Recent Asia Photos

Bangkok
https://picasaweb.google.com/jdfigley/BangkokThailand?authkey=Gv1sRgCJS9ouC_tOKDDg

Batu Caves, Malaysia
https://picasaweb.google.com/jdfigley/BatuCavesMalaysia?authkey=Gv1sRgCN7V7d66uf7KYg

Pictures from The Perhentian Islands, Malaysia

Sorry I haven't had time to write about it, but Pat and I just got back to Kuala Lumpur after spending 5 days in the Perhentian Islands off the east coast of Malaysia. We stayed on the small island and it was the most beautiful place ever! Very hot and humid, but the water was perfectly clear and very warm. We spent most of our time on the beach and in the water, and one day out on a snorkeling trip where we saw a ton of beautiful fish and some nice coral.
 Tonight we fly to Bangkok and tomorrow Caitlin flies in to meet us. From there we will head to some more islands in the south off the east coast of Thailand.
 The pics should give you an idea of how great this island was!!

https://picasaweb.google.com/jdfigley/ThePerhentianIslandsMalaysia?authkey=Gv1sRgCMv44OH20Y2xowE

On to Southeast Asia!!

July 13, 2011

We're outta here!!

         Today we left for Malaysia after spending a night in the Gold Coast. We had planned on arriving in the Gold Coast in the morning and then going out for the day and coming back to spend the night in the airport. We walked to the nearby beach with our big backpacks and spent a couple of hours laying around. It was sunny but windy so we ended up getting pretty cold. We got pizza for dinner and then went back to the airport. We noticed that all flights out stopped at 9:30pm and when I asked an employee we found out that the stupid airport closed from 10:30-4am! Lame. There go our free nights sleep plan. We ended up having to walk to a nearby hostel which was probably a good thing because we were super tired after not sleeping much the night before. We took a nap and then had peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. We then went back to sleep which was a bit hard because the hostel was freezing cold and since we're headed to Asia we only packed for warm weather. Seriously not a pleasant accommodation and we left too early in the morning to even get the free breakfast. Perhaps you can detect a bit of resentment at the situation. I've really enjoyed most of my time in Australia but this country is just so damn expensive and we're tired of having to pay so much for everything. So it's a really great feeling knowing that we're headed to a much cheaper land!

         After getting some sleep, which really was a good thing, we got up early this morning and walked back to the airport. After carrying my backpack for the first time yesterday I woke up with sore shoulder, hips, and back. Man, I sound like an old woman. I'm sure my body will get to used to it, but my main thought here is how thankful I am that there will cheap massages in Asia because I think I am going to need them frequently! Ouch.

         We're on a 9 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and we're really excited! Unfortunately, this airplane is also freezing cold and because it's a budget airline there are no blankets and we don't have any cash left to buy a blanket. Dern. So hopefully we both make it to Malaysia without getting sick from all our time spent being cold in the last day.

         I won't be writing as often as I did on the road trip because I think we will generally be busier this time. I will post updates occasionally though filling you in on our Asian adventures. The general plan is to spend a week in Malaysia in KL and the Perhentian Islands and then fly up to Bangkok. My besty friend Caitlin is flying into Bangkok the day after us to travel with us for two weeks. It should be great to have her along and it will be so good to see a familiar face from home (in the very unfamiliar country of Thailand! :) After she leaves we are planning to head to Northern Thailand to stay with one of my mom's friends for a couple of days before heading east into Laos. From Laos we'll go into northern Vietnam, travel down south through the country and then west into Cambodia. Fairly loose plans because we don't know when or from where we will be flying home. We think we'll be in SE Asia for about 2 ½ months. So there you have it! Hmm, I can't wait for Asian street food....

Life in a share house

Mid June- Mid July

Life in a share house

         Our share house is a two story house that is broken down into three separate apartments. Each apartment has either 5 or 6 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen. We all share a big backyard that has a hammock, hot tub and BBQ grill. The only commitment required to live there is that you will stay for at least 4 weeks, so there are people moving in and out regularly. When we moved in everyone else in our apartment was British and when we moved there were was an Australian, two Americans and two Argentinians. It was a fairly diverse group of people in the house, but most were young travelers stopping for a while in Cairns either to work or study English. We really liked most of our room mates and overall it was a fun place to live. Cairns as a town however is rather boring.

