The End!

A bit earlier than expected.
But we're home.
I even got some sleep last night!

But first, back to Singapore:

The cool Japanese dues that were staying in our hostel went out busking(very professionally as you can see by all their gear) on the last night, if I had known it wasn't an offence that would land me in prison, I would have been at it every night there. What harm sure!:

All that heat ended up being the build up before the rain in Singapore, it rained all our last day there, which we didn't mind particularly, as we weren't outside too much. We spent a lot of time in the airport that day, and in Abu Dhabi our stopover was about 16 hours or so, so we spent a good bit of time there too!
As it was our last night, and there was only one place for accommodation within 30km, we went for it, and as you can guess by the name it wasn't cheap!:

Part of our room:

- it was absolute luxury, something we were not used to at all! But feck it!

Here's a strange pic out the window that ended up having more of the room in it:

We weren't tired somehow, so we went out through immigration to have a gawk outside, there's nothing around the airport at all really, except desert, so we went back in fairly lively, I think they thought we were taking the piss at immigration, what harm!

A few beers were had before heading off to bed, on of the few places you can have beer in the country:

- I got asked by some Jewish people if I was Jewish, that was a good larf!

The next morning we could see our view out the window, it wasn't Ballykeeran anyway!:

Anywhoo, the total travel time for the travelometer was 231hours.

The blog got 2,000 visits from 50 countries!

Thanks to everyone for the emails, texts, and comments, be they on the blog, bebo or facebook.

Much love.

:)

Soggy Singapore

No more Rabid Dogs.
Another 7,352 miles until home.
Home for 12 days of Christmas build up.
Our bags have broke, burst, torn and were fined for being overweight, but they're holding it together!

It is illegal to walk out of a public toilet here without flushing.

I may be in Singapore but I'm as Irish as the next fella who orders a toasted ham & cheese sandwich and a pint of Guinness after climbing Cruach Phádraig of a foggy Match morn.
Due to this fact, the humidity knocks me for six here.
I can't function at optimum, all unnecessary systems have shutdown, such as attention span, spacial awareness, multi-tasking and the higher levels of the common sense spectrum.
Here's to hoping essential ones don't start going as well! :)

Another side effect of being Irish, is that we're never happy unless we're giving out.
Needless to say, over the last...nine or ten weeks, we've done our fair share of passive nagging on what we've seen.

Sorry, the humidity is getting to my anti-rambling-on gland.
I digress.

We're in Singapore, and to be honest, it's not that bad being back.
Would I recommend people to holiday here, or stay for a while going to a far away destination?
You bet your ass I wouldn't.
But we're enjoying it!

Today is our last day without any plans. Tomorrow will involve a flight, and a stay in the U.A.E.
The day after will see us continue on from there to Dublin.

I've no pics for this post, but I'll do another post when I'm home, about these last few days.
Take it as a "Jerry's Final Thought" post.

We're looking forward to staying a night in Abu Dhabi, but not to the cost of a hotel there!
Anywhoo, I'll go now before I waffle on anymore.

Chat ya from Ireland, or perhaps Abu Dhabi if I'm bored! :)

EtiHad & Elephants

Are you Stupa or Wat:
- we only just realised that if the above phrase is said with an inner-city Dublin accent, it has two meanings! And to answer the question; it's a Stupa in the pic.

So we had flights.
We changed them.
But supposedly it's not all cleared fully.
But we have them.
But the tickets aren't issued.
But we have our confirmation itinerary.

Planes piss me off.
Also, in public response to Nelbert's comment. Yes, I have been cursing more since all this has started. I think I may be grumpy after having to leave Laos waaaaay before I wanted to!
So I'll but my bag of swear words back in the cupboard again.
Sorry about that! :)

Sure we wouldn't be us without going to a temple:

- The big Buddha at the back looks deceptively small in these pics, but I assure you he was massive, and vaguely looming, you almost felt he was going to stand up, and beat the crap out of everyone. - Crap isn't a swear word really, is it?!

The Jade Buddha:

- 900kg of Solid Jade.

