Cambodia: The Same Same, But Different

So today I went to a hotel, and inquired about a room. He said it was $20 a night.

I said “Does it have a fan in the room?”

He said “What kind of fan do you want?”

I said “.........A blog fan”

He said “.... Yes.... Yes it does” :-)

Ten million BLOG FANSSSS!!
Its that time again you hungry dogs! Sink your teeth into this devilish piece of meat, of BREAKING BLOG NEEEWWWSSSS!!!!

(compose yourself)

Well... We crossed into Cambodia via the Mekong river in Vietnam. I think I wrote about this in my last blog... Anyway, we arrived in Phnom Penh and got a $1 tuk-tuk to our hostel. It was a really cool hostel actually. We stayed in a dorm, but the bunk beds were double bed width. Classy  ;-) It also had a bar at the top floor, that had really good drink and food offers. But the first thing we did in Phnom Penh, was the S21 Museum. Start on a positive note init... The S21 Museum is basically an ex-school, that was turned into an interrogation / torture prison, where 1000s of civilians died under Pol Pots reign. It was pretty damn grim. Murky walls, stained tiled floor, and surrounded in barbed wire. You could walk around the buildings looking at the torture methods, and 1000s of mug shots of the people that died there. I felt kinda numb towards it all to be honest. Couldn’t really imagine these stories being anything but fictional. Or if not fictional, in a far distant history. Not so recent... But needless to say, after that, we needed a stiff drink or two. We went back and bumped into 2 girls that we met in Vietnam, and we also got in touch with another couple we met a few days back... Whilst having dinner, the hostel supplied a free keg of beer. Basically free beer for everyone until the last glass was poured. I had about... 7? Then me and Lena (a Brummy girl) played beer pong. She was beating me pretty bad, then she decided to switch with her sober mate Becky! Then she started beating me even worse!! Then I moved on to cider, then whisky, then I saw this drink challenge thing on the wall... Which is never a good thing for me blog fans. I always accept a drinking challenge... They had a drink called “Banana Bombs” Which is a shot of tequila, and a shot of banana liquor, wedged at the top of a glass of Redbull. Once you take the tequila and drink it, the banana liquor drops into the Redbull, and you wash down the tequila with the banana Redbull mix. Lethal... The “challenge” was to win points for your country. I think England was 4^th at this point. Behind USA, France, and Cambodia. But we represented that night ;-) Got us 3^rd, and closer to France... Probably would of got further, but after a couple more free shots, and jager bombs, shit hit the fan, blog fans... The next thing I remember was being on the toilet floor, asleep, with Cat saying “Rob, we’re going to a club. Are you going to be OK?” I chundered EVERYWHAA blog fans!! Was in a right mess... Apparently Cat and a couple others got a tuk-tuk to a club, and stayed out for another couple hours. When she got back, I STILL hadn’t made it to bed! I got woken up in the corridor by some backpacker trying to navigate her wheely suitcase around me :-) Then i crawled my sorry arse into bed...

After that heavy night, we all woke up hungover, with just a couple hours sleep, and ready to get a tuk-tuk to the Killing Fields... Bit of a juxtaposition I know... As the name might suggest, the Killing Fields isn’t much of a happy place either. Its a spot where men, women, and children were bought to be killed once the Khmer Rouge where done with them at S21. Not just political opponents, but anyone Vietnamese, Chinese, from a city, pale skinned, educated.... And once they were killed, the wives and babies had to be killed to prevent revenge attacks... Close to a third of the population were killed by the Khmer Rouge, and this was just one of about 20,000 mass graves around the country... You went around with an audio headset, listening to what happened. There was a “killing tree”, which babies were killed against... A “magic tree”, which had big speakers playing eerie music to drown out the screams. And lots and lots of bones and skulls... Cat was moved to tears by it all. But she wasn’t the only one there that was...

We had a quiet night in that night... Needed it... Was hanging balls, and we caught an early bus to Kampot with Lena. Kampot was a nice place. Super chilled. We stayed at a hostel, that had a bar hoovering over a river. There was a floating man-made island with hammocks, rope swing, kayaks... Was proper hippy. I had a bit of a troublesome 24hrs there though blog fans... We went out for dinner at a local little hut one night. As I was talking, looked down at my feet during conversation, and I spotted a MASSIVE black scorpion, literally a inch away from my moving, bare foot. A guy that worked there jumped up like a maniac, beat it to death, then removed its tail... “This is very bad!”. So im guessing I was kinda lucky... We went back to the same place in the morning to rent motorbikes for a trip up to a place called Bokor Hills. I went for a little practice run as it was manual... all fine, so I drove it back to wait for the girls. As I flicked down the kick-stand, I let go of the bike... and it fell... Right in front of the owners, and few customers. The mirror smashed into a hundred pieces in the middle of the road, and I looked like a right knob. Bit embarrassing... So that wasn’t a good start. We took the one mirrored bike up this hill anyway. Bokor is now known for its spooky eerie atmosphere. It used to have a casino, church, hotel, etc when the French were in power here. Now they’re all abandoned, and super ghoulish... The fact that its so high up in the clouds, that it forms a constant misty, haunted appearance to the area, only adds to the atmosphere even more. Anyway, my troubles weren’t over yet blog fans... During that excursion, Cat and I nearly got attacked by a MASSIVE MONKEY on the bike whilst we were driving! It was like we were in a scene from the movie Silent Hill, mixed with The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes... Madness... And ALSO, after that I crashed our bike :-p Kinda anyway... We stopped on a gravely path to ask for directions, and when I drove off, the wheels kinda skidded over the rocks, and with mine and Cats weight on it, we dropped like a sack of shit :-) Classic... We both popped up with the two other girls going “OMG, are you OK?” But we were just really worried about how damaged the bike was lol. Thats a campervan, car, AND a bike ive damaged on our trip now! Champion! The bike had a bent foot rest, that we managed to bend into place just enough for the people not to notice when we returned it :-) Me and Cat just had a few scratches and bruises ;-)

We said bye to the two girls we were with, and headed down to Sihanoukville next. Dont ask me how to pronounce it blog fans. Its a bastard of a name... Its a town on the south coast, which most people visit prior to heading off to the islands close to it. And in this case, we are “most people”. To be honest, its low season in this part of the world right now, and the atmosphere was DEAD. We checked in to a hostel that seemed to be the only one with people in, and headed out to the deserted restaurants for dinner. We stumbled across a place called “Happy Pizza”. They sold Happy pizzas, Happy shakes, and Happy cigarettes... I hope I don’t have to spell out what I mean by “Happy” blog fans... The pizza was really nice! Cat had the shake that wasn’t bad either. But to be honest, smoking was the only thing that seemed to make me “happy” in any way. The following day we had a beach day. Was really nice until it got to the evening, when it PISSED DOWN! THIS is why its low season blog fans... I frantically tried to drive us home to shelter, and got absolutely drenched! Was probably a bit dodgy driving a scooter in those conditions, but still, it was either that or stand in a monsoon for 3hrs...

We left for the islands next. We paid for a ticket that meant we could snorkel on the way to the first island, then get dropped off for as long as you want, then get a boat to the second island, then back to the mainland. As we boarded, we noticed how choppy the sea was. The waves were like a remake of the Perfect Storm, and it became obvious survival was more important that snorkelling. So we went straight to the first island and got off there... I said to the guy “I think we might stay here one night, when do we get the boat tomorrow?”

“12:30 here”

“Everyday?”

“Yes”

“So here, 12:30pm, tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes...”

You can see where this is going blog fans. The boat left again, taking every other tourist away, except me and Cat... Who checked in to a little seaside hut :-) It was really nice. There was no people, there was only electricity between 6pm to 11pm, and it was pretty damn chilled... We had half a day of sun, then half a day of getting caught in torrential rain on a jungle trek. But we decided to leave the next day as we planned. We went to the accommodation guy and said “Can we pay now? We are getting the boat today”

“No boat today”

“Pardon?”

“No boat...”

Casual as that blog fans. Basically as no one was booking a boat to this deserted island during monsoon season, the boat had no reason to come to pick us up... We didn’t mind so much, as it was pretty sweet there. The only few negatives was, I wasn’t getting much sleep because of the heat with no fan during the night. We were also being bitten to shit by mozzies, our bathroom was infested by ants, and we had the odd rat visiting our room now n then. But still, worse places to be stuck... We thought we’ll just get the boat the next day, hoping some tourists would be CRAZY enough to come here like we did... We tried ordering lunch as we were staying – no bread, no beef, no this, no that... Rations were not being shipped over either blog fans... We basically had the choice of fish, fried rice, and mango... Which suited us well enough. Next morning... “No boat”... lol Are you f***ing KIDDING ME blog fans!? The fact that we ran out of things to do, and the weather was bad, and the food was running out, didn’t really bother me. I just didn’t want another night in the cabin sweating my mozzie bitten balls off, and getting 3hrs sleep a night... We managed to book a “fast” boat with a different company, that would take us from this island to the next. So that was something... Just meant that was now a snorkelling trip, AND a boat transfer we paid for but didn’t get. But f*** it, we’re moving on. The next island was a lot more busier. Loads of hostels, backpackers, places to eat... Was actually happy about that, considering what we just came from... This island (Koh Rong) had more of a reputation for a party island. So we were just planning on staying the one night, partying, and getting off... We met two Cambodian guys, partied with them, had a good night, then got up to catch our boat the next morning... BUT GUESS WHAT BLOG FANS? It didn’t come!! :-D  SO, we had to book ANOTHER fast boat back to the mainland. So that was a snorkel trip, and TWO island transfers they scammed us out of. Bastards. But we were getting off the beaches, onto mainland, and moving on... We got back to Sihanoukville where we were greeted by annoying tuk-tuk drivers trying to grab our arms... “My friend, my friend! Come! Come!” Theyre starting to get on my tits... “Its $12, because its 15km”. “NO, its $6 and 4km!” Theyre so full of bullshit... After telling him what we were willing to pay, and convincing him we didn’t need to go and book our next bus with his friend because its “really busy and almost full” (in low season, such bullshit), he took us to our hostel... On the way he hit a really big pothole. That made me fly up so high, I smacked my head on the metal roof, CRACKING MY SHADES that were resting on the top of my head! :-D LOL! ...Bloody tuk-tuk drivers....

