The last one

This will be the final blog and one that does a bit of a rundown on some of the more amazing things I did or saw while away. Ive been putting it off for a while but having been asked a few times now what my highlight or highlights were I thought I should put something together. So here are my top 11 moments of my trip abroad. Its 11 because I was gone for 11 months and includes at least one moment from each country I visited. For those of you who dont remember I was in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia and New Zealand. Ive ordered them in how much they mean to me (or in some cases what I remember of them) so number one is clearly the best. Lets begin our countdown with Number 11!

11. Teaching Math & Science: This one kind of had to feature since it comprised 5 months of my trip away. I still remember arriving at the school for my first day's work under the impression I had to teach English with a little bit of Math or Science on the side. This turned out to be the other way around and straight away I had to chat to the kids for a good half hour having been told I would only have to say hello! This one takes in a lot of things from teaching itself, living in a foreign country where I dont speak the language or look like anyone else, cleaning days which were my days off, games in the classroom, relearning what I had to teach the night before I had to teach it, hanging out with the other teachers in the school who spoke english, Ajarn Chaweewan, trips to Chiang Mai (one of my fave cities if not the fave) and so much more. It was a challenging experience that took a while to get used to but left me with the confidence to take on other challenging things I might have shied away from if I hadnt gone and done this. I now forever have the sentence “Well if I can teach thai kids Math and Science then I can do this!”.

10. Phi Phi: Probably my first big trip once in thailand and working was going to Koh Phi Phi for New Year. It was a nightmare logistically because I assumed it had all been taken care of for me and I just had to show up. So it started with getting to Phuket and missing the ferry, followed by missing the gang on Phi Phi and not getting into the hostel till nighttime. Once there things picked up and I had a great time with the friends I made in teaching orientation in Bangkok. I got really drunk and really sunburned but had an amazing time. I played football on a beach, I got to visit The Beach, I got to sit on perfect white sand and swim in crystal clear water. Then there was NY Eve itself and getting off my face on 'buckets'. It was an amazing little holiday from work and we all made the most of it.

9. The slow boat down the Mekong: In a way the beginning of the travelling for me. I had moved out of Li and with my backpack on my back I was off to Laos, on a boat. Crammed onto barge for two days with a large gang of other backpackers there is little to do but befriend people and have a good time. We spent plenty of time chatting, a lot of time drinking and the boat was under a haze for a lot of the trip too. I made friends aplenty here and met them all along the way through Laos, though mostly in Vang Vieng where we did some more socialising and drinking. My first overland border crossing too which is a ritual I would come to hate but at the time was all good fun.

8. Franzjosef: Hiking on a glacier for a full day, what's not to like? It was a truly spectacular experience and one that will stick with me for a while. The sheer beauty of the glacier and the surrounding valley made this a special journey. The highlight of which was shuffling through the blue ice crevasse. There are not many places in the world left where you can get up close and personal with that deep shade of blue ice.

7. The Great Barrier Reef: An amazing day trip where I got to snorkel over one of the natural wonders of the world. The weather was good, the water was beautiful, the staff on the boat were amazing and I got to see Nemo and a turtle in the wild! Beautiful coral, amazing fish and sealife, its what visiting Cairns, Australia is all about.

6. Mae Hong Son: A week-long motorbike trip through the northwest of Thailand with Markus Chisholm. The two of us just rented a pair of motorbikes and sped off into the mountains, driving our way through some spectacular scenery and visiting some wicked towns like Pai and Mae Hong Son. Pai itself is an amazing little place and we had a good laugh there. The journey didnt end so well or it might be higher in the list but if you dont know what im talking about then look back through my blogs. I still have the scars.

5. Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple): This was a crazy place in the thai city of Chiang Rai where an artist had taken your standard red and gold temple and painted the entire structure white. He added a few little twists of his own on top of this such as the bridge over the sea of souls but the highlight was the inner wall of the chamber. On the wall that you pass through to enter it had a painting with all sorts of crazy stuff on it from Bin Laden to Superman, from Converse shoes to Neo, its one of these things you have to see to believe.

