Lets go home!

After 140 days on my travels, I guess it’s time to go home!! I’m having one final day relaxing in New Jersey before I fly home later on this evening! It’s scary to think this time tomorrow I will be home, and I can’t quite see it yet, however I really can’t wait!

The past month in the states has flown by! I think I’ve been too relaxed to do a blog post, and I’ve been fairly busy as well!
Much to my sadness in saying goodbye to aunt, uncle and cousin, I left Virginia Beach two days ago. I absolutely loved it there, it was great to be able to spend so much time with family! We went to the beach, ate at some very American restaurants, went to the theatre, went to a museum and a baseball game, saw fireworks, ate lots of ice cream, went rowing quite a bit with my cousin, watched films, spent a weekend relaxing on a boat, relaxed a bit more on dry land, and then to top it off I got a ride in a private jet back to New York…and then saw a Broadway show in the same day!! So it was pretty amazing, I loved every minute!

I really really can’t believe it’s all over! I feel like I could stay in America a bit longer, yet I can’t wait to get home at the same time! Everything I’ve done has been an incredible experience, not all great but I’ve learnt a lot! And I’ve met some of the best people! I’m not sure if I’ve changed too much…I can’t really remember what I was like beforehand…I now feel if I saw a spider, I would actually contemplate picking it up, so something must have happened! I hope I haven’t changed too much though!

I’m desperately looking forward to seeing family and friends, and getting back into routine! And just being at home again! I’m now going to go down to the pool one more time, and then I’ll be flyin’!

New York!

Just a quick message! I fly to New York tomorrow, which is incredibly exciting, and rather daunting at the same time! I really really can’t wait (mainly for the pizza I think) 🙂

New Zealand has been really great; the scenery is amazing, I’ve met some incredibly nice people and learnt a lot too, I think I want come back! It’s been hovering around 0 degrees in some areas of NZ so it’ll be a big shock walking into 30 plus degree heat when I arrive, but I think I’m kind of looking forward to some warmth! 

I don’t think I’ll concentrate too much on my blog whilst there, simply because I want to try and make the most of the short time I have to explore! But I’ll hopefully write one when I am seeing family in Virginia Beach. I really can’t wait for that too!

I’ll see you in America!

Ben Lomond and The Winter Festival!

It’s my final night in Queenstown! I’ll be heading to Christchurch tomorrow to then fly out of New Zealand for New York! Queenstown has been really love good, and a lot of fun! It’s mostly been running and walking! One of the walks being a climb up a mountain called Ben Lomond, which was rather treacherous!
The walk was amazing! With some of the most incredible views! We set off at around 10am Thursday morning, I didn’t really know where we were going but I knew it was up. With carrots, hummus, and a chocolate bar for the top, we set off! We got lost pretty quickly…the path just seemed to end, but once we got past that blip, it was just a steep winding track through a forest. Once out, we were able to look back and look over Queenstown and the Remarkables mountain range behind, which was really awesome! Amazing views kept on popping up, it felt like we were stopping to take a photo every 5 mins! There was one mountain that had been in our sights for a while, that looked particularly striking, so we presumed that one was a longer walk that was on all the signposts. Yet as we got closer and closer, and the views became increasingly spectacular, we started to ponder over the thought that this may be our mountain, as it didn’t seem all that far away after all!

As my family know too well, I can’t seem to handle any sort of height, so as we walked I was praying there wasn’t a ridge on the thing. Thankfully there wasn’t but the ground was starting to get frosty, and then snow and ice! I actually started to think this is how people die on mountains…I think it wouldn’t have been too bad, but the wind along with the fact that the mountain seemed, and was really really high! I didn’t want to move an inch at the top, the view was fantastic, with layers and layers of mountains! I might try and upload a photo soon 🙂 I frantically took photos at the top, before we started realising our hands were getting scarily cold, so quickly got down…I was so relieved to get down! And once we arrived back into Queenstown we got the famous Fergburger, which is famous around here, mainly for its size!