After all that excitement, we had a whole day travelling from Sihanoukville to Battambag. We had to switch bus at Phnom Penh, where we saw a load of tourists waiting for the bus too. It felt good though, because as the next two buses pulled up, all the tourists got on the bus to Siem Reap, and we jumped on the bus to Battambang full of old local women, and farmers... We so culture ;-) The bus journey itself was pretty cool actually. We got to pass through the type of landscapes he hadn’t really seen in Cambodia yet. Saw a lot of village kids cycling to school, men transporting bamboo on the back of their motorbikes, farmers in rice paddies, monks, etc... They all looked poor, but at the same time, happy. Always smiling and waving... Made me feel a lot sadder that Battambang was gonna be our penultimate stop. Felt we should of spent more time in “Real Cambodia”. But we had to keep moving on blog fans... Battambang was really nice, and really cheap. We paid $4 for the two of us in a private room with en suit toilet. Thats crazy... On the first day we paid a tuk-tuk driver to take us around the temples in the countryside. We then finished the day by visiting a circus, with youngsters performing acrobats and stuff. They were really good. Not professional, but the school was run off donations for disadvantage kids to learn these skills. So it was a positive thing blog fans... We also did a cooking class in Battambang. Watch out Jamie Oliver ;-) We knocked up some spring rolls, amok curry, beef lok lak, and dessert... Our chef guy told us how one of his students learnt his ways of cooking, stole his recipe, opened his own shop LITERALLY NEXT DOOR, and then TRIED TO KILL HIM! WTF lol... Maybe he should consider making a documentary or something... Anyway, we ate our delicious cooking, and then had a few drinks and a game of pool with the guys we met in the class. After 3 nights in Battambang we had 2 choices to get to Siem Reap. Bus or Boat... The bus was a quarter the price, and twice the speed... But the boat was a lot more scenic. We were a bit worried about the dodgy weather, but like I said blog fans, we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t have longer in Cambodia... so we used the boat trip as something to make up for it. We found out that the guys from the cooking class were coming too, so we all set off together. We passed floating markets, floating villages, floating shops, floating schools... And the weather actually stayed really good throughout... We thought it was all going fine and dandy, until we were about 2hrs away from Siem Reap. We got caught up in loads of jungle like weeds in the river. It didn’t seem too bad at first, but then the boat came to a standstill... Everyone onboard had to pull out all these weeds around the boat, like we were farming vegetables or something... We all cheered when we got floating off, then 30mins after that... the boat stopped AGAIN. Everyone looked at each other a bit confused. Then we realised we were actually stuck in sand. The river was too low, and we weren’t floating no more. We spent an extra 2 or 3 hrs, pushing the boat along until we were back into deeper waters. All the boys on the boat helped, including me. I said to Cat “You should take a photo to remember this moment”. But she was too busy talking... Psst! Typical...

SOOO!!

“Knock, knock...”

“Who’s there?”

“Angkor W.......”

“Angkor What!??”

EXACTLY BLOG FANS!!

We were in Siem Reap! And if you didn’t get my joke just there, Siem Reap is mostly visited for the temples surrounding the town... Most famously, Angkor Watt... We purchased a 3 day pass to the temples, and hired a tuk-tuk each day to take us around. Every time we went with the Canadian girl, and Israeli guy we met at cooking class... It was awesome... We will never look at a temple in the same way again now though. On the first day, we did the largest route around. We visited Bayon, which is a temple with 260 giant faces carved all around it. It was pretty sick... The 2^nd day highlight was Ta Prohm. Which is the temple used as the setting for the Tomb Raider movie. The thing that made it unique was all the trees twisting around it, and growing over, and on top of the temple itself. Then on the last day, we saved the money-shot for last... The Angkor Watt sunrise... We woke up at 4am to get there on time. Was definitely worth it though. The temple itself wasn’t actually the best. But the sun rises behind it in the mornings, and the temple reflects in the moat below. Creating a view that would make any Instagrammer sexually aroused :-)

As usual, not all things ran as smoothly as seemed. My first day in Siem Reap, im pretty sure I got a mild case of food poisoning. We were all out having dinner, and a few quiet drinks... Then all of a sudden, It felt like a horse kicked me in the gut... I knew I was in trouble, so I grabbed the keys off Cat and powerwalked home... Running would of been a massive risk, blog fans... Woke up several times that night to s*** my guts out... It’s a favourite pastime of mine now blog fans... Seems to be all im doing in Asia... I came pretty close to puking too. Sober puking is never good... But it only came out of the backend fortunately... Day 2, after not eating for 24hrs, I felt I might of had mild sunstroke. Had massive headaches, and didn’t go out that night... Then day 3, my sinusitis kicked in. F***ing perfect init... I would of liked to of made the most of our hostel here. We had 5aside on sand, a cool pool bar, and stuff. But I was never really up for it... Also really wanted to make the most of Siem Reap nightlife, but I didn’t really. I managed to force myself out for the 4^th night though. The girl and guy we were hanging with didn’t really wanna drink too much, but me and Cat got tipsy, and went to a couple bars. So considering all of that, I still had a really good time here...

I say “HERE”, because im writing this on my bed, in Siem Reap on our LAST NIGHT here. And LAST NIGHT IN CAMBODIAAAA :-0 Tomorrow im off to Bang Cock... Sorry, I mean Bangkok ;-) To start our next adventure in THAILAND! We’re probably only gonna be there for two weeks in the north. Then we are planning to go Laos for a bit, then back into Thailand to hit the southern areas. That’s where im planning to spend my birthday blog fans ;-) So put that in your diary, and meet us there!! :-D

Think thats it for now! Goodbye Cambodia unfortunately :-( For now at least... Remember to check the YouTube page for up dated videos, if you’re interested. Other than that, all you can do is wait, and keep your shorts TIIIIGHT for the next, amazing, exotic, RobCat Travel, Breaking, Blog, Neeeeewwwwsssss!!

Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopaaaaaonanippledust!!

x

Good Morning Vietnam!!

And good morning BLOG FANS!!

I love the smell of BLOG in the morning ;) Haha

So, enough of that shiz blog fans... Lets get down to business...

We got to Hanoi on a warm summers day... And by warm, I mean ridiculously f***ing HOT! RIDICULOUS!!! It was like Darwin... in an oven... With a fever... To be honest, the weather in Hanoi wasn’t the only thing that I wasn’t overly impressed with. Just the city itself didn’t have TONS to do. We wondered round the markets, but didn’t really wanna buy much. The price conversion was still too confusing at that point anyway. You get the price in Vietnamese Dong, which is like a billion million to every dollar. Then they tell you in USD, but you have to make sure they aint lying. Then we convert in our head to Aussie Dollar, coz our bank and money is Australian. Then we end up converting it to Pounds, and say “It’s pretty cheap in pounds to be fair....” And buy it... Walking around was also a nightmare for the traffic too. Every time you crossed the road, you had a 50/50 survival rate. Because the motorbikes were MENTAL! Apparently 40 million motorbikes in Vietnam... We also ate a lot of street food, and drank a LOT of beer! Its literally cheaper than water there. On average we were paying maybe 30cent for a beer? Like 18p lol... Crazy... We got up early one morning to see Ho Chi Minh’s body at the mausoleum. We were warned that it would be busy, but when we got there, OMG blog fans... It was like Thorpe Park on a sunny bank holiday. CRAZY! Que literally went on for MILES! So we didn’t even bother waiting to be honest... IN FACT, we didn’t even make it to the end of the que. After walking on and on and on and on for about 20mins, we thought f*** it. Let’s just go and see the museum instead lol...

From Hanoi, we then got a bus up north to Sapa... Sapa was lovely. It actually reminded me of Peru a lot. The landscape was very similar, and also the traditional clothing they wore around there was pretty much the same as the Peruvians wore... Strange... People usually go to Sapa hike in the hills, and see all the rice paddies etc, then do a homestay with a family in the countryside. We had a TINY little tour guide called “Ha”. That was her name... Ha... Haha... HaHaha!!! LOOOL!!!! :-l

Its not that funny blog fans, calm dooowwn... Anyway she was about 2foot and 1inch... But she was really funny, talkative, and cool... She took us to her family home at one point, spoke about her future plans, and boyfriend etc. Was good. Felt more like a chat with a mate than a tour guide. The homestay didn’t turn out to be a REAL homestay. There was a few beds in the building which looked like a horse stable, and a good handful of backpackers staying there with us. To be honest, I was quite relieved. Wasn’t in the mood to make awkward small talk with a family over dinner, after invading their home for the night. We did that before in Peru, ironically... I also treated myself to a massage in Sapa. Dont usually like getting massages. Maybe coz the only other time Ive had one, I got my groin rubbed up by a hairy sweaty Turkish man, in a Turkish bath... But that was 2009, and my back was really killing me from backpacks, crammed buses, and working in Australia... This one was down by a woman, which is already an improvement. It started off nice enough. Then she stood on my back, and cracked it. Getting me in Bret Heart submission moves, and pinching me and shiz... lol Think it did the job though...

We got a luxurious bus from Sapa back to Hanoi. Had aircon, free bottles of water, wifi, nice seats... Big pimping man... When we arrived the lady at our hostel had dinner on the table waiting for us :-) The next morning we got on a not so luxurious bus to Halong bay. It was ok, but it was one of those crammed mini buses, and i was sitting between 2 seats. So a belt buckle was penetrating my anus for 4hrs. Fantastic...

Halong Bay was awesome though. We got on the boat, and got lunch straight away. The boat was floating past some of the best scenery ever, and we were all around a dinner table, indoors, stuffing our fat faces... Big pimping lol... After the feast, we got a key to check in to our room. I was like “whaaaat!?” :-0 I was expecting the sleeping conditions to be similar to what we had on the Whitsundays in Australia. 12 bunkbeds, in a little box... But when we saw it, it was like a 4star hotel or something. Really nice bed, en suit bathroom, hot water, views of the Bay out of our window... I was shocked... BIG PIMPING! We kayaked, swam, did a walk to two... Not too much else I can say about Halong Bay really. Just check my photos lol. We got back to Hanoi for the THIRD time to our hostel. We had a bus leaving that night, so we didn’t have a room. But we were able to shower which was nice. The lady working there told us the bus was coming at 7:30pm, and she would cook us a soup. So we got our bags together, half packed, put phones on charge for music, Cat got the laptop out to book our next room... THEN just before the soup was served, one HOUR before schedule, the bus guy came in shouting “BUS! LETS GO LETS GO LETS GO!!” We were like WTF!!? Is this military training or something?? Grabbed our bags (not knowing if we had anything in them), sweating our balls off (we both have balls), and hungry as FUDGE! We got on the sleeper bus, and we were like “Was this bus built for Ha or something?” The smallest beds, and no leg room, or space to put your bags... On top of that, as it was so bloody hot, I drank about 6000 litres of water just before... I got off my midget bed to walk to the toilet... “Where’s the toilet?” NO BLOODY TOILET! “How long is this bus journey Cat??”... “14hrs”... FML!! LUCKILY the bus did stop after the first 3hrs. My bladder was seconds away from exploding...