4. Ha Long Bay: A boat trip on the famous bay just north of Hanoi in Vietnam. It is a massive bay with thousands of rock formations rising up from the water like little islands (some of them are actual islands too). Its a fairly mind numbing experience as shown by the fact that all of us on the boat sat there staring around us in amazement for most of the boat journey. The sunsets were particularly impressive and I got to do some sea kayaking so all in all a pretty cool trip! Oh and there was the visit to Monkey Island.

3. Skydiving: An amazing experience if probably the most terrifying thing ive ever done. Im still not entirely sure why I did do it but im glad to be able to say I jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet and lived to tell the tale.....barely. Ive got the photos and the dvd to prove it to any doubters too.

2. Angkor Wat: These truly deserve to be one of the wonders of the world and Cambodia itself is such a beautiful and welcoming place to go on top of it. The temples will blow you away, simply because they are among some of the oldest man made structures still standing in the world today and you can see how the ravages of time and mother nature have taken their toll. This place was in the middle of a jungle for a very long time which you can clearly see when you visit the 'Tomb Raider' temple which has trees growing on and around and through walls at what seem impossible angles. Go and see it for yourself!

1. Whitsunday Islands: Surprised at the number one? Well you shouldnt be. On this trip I got to travel on a sailing boat and help out, snorkel with fish and beautiful coral but more importantly meet one crazy, hot scottish girl. You've got to love that scottish accent......

So that's a wrap for me. There are plenty of experiences I had which didnt feature on the list such as tubing in Vang Vieng, the border crossing into Vietnam, Phnom Penh, Hoi An, Fraser Island. Sports days in the school and many, many more. It is a journey I will treasure and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

This is the end......

My final stop on my 11 month journey was in Queenstown, NZ. From here i would fly (not directly) home to Ireland after 6 nights living it up in the party central of NZ. At least that was the plan. It was all going well for a few days, had a savage night out with the Magic bus crew the first night and had sussed out the town during the days. Then i met up with Dan, fresh into town from Wanaka, and went for a few drinks with him. However, as i went to the atm to get some cash out i soon discovered a problem. The money had run out. I was broke 4 days from the end of my trip! Luckily enough i had the hostel paid for, $30 in my pocket and a bag of rice so i had food and lodging. it meant the partying had to end there and then and i wouldnt be doing any of the many crazy activities which Queenstown has to offer. But i did have a prepaid trip on the gondola and luge so when we got a sunny day myself and Dan went on it. The view from the top of the gondola over the town and lake with the snow topped mountains surrounding everything was amazing. The luge then was great craic full of dips, sharp bends and tunnels but another lap or two would have made it a more worthwhile activity. Ah well.

Later on that day we had a go at frisbee golf in the local park. This involves a frisbee each and a frisbee golf course which was marked out. I sucked at it. Dan wasnt too bad but the trees took a dislike to having a plastic frisbee thrown at them and said frisbee was dead by the end of the round. How it survived that long i dont know. The fun kind of ended there really. The weather turned over the next few days and i was cooped up in my hostel most of the time. On my last night i went and spent the last few dollars i had on drinks with a small group. I spent a bit of time planning for my return to Ireland and the fact that my journey was over sank in fast. It has been an amazing trip and i am so glad i did it. I will have one final blog covering the highlights of the entire journey so keep an eye out for it!