I didn’t eat my chocolate bar at the top…but had it to celebrate half way down, it had frozen…

It’s also the winter festival at the moment, so it’s very much like Christmas, yet without Christmas! But there’s been fireworks, lots of live music and some really random events, such as the Vietnam competition, where people simply jump into the lake dressed in costumes, and lots and lots of crazy races! So it’s been really fun!

I really can’t see myself in America yet, it’ll be really strange (especially the temperature difference)! I might a guy from New York today, so I’ve been quizzing him lots! I really can’t wait 🙂

Anyways, I better go!

Crazy walks and fergburgers!

So I’m spending my last few days of New Zealand in the amazingly beautiful Queenstown! It’s a crazy tourist town in the South West of the South Island, and it’s very well known for every adventure activity you could think of. I’ve really enjoyed being here so far, I’ve met some great people and spent a lot of my time running, walking, watching sport and eating! I’ve just got back from watching England lose against the all blacks in the rugby, so it hasn’t been a good week for England!

The town is completely surrounded by mountains; two of the mountain ranges are New Zealand’s main two ski resorts, so they’re incredibly striking. And then there’s amazing blue lakes in the middle of it all! Queenstown is at one end of the longest lake in New Zealand.

My journey here was good, I hitchhiked from Dunedin, with quite a lot of waiting time in the middle…I waited in a village for 2 and a half hours before somebody picked me up at one stage, so I was getting a tad stressed! But luckily on the fifth and final leg I got picked up after about 20 seconds, so I was very relieved as it was getting dark by then too! So I had some bad luck and some good luck, but got to Queenstown at around 6, after meeting a South African family, a Maori sheep shearer, who also gave me my lunch of homemade soup and bread, and then took me 40k out of their way to drop me off! A teacher (who saved me after waiting for 2 and a half hours), a furniture removal man, and finally a Chinese student who has been living here for 3 years! I’ve really enjoyed hitchhiking! The waiting isn’t always too fun, but I’ve some of the nicest people! And the feeling of getting a final lift after a long day, knowing you’re going to get there is awesome! 

I arrived into Queenstown and instantly  met another 19 year old from England called Jack, who funnily enough had just made the same route from Dunedin, and had arrived 30 mins before me, I even remember seeing him on the road! He has spent a month working in Christchurch (after being in Australia for 3 months), and is now going to hitchhike and walk up the west coast! I think Queenstown was a kinda practice for the walks he’ll be doing around the glaciers and Mount Cook, which will be pretty big! The first day we just walked up the ‘Queenstown hill’, which is directly behind the town. It’s very steep, but not so long, the views are brilliant when you get to the top though, you’re completely surrounded by mountains! It was nice! But nothing compared to the treacherous climb the next day…which I’ll tell you about tomorrow because I am so so tired! 

This short posts thing doesn’t seem to have kicked in yet….

A different approach…

I’m thinking I might need to take a different approach to this blog business, as all of my attempts to ‘finish tomorrow’ are failing miserably! So I think I’ll try and write shorter posts more often, but it’s getting late so I think I’ll finish this one tomorrow 😉 No I think I will have to though because it’s very late! Just a quick update however, I’m in a place called Queenstown at the moment, which is a beautiful tourist hub in the South West of the South Island. I’ve met a really nice guy called Jack who I’ve been spending most of my time with. He has also introduced me to hummus and carrots, which is genius. I think you could possibly go by how much I might have changed based on the different foods I have liked over the months…why did I dislike hummus and milkshakes before?! This is may be me starting to like eccentric foods…eccentric in my mind anyway…

We also went up a big mountain today, which was breathtaking and equally petrifying…but I need to get to bed! I hope these shorter posts work!

A homely few days!