We arrived in Hue not knowing too much about the city. But the first thing I noticed was... It was BLOODY HOOOTTT!!! :-( It was like 40+ degrees every day, and super duper humid. I seem to cope with it a lot worse than Cat. I get weak, out of breath... Drink about 4 big bottles of water... Cat just has a small can of Coke Zero, and shes good to go :-/ We did a tour of the Hue temples by boat which was cool. Met a few people there, then went to a Vietnamese restaurant with them. It was PACKED full of locals. We got funny looks being there. We didn’t even know what we ordered. Some sort of hot pot thing, and a little 13yr old girl sitting next to us showed us how to cook it. Had a few drinks after that. The mixture of the heat, and only having soup for dinner meant we got drunk pretty easy :-) The guy we were with educated me on some Vietnamese street food for our drunken munch. “Banh Mi”. OMG its amaaazing  blog fans! Its like the Vietnamese version of a drunken kebab. Its essentially just a pork sandwich, with salad, and a really nice hot sauce... and fresh baguette... Fresh as a daisy! Double yum blog fans... Last two days I got a bike and drove us to the beaches which was really nice, then the day after we did the “DMZ tour”. Which is the De-Militarized Zone. Basically saw and learnt a lot about the war between the north, and the south, and the involvement of the Americans etc. We got to walk through the tunnels they built underground too. So that was interesting... Also sweated my arse off there... Literally... I had a shower later that day, and my arse must of been half exposed from the towel as I was lying on the bed... Cat was checking it out like a pervert, and noticed I had prickly heat rash. ON MY ARSE! So thats an example how hot it was blog fans... Luckily we heard it was gonna be a bit cooler down south, and thats where we were heading next! We got a “Easyrider” tour from Hue to Hoi An. Easyrider is basically motorbike guys who strap down your backpacks and stuff, and take you to your next destination via a beautiful scenic route. And it WAS beautiful. Took the whole day passing little villages, grassy hills, beaches, etc. As we got to Hoi An, I noticed Cat was asleep on the back of her bike lol. She managed to stay on, but Cat falling asleep on the back of a motorbike in Vietnam, would be a classic Cat way to die... Hoi An seemed to be a lot of peoples favourite place in Vietnam, and I could see why. The old town was really nice and pretty. Looked a little bit European. They had a lot of good restaurants and bars, and A LOT of shops. Its a really famous place to get tailoring done. LOADS of shops around doing tailor made clothes, suits, shoes, bags, coats... anything... Cat and I both have siblings getting married this year, so we felt we kinda needed to get a suit, and just buy what we really needed. I also needed a pair of cheap shorts for travelling. Went in the SuperDry shop asking for the black shorts in a size 34 waist... They only had 30 max... Too fat for Vietnam. Shameful. Had to get shorts tailor made in the end lol. Fat bastard... But we got PROPER carried away blog fans! This is what the total splurge ended up looking like:

CAT:

1 tailor made suit

1 handbag

1 leather jacket

1 bikini

1 pair of Aladdin pants

4 pairs of shoes

ROB:

2 suits (one with waistcoat, both with shirts)

1 extra suit jacket

1 pair of black shorts

1 pair of Aladdin pants

1 tshirt

3 shoes

Crazy... And we’re the type of backpackers that say shit like “Lets walk an extra 20mins, to the next restaurant, where its 10p cheaper”. Then we go mad like that. Sent 16 kilos home by boat! Shameful behaviour blog fans! Dont even ask what we spent... I said to Cat “Hoi An is like a female. Looks good, and can be fun... But it rinses your MONEY! Biatch!” :-o

So we got our arses out of Hoi An, and down to Nha Trang... Aka Russia land... We got there really early from the night bus, and chilled on the beach before we could check in to our hostel. The beach was FULL of Russians. You could point them out from their weird, 1970s, Bonnie Tyler, Mullet Man, Jake the Snake Roberts shit going on lol... I swear they vary from the ugliest, to the most beautiful race of people too... So weird... Some girls look like Anna Kornikova, and some look like Matt Lucas... We checked in to our hostel, which was apparently “the best hostel in 2015 in ALL ASIA”... MASSIVE HYPE!! It was good, and the staff were really really nice... But didn’t have shit on some of the hostels we had in Japan. Japan is always number 1 lol.... We wanted to get day time drunk. So we went to a restaurant that had its own brewery. Nice place, with loads of beers and cocktails to try. We saw they had half price cocktails to 4pm, and it was about 3:45... So we got sat down and the lady said “the waiter will be right over”. (You can see where this is going blog fans) We chose our cocktails and waited for him to come... It got to about 3:55, and I was like “Shall i go to the bar? Where do i order from?” I decided to wait saying “Im sure he’ll let us off if its 4:01”... He comes over at 4:01 blog fans... Just after he wiped the table next to us...

“Can we still get the half price cocktails yeah?”

“That finishes at 4pm”

“Yeah.... What time is it”

“4:03”

“So you can let us off yeah”

He goes and grabs a leaflet and points to the text “Look, 4pm finish”

I wanted to f***ing punch him blog fans... I closed my menu and threw it against the chair in front of me. I reluctantly ordered the beer tasting, where we could try 4 mini beers they brewed for pretty cheap. Wasnt happy though. After that, me and Cat went to get a shisha and cheap cocktails and got smashed... Got one of those Banh Mi baguettes on the way home ;-) Big pimping...

On the last day we hired a motorbike and drove to some really nice beachy area. Looked like a beautiful part of Greece or something. Was really nice, but I started to get chronic diahhrea at this time. Was literally shitting liquid gold all day... Not good considering we were getting a night bus to Saigon that night :-/

Arrived in Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City, with clean underwear... Thank the lord... Cats tablets must of worked... On the first day we went to the War Remnants Museum. Was pretty bloody morbid to be honest. But what do you expect. Saw lots of photos of war victims, and all the figures and numbers of the people killed etc. They also had a section where they had photos of kids born with defects, and mutation from the “agent orange” chemical Americans dropped. Pretty f***ed... Cat went out with some guys we met that night. I couldn’t manage it. Still felt shit (literally). So i went home with no food or alcohol... The next day we went to see a “water puppet show”. They say “If you haven’t seen a water puppet show, you haven’t seen proper Vietnam”.... It was shit... SOOO shit lol... Shit steak with spicy shit sauce... Shittier than my toilet bowl (and thats saying something)... Super duper shit stains... But, whatever... It was something to do lol... That night I managed to stay out. We were with a girl from Singapore, celebrating her 22^nd birthday. We didn’t do much... Just a few drinks blog fans...

It was then time to LEAVE VIETNAM! We decided to do it in style... We got a boat down the Mekong River, straight to Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and crossed the border that way... We did a few stop offs, made a couple of friends, and stayed in a hotel over night. The next morning our tour man arranged a tuk-tuk driver to take us back to the boat. Literally was about.... 10yards away, then he goes “tip”. Wanker... But we got to the border OK... I didn’t have a passport photo for my visa, so I had to go to some random house to pay for my photo to be taken. Was a bit weird. The kid there was laughing and my hairy kneecaps, touching them as the photo was being taken... I lifted my shorts to show him my thigh tattoos... That shit blew his mind blog fans hahaha....

:(

:)

So... We’re here in CAMBODIA!! Loving it here already.. Got smashed last night and chundered EVERYWAAHHHH!!! Hahaah!! But thats for NEXT episode blog fans ;-)

Keep your shorts tight for that!!

Thanks for reading again blog fans... What will I do when I go home, and have no “robcat travel”?

Suggestions please... For your sakes as well as mine haha...

Speak to you soon!! Cambodia is gonna be epic booooiiiiii

Keep them tiiiiiiiight!!!

Zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop! x

Gurney and Himer - Visit China

YOOOO!! BLOG FAAANNNSSS!!!

Long time no seeeee!! I’ve been in China the last three weeks. Touring with G Adventures from Hong Kong to Beijing... I’ve had no Facebook, no Instagram, no YouTube, not even GOOOOGLE! So I’ve invested all my time in writing an awesome diary style blog! :-) Everyone’s favourite type of blog!! There is a lot to read, so tighten your shorts, and get ready for a blogtastic Chinese diary :D Chaaa!

Chapter 1: NOTHING CAN GO WRONG, IN HONG KONG

Days  1 – 2

We left Osaka, Japan early in the morning. For some reason neither of our alarms went off, but my psychic powers made me wake up 5 minutes after the alarm was due... So we made our flight... When we arrived in Hong Kong it looked a bit like Sim City... You know when build a really good city, and you have no buildings that are under like 600 levels high? That’s what it looked like... We checked into our hostel, and we had to quickly adjust to the gritty backpacker lifestyle again. After being so spoilt, and pampered like chubby little babies with our beautiful hostels in Japan... Cat had a little complaint about there being only one shower and toilet on our hostel floor. Her bladder wouldn’t wanna wait for 8 or 9 people using it to be fair... Then there was confusion, and it seemed that the hostel owner made a mistake with someone else’s booking... So she moved these new people into our room, and said to us “YOU GET FLEE UPGWADE, COME!” So we followed her to another building... I’m usually suspicious of “free upgrades”, and for good reason blog fans... Coz our new “hostel”... was a BROTHEL... lol no shit... 3 prozzies standing outside smoking, and hourly rented rooms for all the romantic couples that visited... But apart from that and the filthy smelly building, the new room was OK.

The next day we checked OUT of our brothel, and in to a nice hotel around the corner :-) It was the first accommodation included in our Hong Kong to Beijing tour. And apart from having a mattress like concrete, it was pretty posh ;-) We went up to Victorias Peak to see amazing views of the city, then we came back to meet up with our new tour group. The group was less varied in age to our last one. Everyone was between 18-35 roughly. Typically about 60% of the group was English. The other 40% was made up of mostly Canadians, and a couple others from Norway, Germany, Ireland... Everyone seemed pretty cool though. Half of us went out for dinner together in a market that night. We had the choice of many delicious dishes, such as chicken feet, pig intestine, and frog... I played it cool and had sweet and sour chicken... It was good. Pretty much what you would get at home, so I was happy with that ;-) Safety first on day one blog fans.....