Wanaka

We left Franzjosef in the early morning and began the long journey south towards Queenstown. Before getting that far i would be jumping off the bus in the small lakeside town of Wanaka. We had a few stops on the way the initial one of which was at Lake Matheson, famous for being the 'Reflection Lake'. Basically it is a smallish lake with really still water so you can see the reflection of the mountains in its surface. Its quite pretty and we had a decent day so i walked all the way around it with a couple of others. We had a nice brisk walk as we were a bit tied for time but it was a good way to wake up! After that we had another few stops for some photos, food and the toilets but the next major thing was actually when we got as far as Lake Wanaka after which the town is named. Its a massive lake and we effectively had to drive the whole length of it to reach the town but the scenery on the way was superb. But mostly there was a lot of driving to the day and we got into Wanaka by 2.30. The hostel looked really nice and had a great view out over the lake itself. I figured that i would take it easy for the afternoon and do some stuff the following day. So i went for a bit of a walk and bumped into Cicero, the Brazilian guy from the bus. The two of us chilled out for a little bit and then i went back to the hostel for the evening. Later on a few of us went for drinks, including Dan, a guy i met in FJ and one who i was planning to meet up with in Queenstown and visiting Milford Sound with. But we went for drinks in Wanaka first and had a good laugh mostly at Cicero's expense due to his complete lack of a tolerance for alcohol.

The next morning i was planning to go to Puzzle World which is one of the more eccentric attractions I've come across on my travels. Dan was up to join me as well so the two of us made our way over. Puzzle World is an odd place but cool. It has a maze, an illusion gallery and a cafe with loads of puzzles on the tables. We started with the gallery and saw 3-D holographic pictures, the wall of moving faces and the tilted room where everything is at a 15 degree angle. The weirdest bit was a room that had a slop in it. From the outside it looked normal enough but there were two doors and if you stood inside one of them compared to someone standing in the other you looked like a giant compared to them. You could watch it all on a video link set up outside and its hilarious to see, especially with two people! After this we went outside to the maze and we had a race to see who could find the four corners and get out first. I was doing well by getting to the corners ahead of Dan but got totally lost and by the time i got out he was waiting for me with a big grin on his face. We finished the morning off with 3-D X's and O's where i got the upper hand (success!). Worn out from our mental activities we headed back to town. Dan went off for a walk and i went to watch Inception at the funky Cinema Paradiso.

If you haven't seen this movie yet then do, its epic! The cinema was one screen and littered with couches, armchairs and normal cinema seats as well as a car from which to watch the film. There was also an interval which caught me off guard, i thought the frigging film was ending! Later on we had the All Blacks v Wallabies in the TV room in the hostel so it was a pretty laid back day. The following day wasn't busy by any means either. Chilling in the hostel before hopping on the bus to Queenstown. Oh and i beat Dan at chess so i was getting revenge for losing at the maze!

Glacier hiking

The trip to FranzJosef was fairly short but had one important little stop along the way. We stopped in a tiny place called Ross and did some gold panning. This little settlement was the centre for gold mining and panning in its heyday and they still mine there today i believe. When we got to the i-site and paid our $8 we got a pan of stones each with the promise we would all strike gold. They led us out back to where they had a series of baths. Here we were shown how to 'wash' the stones out of our pans using the water to drag the bigger stones into the bath. Its all about rolling the stones out without losing any precious gold! Because the gold is heavier than stone it stays at the bottom and a lip on the pan ensures it doesn't get washed out. There are only small flakes in each pan so its easy enough to get down to it and pick out the stones at the end. We certainly weren't going to get rich out of the gold we found. So in the bottom of each pan are flecks of gold (and greenstone) which get transferred into a little vial to give you a souvenir of the experience.

We arrived in FJ around noon which allowed people to go on a half day hike on the glacier and move on the following morning if they were in a rush which plenty of people chose to do. There were a few of us hanging on for the full day experience and we got to see the glacier in the afternoon from a viewpoint near its head. The next day we would be walking on ice for many hours so it was quite an impressive sight to see this frozen river of ice flowing down the valley. After that i just chilled out and did a few bits and pieces that id put off for a few days including getting all the gear together that i would need to bring with me tomorrow. Later on a few of us in the hostel took advantage of happy hour in a nearby bar to have a few cheap drinks and then it was an early night to prepare myself for my adventures the next day.

