpack. Hamish and Chris woke up just as the bus left what looked to be a random bus stop. As it turns out, this was the Kuala Lumpur stop – a little side street bus shelter across the road from the major bus depot. Seeing as this didn’t appear to be a major bus stop, we didn’t get off and ended up in Klang (the port).

9-Dec-2007 – Kuala Lumpur

After nearly 25 hours in our overnight bus and missing our stop in Kuala Lumpur, we arrived in Klang. We were too early for the bus ticket offices, so had to perch until we could buy tickets back to Kuala Lumpur.

When we finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Hamish bolted to the nearest McDonald’s, only to find that they had squat toilets. We asked him what the issue was with squatting, to which he replied “I don’t have the flexibility.” He finally caved, and used the squat toilet. Whilst he was ‘taking care of business,’ Alex also needed to use the bathroom. The cleaner had just come out of the women’s toilet and ushered Alex into them to use, where Alex discovered that the women’s had a proper sit down toilet – much to Hamish’s frustration.

We stayed at the Swiss Inn and dropped our laundry off at a cheap local backpackers. We took the LRT (Light Rail Train) to the KLCC station to see the Petronas Towers. We were too late for skybridge tickets, so had a quick look round the KLCC mall and then walked to the Golden Triangle.

We had lunch at BB Plaza and then had a quick look round Chinatown. Batu Caves were supposed to be a pretty sweet attraction, so we tried to find a bus out there. After walking round a couple clocks, we realised that we were in the right place to begin with. The caves were pretty cool. There was a ridiculous number of stairs to climb up to the caves, but it was worth the climb. Hamish watched a stand-off between a poisonous yellow-striped snake and a monkey.

Night started to fall, so we bussed back into town and headed to the KL tower. Chris and Alex took the long way round the hill to get to the tower. Up the tower, we were able to look over the city lights – pretty romantic really. We walked back to the Swiss in, picking up our washing on the way. We had claypot chicken around the back of our motel, at some road-side hawker. It looked pretty legit; heaps of locals were eating there, so we decided it was sweet.

After dinner, Alex went back to the motel to crash, while Hamish and Chris went to check out the markets. It turns out that the best time to land some good bargains is when shops are closing up. We got some awesome deals on wallets, bags and cufflinks.

10-Dec-2007 – Kuala Lumpur - Teman Negara

We woke up an hour after what we had thought we’d set our alarms for, due to our phones still being set to Thailand time. Rushing to pack, as well as trying to book a trip to Teman Negara, we didn’t have time for breakfast. A van turned up to take us to Kuala Tembeling. We had lunch and then it started bucketing down. After lunch, we boarded a boat which would take us the river right into the heart of Teman Negara. Hamish bailed down the marble stairs leading down to the dock. During our quick 2 ½ boat trip up the river, we saw a couple water manitors; one perched up on the river bank and one climbing a tree.

The boat pulled up to a floating pontoon at Kuala Tahan, where we would spend the next couple days in the rain forest. We were shown to our room – a hut with two sets of bunks. We chilled there and chatted to Benji, a dude from US/Israel. He had just come from a stint with the Israeli Army. We played a bit of cards with him. Dinner was served on a floating restaurant on the river side. As it turned out, this would be where all our meals would be served.

After dinner we crossed the river to the National Park to go on our night tour. They started us off in a room where we watched a video about the region, before taking us on the night walk. Rain was pouring down and Al’s touch was similar to high eye sight – abysmal. The guide showed us where a tarantula should live, but no actual tarantula. We saw some deer from a hide… well, we saw eyes reflecting the torch light. Majority of what we did see were moths.

After a very wet and mostly disappointing trip, we hit the sack.

11-Dec-2007 – Teman Negara

Another wet day in the rainforest, what else should we have expected? We got up and had breakfast at the floating restaurant, before departing on a bush walk to a lookout. Asty’s jacket was very ineffective, however, it didn’t matter as everyone ended up sopping wet.