Chapter 2 : KUNG POW, IN YANGSHUO

Days 3 – 5

We crossed the border into mainland China. It was all pretty busy and hectic. Cat took the opportunity to withdraw Chinese Yen at the station, and what does she do? Leaves her card in the ATM... Classic Cat init... Luckily the tour guide noticed before anyone else did, and handed it back to us. When we finally got to Yangshuo, there was actually a lot more going on there than I imagined! It was busy with domestic tourists, and there were loads of markets, clubs, bars, and restaurants around. All surrounded by the really cool mountains... We went out for a cheap meal (a lot cheaper than HK) and then to a bar for a couple drinks... The bar was pretty crappy and overpriced, so Cat and I left, and went home early... The next day we got the choice to do 2 “add on activities”. One was a boat trip, and one was a cooking class... We decided not to do the cooking, as we couldn’t really afford to do EVERY extra activity on the list, and we wanted to do cooking in Vietnam. The guys that DID do it said it was really good. But when they walked around the market afterwards, a lot of them saw dead cats hung up on hooks, and skinned for meat... and also dogs in cages... For food... :-/ So that was pretty sad to see... Kinda glad I missed that bit... We did pay for the boat trip down the Li River, which was pretty good... The only thing was, we paid extra for that, and we did ANOTHER boat trip, almost EXACTLY the same the next day! Which was a bit annoying... That day turned out to be a REALLY good one though. We hired bikes, then, after the boat trip, we did a few hikes, went into caves, had a MUD BATH (which was sick), then bathed in natural hot springs. The tour met up for dinner later that day without our tour guide, so we decided to go to a restaurant where we could eat alfresco and people watch. We noticed HUNDREDS of Chinese tourists, looking, at us, and taking photos. Some of them were being really sly and sneaky, but some were just blatant about it. We didn’t understand the fascination. It was like we were Hollywood stars being papped or something... We all had Kung Fu lessons in the park the next morning. Our teacher explained the meaning behind ying and yang in martial arts. Defence and attack, body and mind etc... I like that stuff... Was expecting a lot more photos of the “stupid westerners”, doing Kung Fu in the public park. But there was only a crowd of about ten paps, as opposed to ten HUNDRED from the night before... I think our professional Kung Fu skills must of called out the rain dragon or something, coz as soon as we finished, it started PISSING down! We had to run back to the hotel soaking wet, just in time to pack all our wet clothes into our backpacks for the 21hr train journey ahead. Whilst waiting to leave, I got some food with a few guys from the group. What I ordered came out completely wrong... They brought out a fruit salad that I didn’t ask for, and put MAYONAISE all over it. (Even fruit salad is a challenge in China blog fans)... The guy next to me, ordered french fries... he got some brown seeds on a saucer... Mega lolz... Anyway, we got to the station for the sleeper train, and again it was a bit busy and hectic. Dunno what it is about Chinese people, but every time there’s a door or gate to go through, the go F***ING METAL, and just push and shove their way through it. I got pretty close to wanting to punch someone a couple times. But most the time I managed to smile, and get pushed through like I was in a mosh pit of happiness :-) Weeeee :-D

Chapter 3: BING DA LA BANG, WE”RE IN YICHANG

Days 6 – 8

Woke up on the sleeper train at the top of a three tier bunkbed. So my face was more or less touching the ceiling as I woke up. After that long arse train journey, we had to wait 3hrs in the next station to get ANOTHER train. The toilets seemed to be getting worse as we went on too. They went from private squat toilets, to squatters that had no doors and actually FACED each other! Could literally make eye contact with someone as you’re squeezing one out! They were getting smellier too. Not only from the piss and shit, but all toilets seem to be also used as public smoking areas in China. So all toilets STANK of smoke. Swear you could literally get cancer in the time it took to take a piss... Finally got to another really nice hotel in Yichang, showered, and went straight out for lunch. It was a conveyer-belt style restaurant, where you could add ingredients going round to your hotpot. Obviously, this is China, so apart from noodles and rice, they had classic dishes such as chickens foot, and ducks blood. I DID try the chickens foot this time... It wasn’t very good lol... Was a bit rubbery, and nibbling around a toe bone, and toenail didn’t feel like a natural thing to do for dinner... At night we went for KARAOKE AGAIN! Not even too long after last doing it in Japan... We all got stuck in the lift on the way up. About 18 of us crammed in a 12 man lift, and it just shut down lol... It delayed me having to sing karaoke for a bit, but unfortunately we made it out alive... Everyone predrank before us in the hotel, but Cat accidently told everyone the wrong room number. So we weren’t invited, and we were there stone sober, with a bunch of tipsy, loud people, signing Five or Steps... Great lol... Cat then decided to shout to everyone “Rob raps! Rob raps!”... I was like “OMG... Why is she doing this”. So then everyone assumed I knew every rap song in the history of the world, word for word. People were playing a load of Eminem songs, and new rappers I barely heard of... and handed me the mic like “GO ROB! WOOO!!” lol Fenton.... We got a load of vodka and beers, and I did a good job catching up to everyone’s drunk level, to participate a bit. There was no Run DMC, Beastie boys, or even OUTKAST on the list (In English anyway). But I think I did a bit of “Mo Money Mo Problems”, Rod Stewart, Funky Town, Mr Vain... By the end of the night, I was actually the last person in the room, and I had a drunken hissy fit because I couldn’t play the songs I wanted to sing lol! Bit out of character...  :-/ Was a good night though... I’d actually say Chinese karaoke beats Japanese karaoke so far! :-0

Woke up early the next morning, crack of dawning, yawing, and hungover... We got a boat down the Three Gorges river... It was a nice and relaxing thing to do after heavy drinking. The boat was full of Chinese tourists again, which of course, were more fascinated by us than the river. Their holiday snaps must be like “Here’s the boat... and this is the river... And OMG!! LOOK! WHITE PEOPLE!!” I went from feeling like we were monkeys in a zoo, to being quite cool with it actually. Especially if they ask to take a photo, rather than just shoving a camera in your face. Different members of the tour got different levels of fascination. It was kinda like you got “honky points”. Like having blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, would all give a major honky point advantage. Cat and I weren’t so high in the honky point league. But when the weather got really hot, and I took off my jacket, and stood there in my vest. Then, OMG blog fans, honky points went through the ROOF! Some people would literally stand next to me staring at my arms and all my tattoos. Was weird, but, we got used to it, and ended up kinda liking it. Our tour guide explained that most of these domestic tourists, came from rural parts of China, and might not of ever seen white people in the flesh before. So it makes it a LITTLE BIT more understandable... But just a little bit blog fans.....

Chapter 4: THE MASTER PLAN, FOR XI’AN

Days 9 -11

Had a big lie in, in our Yichang hotel, and watched 5hrs of Adventure Time (thats not even exaggerating). We checked out late, and went on a small hike. We got to a nice view of Yichang city and the bridge. Some of the others wanted to hike up for a further 10mins for a better view. Me and an Australian girl didn’t really see the point, or want to get sweaty before the train ride, so we waited at the bridge... The “10 minute walk” took them over an hour to come back... After that long rest, we went to Walmart to buy some food for the next night train. They actually had some normal stuff there – Chocolate bars, crisps, fruit... Then they added their own spin on things in the deli section... Live crabs, and toads the size of a baby pigs!... We decided not to go for the toad that day, and stuck with pot noodles :-) I already had a dodgy stomach, and had to rush back to the squat toilets. I left Cat in Walmart, and when I saw her again, she had about 6 weeks worth of food on her... Dunno who she thought she was feeding... I shovelled through the bags for the fruit, crisps, and everything that I specifically picked out for my food... And none of it was there. Apparently all the things I wanted we didn’t need... But we needed 5 days worth of Cats favourite food. Anyway, we got on the next sleeper train to Xi’an. I got the short straw, and had to sleep on the top bunk again... Xi’an was really cool though. It was the old capital of China, and is full of history. The main attraction there is the Terracotta Warriors. They were only discovered a couple decades ago, and are still excavating now. There are about two thousand of them, all carved with individual armour and faces. It started in 247BC. Crazy.... After that, we went back into town to watch a fountain light show. Cat and I found street food, where we could sit down and have a beer. A load of college girls came up to us, and asked me to fill out a questionnaire and take photos of us. Funny how much they appreciate little things like that. So excited lol... We met rest of the group in Burger King around the corner. Cat and I scoffed up all their leftovers, and then went to watch the fountain show. Was pretty cool. There was one specific fountain that squirted SO high. Some of us were whooping and making orgasm noises to it... Everyone hated us lol... Next day we cycled the Xi’an wall. Was pretty sick-a-lick. Really liked all our cycle trips actually. The Xi’an wall was cool though. It was like The (not so) Great Wall of China... After that, we spent the rest of the day at a market and saw a mosque and stuff. Was a good day out... Then night train number 3! Tori, our guide told us, no one had top bunks this time... But i still got a middle bunk... typical... Got a bit lucky this time round though, as a couple in our group wanted to sleep closer to each other. So I exchanged, and got a bottom bunk :-) Yay!

Chapter 5: OH HI, SHANGHAI

Days 12 – 14

Arrived in Shanghi, greeted by clouds, rain, and a lot of traffic. Might as well of been back in London... But I instantly liked Shanghi. On our first day, we had a bit of trouble with checking into the hotel. But we went for a walk to an old part of the city. Had really pretty old buildings, little ponds, and we went into a really nice garden, that reminded me a bit of the Japanese ones we saw in Kyoto. When the sun went down, most of the group went off to see an acrobatic show. Which was another one Cat and I felt we could sacrifice for monies sake. So me and Cat went with 2 others from our tour to “The Bund”, which is the famous river area, and skyline of Shanghi. It was still pissing down at this point, but it was so pretty there. Proper romantic ;-) I’d actually say I was more impressed by the Shanghi skyline, than I was with the Hong Kong one. Shanghi had one side full of old European looking buildings, and the other side looked like a more futuristic Asian / space alien type shiz... Was cool... The four of us wanted a drink, but couldn’t be bothered walking in the rain to find a bar on the bund. So we stopped off at a little “hole in the wall” type restaurant on the way back. The drinks in there were cheap, and the woman working there was really nice, but a bit mental. She was super excited to have us there. When we said we only wanted a beer each, but she kept going to her little bbq, trying to tempt us with other stuff... Waving several sticks of octopus, squid, horse, ferret, or whatever the hell she was cooking...

