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WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO! I HAVE BEEN AROUND THE WORLD.  The exact same words I cheered as I landed at Heathrow airport, much to the amusement of the very cute navy officer that I sat next to in my upgraded business class seat.  What a perfect end to an amazingly, fabulous, awesome year.  I am now safely back to the UK and am looking forward to life's next adventure.

Thanks for reading.

Signing off.

Love to all.

Pip xx 

Time to go Home

12 countries; 34 planes;  numerous buses, boats, jeepneys, motorbikes, mini vans, trains, hire cars, campervans, taxis;  100+ dives;  7000+ photos;  3 haircuts;  weight lost, gained, lost and regained;  52 books read;  0 books purchased;  family, friends old, friends new;  rivers, mountains, jungles, oceans, hot springs, volcanoes, geysers, canyons, caves;  flora, fauna;  sun, snow, wind, rain;  sunny blue skies, dark thunderous skies;  beautiful sunsets;  many a smile;  it is time to head home, time to head back to the UK.

Thai Massage

I have been pampered, pummeled, pushed and pulled a few times on my travels, all voluntarily and all paying good money for.  Each has been good in its own way but I have to say the Thai Herbal Massage that I have had was just incredible.  You may wonder why I might need a massage with the relaxation that I have been doing recently but I have to say that walking around a city in flip flops can take its toll on the feet, the ankles and the back.  The massage I chose was to relieve aches, pains and tensions in the muscles and to improve circulation.  It worked very well and I felt great at the end but I did have to endure two hours of being pulled, pummeled, stretched, bent, and rubbed.  Plus, after all that was over I was pummeled with what I can only describe as a super heated pestle that I think had been boiled in a herbal infusion before being pressed all over me.  Very strange, but very good and my muscles did feel much better afterwards.  It is just a shame that I still need to walk the streets in my flip flops.

Contemplation

I am back in Bangkok and back to the 'normal' routine of a lazy breakfast, a swim or the gym, a little bit of reading and relaxing, maybe the odd stroll around the city, a skytrain ride and an afternoon with Irene reading stories and playing games. A routine that I really shouldn't get too used to. With all this time to relax and the ever closer end to my travels, or at least this particular trip, I have been thinking about some of the things that I haven't done over the last year, or haven't done much. There is always an exception to the rule and most of mine happened in New Zealand but here are a few things that I came up with.

Work! Ha, it is over a year since I left my job and left Cayman and it is one of the best decisions I ever made. I did work aboard the Nautilus on my travels, and although it was the most physically demanding work I have ever done, and the best way to lose weight ever, it doesn't count as I got to dive every day.

Iron. Not a single thing. I think this is going to have to continue in my everyday life.

Laundry, washing up and other general household chores. I did use a washing machine in New Zealand, sweep out my hippie mobile and do a little bit of washing up whilst camping, but I was outside in beautiful surroundings so again I don't think it counts. It will be great not to have to carry my dirty washing around with me once I stop travelling.

Cooking. As with above NZ was the exception as I was camping and the camp sites and hostels are so well set up that there were often cooking facilities available. I have actually missed being able to cook, it is nice to have the choice to either go out to eat or to stay in and with so many lovely markets that I have visited it would have been good to have sampled a few more local delicacies.

Watched tv. A few places have had televisions and on occasion it has been good to catch up on the news, or chill out in front of a film. However, you can catch up on the news quite easily on the internet and to be honest you don't miss much by only tuning in every now and again.

Worn jeans. Wow! My jeans were my wardrobe, I'm not sure I can give them up completely but it will be quite heavenly to be able to open my wardrobe in the mornings and have a choice of what to wear rather than knowing all you have is 3 pairs of trousers and a few tops.

Driving. Again NZ was an exception and also my road trip across the US but on the whole I have done very little driving and have used public transport all the time. Another thing that I should try and carry back to my every day life, though I am not convinced I will be able to do so very succesfully.

Slept in my own bed. Everywhere I have stayed has been clean but there have been varying degrees of comfort along the way and on occasion it has been much cosier to snuggle into my silk sleeping bag liner than to sleep on rough sheets. I am looking forward to a nice comfy pillow.

