Holy Laos?

Soooooooo blog fans! Have you been an eager beaver, to read this golden retriever? Last time we left it on a cliff hanger... It was like Sylvester Stallone up in this MoFo!! So... Did we make it to the white temple of Chiang Rai!? Dum dum durrrr!! Well, keep your shorts tiiight! I have all the answers in this next sexy little package.... ;)

And the answer is..... OF COOOUUURSE WE DID, you silly blog fiends! We wouldn’t be so stupid to miss out on THAT! What a waste of time and effort that would of been! ;) For those of you that committed the sin of not reading my last blog, Chiang Rai was the last town we visited in Thailand, before crossing the Laos border. The main reason for visiting it, was the white temple... We got lost on our scooter the first time we tried, but this time round we weren’t making the same mistake blog fans...

We woke up the next morning, after all that stress, and walked to the bike rental place AGAIN. We were in a bit of a rush, as we had to get the bus to Laos, and cross what seemed to be a pretty awkward border... On the way to the bike place, we walked passed a tuk-tuk guy. He didn’t bother us for a ride... because he was sleeping... I said to Cat “shall we just wake him up, and get him to take us?” She preferred to take the bike as it was cheaper. But we STILL weren’t 100% sure of the way to the temple, we were in a rush, and I said that maybe we can get a good price if he drops us back to our hotel to get our bags, and then takes us to the bus station... So I managed to convince her... Turned out to be a good idea blog fans. We drove down the main road, just as I did the previous day, then turned RIGHT at a big crossing... Funny how everyone forgot to mention that part yesterday... So we finally got there, and it was PROPER amazing blog fans. Definitely worth waking up for... We got there slightly before the truck loads of Chinese tourists were dumped on us. And as someone said to us before, It looked like a castle from the Disney movie, Frozen or something... All bright white, crazy weird sculptures and carvings in it... Was pretty surreal... As we wondered round, I started to think this was more of mad mans art project, than a place of worship... Very strange... After we strolled the outside for a bit, we took a peek inside... It had signs saying “no photos inside”... We took our shoes off and wondered in, but it didn’t seem as impressive as the exterior anyway... Just your run of the mill Buddha shrine... Then we turned around and noticed the walls... It was WEIRD blog fans.... Instead of your typical religious paintings, they had painted some sort of post-apocalyptic nightmare... with the twin towers being flown into, flames rising, and molten rock... And if that wasn’t strange enough blog fans... they had Batman hanging off the buildings, Michael Jackson moonwalking the rock, Jabba the Hut in the flames, and Kung-Fu Panda fly kicking through the sky! :/ WTF... Not just that, but Minions, Bart Simpson, Elvis, Predator, Darf Vader... F***ed up sh*t blog fans... So now I was a bit disappointed by the “no photos” sign.... But if you wanna check it out bloig fans, just fly to Chiang Rai... and rent a scooter to find it... Its easy ;)

So that was the end of Thailand... for now... We were entering Laos for a couple of weeks before we returned to hit up Bangkok, Hangover 2 style... Our first stop in Laos was Huay Xai. There were only two reasons to stop here... To break up your trip from Thailand, after crossing the border... Or the GIBBON EXPERIENCE :D No prizes for guessing why we stopped there :p The Gibbin Experience is basically a zipline activity course, built by a French guy, in the Laos jungle... We opted for the 2 day express trip, which consisted of a 3hr hike, one night stay in the WORLDS HIGHEST TREE HOUSE, and overall, roughly 20 different ziplines.... Needless to say, it was sick... Some of the ziplines were 500m long, gliding very high, over jungle, and rivers... Our tree house accommodation was like a childhood fantasy... It was mad... 3-4 different levels, shower and toilet, cooked food, tea and coffee, and even drinking water from their taps... We had a group of 15 in our house, from all corners of the world. We had a couple beers at night, and played card games as the sun went down over the mountains in the distance... Woke up early to do a bit more ziplining and trekking on our way home. We were told the likelihood of us seeing gibbons on this trip was very small, as we were the express group. And unfortunately, we didn’t... We couldn’t afford to spend the time and money on the extra day, and to be honest, it didn’t bother me too much... I think two full days of zipling around, is enough for me lol...