The next day, most of the group went back to the bund anyway. It was a nicer day, and we got a boat down the river in the evening. We floated down the river and got to see even more of the skyline, with all the lights on and shiz... We all got a load of photos taken of us again too. Two girls next to me from the group were getting loads taken of them, then some woman got me involved and said “photo of the handsome prince!” :-p Swag... lol....

Racism works both ways though blog fans... One minute we’re getting group photos, and being called princes and shit... The next minute, we’re outside on the street waiting for a cab, and no one stops for us! WTF?? Felt like we were a group of young black men in 1970’s New York or something... We had to get one of the Canadian boys (who is of Japanese descent) to stand out on the street to flag them down. Then when they stop, all the honkeys jumped out like spooks in the night lol... Gotta do what you gotta do, ay... Finished Shanghi with a really cheap BBQ dinner, then went to a pub for really expensive beers. Win some, lose some... We just had a quiet drink in the pub, played “Heads Up”, then went to bed...

Chapter 6: DOING OUR THING, IN BEIJING

Days 15 – 18

Woke up on our last Chinese sleeper train (middle bunk this time) at 5am. Got woken up by a human fog horn. Seemed to be tradition to put be next to a loud snorer on these trains tbh... Cat got woken up by a Chinese family talking really loudly at 4:30am where she was. Chinese people LOVE the mornings man. They cant get enough of it...

The first thing we did in Beijing was cycle to a family home for lunch. It became quite normal for us to invade some old persons home, sit down, devour whatever is in front of us, then piss off and leave... What WASN’T normal though, was Mr cricket fighter... Basically blog fans, there is this guy, whos made a living, and come to fame, by fighting crickets... No shit... He used to run illegal bets, for people to put money on two crickets fighting to the death. He said people have won homes, cars, and all sorts of mad shit doing it. Naturally, this guy was a nutcase... He showed us mini little cricket size coffins he buries his champion crickets in, and guess what he does with the dead losing crickets blog fans?? He cooks them into dumplings and EATS THEM... This is the shit we are dealing with!...

We went to a Shoalin kung fu show later that day. Wu Tang style! HuWha! Was pretty awesome actually. Was a story about the philosophies of kung fu and Buddhism. Also threw in some mad tiger / dragon style kicking action. Had little 8 year old kids there doing back flips, using the top of their bloody CRANIUM, blog fans. Was maaad!

The next day we got into the serious Beijing sightseeing. Tian’Anmen Square and The Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was a mini city, closed off by a wall, built for one former emperor... Rolling deep... Some of us also stopped off at The Temple Of Heaven. That was just a really good, touristy, photo taking day... At night though, SHIT HIT THE FAAAN, BLOG FANS! We all went to a food market, where you can REALLY push your limits with challenging treats... It was like bush-tucker trial, in urban China... I ate... Scorpion, centipede, starfish, snake, and a f***ing TARANTULA blog fans! A F***ING TARANTULAAA!!! :-0 LUCKILY, all these delightful dishes were shared by me, and 2 or 3 of the other bravest / sickest people on tour... Centipede wasn’t too bad. Just a bit prickly... Starfish, was fishy, weird texture, not awful, but not good... Snake was only a little small thing. Taste a bit like burnt bacon to be honest... Tarantula was the worst. I don’t like spiders... Eating them either... The legs tasted a bit like snake actually (never thought id say that sentence in my lifetime). I had a little nibble of the arse, and it just tasted like some mouldy shit you found down the side of your couch. Made me feel sick... Just thinking that it used to store eggs, or spider webs in that dirty little arsehole of his made me wanna vom... Scorpion was the best though! I could eat scorpion all day! :-D Lol....

Luckily my stomach wasn’t too bad from that jungle buffet. Coz the next was GREAT WALL OF CHINA!! We got up really early, and Tori took us to a lesser touristy area of it. It was AWESOME. Enjoyed it more than I imagined actually. I had visions of Karl Pilkington on An Idiot Abroad, with all the queing, and barging, and shit... But we had none of that. Quick cable car up, and we were free to roam for a few hours. We walked a decent amount of it. I separated from Cat and climbed to one the highest points of the wall. It was so f***ing steep... Almost killed myself getting to the top. Took a few sexy pictures with the rest of the group, then started the steep decline down... Half way down the stairs, who do i see coming up? Cat lol... So of course, I had to turn my arse around, and climb about the last 100 steps up again with her. Was good to get a photo with her at the top though... We tobogganed down to the bottom of the hill on the way back. Was sick... We were one of the last few people back, and we met the rest of the team in Subway, for lunch... The first thing they do is all hold up a picture that they all shared amongst themselves of Cat sleeping on the bus here haha. Mouth open, tongue out, and everything... Classic Shmoseby...

After the Great Wall, we all went out for our last meal together :-( We ate Peking duck, and said bye and thank you to our guide Tori. She did a really good job... We then all went out to a really cheap bar for a few drinks... Got totally smashed... All the drinks there were about 10yen each, but me and Cat still managed to spend 400yen between us there. We also managed to get our hands on this Chinese rice wine, that we made famous in the UK for being the worst tasting alcohol ever... Everyone called it Chinese Devil Piss... It didn’t taste quite as bad in China actually for some reason. But the combination of slyly swigging that in the corner, and everything else we drank was pretty lethal... No surprise I came home worse for wear, and chundered EVERYWAHHH!! Must of got up 2 or 3 times in the night. Puke all down the toilet, sink, bit on the floor and walls... Good night! :-D ... And a good way to END THE TOUR! ;-D

SO THAT WAS IT! A couple of the tour peeps extended their times in Beijing to do stuff. Me and Cat had one extra day... On the last day a few of us remaining ones went to the Beijing Zoo and saw PANDA BEARS :-D Suppose thats another thing you should tick off the “to do list” of China... But that was it! The end!! Had a REALLY good time in China. I actually liked the country more and more as time went on. Everyone on our group was really cool. Really liked them all. I don’t really like being in big crowds of people... I was a bit like that in my last tour in South America. But everyone was really cool, and we’ll probably see a lot of them again. Possibly in Asia, or London, or wherever else...

That’s all I’ve got to say about China! Thank you for reading again blogs fans. Its a long arse blog, and I know if someone told me to read a blog this big, I probably wouldn’t bother lol... So get your arses to bed blog fans! You probably have work in the morning, you fiends!

Until next time...

Keep your shorts tight!

Off to Vietnam now!

Zooooooooooooooooooooooooooppaahhhh!!

Our plan in Japan

KonichiWAAAA blog fans!! Throw your peace signs UP!! Coz we are jamming in JAPAN!!... Japan is a country i’ve wanted to visit for about a decade now. Ive obsessed over it. Im sexually aroused by it... I watch Japan in the shower, whilst its soaping itself up... I clamp my nipples with crocodile clips... And other things id rather not get into... Hmmm. That being said blog fans, I’ll leave off from where we were last. So keep your shorts tight blog buddies! Its sooo excitiiinnggg ;D

If you remember, or care enough to read, you will know we came to Japan from the Philippines. We got an early cab from our hostel to the airport, and shared it with a girl who was from Tokyo, getting on the same flight as us. We had a lot of Filipino peso’s left over, and Cat was handing notes out like it was Christmas. She was like “don’t worry, we’ll pay for the cab.” “Oh, here Mr Taxi driver, buy your wife a new dress”. I was telling her to chill out, coz I wanted some breakfast and water before the flight... So, we get to the airport, with all our luggage and what not, then the first thing we see... “DEPARTURE TAX – $30”. Naturally, we were JUST short of this now. So we had to go change up our US dollars up into pesos, and I wasn’t able to get water with my breakfast... Tragic...  Anyway, we got on our flight, and landed safely in TOKYO! :D

We saw Nozomi (the girl from the taxi) again, when collecting our luggage. This was a God send, coz as soon as we got to the train station to buy a ticket into the city, we were like... “Johnny, la gente esta muy locaaa! WTF!?”... You can probably imagine blog fans... I would probably struggle getting the train back home from Heathrow to be honest. But not only was everything here in Japanese (obviously), but the system for paying, and working out your fare was all weird. Nozomi’s English wasn’t great either, and even she was confused... It was the first of many strange things to discover in Japan. But we got there in the end...

We got to our hostel, and it was really nice, quiet and homely. It had typically cute Japanese things going on. Like free green tea in tea pots, slidey wooden doors, and they even put slippers in the toilet so you could have cushioned feet when you’re going for a piss J It was lovely... We went out for our first meal, and that’s when we had the next barrier to cross... Ordering food... Again, all in Japanese, with Japanese speaking waitress obviously... They had all these different sauces and spices on the table we had no idea about, chop sticks, a hot towl... Felt kind of like you didn’t really want to touch or do anything coz you were either gonna offend someone, or just look like a total ponce... We only knew how to say hello and thank you at this point. Funny thing was though, Cat got them confused... So every time the waitress came back with a dish, or to fill up our glass or water, she was like “Hello...” “Hello” “HELLO!” “Oh, Hello!” :D LOOOL!!...... Like she’s senile!.... Best.......

The next morning we got stuck into our busy “to do” list. And realised Tokyo wasn’t too different from London after all. In fact, apart from the food, the writing, the musical playing toilets... It was probably the closest we felt like being home since leaving in 2012... The weather was a bit drab, was busy, the crowded tube, Cat looking in shops for bags, me looking at Anime figurines and retro toys... Pretty much a normal day in central London for us. We checked out a couple of shrines and temples in Asakusa, and had dinner out. This time we had to order it off a vending machine. WHATS THE POINT? You order your food, get a ticket, and then take it to the waitress... Even with our language barrier, it would of just been easier to go straight to her... Its a waste of a ticket! Anyway, a day or two later we met up with our friend Tomoko. We met her in South America when we did our tour from Peru to Rio. Was good to see her again. She took us around some local markets. They were cool... TOO cool probably! Instead of going on a sightseeing tour with Tomoko and her local knowledge, she took us through some cruel, dark passage of temptation! I’m supposed to be on a budget! The clothes, trainers, hats, toys, souvenirs were all so sick!! I thought my material days were over, but this brought back superficial memories! It was sick sitting a fat boy in a bakery, and smothering your body in chocolate cake and whipped cream! We also stumbled upon a couple of naughty DVD stores... They love it! There was a couple that even had ANIME porn DVD’s! Was weird... They even had private wank rooms for $15 an hour... But Cat wouldn’t let me use them... (lol)

We got invited to Tomoko’s, and see cooked for us. Was really nice. Drank sake too, which was not so nice... We said bye to Tomoko quite late, but managed to make our way to The Government Building for AWESOME views of the city. Then we quickly went to the Park Hyatt, where Lost In Translation was filmed. I love that movie. So when I watch it next, I can say “I’ve been there!”