Angkor Wat

The outer wall of Angkor Wat

One of the two libraries at Angkor Wat

The Hindu temple inside Angkor Wat

When nature takes over

It takes no prisoners

Bayon

Buddha heads

The reason I ventured into Cambodia and didn't just do a quick visa run to the border was to visit Angkor Wat. It is the one place that everyone I had spoken to on my travels that had visited here agreed was somewhere not to be missed. So with motorbike chauffeur booked for the day I was ready to explore. Now I have visited both Caracol in Belize and Tikal in Guatemala so I wasn't sure if Angkor Wat was going to live up to all the hype and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The fact that you need transport for the day, you can hire bicycles if you are feeling really energetic, kind of suggested that the area was going to be large, but wow! Tree lined streets, moats 15km x 13km, gates big enough to keep the most determined of pheasants out (!), and intricacies of bas reliefs that was pretty spectacular, not to mention the temples, the Buddha heads and the palaces. The shear size and area of the place is pretty amazing. The buidlings are in varying states of repair with scaffolding and workmen evident in some areas and the force of nature taking over in others. Some of the temples are Hindu and others are Buddhist. If you want to see all the temples and go into great details you can buy a weeks pass to the area but for me, in the heat, one day was plenty to see the major sights and get a good idea about the place. If anyone plans to visit don't forget to practice your most endearing smile and "no thank you" phrase before you arrive as you will have to say it many times to all the people and children trying to sell you things throughout the day - from water, to food, to postcards to guidebooks. Learning to say it in Cambodian doesn't help either, I think it just encourages them more.

Cambodia

I thought this was cooking oil for sale - until I saw a moped pull up and fill her tank with it.

"tuk tuk lady?" - a call you may start to hear in your sleep it is called so often

Cambodian landscape - pretty flat, and until recently covered with land mines

There are still land mines over other parts of Cambodia, but this area has been cleared for rice growing

With a little spare time on my hands, and a visa that is about to expire, I head over to the border and to Cambodia for a short break - as you do! Having not been on a journey for more than one hour over the last month the journey to Siam Reap, Cambodia seemed rather long and arduous. Skytrain north of Bangkok to the bus station, then a motorbike taxi to the actual bus station when I got lost walking through the park and had no idea where I was heading :-) four and a half hour bus journey to the border, where I had to change seats as the air conditioning was leaking on me - I think it was only water - a bus to the border proper, out through Thai immigration, in through Cambodia immigration and a further four hours to Siam Reap. Add in the torrential rain that started two hours into the journey, didn't let up until about ten minutes from Siam Reap and caused localised flooding at the border - read, Philippa was splashing through ankle deep puddles to walk through the borders, trying to avoid all the children trying to sell a walk under an umbrella and hoping that she was only walking in water - and I was pretty darn knackered by the time I arrived at my hotel. Luckily it was a very nice, clean hotel and a lovely air conditioned ensuite room - all for $6. I was also feeling quite smug as the only other people on the bus from the border to Siam Reap were fellow foreigners and they had paid between $30-$50 for the same journey as a tour which had cost me only $16 - plus an extra $1 for the motorbike ride out of the park in Bangkok!

The Ancient City

The weekend rolls around again and this weekend we are all off to Muang Boran, or the ancient city, just outside of Bangkok. The ancient city is a large area shaped like Thailand and has all the ancient temples and palaces from all over Thailand represented, either as reproductions or in some cases the original that has been moved here to be preserved. Kind of like a model village but on a much larger scale. It must be quite nice having your auntie to visit, all these weekend trips, it's got to beat sitting at home playing on the computer, and we all managed to stay together this time. Along with all the temples and palaces there is also a water village with lots of eateries and ladies on boats with their kitchens to prepare you a snack or a lite meal. Thai food is so flavoursome, I love it. A simple noodle soup, cooked fresh and flavoured with lemon grass and ginger is just wonderful and it is the perfect mid day food to keep you going the rest of the day. I'm not so sure about the pork balls however, I suppose they are the equivalent to an English sausages - not a lot of meat.