We kept count of the number of leeches we attracted; Alex finished up with two, Hamish attracted one and Chris got two and a half (one was on the sock). We made it up to the lookout and got a good view of the clouds below. The guide took us further along the track to the canopy walkway, but when we arrived it had been closed.

We caught the boat back to Kuala Tahan for lunch, and then took it further to see the Orang Aioli village. The village locals demonstrated a few of their survival skills; Hamish broke the fire starting wood twice. Asty hit the blowdart target, even though he couldn’t see it – he thought the leaf target was a hole. Chris and Hamish narrowly missed. Hamish looked as if he was trying to eat the end of pipe. He blew on the pipe, but jams the tube. Locals tried for ages to fix it. The guide tells us it’s time to say goodbye. The whole village comes out to say good bye. Waited ages for the boat to arrive and we got soaked in the rapids on the way back. The river had risen a couple meters higher than the day before.

We had cold, dribbling showers; probably would have got more pressure from the rain outside. Played some cards before we went to having dinner with John and Brooke (a couple from Australia).

12-Dec-2007 – Teman Negara - Malacca

Woke up and started to pack up our gear. In the process, Chris found a frog chilling under his bed. Angry John was impatient to go, so we took a pretty quick trip down the river – the boat was hauling. The road from Kuala Tembling to Jerantut was flooded so we had to take the boat further down the river. We got off the boat and had to walk for a while, before squashing into a van. We waited at some random hostel, then piled into the van, drove round the block and waited some more.

Finally, we got the van back to KL and they gave us a measly refund. The van dropped us at the main bus station and the lady who Hamish bought the tickets off sent her regards… only problem was that she was in her mid 30’s. We jumped on the bus to Malacca (cost us 10RM) and the driver almost rear-ended a car.

We took the bus right into the middle of town and got off at the Town Square. Checked into Cho Tho Hotel and did the traditional rock-off for the double bed. Hamish’s luck finally changed and got a double bed to himself. We wandered down to Chinatown for dinner, but all of us were pretty knackered at that stage.

13-Dec-2007 – Malacca

We woke up and went in search of breakfast. Found a sweet little café/restaurant next to the river. Water monitors were chilling on the far river bank. There was this random guy hanging round the café, but didn’t amount to anything.

We had a look in stalls, before heading up to Old St Paul’s Church at the top of the hill. There were some remnants of Fort Santiago nearby, so we had a look round there. Next, we went to the maritime and navy museum across town. Hamish was ‘scared’ of the ship; Flora da la mer ship was closed for renovations, so we went to the shopping to mall to get some shopping in and grab some lunch. Alex – “So, when was my last shit?” Alex struggled with car racing at the Timeout. We bought some drinks and went to Stad toeys museum. Hamish went in and looked round at the history of the city.

That night, we checked out the night markets. They were surprisingly quiet. We got a cheap dinner and tried a bamboo drink. More DVDs were purchased, along with some magic tricks.

14-Dec-2007 – Malacca - Singapore

We caught a taxi to the Malacca Sentral for an 11am bus to Singapore. Alex grabbed a voucher off some promo chick. Finally something paid off for him; it was a voucher for a free McMuffin from McDonalds. Alex spent the whole breakfast/brunch gloating.

The bus stopped at a service centre and we grabbed some lunch from the canteen there. We all ordered laksas; Hamish didn’t really enjoy it. We also tried fresh durian.

When we approached the border to Singapore it started raining – hard. None of us had ever seen rain as heavy as this before. Our bus was making wakes in the surface water on the road. The so-called tight customs at the border between Malaysia and Singapore didn’t want to know about us. We were previously panicking about our copied DVDs, etc, but it was pretty much a walk through.