Shibuya crossing is another scene that’s featured heavily in the movie, and is pretty much the heart of Tokyo. Its like their Piccadilly Circus, or Times Square. So we managed to get there the next morning. Then went to Meiji Shrine and Harajuku, then BACK to Shibuya to see it at night. Cat really wanted to go to the Japanese branch of her old Whisky society, so we did that after and had a few drinks. Its the only time shes really been enthusiastic about having photos taken of her... I had a beer and logged onto the WiFi. We had a message from Nozomi, who wanted to stay out for more drinks. So we went BACK to Shibuya for a 3^rd time, and got pretty drunk J Its always good, to get drunk in each city you visit at least once I think. You get to see a completely different side of it. Was cool! Had a load of $3 drinks and jager bombs, and somehow stayed focused enough to run for the last train home...

It was now our last day in Tokyo. We were planning on spending our day hungover, and going to a bunny cafe to stroke some rabbits (Yeah, these places actually exist). Sounded like the perfect way to spend a hangover right?... But then I looked at the price list... $10 to LOOK, WITHOUT TOUCHING! Ermm what?? Then you could either hold it for $20, or get a “private play room” for $50... Which just sounds dodgy to me blog fans... Needless to say, we spent our money on better things... Food... We met Nozomi again and ate in one of those traditional kneeling restaurants. Nice... We then got the bullet train to Kyoto... Timed it perfectly, and saw Mt Fuji at sunset J

When we got into our 16 bed dorm in Kyoto, I was greeted by one of those stereotypically, over-enthusiastic American guys. He was doing press-ups on the dorm floor... In his boxer shorts... I kinda just walked straight past him. But he then started talking to Cat about how much he misses the gym whilst travelling, and how he doesn’t drink alcohol. I thought “Im not hanging out with this guy....” Then Cat goes and arranges a KARAOKE NIGHT with him!! WTF!?... LUCKILY, he turned out to be better than I first thought.....

We then went out to eat this Okonomiyaki that everyone was banging on about... Its like an omelettely, pancakey, type of thing. With meats and veggies in it... But OH MY GOD BLOG FANS! :o Its put on a hot plate in front of you, and you add all your sauces you want on it. Smother it in soy sauce, spices, mayonnaise... Was so good I could of covered it in my OWN mayonnaise to be honest blog fans LOL! But seriousssllly........ :o

On our first proper day we saw temples... Now... Im not gonna bore you blog fans... But, I was in Kyoto for 5 days, and lets just say, I was A LOT of temples. A lot of temples, a lot of shrines, a lot of maiko girls, a lot of geishas... Beautiful gardens, lakes, rivers, and scenery... Ate a lot... A lot of free samples in touristy spots... My legs were tired of walking, my eyes were tired of looking, my jaw ached from eating, and my index finger had a six-pack from all the bending its been doing whilst taking photos... Thats Kyoto in a nut shell really... I was planning on doing a “Top 10 best” blog when I get home. Comparing cities, hostels, foods, etc from all over Asia; like i did for South America... Lets just say *spoiler alert* Kyoto will be up there for A LOT of it. Everything there was awesome. And we both agree its one of our favourite cities ever... Strangely, one day when I was sitting in our hostel reception. I saw a girl I recognized. I thought it was just someone i spoke to randomly earlier. Then I looked up again, and it was my bloody COUSIN from home! Whaaat!? I did actually know she was in Japan somewhere, but was DEFINITELY not expecting to see her there and then in our hostel. But anyway, her and her mate later came out with us to that karaoke night :p Along with that American guy, and some other people... It was actually OK. Cat sang most the songs... Think I did “Backstreets back”. We had free alcohol for 2hrs there... I was about 2 more hours of drinking away from proper getting into it blog fans ;) Trust me.

Our last day was pretty much like every other day in Kyoto... AWESOME... But this time we hired bikes, and rode around the city instead of getting the bus, or WALKING. We went to Sanjusangendo to see thousands of golden God statues. Rode back up to the Manga Museum, and saw all the books and history of Manga. Got our portrait done in Anime style (you might of noticed my facebook profile pic), and then we went to see a GEISHA SHOW! It was a special cherry blossom performance, that you can only see in April. So we were lucky to catch it, and it was a great way to finish our stay. Even after that we got the chance to make our own chopsticks in the hostel J We shaped them, then got taught to write our names in Japanese to sign them. Cool souvenir... And THEN, we headed of to OSAKA....

Now, I know things in Japan are pretty strange blog fans. But a lot of things DO ACTUALLY make a lot of sense when you get used to them. We managed to figure out vending machine restaurants, electrical toilets, and mastered the subway systems in Tokyo and Kyoto... Then we got to Osaka. It was pretty f***ed... The English signage in the stations was a lot less frequent, and all the names were either 94 letters long, or all sounded the same! So when we finally figured the route to a certain station, we were following all these different tunnels, paths, lines and platforms. Thinking we’re going the right way, then we realised we were about to get a train 40 miles out to Narra, and not round the corner Namba. So you had to be careful... My cousin is living proof of this blog fans. We were going to meet up at a pub in the city, that SHE gave ME directions to... Cat and I predrank, and headed out there... We sat down, ordered drinks, and waited... Then we ordered more drinks, and waited longer........ We managed to connect to WiFi, and wrote her a message to see where she was. Apparently they were also predrinking, but their drunken direction skills were obviously not as good as mine, were they blog fans! ;D Anyway, we didn’t get to see my cousin that night...

Next day we were a bit hungover, but we went into the city to see Osaka castle. It was really cool. Randomly, we bumped into Bishop Nehru, who (in my expert opinion) Is one of the best young hiphop artists to come out in the last 5 years or so... I walked up to him and said “Bishop!” and threw up a peace sign. He shouted back “PEACE!”... We cool like dat...

Next day we went to Nara, which is the town 50mins out of the city, that we nearly mistakenly got on. (And my cousin probably did) :p Its famous for having a nice big park, with temples (obviously), and wild deer roaming around. Was really cool, and something a bit different. You could buy biscuits for the deer, and they nod to you so you feed them J Even though Nara was still quite a touristy area, all the toilets there were squat toilets... Now, I don’t have a problem with the squatting blog fans. But this is one thing I don’t really understand... They give you instructions to pull your shorts down, squat, and then poo... BUT, if your boxers and shorts are around your ankles, between your legs, and you’re pissing and shitting... Where’s it gonna go?? Surely straight into your boxers init!?? DEFEATS THE POINT! So it was a  bit annoying trying to take your shorts off without taking off your trainers, and standing in piss puddles, with a big backpack on, pockets full of maps, and a big camera... But anyway... Rant over blog fans... It was a good day out J

So yeah! Thats Japan! Spending my last night in Osaka now. Sipping on some plum wine for blogging inspiration ;) Hope it doesn’t disappoint... The motto of Japan was “F*** it” and “Yolo”. Thats because you either didn’t know what was happening, or what you were eating. Or because it was EXPENSIVE! I’m SO glad we were able to come to Japan. Its been a dream of mine... Now im kinda glad to go to countries that are a LITTLE cheaper... Stroking a rabbit for $20? Psst!! I’ll buy a HOUSE for that in Laos! I’m also glad to say Cat loved it just as much as me. Don’t know if she was as excited as I was previously... But she’s even stayed awake and watched Memoirs Of A Geisha, and Lost In Translation with me recently... Anyone who knows Cat would know she’s usually asleep before you even press close on the DVD tray...

Next stop HONG KONG!! I’m hoping to land there tomorrow, look around, and get drunk whilst watching Chelsea WIN THE PREMIERSHIP!!! :o

Start a tour of China after that... Just when I thought Japan was strange ay.......

I mentioned last time that I’ve been uploading videos to our YouTube page. Some are boring, some are funny, some are interesting... But you’ll see some of the things i’ve spoken about here... Just YouTube search “RobCat Travel”

Also, im on Instagram: robbiegee6

Proper media whore now blog fans ;)

Keep your shorts tight til next time anyway! I’ll see you at the GREAT WALL!

Peace out rabbits!!!

PEACE!!!

Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooper!! x

Philippine Dream

Oh wow, blog fans....
Wow!... Wow!!... WOOOW!!!!........

I was away for so long, now look at me GO!! Not once, but TWICE... Don't have one, have TWO!... Two blogs in a matter of a few hundred hours... But you better get used to this... My Asian schedule is TIGHT. Just like your shorts should be! So strap in, and buckle up... Im bout to blow yo miiiiinnndddd......

The last time we spoke, I was leaving Australia... After 2 years in the country, and half a year at the school, big tings were gwarning... End of a massive era... But we didn't have too much time to dwell on it. As our last day, was a manic one...
So, last day in Australia, FOREVER.. Maybe... Or maybe just this year. But for dramatic effect, lets just say FOREVER! After staying up all night uploading photos, and doing *breaking blog news*, we went into town to say goodbye to a friend, and claim a free Nandos we'd been collecting stamps for since Sydney 2013... It was worth it... I had previously popped into a friends house to collect my sea shoes and flipflops i'd left there before. So it was a supposed to be a quick and productive trip into town... Cat took my bag of shoes, and I was like:

"Do you wanna put them in my backpack?"
"No"
"There's loads of space in my backpack though"
"No, I've got them"
".....You sure?"
".....yesss....."

(You might see where i'm going with this blog fans...)

So we had Nando's, and went to see Darwin waterfront on last time, and said bye to Laura... I was a bit anxious about getting the bus home, and needing a bit of extra time to pack, and say goodbye to everyone... But Cat was like "Its fine! Godddd...." I made sure she got her arse to the bus stop for the next due one though... We checked the timetable, "Yep, due in 4 minutes"... Say goodbye, blah blah blah, "Keep in contact, see you soon..." Then i turn to Cat...

"You have the bus tickets yeah?"
"Yeah"
"Your wallet and everything?"
"YES!"
"My bag of shoes?"
"..........................."
"MY BAG OF SHOES?"
"Ermm.... Sh*t.... HAHAHAHA!!"