I arrived at the Glacier Guides centre at 8am excited by the prospect of the coming day. There were 40 people on the hike with me which sounds a lot but it worked out ok as i'll explain later. We got our briefing and were provided with waterproof jacket and trousers, boots, woolly socks and crampons. These are metal spikes which you strap onto the sole of your boots to give you grip on the ice. This all took a while as there were so many of us so it was after 9am by the time we were on the bus which shuttled us to the viewpoint id been at the previous day. This is where the trek began. It started with a quick hike through some woodland to the valley floor close to the glacier itself. Here we were split into two groups, the pace setters and the picture takers. I jumped in the first group as i was there for the challenge and experience more so than to take a million photos which, upon looking around, i suspected plenty of people were. Photos are great but if you don't enjoy these places when you are there then what's the point? Our group took off at a good, steady pace and soon reached the front of the glacier where 2 more guides were waiting. We now had 4 guides which put each group at 10 to one guide which is pretty manageable. Next we climbed a hill of scree until we reached the ice itself. At this stage we put on the crampons and were ready to walk on ice!

The trick to walking on ice in crampons is to keep walking forwards in a straight line and stamping your feet slightly at each step to dig the spikes in. Keeping your feet apart also ensures you don't faceplant or rip your pants. Other than that its pretty straightforward (get it?). Just pay attention and you'll be fine. But then when you are walking on one of the most amazing natural occurrences and gazing around you at the natural beauty of the glacier and its valley then you can be forgiven for being a little distracted. I guess the first thing i noticed about the glacier is the surface. When i think of ice i think of smooth, shiny and slippery but a glacier is different because it is constantly melting and freezing so the surface is rarely flat, hardly ever smooth and often quite rough. There are dips, cracks, crevasses, towering walls, tunnels and hills all over the surface of it. Because the glacier is basically constantly melting and reforming the surface changes a lot. So it forms randomly and is tricky to negotiate. Our guide began putting his pickaxe to good use clearing a path for us mostly by cutting steps or clearing new ice from existing steps. This makes progress pretty slow as we have to wait for him to do this at times. We spent a lot of time climbing up but at times would walk through little 'valleys' with walls of ice rising on each side. The going wasn't too bad so far, we were moving steadily and doing plenty of climbing up and down with small patches of walking on flat terrain. We could fill our water bottles from the various little streams we occasionally came across too. So this point it was a pleasantly challenging experience. But it was about to get better.

The first bit of real excitement was the first tunnel. We crouched and half crawled, half shuffled our way through a tiny tunnel carved into the ice, a prime photo stop! Soon after this we stopped for lunch and the other groups caught up. Then the guides disappeared somewhere together for what seemed like an age. When they came back they were soaked through and grinning from ear to ear. We were told to don our waterproof stuff and follow them. Around the corner we we saw what had them so wet and excited. We were going to go through a blue ice crevasse which had water streaming down both sides. It was a tight squeeze, you could only go through sideways but it was an amazing sight. It was deep enough that we could see the true (blue) colour of ice and with the aid of a rope we could get in and out and see it up close and personal. So close in fact that we got pretty wet, waterproof gear or not! Taking pictures was kind of out of the question as there was a lot of water falling on us so sadly no amazing pictures. That was easily the highlight of the day and we followed it with a couple more tunnels and crevasses. We were all really enjoying the day but i was starting to get a little frustrated with two of the group. We had 2 chinese girls in our group who every 5 minutes or so would stop and take several pictures of each other. This could be halfway up or down a slope, inside a tunnel or crevasse or just while walking along. Its really annoying when you are trying to get up a hill of ice and the person in front of you stops. I got stuck behind them for an hour and was getting pretty fed up of them before i got a chance to pass them. I think its an Asian thing to take millions of photos of yourself while abroad while doing the "peace" salute.

Besides this i really enjoyed the day and its definitely a highlight of my overall trip. That said, when we began to descend the glacier i was happy enough to do so. It was after 3 by this time and we had been walking pretty consistently since before 10am. It took no time at all to work our way down and we were on the rocks taking the crampons off by 4. A brisk walk back through the bush and we were back on the bus. We got dropped off at the office where we shed all the gear we had been given for the day and that was it. I jumped on the net to share my day's adventure with everyone and then it was back to the hostel in time for the free soup. After that i made my way to the glacial hot pools to relax my weary muscles. 3 hot pools at 36, 38 and 40 degrees celsius soothed my stiff legs and i chatted away to a few other people who were doing the same. Back at the hostel i watched a bit of a movie and had an early night and that was me done.