We got back to the town of Huay Xai, and shit hit the fan... Cat and I both kinda wanted to jump on the 6pm “VIP bus” that night. But when we asked for tickets, they had sold out... The man behind the counter then said “Wait, we have other bus... 4pm... You leave now”... I didn’t wanna leave NOW blog fans... We didn’t see a 4pm bus advertised before. So we thought a 6pm bus would of given us time to pack our stuff properly, shower the mud and sweat off, and get clean clothes on after 2 days of trekking... Plus the prices for the “VIP bus” were ridiculously high for this part of the world, but this secret local bus was only quoted a dollar or two cheaper... I was a bit suspicious... So I suggested we stayed for an extra night in Huay Xai, shower, do our clothes washing, and get a bus the next day... Just chiiillll... But Cat wasn’t having it blog fans... Cat doesn’t do chill.... She wanted to get on this mysterious bus, leaving in half an hour, sweaty, muddy, and barely packed... SO, after her hissy fitting, I said “I’m not paying this guy... we’ll get a tuktuk, straight to station and buy a ticket there”... (I was pretty pissed off blog fans). I couldn’t really be bothered with all the rushing, negotiating, and uncertainty. So after haggling the tuktuk guy down, we rushed off, and luckily the local bus hadn’t left... We went to buy a ticket... And It WAS a lot cheaper than Mr Slimeboy quoted... So that was a good decision... But was getting the bus NOW a better decision than staying an extra night blog fans? Well... When I actually sat down, I just dealt with it... We were gonna be somewhere new in the morning, so I was happy about that... BUT blog fans, this bus was more of an “EXPERIENCE” than the Gibbon Experience ever was... No aircon, no knee room, broken seats, bumpy roads... and no sleep for 15hours. The only thing I did get was claustrophobia... and sweat rash... and extreme stress lol... Cat had all her bags and jacket on her lap, which was agitating me more. She tried sleeping on my shoulder, but I was having none of it! I was sweating enough thanks... I tried reaching down for my bottle of water, but the seat in front was too close to me... I couldn’t even lean forward to reach around my ankles... I wanted to jump out the window, into the fresh air... Worst bus journey EVER...

We arrived in Luang Prabang as the sun was rising... We got an overpriced tuktuk to the hostel, dropped our bags, and I finally got some sleep in the hammocks whilst waiting for check-in. We had a wander around to find breakfast, and we instantly liked Luang Prabang. It was very small and quiet, but still really pretty and had lots to do. It had a French colonial feel to it, which reminded me of Hoi An in Vietnam. Luckily though, this place wasn’t infested with tailors designed to rape our pockets... We went to some waterfalls close by in the afternoon, and they were BEAUTIFUL! It was what I imagined Plitvice Lakes looked like in Croatia... Me and Cat were gonna go there back in 2011, from Dubrovnik... But I had terrible diahhrea... Which was ironic... because I had some noodles before I went swimming in THESE waterfalls, but just before I jumped in..... I got diahhrea :/ Swear down blog fans, I might as well create a word that describes the state when you DON’T have diahhrea... because diahhrea is just me in standard mode.

Its like... If you’re blind, how can anything be dark?

How can I have diahhrea, when all I poo is liquid?

Its bullshit blog fans... Literally... But yeah, the waterfalls were BEAUTIFUL! :D

We only had a couple hours there, as a mini bus driver was waiting for us. We got to the bus 6 minutes late, and Cat was on the toilet... The driver said “COME! LETS GO!” tapping his watch at me... I casually smiled and said “Yeah... my friend in toilet” as I was stroking a cat. He huffed and got proper pissed off. Then some Chinese tourist started switching at me, tapping his watch even harder, like “WE GO, WE GO NOW!” I was like jheez! I thought Laos was supposed to be laid back and mellow? I got on the bus with Cat, still laughing, and unsure if they were taking the piss or being serious... Then a gay couple in the seats behind me laughed and agreed they were being WAY O.T.T... Strange...