I was not laughing blog fans! Not at ALL! While she sat there making puddles in her knickers, about how funny that was, I grabbed my bus ticket and SPRINTED about seven blocks to Nando's, out run the bus, LUCKILY found my shoes, came back out, saw bus whiz past me, carried on running, on and on and on.... and LUCKILY there was a big cue at the next bus stop... Cat was there on the bus still laughing... I couldn't even muster the the strength to say "F*** you". Sprinting in Darwin heat with a belly full of chicken, rice, chips and coffee, ain't no joke... We eventually got back, rush packed, rushed goodbyes, and got dropped off to the airport by Megan (our boss). Bish bash bosh, we're done with Australia... o-0
...bye.

After 2 flights, and one delay, we got to The Philippines! Got a late cab to our hostel and tried to go straight to sleep... I say "hostel" but it was more like a weird, half built house... A guy opened up the gate in his pajama's without really opening his eyes or saying hello. And some old woman was sleeping on the sofa. Straight away I was like "How the hell did this place get 91% on Hostelworld?" But whatever, I needed sleep... Woke up the next day, ready to start this Philippine adventure! But for some reason I wasn't in the greatest mood... Maybe it was the hostel, maybe it was the reality of leaving Australia, maybe I was just tired, or maybe it was the ants in the bedroom that were rummaging through by backpack like it was a jumble sale for faded t-shirts or something... Weren't the best start... We went into Cebu city to see the touristy things to do around there... And it wassss shit lol... IM NOT USUALLY THIS NEGATIVE BLOG FANS! But it was, pretty shit... I've been in dirty, run down cities before.. But there weren't even much to see or do around the city. We saw a market, fort, church, and looked up and down a road for a recommended shisha bar and restaurant... Neither of them existed anymore... Bollocks... We went back to the hostel area, and got some street food. We got like 4 spring rolls, 2 pork skewers, rice, and noodles... Think 2 drinks too... And it came up to $2!! Or like £1.25! It was a joookee! I swore they made a mistake... When i paid, I thought "shall i leave them a tip?", but i didnt... Not coz im tight blog fans! But in countries like these, its better to have little money! I swear! You need all these tiny pennies for buses, and things that people never have change for... Its like "Sorry, I really really need my 0.06 cents change". It'll be better just to tip them $20 for a $2 meal....Anyway, we knew we didn't wanna spend our whole Philippine time like this. I think I was naive, and I thought, come to Cebu, there'll be a nice beach somewhere, chill, it'll be easy to get around... But it wasn't that obvious... Luckily, things got better :)

Second day, no messing... We got up at 5am to get the coach down south and swim with WHALE SHARKS. It was AMAZING! We had a talk about not wearing sun cream, not doing this and that... They said "Don't go any closer than 4 meters to the sharks at anytime!" .... As soon as I jumped in... I was almost SWALLOWED BY ONE! There was NO WAY anyone could keep a distance from them! But yeah, that was an awesome experience... I never got the chance to cage dive with great whites in Aus, so this kinda made up for it... We also went to a place called Tumalog Falls which was sexy as hell... A much better day :D

We were planning on getting a flight to El Nido, or Boracay later in the week. But after the success of doing a day trip from our hostel to see the sharks, and coming back. I thought we could probably extend our stay another night or two and keep doing day trips. Plus the flights were costing a bomb, and friends had told me there's so many cool things to do around Cebu. I thought Mactan Island would be one of them... I was wrong blog fans lol... We got 2 jeepneys (which are little pimped out school buses) to a area nearer the island, so we could get a cab from there, and it'll be cheaper... The cab got lost, cost us a lot, and when we got out, all the beaches were private resorts... Motherf***ers... We eventually found a guy who would take us out on his boat to a "private beach" for cheaper. It was OK... But I was still a bit fed up.... I kinda wanted to come to the Philippines and to be an ignorant tourist. I wanted a package style holiday, no stress, just cocktails and beaches... We had been working for 8 or 9 months straight, and wanted to chill... But we weren't getting that... SO the next day, we got our arses outta Cebu...

Next stop was Malapascua Island, north of Cebu. Got a 4 hour coach, and a boat across, and straight away i was like "THIS is why we came to the Philippines!" Much nicer! It was a tiny island, no cars, or roads... Just paths and bikes.. We had been on islands like Caye Caulker and The Gili's before... But I actually think this had "Island living" down to a tee... It wasn't too touristy. Mostly locals lived there, and when they saw you, it wasn't like "Hey... Look at my shop" "Hey... My friend... Glasses?" "Hey... Where you from? London? Lovely Jubley London?" No... They just let you be... Infact you ended up feeling guilty when the kids would say hello, and you would naturally be like "What do they want from me?" The beaches were beautiful too. One beach there has to be up in my top 3 beaches i've ever seen. We had it to ourselves for most the afternoon... When the sunset, locals would be singing karaoke, cooking bbq chicken and fish... It was the tits....

Our next stop was going to be something a lil different... Bohol... Its an island just east to Cebu. We stayed in a cabin in a jungley kind of surrounding just off a river. The owners were really nice, cooked AMAZING food, and it was super chilled... On our first full day there, we hired a motorbike to go exploring. It was awesome... We drove out down the river, past the chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, goats, buffalos, and locals... Our first stop was the Chocolate Hills. Which is a area full of random hills that turn brown in the dry season, and it looks like Willy Wonkas back garden... We then went to a tarsier sanctuary to see the little, big eyed monkeys :) Then zipped lined across the Loboc river... Good day! We finished it but taking a boat up the river to see fireflies at night.. Romantic i know ;) I was actually more fascinated by the stars! You could see them so well there! Even saw 2 shooting stars! The fireflies were really pretty... They lit up the trees like it was Christmas... I sat there quietly, in awe as Cat occupied the rowers... Shes got her Filipino / Spanish / Australian / French / Scottish / Jamaican accent down to a tee now... I try to explain that they can understand you if you just speak normal English, but she doesn't listen... "Shall vii giit orff de borrt??" "She means, 'Shall we get off the boat'... Shes wierd..."

After wasting so much time in Cebu city on our first couple days, we had to move on quick. We had time for one more stop in Panglao Island. We got in the cab to leave Bohol, and there was an owl sitting on the dashboard... Yeah, an OWL... SITTING... ON THE DASHBOARD... ALIVE... OWL... I was like.... "that aint real..." But it bloody was! I thought it was a bobble head thing.. Was so small and cute looking :p I held him and became his mum for the one hour taxi ride... Was emotional... Anyway blog fans, Panglao was another sleepy island like Malapascua was. But a lot bigger and not so walkable... Luckily we found a really nice place that included FREE MOTORBIKE HIRE for all guests! It was an amazing deal! We drove to the beach, swam, ate, watched the sunset, and had a shisha... We finally got our shisha fix ;) The next day we were leaving... But we had time to take the bike out to another beach... OMG... This beach was the SHIZZZ!! I've never seen water like it! It was "The Philippine Dream". Best way to finish our stay there... We got tricycle cab to the ferry port. But just as we were about to be picked up, Cat and I got a bit of diarrhea :p It did seem to settle a bit whilst traveling, but as soon as I got back to Cebu, and had a beer... Shit it the fan... Literally.. (But not quite literally)... WHICH... BRINGS US UP TO NOW REALLY! :) Im writing this in Cebu now, bum hole still hot and all... This last hostel for the night is a bit of a party hostel... Ironic we get that on our last night before an early flight. A load of Filipino's are outside the room singing karaoke... Weird how they like that so much. The 3 weird things I've learnt about Filipino's is... They love karaoke, and singing ballads.... They love basketball even though they average a height of about 5'2... and they hate knives....Trust me, try to find a knife here... Swear if you bought a steak, they'd give you a fork and spoon to eat it with.... 

So, im getting up at 4am tomorrow... Its 2am now... One country down, EIGHT Asian countries to go... Next stop JAPPPANNNNN!!!!!!! OMGGGGG!!!!!! I've been waiting for this day since, forever and a bit.... Too excited for this... Keep your shorts tight for THAT blog!!

Guess thats it from me now then...
OH!! And *F.Y.I. Alert* blog fans!! (If that makes sense)... If you now Google search "robcat travel" or Youtube search it. You can see a load of assorted videos that i've been uploading for a while now... I've actually uploaded a few from The Philippines too... So you can see videos of us zipling, on those amazing beaches i was talking about, that OWL IN THE TAXI, and WHALE SHARRKKSSS!! :D

Ah, blogtasical mayhem has just hit new heights hasn't it....

Who knows whats next blog fans!?
You'll just have to keep those shorts TIGHT!!!!

See you in Japan? :D
Seeeeeee yaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopa

x

Goodbye Australia x

Hi blog fans.... How you doing?
Good yeah?
You sure?
Wicked....

Because its only the last bloody Australian blog that i'll EVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER WRITE!!!! :-0 DUM DUM DAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!! OoooooooWeeeeeeeOoooooo!!! LA DA DA DA DAAAARRRRRR!!!!! :-0 :-0 :-0

So..... Hope you're good anyway... Long time no see and all of that... Keep those shorts tiiiiiight! I will not be held responsible for any lost underwear during the reading of this passage... :)


So, there's a lot to cover here... Im pretty tired. Physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted... We're leaving... Finally... After coming to Oz in May 2013 like "Yeah, stopping over in 'Straya for a bit. Try to get a job for a few months, travel a bit, then move on to Asia..... Probably be here... a year or so?... Yeah, a year is a long time init... Yeah, crazy... Crazy shit blog fans..." Then, here we are, 23 months later.... And I'm writing this :p Isn't life a funny bugger! :)

I'll get in to the leaving school, and all that in a bit. First off, i'll start with the last trip we took, and just came back from.... Back in the new year, we decided to book a tour to Uluru and back before heading off to Asia. We thought it would be a good way to end a long stay in Australia. See the great Australian outback. Red rocks and kangaroo cocks... That's not what sold it for me... Just made that up :p So, we actually left Darwin on April 1st. We were treated to a goodbye meal by the school principle the evening before we left. To say thank you, and tell me how amazing I was at opening and locking doors, . He took us to the casino for Italian food. He's a really cool guy actually. Easy to get along with, and has had an interesting life. We could relate to him through stories of him leaving his village to seek education, and travel... Even though I didn't live in a village.. and im not really educated... But you know what I mean. After the meal, we got home, and after doing other things I needed to do, I started packing at 1:30am.. By the time my alarm went off, I slept 2 hours... I would later find that this was gonna be a reoccurring theme :/