My location will probably change quite a lot while writing this, but I’m currently sat in a cafe in Blenheim, after just leaving Nelson a few hours ago!  After much thought and discussion, I’ve decided to go down the east coast to Dunedin, instead of going to the glaciers on the west. The main reason for this is only that I really fancied either the glaciers or a place called Kaikoura by the sea, and there wasn’t a bus running until tomorrow for the glaciers. I would have hitch hiked, but I really wanted to just have a nice bus journey without having to think too much, and I may not have made it to the glaciers in one day, which I really needed to do! So yeah, that’s what’s happening 🙂 

The past few days have been luxury, I’ve spent time with two lots of family friends in Wellington and Nelson, and I’ve been really spoilt! Before that however, I spent 3 days in Taupo with a friend from school called Sam, who has been in New Zealand for 9 months! We did a walk called the Tongariro crossing, which is meant to be the most popular walk in New Zealand. All the way through you’re walking on volcanic terrain, and between three active volcanoes, so it’s pretty different to walking at home! We got up at 6, and were out hitch hiking by 7, as the crossing was on the other side of Lake Taupo. We made it in three trips, and were walking by 10…which gave us just enough time! The two main volcanoes it runs through are called Mount Tongariro and Mount Ngauruhoe, the latter was used for Lord of the Rings, which is pretty awesome! You can climb to the top of it too, but we didn’t have time. Unfortunately it was a bit of a bleak day, it didn’t rain, but you couldn’t see too much, it was mostly red volcanic rock! Yet there are also some sulphur lakes, that are an amazing clear blue. The walk down also gave us amazing views of a lake called the blue lake in the foreground, and Lake Taupo in the background, with misty mountains surrounding them, which was pretty amazing! Lake Taupo is also around 40/50k long too, which is incredible!
Sam and I couchsurfed while we were in Taupo as well, the host was nice, but not really my kind of person. It was still a lot of fun though! We couchsurfed with three German girls, who were really great, and we did the crossing with them.
We also bumped into the tour group Kiwi Experience on the way down, so we jumped in with their tour guide! I met a big range of travellers that day! The girls from Germany were incredibly into couchsurfing and hitchhiking, and were adament on not spending any money, too much so probably that they seemed to go quite far to save money and not stay in hostels! Whereas when we bumped into the kiwi experience lot, it was one extreme to another. One of the girls told me she had spent $1000 in the past week, and every day they were doing expensive activities…I don’t think they would even think about couchsurfing! I find myself in the middle, I love the idea of saving money and staying with locals, but I love hostels too. I was thinking I would have perhaps liked to have done the kiwi experience, perhaps just to meet the people and to travel with people, but looking back I’m glad I didn’t, it seems like they don’t want to branch out at all, and do what they are told to do. Their guide mentioned when they were going to Wellington they just need to spend one day there because the Te Papa museum is the only thing to do, so it doesn’t seem like they get to really see and explore a place (to me they are kind of missing the point of being somewhere), they just go for the tourist activities and then move on! Which I don’t think is what it’s about…I felt like I needed to mention that!

But anyway, that was the main thing I did in Taupo, it was awesome to see Sam, and hear all of his stories, we talked a lot about how strange it will be going home too and seeing everyone…which it really will be! I left early the next morning to hitch hike to Wellington, where I would be staying with family friends called Sarah and Robert. I left my tight leggings in Taupo, which put a bit of a downer on things, I really liked those…