The most popular bar in Luang Prabang was definitely a place called Utopia. We made sure we went there for a drink that night. We met up with a Dutch boy and girl, and 3 Swiss boys that we met at the Gibbon Experience. The night started well... Cat and I shared a big jug of “mega sangria”. Which was basically red wine, and vodka... Then, after that, every drink we had, had the words “poor man” in it... We had a Poor Mans Combo (rice wine and beer), Poor Mans Vodka (their cheap local stuff), and a Poor Mans Bucket... (God knows what was in that)... We staggered out the bar when it closed, and bought two bottles of cheap whisky off some sort of street vendor... We shared that in a tuktuk, and headed off to the “Chinese Bowling Alley”. Which is apparently what everyone does when they’re smashed, and everything else is closed. Its the only place licensed to keep serving alcohol... but at the end of the day... It was just a bowling alley... God knows what happened in our game of bowling, and God knows what happened to us next... But we ended up at the ex-house of another French guy that we met at the Gibbon Experience... Pretty weird :/ He hadn’t lived there for a few years, but he still had the keys, and it was empty... So we sat on his old porch, and kept drinking more there... Cat fell asleep on his bed, snoring, and I stayed up talking... The French guy then started passing a joint around (as all French people do)... I smoked it, drank, and then.... I CHUNDERED EVERYWAAHH!! Lol... Proper tradition... I managed to stumble about 15 yards away from everyone, into his grassy garden, but obviously the mixture of rice wine, beer, poor mans vodka, poor mans bucket, cheap whisky, the bottle of vodka Cat ordered whilst bowling, AND the weed... Was too much... We tried to get a tuktuk home, but there was none... so the French guy dropped us off on his motorbike... It was about a mile away from our hostel... But I like a good drunken stroll blog fans ;) As some of you will know...

We got home all OK, so it was fine... And Cat only lost one bangle, one watch, one and umbrella, and one sweat towel... So, not that much for Cats standards... Obviously the next day we weren’t motivated to do much. We did manage to climb to the top of the hill in the centre of town. It had a pretty unimpressive temple on the top of it, but the views from the top were pretty DAMN impressive actually... Also, we got lucky as we saw the view with a massive rainbow looooping over the town :) In the evening we went to a cafe, which played cool little indie movies on the top floor. We had a milkshake and some nachos there, and chilled out... We had an early bus in the morning to our next stop, but before that, we got out to see the monk procession in town. We were recommended to see it one morning. It was just a line of monks, walking down the streets at sunrise, accepting gifts of rice etc from the locals in the streets... It was a pretty cool way to end our stay there.

It was now time to hop on the “VIP” bus to Vang Vieng. We didn’t have the privilege of a VIP bus last time as they sold out, but this time we got luckily... Except for one thing blog fans... VIP doesn’t mean f*** all in Laos lol... It was a morning bus this time, so it wasn’t so bad. No sleepless, sweaty 15hr night bus... The views were beautiful between the two towns. Long windy roads, green hills, great views... But whilst this was all happening... We were being rained on... Yeah, rained on, INSIDE a bus... I don’t know if VIP meant you got the advantage of transportation, whilst still being able to feel the natural rain from outside? But I doubt it blog fans... There was a Chinese lady next to me falling asleep on my shoulder, water puddles by my feet, and a poor local boy in a Chelsea top chundering EVERYWAHH... I wasn’t sure if it was from the windy roads, or if he had a couple Poor Mans Buckets the night before ;) But to be honest blog fans, everyone on the bus was in a pretty GOOD MOOD this time. Including me! :) I think it was mainly because it was mostly local people there, and they seem to always be happy and able to laugh these things off. There was even an old man a few seats in front of me, who had to hold an empty water bottle over his head, coz he was getting PISSED ON! He got the worst of the leaking... But even he was smiling about it, and laughing along with the others.