I had one last day in FJ afterwards which, needless to say, was a lazy one. Besides the glacier there is precious else of interest in this quiet little town so i relaxed and caught up on some reading and a bit of blogging. After such a hectic day yesterday it was nice to sit in the sunshine and chill out. I was still on holiday after all! Next stop is Lake Wanaka for a bit more chilling out before finishing it all off in the craziness known as Queenstown.

The west coast of NZ's South Island

From Nelson it is a long trip to the next major settlement on the west coast: Greymouth. The plan was to have just one night there and move on to FranzJosef the following day. This necessitated a lot of traveling. We spent almost the whole day on the bus taking occasional photo stops and toilet breaks. The weather wasn't the best so it was a poor enough day for sightseeing. Still I was able to appreciate the stark, rugged beauty coastline of the west coast of NZ with the mountains on one side and the Tazman Sea on the other. The first stop of interest was to see a seal colony. I thought we would be walking along a beach amongst them but we simply looked down from the top of a cliff at them. If they weren't moving about you might not even notice they were there as they blend in quite well to the rocks they are sitting on. There were plenty of pups flopping around the place which was kind of cute but the weather meant we didn't hang around for long. There was a pretty cool signpost though that pointed to the major cities of the world and gave the distances from that point to them. Dublin didn't feature but Westport did (the NZ one)! Later in the day we had another stop at a landmark known as the 'Pancake Rocks'. They are so called because they have formed in layers like a stack of pancakes. They are some kind of geological anomaly and were interesting enough but I was more interested in the blowholes; holes in the rock above a cave where waves crash in and spout from the blowhole. After that we had another quick stop at a lookout that had a waterfall on the beach and we were pretty much in Greymouth.

Most of us on the bus had signed up to the activity here in Greymouth offered by the Magic Bus: a brewery tour. We got a deal on a tour and tasting followed by a meal in a bar of our choice. The brewery tour was quite interesting, it was a lot smaller than the one I had visited in Brisbane but there was a more personal touch to the brewery process because of that. The highlight of the tour was undoubtedly the tasting at the end. We got to taste 7 different brews from cider to pilsner to ale and afterwards had the opportunity to pour a glass (or two) of your favourite. One of our group proved themselves to be a lightweight here as they got smashed off the tasting. Who? A Brazilian guy named Cicero. He provided the entertainment for the evening as we drank more in the bar later. We got ferried to said bar in a taxi and had our pub grub and a few more bevvies. It was a good night and a great way to end a long day traveling. We didn't get to see much of Greymouth as a result but by all accounts I wasn't missing much. We had an early start the next day but a relatively short trip to the town of FranzJosef, home of the FranzJosef glacier on which I would be hiking for a full day!

Arrival on the South Island and Nelson

The day began with a shuttle bus to the ferry terminal. We loaded our luggage much as you would do for a flight and boarded the ferry which would take us across the Cook Straits to the South Island of NZ. The journey was to last 3 hours and it was a bright, sunny day so it promised to be a pleasant crossing. The first part of the journey was nice but it wasnt until we got close to the South Island that it became spectacular. I had been told a few times that the North Island was almost ugly compared to the South and I began to see what they were getting on about. As we sailed through the straits that would lead us to the town of Picton I almost felt like I was back in Ha Long Bay. Surrounded on both sides by green, forested mountains and headlands it is a truly picturesque journey. We passed little bays and inlets along the way and even saw little isolated dwellings from which the only transport to civilisation could be boat. My mood and health were quickly improving by the time we landed. It was an effortless process to collect my baggage and hop on the waiting Magic Bus. From there it was a straight trip to Nelson where I would be staying for the next two nights. The scenery along the way was as breathtaking as that on the approach to the S. Island and I was quickly falling in love with the place. By the time we reached Nelson it was evening so barring a quick trip by a few of us off the bus to the supermarket it was a quiet night in. On the boat I began hearing about the earthquake which had hit Christchurch during the previous night and done so much damage, I didnt know anything about it till I saw a tv screen with news about it!