So I left quite early with the aim to hitch hike to the capital Wellington, which is at the very bottom of the north island! I was quite nervous about this one, because it was quite a way, and I really wanted to make it in one day, which I did! It was quite the adventure. I got picked up by 6 people in total, firstly by a woman who kindly just took me to the main road because I think she felt sorry for me with my bags. Then I was picked up by a man who owned a backpackers, who had also sailed round the world twice, a tour rep, a guy in his 20s who trained and competed in horse jumping (he sounded like he was quite good), a 65 year old traveller, who was so full of energy and life it was great! He also planned to go to university when he was 70. And finally a Maori truck driver, who carried thousands of beef bones! It wasn’t the perfect day, I waited for just under two hours twice, so was getting a tad worried then, but I was so thankful to the truck driver who took me to Wellington! I arrived at around 7 I think, and Sarah came into the city to pick me up, which was really nice of her! We went home to an incredibly good meal with fish they caught themselves (I think?)! Sarah and Robert, and their dog Evie (!) were old friends of some close friends of ours, they were so so nice, I felt really at home and very relaxed, and I got on really well with them both! They lived in a village called Eastbourne, which is a kinda suburb of Wellington. I really liked Wellington, it had some awesome, modern buildings, mixed in with some quirky ones along the harbour, and some really cool streets! You could also catch the ferry across the harbour which was very picturesque, and windy! The main attraction, like the kiwi experience guide said, is a huuge museum called Te Papa, which is 6 floors of all sorts relating to New Zealand! They’ve also got a place called the Weta Workshop, which is a film production company who have worked on the Lord of the Rings films. I went to have a look around their workshop which was incredibly cool! On the Saturday Sarah and Robert took me out for a really nice lunch by the sea, and we went for a walk to a point called the red rocks…which are red rocks, but cool red rocks, and they’re really red! The redness comes from lava formed from volcanic eruptions under the sea from millions of years ago, which is amazing to think about! We also got to see a seal colony up close! In the evening we sat down to watch the rugby, which was really fun! Especially watching it with some Kiwis! We lost though, but I think we pushed New Zealand quite a bit! I also bought some multi coloured leggins that day, so it was a pretty crazy day! It was soon time to leave, and catch the ferry to the South Island! I didn’t really want to go, but I had the comfort of knowning I had more family friends at the other end!

The ferry goes along the Marlborough Sounds before you arrive at a very small town called Picton. Despite the rain, it was beautiful!…

*I knew I wouldn’t finish this in good time…it’s now 5 days later and I’m in Dunedin, which is all the way down towards the bottom of the South Island! But anyway…

I got to Picton, and started hitch hiking straight away to a place called Nelson, which is where Tricia and Matt live. Tricia is an old nursing friend of my Mums, when they weren’t much older than I am now! Nelson is just over an hours drive along to the coast to the west. Hitchhiking went really smoothly, and I was there by 3! Tricia and Matt were so so nice (again!) and welcoming, I arrived to homemade soup and pizza! Like in Wellington, they made me feel really at home. It was nice to relax and talk about home and family too. Unfortunately it was raining the whole time I was there! So I spent my time getting wet really…but I went for good runs and bike rides! And they had the best two dogs, one of which was a Westie! So I took them for a few good walks! The weather didn’t bother me too much, apart from not seeing the view maybe, but I was able to relax even more! I had some really awesome homely meals again too! It was a nice break from my own attempt at cooking! Again, I didn’t really want to leave, but I think I just needed to get going again! But that week was a really nice break, and I’m really greatful to Sarah, Robert, Tricia and Matt for being so generous! 🙂

So I’ve now done a full circle back to the cafe in Blenheim, even though I’m now far from there! I’ve written so much I think I’ll stop for now, but I’ll really really try and get the rest done tomorrow!

 

The Lake District!

I seem to be in New Zealand’s own lake district, and although it’s not quite like home, it’s really beautiful! I’m in a place called Rotorua, which is famous for its geothermal springs. They’re pretty cool, and come in all forms, as ponds, mud pools, beaches and rocks, and you get them popping up everywhere!

I’m working for accommodation about 11km from the city, at a place called Lyons Lakestay. It sits right on one of the lakes, called Lake Okareka, so it’s been really nice just relaxing and enjoying the forests and trails that are dotted around. I’ve been here since Thursday, after leaving Mount Maunganui, which is where I’d been kiwi picking!
Kiwi picking didn’t turn out completely as I’d hoped, it wasn’t too bad, but unfortunately the weather wasn’t too great for a few days, so I only got to work four days. It isn’t too bad, but when I don’t have long in New Zealand, it was slightly annoying feeling like I could be somewhere else if we’re not working. But we managed to fit a couple more days in before I left, which was good. It wasn’t all too bad not working either, I loved being by the sea, and I’ve been trying to get back into running again, so it was good to go for runs along the beach and up the nearby mount. The actual kiwi picking was surprisingly hard! I think it takes some getting used to, but it’s nothing like having a nice walk around some trees. There are rows and rows of vines, and you simply go along picking every kiwi you see, putting them in a bag you where on your front, and then into a big bin, it was rewarding work!