Got on the bus in Darwin city with 20 or so other travellers, and headed south. We stopped off at a few waterholes on our first day. Waterfalls, creeks, sunburn... Typical Aussie shiz... The second day was a bit different though. Stopped off at the UFO capital of Australia, then ended up in the pub where the surviving girl from Wolfe Creek rang the police from to get saved. A lot of the backpackers were nervous. But we survived... Still got all my limbs, and my anal passage hasnt been sodomized... YET. So its alllll goooood ;) The earth was getting redder, the air was get less humid, and we finally made it to Alice Springs on the 2nd evening. From here the tour group was actually gonna get split up a bit, but we all went out for a meal and few drinks together that night. Few drinks, turned into a LOT of drinks, and my body was only treated to another 2 hour sleep, before catching the next bus towards the red centre, and Uluru. Coz I was so smashed, and didn't organize myself well before, I ran on to the bus late, in the same clothes as the night before, without brushing my teeth, and stinking like an alcoholic... The bus left our hostel, and started to pick up other guys joining our tour. Except this time the travellers were coming from nice posh hotels. 3 new girls came on. I was looking at them with my bloodshot eyes, and they kinda looked at me as if to say "GOSH, you're even smellier than my horsey!" :-0 But I just put my headphones in, and didn't really speak much that day... Unfortunately, it was never gonna be that easy... After a hour or two, we all heard a bang on the bus, and it turned out we popped a tire :/ Not good when youre in the middle of a hot desert. I thought we might have to do an Inbetweeners 2, and drink each others piss to stay alive. But we managed to roll into the petrol station before we resorted to that.. Shame, because I was getting a bit bored of drinking water... We didn't manage to fix the bus, so we had to wait for someone to drive a new one to us. Which is fine, because the desert is FULL of towns with buses and stuff. So it only took about 6 hours for it to get to where we were :) Luckily there was some emu's at the station, and I just fed them, and myself for all that time... We eventually got to our first camp site. We made a fire, put out sleeping bags, ate, and slept under the stars. It was really cool :) Got up the next morning early to head towards Kings Canyon. It was still dark... I remember this, because I brushed my teeth with Cats moisturizer... thinking it was toothpaste.... So my teeth were extremely silky that day ;) Kings Canyon was awesome. Walked around there for a good few hours, and then headed to the MAIN EVENT, Uluru... aka Ayers Rock :) .... A lot of people like to say "Urgh, Uluru, its just a rock!"... Which it is... But apart from being extremely iconic, its pretty fascinating once you know the history and the cultural relevance to the aboriginal people. What some people don't know, is that you can actually climb the rock, and probably get some really good views from up there. But after learning a bit more about the rock, and what it meant to the aboriginals, I was put off by it... We then heard that about 26% of visitors climb the rock. And if this number dropped to 20% or below, they would close it for good... We ALSO heard that if anyone DIED whilst on the rock, or falling off it (which has happened a few times) the aboriginal people do something called "sorry business". This basically means they self harm, because someone has passed away on their sacred land and home. Which is pretty sad to think about... After hearing all this, I decided to climb it anyway... HA, JOKING... I did NOT climb it! Calm DOWN blog fans! In our group of 26, only 2 people decided to. To be honest, if you decide to climb it, then youre really just taking away whats special about the place, and then it really is "just a big rock"... We walked around, took photos, looked in caves, and learnt about it... After that, we drove to a good view point, so we could see it at sunset :) And if that wasn't enough, a rainbow came out, and we had free champagne and crackers :p How emotional... We went back to camp, ate kangaroo and camel, and then slept out under the stars again. This time there happened to be an eclipse too... Not a bad day, ay.... The next day we all got up for a walk round Kata Tjuta (look it up), then got back to Alice Springs... Everyone on the tour were heading in different directions, and me and Cat were the only two that needed to get on a coach AGAIN for another 2 days back up to Darwin. (It was cheaper than flying). We went out again... Had a big roast, few drinks, swapped facebooks and all that... and got REALLY drunk again! Same bloody routine; 2 hours sleep, stinking, rushing, on the bus looking like a f***ing diseased rodent... This time, ALL the people on the bus were new. And this time ALL the people on the bus were girls! Seriously... There was one other guy, that kept himself to himself, me, and about 25 girls :/ I thought this could either be great or terrible... I was not in the mood to socialize too much, after meeting a load of cool people from the last tour, and starting from scratch with new people... Plus the hangover... Again... But it turned out all good :) All buses had a good crowd on them :)

SO! That brought us back right up to Darwin... We wanted to get back quick, as our friend Emily was having a birthday, and we wanted to see all our friends from the school for one more night out together... Got straight off the bus, to the liquor shop, dropped our bags at Emily's, and got on it :) It was our last proper night out in Australia, so I got 2 Passion Pops as standard :) We predrank at Emily's, went out, and then bumped into all the girls from the tour :) I was in a bit more of a sociable mood by then. But I mostly stayed with the school crew. Was a good night though :) As it always was with them....

And that brings me right up to now! Hungover... Again... Tradition :) Saw a few more guys from the school today. Got reunited with our boss Megan who we hadn't seen for a month or two... And unfortunately had to say a couple goodbyes :(

I wanted to write more about the school. The blog is long enough as it is, and its late, and I have a lot to do tomorrow :/ But this job has really been a God send for us... I keep telling people that I was kinda over living and working in Australia. After seeing friends and my parents in Bali, I kinda wanted to just go and travel more of Asia... And I would of, if I had the money. But I came to Darwin to work. Just hoping to get a job labouring, or something. Anything fulltime really... As long as I could save enough to travel again... After 2 months of struggling to get that, fate handed this job to us in the strangest way... Not only was it fulltime, but it paid well, and it was enjoyable. We had an awesome boss, everyone we worked with were the best workmates you could ask for. And it ended up being one of my best experiences ever... And it got better and better as it went along. We got to know a lot of teachers, and staff on personal levels. Kids got to know who we were. We'd always get a "Hi Cat, Hi Rob!" when we walked around. Social life was good. Had nothing to complain about.... We now have more money saved than what we were aiming for, and we can now travel Asia the way we always wanted to... :)

Leaving the school.., everyone here... our home.. and Australia all in one go. Kinda feels similar to when we left England. We feel happy and content here... And knowing that we cant come back, even if we wanted to, is the hard part :( We'll never forget our time here...

SO... That wasn't as light hearted as most blogs, was it blogs fans? :D On a positive note, i've been waiting to travel Asia for a LONG LONG time. So much more to come. And now every step we take, its a step closer to being back home :-0 To see all you ugly mugs again :)

Next stops: Philippines, Japan, China....
Keep your shorts TIIIIGHT for THEM!! :-0 OMG BLOG FANS!

Peace out Rabbits and Goodbye horses!!
Australia... its been emotional...
We're ouuuutttttttttt!

Zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopa!!!!

(Love you all)
xxxxxxxxxxx

Summer Frights High

What does a gay horse say?

HEEEEEYY!!!!

Whats up blog fans!? I got a sizzling, semi-spontaneous blog fo yo asses!
Yes im still in Australia, yes im still in Darwin, working, in a school... sweating my arse off... But theres been a FEW small changes and things going on. Plus I aint really spoken to people at home too much, so read this for an update. Then when we talk I dont have to repeat the same shiz a thousand times, leaving more time to talk about YOU!
So tighten your belt! Coz if those shorts aint TIGHT, they'll blow right off like DY-NO-MITE!

So basically, im writing this from my cozy little cabin at the moment. Its getting dark, and im about to shower and go to bed... No big deal right? No, EXCEPT, tomorrow Bulldozer Billy is coming along and crushing our home TO THA GROUND!! :-0 I know, right! Shocking! All the kids at the school have broken up now for their Christmas holidays. Whilst they're away the schools getting a major make-over. Its like the schools going into surgery, and our home is the big ugly hooked nose that needs removing the most. So tonight will be our last sleep here. Bit of a shame, as we've just settled in and made it our home.... But thats not even the worst thing about it blog fans! Once our home is turned to dust, we're being moved to the EEC building. I dont even know what EEC stands for. If I had to guess, i'd say "Extremely Eerie Crap!" Because that building is SCARY! When I lock it up at night, its like House On Haunted Hill. Which is pretty fitting, as apparently it used to be a hospital! Great... I've heard stories about things being moved in there, over night, once its been locked up. I've spoken to a girl who said she was listening to the radio in there, and several witnesses saw the volume dial turn down right in front of their eyes. So SLEEPING there, on the 3rd floor, at night, alone on campus should be... ginteresting... Ive been sleeping with a big knife and baseball bat near me in this cabin... but i dont think thats gonna help me against a bloody rapist poltergeist :-(

OTHERWISE the job is going really well! The staff are all really nice, Cat and I are saving well, so cant complain... The teachers sometimes cook us food for lunch, or buy us ciders for just helping and doing our jobs. Its weird, but great haha... On top of that, 80% of the teachers look like super models. That just wouldnt happen in a British school. The Australian kids just dont know how good they got it!... I was invited to the Christmas party on Friday. We had after work drinks, and after 4 ciders, and 4 beers, I was well up for it. Especially considering I lost about 19 gallons of sweat at work just before that... It was really last minute though, and I was texting all the other backpackers to come with me, but no one did. Didnt really wanna tag along with none of the other backpackers with me, like a weird lonely loser. So I just stumbled around the school, drunk, locking all the gates... Then I passed out at 7:30... Epic fail...

We have no plans for Christmas or NYE yet... Its probably gonna suck. Its our 3rd Christmas away from home. The 1st one we flew from Costa Rica to Peru on Christmas day. So that was pretty shit. Dry arse airplane meals for Christmas dinner lol. Last year in Sydney was good. But I got a feeling we got another shit one in store for us this year. We've got some dates in mind for our next stages now though. Probably gonna leave the school on the 27th of March. Drive to Uluru on a road trip, then leave Australia (finally) to The Philippines on April 7th.  So its all getting pretty close! I've given myself a couple of projects some of you might be interested in. Im gonna start to make slideshows of our travels, and uploading them to YouTube. Its a little hobby of mine, but its also a nicer, easier way for people to look at what we've done, step by step. The slideshows will take a while to do, but im also sporadically uploading some random travel videos... If you search YouTube for "RobCat Travel" you might find it... I'll try to get a URL for our page or something later.

So keep your shorts tight for all of that!

Merry Christmas if I dont speak to you before that...
Make it a blogtastic one ;-)

Until then.... Zoooooooooooooooop!! x