Dave loves Elephants, well I do to, but Dave loves them also. He wanted to do some Elephant riding, so after much research in Laos, we found out that their Elephants were captured wild ones, and thus, had to be bet into submission for their Elephant parks. Whereas here in Chiang Mai, they're born into it.

We chose the most reputable eco-company we could find, and went around the jungle.
Pics!:
Enter the Elephants!

They've 78 Elephants in the camp, from babies to elders(If I can call them that!)

Now for some seriously tourist looking shots...I can assure you, the Elephant, who's name was Poo Kau(Age 34) was well into posing, but also keen to head off up the mountain without the other dude. We, however, were not into that. At all.

Lord of the Rings anyone?:

Twas off for a drink then, but he decided he wanted to get into the river and walk back though it. Twas gas craic!

A quick wipe of the trunk and we were out of there:

Where to next?

We're going to go to the King's birthday celebrations later on tonight. There's no beer to be served on this one day of the year in Thailand, so we'll have an early night, and be ready for our two flights to Bangkok in the morning, and Singapore later tomorrow night.

My phone is acting up since it started working here in Thailand again, so long story short. Heading to the Green Olive on Wednesday night for the session at 10PM.

Be there!

Ahhh no, if you're about, pop in. :)

Flights & Fuckups

Well maybe not a fuck up.
Just a pain in the ass.
After our flight into Chiang Mai, Thailand(About 10-12hrs North of Bangkok) We soon realised that without paying with a pound of flesh, we weren't going to get down to Singapore.
Bangkok airport opens 12 midnight Friday night, and we fly in on Saturday morning and out again that night!
We arrive in Singapore late Saturday night, spend another two nights in that feckin' place, which might make it the place we stayed the most nights, then off to spend a night in Abu Dhabi Monday, before finally returning home Tuesday night.
I'll be in the Green Olive for my fix of trad on Wednesday night, if anyone wants to pop in! :)

Dave had to sacrifice some stuff to fit in his bag, check it out!:
Here's the view out my window on the plane:

- it turned out to be a lovely flight. We even got food and drink on a flight that was just under an hour! Beat that you scabby Ryan Air bastards.
Although on our taxi to the building we had to stop and let these dudes land:

- pretty cool! We had monks on board keeping us all safe anyway:

T'was a short taxi ride from the airport to our Guesthouse(Our should I say Questhouse!)

I had stayed here before, and thought it was very good, so back again. We have a room with en suite hot shower, a wee terrace out the back with two chairs, complete with lizards on the back of them:

All for 2.50euro each! You can't go wrong, plus they've a restaurant that's feckin' amazing and a cool garden to chill out and read books in. We couldn't really chill out until we had got our flights from Chiang Mai to Singapore sorted. After trying online and a few travel agents, we located the AirAsia office in town and got ourselves a flight that flight that I talked about, one I thought would not be possible.

Anywhoo, we decided to go for "one" behind the old city walls where they were preparing for the biggest day of the year; the King's birthday:

- As usual, one is never one. And we got a bit jolly and walked home. On our walk home we had an amazing experience(All the more amazing because of the beer probably)

Out of the dark comes a bulky stroller, too big to be one man.

It wasn't.

A long limb, slightly drooping as it raised, came over towards us, and blew a shrill note.

A feckin' Elephant!

T'was gas, it took to long to get a camera out but here's a look at his backside:

In closing, we're back in the land of the ladyboy.

We wrote down some of the more hilarious(And vaguely disturbing) quotes of the trip:

Dave:

"If these are men, they've got amazing arses"

Bean:

"Dave, be careful, the best looking women are men"

Dave & Bean:

"Wow, she's gorgeous, oh wait....it's a man"

Dave & Tuk-Tuk driver:

"Tuk-Tuk?"

'Naaah'

"Tuk-Tuk, Tuk-Tuk?"

'Naaah, walk-walk'

(Mutual laughter)

Can't remember who said this one:

"Someone said we shouldn't feed the monks"

And a saying I'll be taking from Dave:

"If you're Aunt had balls, she'd be your Uncle"

OK, that's enough humour at our own expense.