What most people do when they get to Nelson is take a trip to Abel Tazman National Park. I decided against this as I was just starting to recover from the flu and I was more focused on my hike on the FranzJosef glacier in a few days time. I wanted to be in good health for that. That said I did go for a short walk to the “Centre of NZ” which is the top of a hill on the outskirts of town. A brisk 30 minute walk took me to this nice viewpoint and I sat there and enjoyed both the sunshine and the view for a while. After a bit I decided to continue my walking and took another little walk which brought me over some hills to another part of town. All in all I was walking for a couple of hours and got back to the hostel in the early afternoon. Nothing too challenging but it fit the bill nicely. I spent the rest of the day relaxing in the hostel, doing some reading and writing and in the evening I followed this up by taking full advantage of the free hot spa and sauna provided by the hostel. It was an excellent way to finish off a good day. Also in the hostel I met a number of people who would be on the same Magic Bus as me in the morning so there would be a good gang of us for the next leg of the journey!

Welly and couchsurfing part 2

Wellington didnt have much of a chance since I arrived there sick and a bit down in the dumps as a result. Our driver for this section, Dusty, was the total opposite. He was a real livewire and was always chipping in on the mike with funny comments about various things and was just full of enthusiasm. Our main photostop was atop Mt Victoria which is beside Wellington. From here we got a good view of the city and the outlying bay. After this we went down into the city itself and everyone got off to check into their respective hostels. I wouldnt be using a hostel this time round as I had plans to couchsurf while I was in town. I had to wait until my host finished work first so I dossed around the city for a while using the internet and just getting some hot drinks into me. Then it was time to catch the bus out to one of the suburbs. All this was fine and I arrived at the house ok, sadly there was nobody there to greet me. I stuck around for about a half hour and realised there was a massive traffic jam just around the corner, a bus was blocking both flows. This meant wherever my host was she wouldnt be home anytime soon. I had no phone to get in touch with her and was starting to get cold as well so decided to abandon this couchsurfing attempt at least for one night. Lucky for me a friendly guy walking past was able to advise me on my best route back into the city centre which conveniently took me past his house so I walked with him for a bit before he showed me the entrance to the botanic gardens where there is a cable car down the hill into the city centre. So I caught that into town and walked to the nearest hostel to book in. After I got that sorted I bought a call card and got in touch with my would be host and let her know what had happened and that I would try catch up with her when she was in the city the following day. With all that done it wasnt long before I crashed into bed.

The next day started pretty sluggishly. I had no major plans for the day bar hitting the free museum and tracking down this couchsurfer. I achieved one of those goals. By the late morning I was wandering around Te Papa, the free national museum in Wellington. Its a really amazing complex comprising several floors and takes in everything from the geological history of New Zealand to the Maori history with everything in between and a few quirky sideshows thrown in for good measure. I spent a good 3 hours walking around it and didnt take in everything, its that big. If you are ever in Wellington it is well worth a visit and is the right price = FREE! In the afternoon I braved the famous winds of the 'Windy City' to search for my couchsurfer. She was supposed to be doing some charity work on one of the major streets but I never saw her. That pretty much killed the whole couchsurfing attempt and I just booked myself in for the remaining two nights in town. I spent the rest of the day chilling in the hostel and went for a few bevvies with a crew from my room. I stuck to the hot toddies to see if they would help shift the flu and had a good laugh with the crew.

My last day in Wellington was a lazy one. I wasnt really in the mood for doing anything in particular so I just hung around the hostel and arranged my travel for the next day. I was starting to feel a bit better due mainly to some stronger meds. Hopefully going to the South Island would give me a boost as well since its supposed to be beautiful and the real reason for visiting NZ!