The Grand Palace

A trip up a very fast flowing and rather grubby looking river and you arrive at the pier that will lead you through to the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha. Once you get through the people trying to sell you a bottle of water for 20baht - it is 7baht elsewhere - the tuk tuk drivers trying to scam you saying that the Palace is closed and the tour guides trying to scam you saying you cannot go into the Palace dressed as you are - if you stop to chat they each try and take you someplace else where they receive a commission or scam you into a tour - then it truly is grand. There are rules to what you can and cannot wear to walk around the area but if you are not suitably dressed then there are shirts and sarongs etc. that can be borrowed for the occasion. There is so much gold, gold leaf, gems and all things that sparkle everywhere and the Wat that houses the emerald Buddha is enormous and very elaborate to house such a small Buddha - compared to others around Bangkok it is minuscule - sorry, you cannot take photos. I have been to a lot of the tourist places around Bangkok before but it was worth seeing this again. On the boat ride back along the river I stopped at a local flower market. It is a wholesale market for flowers as well as fruit and vegs and it is a massive area just brimming in piles of chillies, all different sizes, and garlic and onions and herbs and spices, but this is not really a market for your usual kitchen purchases, people were buying chillies in drum fulls and onions and garlic by the truck load. Away from the fruit and veggies are the flower stalls, again mainly for bulk purchasing but you could pick up a dozen roses for one dollar - no excuses for saying it with flowers here. The only disappointment was that there was no beautiful aroma of flowers floating over everywhere, the roses must just not be scented.

Looking after Children

Locals
Feeding time
Count the carp

Floating market - but only a replica

The weekend came around and Saturday was a trip to Safari World. I had a bit of a moral dilema with this one as I do not agree with the exploitation of animals and when you start dressing up orangutans in clothes it is just plain wrong. Skipping this dilema and apologising for paying money for the profiteering of this exploit Irene did enjoy herself and hopefully learned a little bit about animals, and maybe the park is doing some good - I will have to check in on this.

Children in Thailand have quite a lot of freedom for running around, wondering off and doing their own thing without the ever constant gaze of their parents - or at least Irene seems to. She will be with you one minute and off doing her own merry little thing the next. Which is all well and good when you are in areas that you know and when her mum is there to be the controlling influence, or at least to take the responsibility. However, leave me in charge and it is cause for a few more grey hairs when she goes wondering off in the middle of the Safari Park, not to be seen for the next 30 minutes, and she has to be called over the park's intercom to be found. Needless to say, Irene was quite happy checking out all the parrots in the bird area and was not at all perplexed that she was on her own. I on the other hand was worried sick and will probably not be on babysitting duty ever again :-)

Lazy

Take the skytrain to avoid the horrendous traffic
A stadium of beer cans - not sure if they are full!

Irene has gone back to school so apart from a couple of afternoons where I have been busy looking through school books, playing on cbeebies website and generally being a seven year old I have had some time to myself and to explore Bangkok. My exploring has taken me..................erm, well, nowhere in particular. I have been enjoying the 'freedom' of not travelling, not moving from one destination to the next and the delights of sleeping, reading, having a fridge, lazing by the pool and the odd trip to the gym. Such a hard life but someone has to do it. I have broken up my laziness with a few wonders around Bangkok, taking in the many, many many, shopping malls, markets, outlets, street stalls etc etc etc. If there is one thing you can do in Bangkok it is shop. Not that I have been buying. Things are not as cheap here as they were in Malaysia and in the Philippines, although I think there is greater variety in Bangkok, and you can get a bargain. The problem with clothes is that a lot of the cheaper places and market stalls where you can pick up some good things you cannot try things on, and I am not exactly the same shape as a Thai so I have abstained. It is also rainy season here so although you can start the day with glorious sunshine odds are at some point during the day it is going to rain, and it is going to rain hard. The good thing about the rain is that it makes the temperatures a little cooler and when it does rain it is not cold, but you just get soaked to the bone. With the rain also comes some amazing thunder storms and it is rather exciting to sit, inside in the dry, and watch the lightening across the Bangkok skyline and duck as the thunder crashes so loud above you that you think the sky is about to fall in.

Food

The happy family

Out to dinner - this is squid

BBQ or fried - your choice

Are they just leaves?

It is lovely to be able to wake up and open the fridge and have a selection of cereal for breakfast and nice fresh cold milk, but I cannot survive on cereal alone and no trip to Thailand is complete with sampling the tasty food. The vast majority of restaurants in Bangkok, even in the outer areas, have menus in English as well as in Thai so it is quite easy to order something that you want, though it is always quite exciting just pointing out something and taking pot luck. [Note to self: if you have a choice between something green and something red go for the red - although it seems to go against logic green chillies are often hotter than red.] It is also fun walking around the markets and seeing everything that is available and there is always something to eat or something cooking everywhere you turn. Having a Thai, Rung, my sister in law, to guide you makes it all the more enjoyable and informative - it also helps to get you samples of things before you buy - or not in the case of some rather hot dishes.