So I decided to leave the Mount on Thursday, and thought it would be a good chance to try hitchhiking! It’s quite nerve racking, I guess because you’re not really sure of what’s going to happen, whereas on a bus you know exactly where you’re going, and what time you’ll be there! I guess you have to be spontaneous! I did enjoy it though, I only had to wait about 5 minutes before getting picked up by a really nice guy called Chris, who when I asked him what I did, spent the entire journey explaining a pitch of his own scheme, that promotes creativity, and he was trying to get lots of famous people involved, so that was pretty cool! He was going about half way to Rotorua, so after waiting for around 20 minutes, I was picked up by an incredibly nice Maori family, who were going to Auckland, they showed me a few key landmarks along the way too. I did enjoy it, and I think I had a very smooth day 🙂 I still like relaxing on a bus too though!

I soon arrived in Rotorua, where I got picked up by Cheryl, who has been hosting me for five days. She’s really really nice, and very relaxed! I just do around 3 hours of help around the house in the morning, and then have the rest of the day to do whatever! I also have my own apartment, which is luxury! I’m soon heading to a place called Taupo, which is around an hour away, so I’m going to try and hitchhike there again! I’m meeting a friend from school called Sam, so I can’t wait for that! I think we’re going to try some camping too!

Anyways, I better go! I’m going to try and write blogs a bit more! I haven’t been very good recently!/p>

I’m now actually in New Zealand! Doing some kiwi picking by the sea in the Bay of Plenty! It’s beautiful here! I arrived in NZ on 14th May, and apart from today it’s been blue skies since!

After leaving Bangkok on 8th, and a quick stop in Kuala Lumpur (it was really really modern), I arrived in Melbourne at around 6am on the 9th. It was really really strange arriving back into western civilisation , and to be honest it was really nice! Being able to walk down the pavement properly, and feeling cool for once! I suddenly realised how much more stressful Asia was compared to being in a Western culture. I feel like you have to think about everything a lot more in Asia, or just be more alert. You’re almost always unsure of whats going on whilst travelling there, whereas in Melbourne I felt like I could breathe a bit.

I got to my hostel after getting the bus from the airport, and dropped my bags off as I couldn’t check in until 2pm, so I took a wander round the city – it’s an absolutely brilliant city! Among my initial thoughts were how respecful they are of pedestrian traffic lights, (they would all wait for the green man even if there wasn’t a car in sight!), how the accent is so friendly it’s deceiving, and the huge Asian community in Australia, which does make sense because it’s pretty close! And it seems effortlessly beautiful and clean. It has a mixture of old and new buildings, with the river running through the middle. I walked along the river, underneath all the skyscrapers with the old train station on the other side, past all the rowing clubs, and through the botanical gardens and museums. Everything was so close together as well which was nice.

I really wanted to couchsurf in Melbourne, and I had asked quite a few people whilst in Asia, but unfortunately with no luck, so I had to resort to a hostel for a week, which was fine, but having come from Thailand, the price of Ausrtralia seemed almost insulting (for example in my current hostel you can get 24 hours wifi for $50)! But I’m getting used to it, I just can’t snack as much, which is torture! The hostels in Ausrtralia and New Zealand also have kitchens so it’s strange having to actually cook food!

