King’s Canyon & Coober Pedy

Day 5

17^th March 2017

Day 3 of the ‘Alice Springs to Adelaide’ Tour

Another super early start but made it easily enough, mostly because I awoke covered in sweat and eager to get out of the tent.

The morning’s destination was King’s Canyon. The idea was to start walking at daybreak between 6am and 7am and get out by 10am. There is a designated start point for all walks (clearly marked on maps and clearly signposted) which is a big carpark with sheltered spaces for sitting out of the sun, clean toilets and taps for drinking water. By the toilet sinks there is the following sign which I think is brilliant.

Kata Tjuta & Uluru

Day 3

15^th March 2017

Day 1 of the ‘Alice Springs to Adelaide’ Tour

So the two words I would use to describe this day as I experienced it are ‘deeply uncomfortable’. These encompass both the sense of humiliation and defeat as well as the horrible feeling of being rather unwell. What follows is a mixture of reflection on a lack of self awareness on my part, a massive moan, and me generally feeling sorry for myself. Please feel free, therefore, to completely skip this post and simply read the tour itinerary (accessible via the link above) only!

Sydney

For info on how the Aussie adventure came to be, click here!

Day 0 (haha)

11^th March 2017 / 12^th March 2017 – arrival to Sydney

So the first thing to say about getting to Australia in just the one weekend with a layover stop of only one and a half hours is that oh-my-god it’s insane. I have never been on such a long haul flight before so it was quite an experience and not a pleasant one!! For the first seven hour leg to Dubai, filled the whole time with movies (including La La Land, which was strange, but I digress) which was fine, and was thinking ‘yeah, cool, I can do this!’ and then the thirteen hour leg started and I was still okay…watched several more movies…made sure to keep jiggling my legs…had an awkard 3 hour nap…then with about four hours to go, I felt so sick and ill and just wanted the whole thing to be over.

Off to Australia!

Hi all (or just Mum, not sure who reads this…)!

So since 2015, I have been on a couple of good holidays (Italy for my honeymoon and North Wales just before one Christmas, in case you’re interested!), of course, but as I have resumed full time work and life, I have (unfortunately) neglected to blog about them.

However, plans have been made to visit Australia for two weeks with an old secondary school friend of mine to go and see a bit of it and also to visit a third school friend who is currently travelling out there (so we haven’t seen her in a while).

So, I thought, time to return to this blog, as it’s sure to be a fairly epic adventure. Unlike many people I know, I’ve never been especially desperate to visit Aus (not sure why, it’s nothing personal, I think it’s just so far away…also, I’m not a massive water sports or adrenaline-seeking type!), however with a mate out there at the moment…this is the perfect time!

So follow / read on to discover more about my Aussie adventure with friends (left Dave at home, but he’s been down under before, so didn’t feel tooooo guilty haha!)…!

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Ro x

Phuket

Day 73 / Sunday 24^th May: flight to Phuket

We booked a taxi the day prior via the hostel at a reasonable cost to take us to Bangkok airport early the next morning. The hostel had had breakfast included the previous days and although the taxi was earlier than their breakfast ‘timings’ they still kindly provided with some breakkie – thumbs up! Taxi ride and the flight to the Thai island of Phuket were unremarkable. Phuket airport offers a few options for getting to your hotel. Prices are fixed (phew!) and it was straightforward to buy tickets for a minivan, which would take us and a few other travellers and drop us all off at our respective hotels. It’s a bit weird after that as you’re sort of just milling about but don’t worry – they haven’t forgotten you and you’ll be called when a minivan is ready.

Bangkok: Part 2

Day 70 / Day 29 of ATID – Bangkok

After disembarking our overnight train, we headed back to the hotel we had originally checked in at in order to commence the IndoChina tour with G Adventures, Bangkok Centre Hotel. After checking in, we went back to the street side restaurant near the station next to the above hotel that we had all had our first dinner together on the evening of the day our tour started for breakfast, which was quite nice.

Oh, the breakfast was really yummy by the way. And I’ve had similar at other restaurants in Asia after that day so although I can’t remember the exact location of the restaurant, that doesn’t much matter.

Chiang Mai

Day 68 / Day 27 of ATID – transfer to Chiang Mai

In the morning after checking out of our border-crossing town, we travelled to Chiang Mai. Now on the way to Chiang Mai, we stopped off at a very interesting, psychedelic (there’s seriously no better way to describe this place) temple in Chiang Rai. Obviously (and it’s been pointed out to me they’re mentioned a lot) we had seen LOTS of temples up until this point and yes they were super fascinating at the start and we did appreciate all the different styles but by this point it was getting a little disenchanting

Mekong Cruise + Village Homestay and Chiang Khong

Day 66 / Day 25 of ATID – Mekong Cruise & Village Homestay

Very early in the morning, as in it was still basically dark, we took a private bus to somewhere – I’m sorry, by this point of the tour my brain was melting from exhaustion (this’ll be evident from the lack of lengthy essays for each day once the tour posts end), a good sort of exhaustion but an exhaustion nonetheless, so I’ve no idea where it was. We boarded a long boat, anyway, at this location in order to commence a 10 hour cruise down the scenic Mekong river.

Vang Vieng (cont) and Luang Prabang

Day 63 / Day 22 of ATID – Vang Vieng

This was a pretty action packed and highly enjoyable day and I think what I took away most from it was the sheer beauty of the landscapes that surrounded us from dawn until dusk. The cost of everything I’ll talk about (in between breakfast and dinner) came to a total of US $25 per person as it was all part of a package, but of course bear in mind our negotiator with the local tour company was g adventures, so take this as a rough guide.

Breakfast was included as part of the hotel stay and after this we headed to the ‘blue lagoon’

Vientiane and arrival in Vang Vieng

Day 61 / Day 20 of ATID / Hanoi to Vientiane

It was a late start this morning owing to fact we had been out until late the previous night. Dave and I got packed, had time for another Bún chả lunch down the road from our hotel, and then we were off via bus to Hanoi’s airport, Nội Bài International Airport, in order to catch a flight to Laos!

We landed in Wattay International Airport which is just outside of Laos and then took private transport into Laos.