We got off the bus at the depot and it was still bucketing down. It was nearly impossible to flag down a taxi; it took forever and we all got pretty soaked, especially Hamish. Finally we got one and headed to Hamish’s aunty’s place. We showered while she cooked us some dinner, and after dinner we watched “In the pursuit of happiness.”

15-Dec-2007 – Singapore

We did the usual tourist thing today; went to Orchard Rd, bought cologne/perfume from Lucky Plaza, and loaded up on electronics. Wandering down the road, we came across some side street that had a few food places down it. One place was selling pan-fried stingray, so we thought we’d sample it for lunch. It wasn’t too bad – much like flounder or sole.

After lunch, we boosted to Chinatown so Crips could get his aunty’s tiger balm. We then caught the MRT to Harbourfront and then walked to Vivo City (a big shopping centre). Vivo City is also where you catch the monorail to Sentosa Island. We jumped on the monorail, and this was when we discovered Alex’s feet or sandals wreaked. Once we got to Sentosa Island, we jumped on a bus that took us to Fort Siloso. It was bucketing down, so we bought ponchos but still managed to get soaked. We had a look around the old fort and some of the World War II history.

After a quick stop to check out the Merlion, we were back on the monorail and then on a bus back to Hamish’ Aunty’s place. We enjoyed a lovely dinner of crumbed chicken that Alex complimented by asking “what type of fish is this?” – Douche. We let Hamis
h’s cousin, Jon, choose a DVD to watch. He chose “Round the World in 80 Days.”

16-Dec-2007 – Singapore

Got up well rested from a good night’s sleep. Alex must’ve still been asleep at breakfast as he put lime juice on his weetbix, thinking it was “super skim milk.”

We hit up the zoo today. It ended up being a mammoth day out. We hung round for the night safari. Alex
wasn’t keen as he thought that the night safari was just going to the zoo at night. Our favourite animal was probably the spectral tarsier as is was nowhere to be seen. Alex asked what the name of the spectral … was; Hamish repeated “Tarsier” four times and on the fourth Alex was like “yeah, its Tarsier!”

We had an epically large feed at KFC. Alex and Chris had an almost as epic game of war.

17-Dec-2007 – Singapore - Darwin

We packed up our kit and hopped on the bus to Orchard Road. We wandered round the grounds of the Raffles Hotel and built up a good thirst, so went to the Long Bar. Alex ordered a pint of Tiger beer, as we were at the end of our trip – “When in Rome.” Chris and Hamish stuck to the coke. The bill came round; $20 for the pint of Tiger and $10 each for the cokes! We sat there and ate our money’s worth of peanuts.

After “quenching” our thirsts, we took a bus to Little India for lunch and a bit of shopping at Mustafa Centre. We got a tasty feed of tandoori chicken and mango lassi from some random corner Indian takeaway.

We jumped on the MRT and then a bus back to Hamish’s aunt’s to shower and pack up our final things, before jumping in a taxi to the airport. Check-in was a breeze, but the plane was delayed for an hour due to a communication system malfunction. The budget terminal was very budget; their slogan was “Notice the Difference.”

We landed in Darwin at 2am. Hamish had his bag searched by MAF because of his snake whiskey. The delays almost made us miss our connection to Melbourne, but luckily their check-in counter computers crashed and we boarded the domestic flight to Melbourne.

18-Dec-2007 – Darwin - Melbourne - Auckland, Wellington, or Christchurch

We all had a rubbish 1-2 hours sleep on the plane. We arrived in Melbourne at the most budget terminal; there was no real terminal, just a conveyer belt for luggage that was in a shed.

We caught the bus into town and walked around for a bit. We chilled in Federation Square for a while to try re-energise. After we perked up, we went down to the MCG and had a tour round the stadium. Alex was in his prime; Australian cricket history everywhere. We trammed back into town and then got on a bus back to the airport to check in for our flights home. Got through without any problems and had one final game of Scum – Hamish was the champion!

One last photo and we boarded our respective flights home.

BRING ON MR D. Part 2!!