I guess looking back at Australia it was really nice because it was great to relax, I spent a lot of the time simply walking around the city. They have lots of galleries, museums, parks (they have a botanical gardens), casinos (really big, cool casinos that you can just wander round) and really cool shops and cafes…that I couldn’t buy anything from… I also met up with a friend, Joe, from school. He has been in Melbourne since November/December I think, so quite a while! He has his own life there! It was really great to see him, and to see a familiar face! He showed me around the city a bit and we went for a drink with a friend of his…for $10… We also went up the Eureka Skytower, which is the tallest building in Melbourne, and possibly the sourthern hemisphere. It was pretty amazing! You could see for miles, looking over the entire city, and the sea and hills surrounding it. I didn’t realise Melbourne was so big!
Another highlight was going to an Australian rules match, which was at the Etihad stadium, one of the many stadiums in Melbourne! It seemed to be hidden within some office blocks, if it wasn’t for the thousands of fans in the team colours walking towards these offices, I wouldn’t have known there was a football stadium in there! I think it seats around 60,000, but there was only about 20,000 there. I’d never seen it before! We decided it was a mixture of rugby, football, basketball, American football and quiditch! It seemed crazy, bit it’s huge in Melbourne – I adopted the team St.Kilda for the day…we lost.

So yeah, I didn’t do much in Australia, I thought about taking the great ocean road tour, but it was $100, it was great to just explore and relax, which is perhaps what I needed! I’m now kiwi picking in New Zealand, which was going okay but the weather hasn’t been too great recently, which means you can’t kiwi pick. So it’s a bit annoying, hopefully we can start again on monday, but in the mean time I’ll try and get the odd job for a day, but I’ve been unsuccessful so far! If we’re not working monday I think I might leave and try to work for accommodation further down south. For the first time I’ve found myself getting annoyed with travelling a little. Mainly because of money, but it seems everything I plan to do never comes off, so I find myself spending the day looking for work instead of relaxing and enjoying being free to do nothing! I think I just need to go with the flow, and not care about money!

Anyway, I think I’ll go for a run now, bye!

The good bits, and the end of Asia!

I started this quite late yesterday, but it then got reallyy late! So I thought I’d finish it today 🙂

Its just gone 12 here, and I’ve just walked across the street and got a pretty big Thai meal for just over a pound, pretty cool! I think one of my favourite things about Asia has been able to spend the night walking round street markets, buying the odd thing, and trying lots of really cheap food! I will definitely miss that part of being here

I’m in Bangkok now, having finished my Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia loop! I fly out on the 8th to Australia, where I’ll be in Melbourne for just under a week, and then New Zealand! 🙂

Overall Asia has been amazing, Vietnam was quite stressful and dragged me down a tad, but there were some great snippets of Vietnam that made it a lot better. I feel like the people who are out to scam you, or just follow you down the street, seem to ruin it for the amazingly nice and generous locals that you find! For instance after my day of motorbiking from Hoi An to Kon Tum, I arrived at half 11 at night, without a hostel booked, and not really knowing where they were in the town. I found a hotel, which looked closed up, so I rattled on the bars and I managed to get a room. It was pretty cheap, and it was the first single room I had had for a month and a half, which was really nice! The next day I wasn’t sure if I wanted to ride on, which would have been another long day, or get the bus to speed things up. The receptionist at the hotel was so so nice, she rang lots of people and managed to get me a bus to Dalat at 3pm that day. She then bought me breakfast, took me to an orphanage for a few hours, where I taught some English and played with the children, and then we went shopping at the local market! It ended up being really great! The town was also quite off the beaten track, I only saw one other traveller there who was at the orphanage, so that was a really good experience!

Hoi An was also brilliant! I drove the motorbike with a friend I met in Hue, (going over Hai Van Pass which was amazing), and arrived at around 6. We weren’t sure where the hostels were so I asked a tourist. After he recommended a place, he told me about a free tour they do on sunday mornings with a few locals who are looking to learn English. So I ended up going on that, and it was really good! We got bicycles and cycled round an island, stopping off at houses where we would learn how to make rice paper, or sleeping mats, it was really cool. Local students were there as well, so it was great fun talking to them!
So many hostel owners have been amazingly nice too! I think moments like those made Vietnam a lot better, and I think that’s what I’ll remember more…I hope! Although the motorbike stealing is still flipping annoying! I eventually got to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, where I had a stressful last day selling my motorbike, so I guess it rounded Vietnam off nicely! I managed to sell it at the last minute to a really nice American called Chuck, who’s writing a book! I was delighted and was able to move on without looking back too much!