Chat ya'll reeeeaaal soon. :)

Times & Travels

OK.
The big news first.
We had to change our flights, as we had to be sure to be hoe before Christmas for loads of reasons. Also because we don't wan to get stuck in the middle of something out here, that may, or may not, end soon. Long story short, I will be home on Tuesday evening I think, at around 6 or 7PM.

We've had to change our flights to Singapore, a ridiculously far distance from where we are.

We fly from here in two hours to Chiang Mai on Lao Airlines.

Never heard of Lao Airlines?

You're damn right you've never heard of them.

Apart from a few small propeller planes they got out of a Russian scrapyard, there isn't much else to them.

From there we're not sure as of yet, as to change flights and get this one out of here, it's going to cost more than our flight home is worth, and who knows what fuckin' more we'll have to spend in the distance in between.

It's time to introduce the "Travelometer" - it's a list of travel times since we set out on our journey. I'll just post them so far as who knows where will be going next!
So these times and dates for travel on different modes of transport, are times that both Dave and I were travelling together, in order to reach somewhere, being driven by someone else i.e. Me driving our motorbike around Koh Tao can't go onto this list, or times we spent travelling separate in Melbourne etc....you get the idea.
Here we go:

Longest Single Car/Tuk-Tuk Journey:

3.5hr
Total Car Tuk-Tuk:

9hr

Longest Single Train Journey:
25.5hr
Total Train:
32.5hr

Longest Single Bus Journey:
21hr
Total Bus:
110.5hr

Longest Single Plane Journey:
8.5hr
Total Plane:
38.5hr

Longest Single Boat Journey:
12.0hr
Total Boat:
23.5hr

GRAND TOTAL SO FAR: 212hrs

Here's a few pics too:

- Buddha in the trees.


Our favourite sign, we read it out in a "Long ago, in a galazy far far away" Star Wars-style deep voice:

Lao National Day party the other night:

Our favourite fire in Luang Prabang, every night we huddled around it with a beer:

The moon, for those of you not in the know! :)

Jamming on our last night with Banji:

Off to board me flight, bye!

Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes

We're trying to change our flights...
Things aren't great in Thailand, unless we really need to go in, we're advised not to.
Will let everyone know when we know what the craic is.
Other flights out of neighbouring countries are filling up quickly.


Chat ye very soon! :)

Cold Coming

First off, things have gotten worse in Thailand. Bombs are bigger etc.
So we're looking into changing our flights.
I'm waiting to here back(hopefully tomorrow) from our travel agent back home as to what way we should do it.
In other words; we're on top of it.

And a another few things:
1. Vietnam wasn't as bad as the taste my last post about it may have left in your mouth. I was just so happy to be in Laos, that I may have been over-zealous in my description of Vietnam! :)
2. Luang Prabang has the 5th biggest population not the 2nd biggest. The biggest is still 200,000 though!
3. I've gone 23 days without a Mosquito bite! This is huge, considering it was about 5 a day before that!

Meanwhile, things are still ridiculously beautiful here. Although the weather is getting quite cold at night. We sat out the other night by the Mekong playing some music with a few Canadians, and the next morning we felt a bit under the weather. I think we'll have to ask for an auld duvet in the hostel tonight!

Here's a few pics since the last post:


- Lennie doing some tricks for us. Turns out he's a Pro Skateboarder. Lennie if you're reading this, now you're really famous. You're on the blog man! :)

The oldest Wat in town:

- 500 years old I believe.

Another night market shot:

This old dude is mad. He was dancing in the middle of the street yesterday with his shovel. The day before, he was blowing onto handfuls of dirt and then trying to shove them into the hands of locals passing by:

Heading up to the Royal Palace Museum:

And back out after:

- twas really interesting in there, but they don't allow the auld camera.

Monks beating a drum to signal the changing time of day:

Crossing the dodgy bridge over the Nam Kahn:

Fishermen in the Nam Kahn river:

Riverside homes:

The parched earth on the banks of the Mekong:

OK I'm out of here.

Bye!