Seven

Fantasy land at Dreamworld

Snow white's house

Irene and me at the park

Out on the pedalo

Introduction to aquatic life

Oh to be seven years old again!

My first week in Bangkok has past with a blur, the first time in ten months that I will be based in one place for a month or more and I have been running around like a headless chicken. Okay, not quite running as it is far too hot for that kind of activity but it hasn't been like a week on the beach sunning myself and relaxing :-) I have had to find somewhere to stay as my brother has just moved and not only would there be no room for me at his place but everything he owns is in boxes and piled in every space available. I have found myself a lovely studio, equipped with a little kitchenette so I get to buy milk and eat cereal for breakfast - I really cannot get used to fried egg and rice - and have lovely cold drinks whenever I like - though that does mean I have to go shopping and buy them! There is also a gym and a swimming pool and it is very close to a skytrain station so getting about Bangkok is a doddle.

Sorted with accommodation I make the most of Irene being off school until next week and we get busy doing things that 7 year olds like to do - we go to the park, we play on the swings, we feed the fish, we go out on a peddalo (oh my these are hard and sweaty work!), we use my swimming pool and splash about until our fingers are wrinkly and I am cold - I am in Bangkok and I get cold! We then spend a day at a theme park and get to see giants and 4d adventure shows - not for long as 7 year olds can get quite scared. We feed cows and goats and get to see snow whites house and sleeping beauty, we go on rides - I am glad Irene is only 7 as I cannot do fair ground rides that go round and round - and we even get to have a snow ball fight in an indoor snow room. I enjoy playing and hanging out with my niece and I sleep very well in the evenings.

Bangkok

Irene my niece

The bad news is - I am at my final flight destination before my flight back to the UK, but the good news is - I have over 2 months before that flight home, I will still need to visit another country before I return home as I am only allowed to stay in Thailand for 30 days as a tourist and I have met up with my brother, sister in law and my beautiful niece. I plan to spend as much time as I can with my niece while I am here so I am not sure what I will have to update to my blog other than trips to the park, visiting snow white's house and generally playing the child etc. But do log in every now and again as I am sure I can do some local or touristy things while she is at school.

The perfect souvenir

I have found the perfect souvenir from my travels. It is functional, eco friendly and it will not shrink in the wash. I have bought re-usable shopping bags from Borneo and Hong Kong. Every time I visit my local supermarket when I am back at home I can take my shopping home in my bags from across the world, which will remind me of my travels as long as help in saving the planet from plastic bags. The hunt is now on to find one from Thailand.

Macau

Las Vegas on the edge of China

Casinos everywhere

The old....

....and the new???

Balconies to sing from

Forts to defend

Ruins

Chinese street

Plazas

Turbojet

Where Portugal meets Las Vegas on the edge of China! A day trip from Hong Kong the turbojet ferry whisks you across the sea in just over an hour to reach Macau. Like Hong Kong, Macau is part of China but is deemed a separate territory and hence no visa is required to enter, though you do have to travel with your passport and I did get another exit, entry and re-entry stamp to show for my journey. They also use their own currency, however, thankfully everywhere takes the Hong Kong dollar as well. The Portuguese developed the area and have left their mark with European buildings and plazas and the official language here is still Portuguese, along with Chinese. The buildings and ruins aside you still know that you are not in Europe, the side streets are busy selling weird and wonderful things, and little eateries dot every other shop, all very Chinese. To attract the modern day tourist, or just the modern day gambler, there are masses of casinos here and they seemed to be doing a roaring trade. The games I saw being played were very different from anything I had seen before, no black jack or roulette, and the gambling areas were very smokey so I did not hang around for long. Macau is also home to the biggest casino in the world, the Venetian, and although I had watched a National Geographic programme on how it was built and really wanted to see it, it is located on a different island and I was too tired by the time I had seen the rest of Macau so I will have to leave that for another visit!!!

Interlude

I am back in Hong Kong for a few days before I fly to Bangkok.