I got the bus to Cambodia, for a quick stop in Siem Reap, where I went to the Angkor Wat temples. They were amazing! Just the size of everything was impressive, I have a few pictures so I will try and upload them…I can’t promise that will happen though! I met some great people in Siem Reap, even a friend from the safari park, which was really nice! I was soon back on the bus to Bangkok though, and arrived last night! It felt strange coming back, because of how much has changed since I was last here! I can’t believe it! It’ll be very strange leaving Asia, I feel like I’m really getting used to the culture, and to be honest it feels like I’ve been here a very long time! It has been really great, and one crazy experience! I feel I liked Thailand the most, possibly because I spent the longest there, and had the best experiences, so I may have to come back to do the rest properly! 🙂 Off I go to Australia now though, I’m quite nervous but really looking forward to it, especially the cold…and some western food will be nice!

Up and down like a flipping see-saw!

This is just a post explaining all the crazy things that have happened recently, I’ll try and do another one soon about Hanoi and Hoi An soon!

The past week or so has been a bit of a rollercoaster! I haven’t managed to do a blog post for a while but a lot has happened! I’m now in Hoi An, a really picturesque town, by the sea about halfway between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. It’s really nice, lots of markets and the famous tailors (every other shop is pretty much a tailors!), and I wish I could spend longer here but have to get to Ho Chi Minh pretty quick!

Anyway, the last few days have been pretty hard! Essentially, I was meant to be getting the train from Hanoi to Hue, with my bike that I had bought from another backpacker (which went really well), but I ended up getting scammed, and I think, my bike getting stolen. Without going into it tooo much, I wasn’t entirely sure how I was meant to get my bike onto the train, but I was told it was too late to put do it, whilst realising my passport was missing, and then it was all a bit of a rush and a blur! I got on the train (but for the life of me now I don’t know why), and endured the 12 hour train journey, which is (I hope) the worst train ride I have! So yeah it was pretty bad! And to make it worse the train was a bit of a cultural eye opener! People seemed to be lying everywhere, even on top of you if that was comfortable! It was smelly, very loud, and there were quite a few rats scuttling around, and no travellers to share the experience with! I think I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t on the brink of crying over the whole malarkey with the bike, and having no passport!

When I eventually got to the hostel later on, I felt like I needed to tell somebody what had happened! So I had a nice rant to the reception people at the hostel, and then searched through my bag to look for my passport, but there was no sign of it! The next morning I rang the hostel in Hanoi, and they had it! Which I was elated about! I went and bought an ice cream to celebrate, and then tried to find my bike! Randomly I met a girl from Canada the night before, who it turns out her family are from Vietnam, so she could speak fluent Vietnamese, which was amazing! She was so nice and rang the number I got given by the staff at the station, but with no luck!
I ended up staying in Hue for 3 nights, but couldn’t trace my bike. My thinking at the time was I didn’t want this to stop me riding down, so I bought another bike from a really nice rental man, and moved on! I was looking forward to it!
3 days later, and I’m now actually in a small town called Kon Tum, which is completely of the tourist route, I’ve even had groups of school children crowding round me! But again, I’m changing my plans. I rode 13 hours yesterday by myself, it was definitely an experience, but I just didn’t enjoy it! I ended up arriving at 11pm, after 4 hours of bumpy roads, in the dark and rain. The highlight was about 2 hours of great scenery in the highlands, a full meal I got from a local on the side of the road for about 30p, and the fact that Les Mis was on the tv at the hotel! I’ve just found myself feeling dragged down by the bike slightly which I didn’t expect, I think if I had been with people it would have been great, but for now I don’t really want it. It’s slightly annoying after all the hassle, but I guess I learn! And I just think it was too much in such a short time! So I’m now taking the bus to De Lat, which is meant to be fun, I might try and sell my bike there, or just wait until I get to Ho Chi Minh!

The bus is soon so I have to go but I’ll try and write more soon!