Ok - I’ve been a pretty bad blogger here, but I *have* been writing up entries about each place (thus far we’ve been in Shanghai, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodia, and now we’re on our second stop in Thailand, Phi Phi Island, after spending 2 days in Phuket city). We are having an absolutely FANTASTIC time, and I’m taking TONS of pictures. Phi Phi Don island is absolutely stunning, and tomorrow we’re heading off on a snorkelling/sea kayaking trip for the day. We’re kinda sad that we don’t get to stay here longer, but sure, still no regrets as I’m sure our resort in Patong Beach (back on Phuket) will be stunning as well. Some selected pictures are up, but that’s not nearly all of them, and hasn’t been updated at all with any pictures from Thailand or Phnom Penh. Hope everyone is doing well - we still have like 6 more days here in Thailand, then it’s one night in Singapore and off to Australia for the non-asian leg of our trip. I can’t believe we’ve been gone for so long already, but there’s still tons of amazing places left to see!
Liz and I made it safely to Shanghai! Woohoo! We managed to make it through our first day without falling asleep TOO early (got a few hours sleep on the plane). I have to say, it’s a bit of a culture shock being here in China… Even just simple things, like ordering dinner, are done completely differently! And a *few* people speak english, but not very many, which makes for fun adventures in pantomiming. Shanghai seems very much like a tourist destination for Chinese people, as opposed to we white folk, but we’re enjoying ourselves nonetheless. One thing that is absolutely *maddening* is all the honking. My god! I think people honk their horns just to say “I am driving!” Every 2 or three seconds, somebody will honk their horn. It really doesn’t seem to follow any discernable pattern. Which sort of defeats the purpose, in my opinion, but whatever. The subway seems pretty good, if crowded, but “crowded” pretty much seems to define the whole city. There’s just people and cars and bikes and mopeds and motorcycles EVERYWHERE. We’re having a blast though! Can’t wait to get some of the pictures up - once I’m somewhere that I can actually upload them, I’ll definitely have them up! More updates soon!
Ok. I mentioned that Liz and I were going on a bit of a whirlwind trip on our way back to Canada, promising more details later. Well, it’s now later. It’s true, we’re doing 6 weeks of travelling through Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand rather than going directly back to Canada. Here’s the list of our destinations:
- Shanghai
- Siem Reap/Angkor Wat
- Phnom Penh (ok, technically we arrive from Shanghai in Phnom Penh - but then we hop on a bus to Siem Reap so I’m considering this to be a destination AFTER Siem Reap
- Krabi/Ko Phi Phi/Phuket
- Singapore
- Melbourne (to see Joe and Talie! Yay!)
- Sydney
- Townsville, driving up to Cairns
- Queenstown
- Wellington
- Los Angeles (for 8 hours)
It’s really going to be the trip of a lifetime! It’s required a hell of a lot of planning, I’m not gonna lie! First off, we got a round the world plane ticket - specifically, a Great Escapade. This covered all of our flights except for Phnom Penh->Siem Reap, internal Australian flights and from LA->Toronto (apparently Canada isn’t included in the Great Escapade). We booked some internal flights for the rest of our stuff… except for half of the route from Phnom Penh->Siem Reap, for which we’ve elected to take the bus (I’ve heard it can be rough, but I’m excited for a bit of rugged Cambodian countryside in an otherwise hotel/plane based trip). We’ve spent a hell of a lot of time on TripAdvisor looking up hotels and such too. I absolutely can’t wait! And don’t worry - I’ll be taking PLENTY of pictures, and hopefully posting some along the way along with trip updates for each place. It depends on what sort of downtime/internet time we have. And we leave a week from today! AAAAAAH!
