First stop was AFRICA - South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls). The two month trip was fantastic - I met my relatives (many for the first time) in Johannesburg, East London, and Cape Town. Then a budget camping trip with Acacia Adventures from Cape Town up to the Fish River Canyon, the Soussessvlei in Namibia, dune-boarding in Swakopmund, walking safari in the Okavango Delta with no other people and whisper of the mokoros dug-out boats in the reeds. Seeing animals in the wild in Chobe National Park and Krueger National Park. And finally, the mother of all adventures - white water rafting in the dry season, no less, down the Zambezi River. Who could not fall in love with Africa? It's an amazing place - vast, beautiful, relaxed, friendly - it somehow tugged at my soul.
Sinapore was clean and efficient - it met all that I previously knew about it. From there, we travelled on the very luxurious overnight bus up to the city of Georgetown on the island of Penang. After a few days, it was on to THAILAND on a local bus. The bus break-down was the first of many bus break-downs and road-sittings that we were to experience. Anyways, first stop Thailand was Krabi and the Railei beaches. Bliss. After a week there of doing not much except swimming/lying in the sun/eating and repeating the process, we went to Ko Lanta to meet friends of Gavin's. And that was basically the end of our trip! Ko Lanta was a little piece of heaven on earth. Not for long though, as I think that even this season Ko Lanta will be overly built-up and even more crowded. Word is getting out on the travelling circuit about just how good it is. Luckily, the water is not always perfectly clear and detritus does get washed up on the beach, so it hopefully will never become as overbuilt as Ko Phi Phi. In the meantime, I learnt Thai cooking from my surrogate Mae; Ying and Lek were the perfect hosts; Tee taught Gavin some Thai boxing; and Thor generally fell about and got into a hilarious amount of accidents. Wat, however, was just too busy scanning the beach for 'ladies, ladies' to really socialise! When it came time to renew our Thai visas (visitors visas good for one month), Gavin and I travelled the long-way round to get to Burma, via Nakkon Si TTrammat, Surit Thani, Chai ya, and Ranong. We saw some lovely temples, ate some great food, and met wonderful people. Travelling in Thailand is an absolute easy cheap pleasure - although you still can't be too fussy about having an entire seat to yourself on the bus. After spending an interesting few days renewing our visas, we tried the island of Pha Yam - no roads at all so very few people, however the beach was not very good for swimming. Then to Kao Sok National Park - hiking in the jungle where I had my first experience of leeches - not the most pleasant thing to look down and see them attached to your ankle! A tour of Phang-Nga Bay to see James Bond Island and the Muslim Floating Village. Finally, back 'home' to Ko Lanta where we spend a fantastic Christmas, and best of all, saw my sister for New Year's.
After New Years, we headed up to Bangkok on the overnight train and then on to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat in CAMBODIA. The temples of Angkor are incredibly beautiful, old, and other-worldly. I felt as though I was in a Tin-Tin book. The surrounding area has enormous expensive hotels - the extreme in poverty in this area is the worst I have ever seen. After a few days at Angkor - non-stop Wat viewing and being ferried around in a Tuk-Tuk by the lovely man Roma, it was on to the capitol of Phom Penh. "On to" makes the trip sound like it was easy: IT WASN'T!! Two hundred miles took 12 hours - two flat tyres, one blown out tyre, me peeing onto a red-ant nest behind a tree, a few people deciding to 'jump ship' or in this case, 'jump bus,' someone's detailed map showing us just how far off-route we were... it was a long, hot, dry, dusty ride. Still no complaints - I had a seat to sit on at least, and some people just had folding chairs in the aisle. After a few days in Pnom Penh, we decided to brave another bus trip - this time to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
For once the land border crossing between two countries made a HUGE difference. The roads were so bad in Cambodia that we spent more time off them rather than on them (with me looking nervously at the 'danger, land-mine' signs posted with frightening regularity at the edges of fields). Suddenly after we crossed the border (getting off our bus,walking accross, and getting a new bus), the roads were paved, the bus had air conditioning, and the bus driver even gave us bottles of water for free! It was no short of a miracle. VIETNAM.