         Thank goodness three of the girls I met on the sailing trip were also in Cairns for the month that Pat and I were there. I spent a lot of days with the girls laying in the sun down at the lagoon. In general we lacked creativity so when it rained (which happened for about 1 week straight) we were cooped up in the house. We looked for jobs for the first week but then we decided that we would prefer not to work and just try really hard not to spend money so that we could leave for Asia as soon as the month was up. We probably would have been ready to leave after 2 weeks but we had already paid for 4 so we decided to stick it out. I had to keep reminding myself that being bored is actually a luxury because many people have to work so much that they rarely get bored.

         In the house we had frequent backyard BBQs with different people and spent a lot of evenings in the hot tub, before it broke a week before we left :( Pat read in the hammock often, which was ridiculously picturesque because it was hung in the middle of a bunch of palm trees so when you looked up you were covered in palms. When Diego and Karen from Argentina moved in to the room next to us we spent a lot of time talking with them and explaining funny English words and expressions with them. They were a really nice couple and one night they made everyone in the apartment 4 different types of handmade empanadas. In return I made an apple pie for dessert one night and cupcakes for Karen's birthday. They had never had cupcakes before so that was fun. Simon, a British guy who was there the whole time we were there made us all a beef and ale stew on our last night there. It was fun to share our “comfort foods” with people from different countries.

On our last day in Cairns Karen, Diego, Simon, Pat and I rented a car and drove up so an area nearby called Crystal Cascades. Instead of it being just one big waterfall, it was a really big, long stream that flowed down a hill and had many small waterfalls and swimming holes in it. We hiked down to a swimming area at the foot on the biggest falls and the guys swam in the cold water. It was very pretty and it was fun to get out of the house and so something different, and it was nice to have some new friends to do it with.

           Cairns wasn't a bad place but we are definitely feeling ready to move on. On the one hand I feel like it would be nice to go home and have a break from traveling for a little while. Yet on the other hand and I super excited for SE Asia. I can't wait to see the islands, eat the street food, buy cheap clothing and see a very different culture than I am used to. It certainly will be an adventure and I am just a little bit nervous about the unknowns, but I know it will be so good. So ends our nearly 8 months in Australia and a large part of our year out traveling the world. It's a pretty good life :)

July 2, Cairns

July 2, 2011

Where: Cairns, week 3

        It's been a while and once we arrived in Cairns I journal writing habits bit the dust. I will tell you about our final day with the van after we stayed our last night parked at a hostel in Cairns. It took us well over an hour to pack up all our clothes into our back packs, organize all the random objects we had in the van, and then clear it all out. It really was a mess and there was about two cups of salt underneath everything that we spilled a week ago. Kindof gross. Another couple was clearing out their van next to us at the hostel and they had had their van for just a month. It's always funny to see people's reactions when we tell them we traveled in a van for 7 weeks. It seems that most people can't even imagine doing that and I guess when I arrived in Australia I probably couldn't have imagined it either. Even with all the money we spent on the trip (I'll elaborate a bit more on that later), I certainly wouldn't have changed anything. People ask if we would do it again and I know would, probably on the west coast. Someday when I have earned a lot more money that I can afford to blow!

        So were scheduled to check into our share house at 2, which was the same time we were suppose to return the van. Luckily, when we stopped the by share house office at 11 they had our apartment ready. We had around 10 bags of stuff with us that we really didn't want to have to carry around town. We dropped everything off quickly at the house and met one of the room mates and then we realized we needed to get lunch before vacuuming out the van. We went into town for a quick Vietnamese lunch (yum!) and with only an hour left we went to fill up the van with gas. This would not have been a problem except that we also needed to vacuum out the van and we were told that there was a vacuum at the gas station which ended up being wrong. So we spent out last hour with the van rushing around trying to find a car wash and in the end we just swept out the van with a little broom. We pulled up to return it a few minutes late but we were stoked because we had gone the whole 7 weeks without leaving so much as a mark on the van! Besides a million dead bugs on the front of it. We were careful but we were also lucky. Hooray! After one last photo with the van we said goodbye to our temporary home and walked back to the share house. It was a bit sad to end the trip because it really was a wonderful, incredibly freeing way to travel, but we're also happy to have our own room now with a bathroom and living room and kitchen.

Recent Cairns Photos

https://picasaweb.google.com/jdfigley/RecentCairnsPhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCLHqm_rDp7PgJQ