I have just had a picnic in the park with crusty fresh bread, baked without any sugar, borsin cheese, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes and fresh pineapple for dessert. How heavenly.

I also no longer appear to be a back packer. With a sarong, towel and a few t-shirts and then a wet suit, fins and booties purchased in the Philippines, a few souvenirs purchased in Borneo and just a little bit of retail therapy here in Hong Kong, I have gone from having one very reasonably packed 12kg back pack to a very heavy, thoroughly stuffed back pack plus a suitcase, which had to be bought to accomodate the excess. I hope my brother doesn't mind storing my junk in Bangkok!

Tough to get used to

My adventures in Borneo have come to an end. What a lovely green and diverse island, with such flora and fauna, above and below the ocean. Brunei is a bit of an oddity sat in the middle of northern Malaysian Borneo, but there is a distinct cultural difference here and the mosques were certainly the grandest I saw in Borneo. Sarawak is a far more laid back and casual place than Sabah and the people seemed just a touch more friendly. Sabah is fast becoming a destination for the rich - Malaysians and foreigners. A lot of the things to do are by arranged tour only and with this prices can sky rocket. There are still many cheap places to sleep and eat but it can be quite difficult to self travel to some of the more popular areas.

Some things that it would take me a long time to get used to, both here and in the Philippines are:
The humidity - I would say the heat as well but it is not much hotter here than in the Caribbean, though the difference being I was more often than not sat in an air conditioned office in the Caribbean. The humidity is bad, or at least the constant covering of sweet is just yukky!

Spitting - this just makes me cringe. Car drivers will wind down their window and gob on the street and people walking along will clear their throat and then spit it out on the road - just horrible.

Smoking - as mentioned before, there is far more evidence of smoking in public here than in the UK, though Borneo wasn't quite as bad as the Philippines - at least smoking is prohibited on public transport.

Cuts of meat - chicken always seemed to be the safe choice when chosing a dish but I hate to have to pick through my food and when you ask for chicken is is more often than not on the bone and it could be any part or combination of parts of the chicken.

Squat toilets - most places had a choice of squat or western toilets, though some places, mainly bus stops, only had the squat option. We just were not brought up to do it like this. Where are you supposed to put your bag, and it is even worse when you have a rucksack as well!

All the beautiful and extremely thin women. Okay, so at 5ft4 and xxxlbs, I'm not exactly a giant but hey I've been eating the same diet as them for the last 12 weeks or so and I'm still not a stick. At least here, unlike in Ecuador, the men are rather good looking too :-)

Turtles

How could I forget to mention the masses of turtles that were at Sipidan? They were mainly big green turtles and in the afternoon dives there would be at least 15 in sight at any one time. They would be sleeping on the reef, resting in nooks and crannies, swimming into each other, going up for air, diving down into the depths and generally just 'raining' down on us at every turn. Cool!

Sipidan

Crystal clear water

Me and my dive buddies

Sipidan Water Village

Roughing it!

Surface interval

I have been spoilt for the rest of my travels! This is a dive destination that has been near the top of my list for quite a while, and to make it extra special I was treating myself to a stay in a rather fancy resort, a resort built on stilts over the water. Everything was just perfect. Beautifully calm seas, blue skies, amazing visibility and clarity underwater, great sightings, a lovely bunch of dive buddies, a fabulous room and great food. The sun shone on every dive and the light just sparkled off the reef and the mass of life that was living on it. I have seen massive schools of jack fish, barracuda, bumphead parrot fish and spade fish, I have seen many white tip and grey reef sharks and I have seen cuttle fish, pygmy sea horses, ghost pipe fish, long nose pipe fish, leaf fish, ribbon eels, moray eels, scorpion fish, big and small, stone fish, crocodile fish, shrimps and crabs, big and small and much more besides. On one dive I watched as a white tip reef shark hunted and devoured an octopus. The shark had is head in a hole and was thrashing about frantically with sand going everywhere. After a little while it gave up and out of the hole emerged the octopus, rather shaken and minus a tentacle. The octopus started to creep over the reef and then started to free swim over the reef, the shark came back and in one gulp the octopus was inside the sharks mouth. Ink from the octopus was everywhere and the shark continued to circle around with just the end of the octopus's tentacle sticking out of its mouth. Not something you see everyday! Awesome!