Vang Veing... The place where its reputation clearly precedes it... Not many people have heard of the town, but its the town made famous for tubing... Pre 2012, backpackers from all over the world used to come here, get on a rubber ring to tube down the local river, and get absolutely SMASHED! So much so, roughly 30 backpackers were dying EVERY YEAR! Nowadays, you still get loads and loads of backpackers doing the same thing, but only 3 bars are allowed open on any given day. And (I think) a lot less accidents are happening... Cat and I arrived in two minds, coz the tubing sounded kinda fun, and it was one of the main reasons to come here. But also we heard about how the locals felt about drunk, half naked, loud, wankers, walking around their streets every day. There were also other options in the town... Like mountain biking, the blue lagoon, caves... But there was one BIG problem blog fans... The weather was SHIIIT! Was SO annoying. We paid for a hostel in a nice location overlooking the mountains, but we couldn’t see the mountains... our toilet seemed to have the same benefits as the bus... feeling rain on you whilst you were pooing... and we literally did nothing on the first day... Just sat inside, travel planning...

Next day was the same, we had a couple beers in a hammock next to the river, which was nice. But it just rained, rained, rained.... We knew the Dutch boy and girl were coming to town that day, so we waited round to see them. We thought we could put ponchos on, head to the bars, and try to get into the spirit of the town... Or should I say SPIRITS blog fans ;) We had 2 vodkas, which meant we got a free vest, and then stayed for another drink or two. But we didn’t get too drunk this time. We planned to go out the next night to get mega hammered... But when we woke up in the morning, to the same ol sound of rain rain rain... We thought f*** it, lets just get out of here... It was too depressing moping around, and so frustrating as we had loads we wanted to do... As we were waiting to leave, the Dutch guys came to say goodbye to us. Then we bumped into 2 other Dutch girls we had met before, and started speaking to them. Annoyingly the hostel owner said he could upgrade us to one of the cabins for the same price... Toilet seats with no rain... I really wanted to stay at that point. I Thought we could chill out, chat, have a massive night out, then leave tomorrow... But Cat had already booked the bus at this point, so I said nothing. We booked a mini-van to take us to Vientiane this time. We had enough of the big buses... But there was one small problem... ASKING for a mini-van, and being TOLD you’re getting a mini-van, obviously doesn’t mean SH*T in Laos... Because we got... Dun Dun Durrrr!! A VIP BUS! :D Yay! The worst buses in the world! Lol... But it was only a short ride, so I put up, and shut up...

Got to Vientiane, and I wasn’t too disappointed actually. Was kinda relieved to leave the frustration of being able to do nothing in Vang Vieng. Vientiane is the capital city, so we figured we should have something to do in a rainy situation... But we were wrong lol. Vientiane was famed for having f-all to do there. We did however, rent bikes, and cycled round the city in the drizzle, looking at average temples. We got stopped and interviewed by local college kids. Practising English, and asking us questions about Laos and England... They had to video it their mobile for a school project, so that was pretty fun... We met up with Martijn (the Dutch guy from before) in the evening for dinner. We then walked around the markets, and went to a nice rooftop bar for a beer. Was really good actually. We planned to get the morning bus across the border together, and BACK INTO THAILAND! Which is where we are noooow!! :D

We stayed one night in Nong Khai. Which is a really nice, relaxing, chilled out, little place. Had an awesome hostel there, that served the BEST Thai food :-0 And now... im writing this on a night train, heading to BANGKOK! :D We have some OUTRAGEOUS Hangover 2 plans this time round :) Staying in the crazy, sleazy, party side of town ;) So keep your shorts tight for THAT blog fans...

So thats it really! Just under 2 weeks in Laos, and we’re already out... Had mixed emotions on the whole experience there really... firstly, the weather screwed us... Secondly, it was a major bumpage... All the prices we were paying there were WAY too much for what you get... Tuktuk drivers took the piss... I don’t mind paying a lil more than the locals do, but when you pay like $3-4 for a bottle of water and budget biscuits, and you see a lil girl buying the same... You know she aint paying half her mums daily salary on it... Again, I don’t mind paying a lil extra here n there... But when you start paying more for things, than you would back in LONDON... You know its a piss take... The damn buses too lol... So bad... Again, paying 4 or 5 times the amount we did in Cambodia, got 4 or 5 times worse quality... They must be having a LAUGH at us tourists blog fans!... Other than that, I REALLY liked Laos! It was a shame we weren’t there that long, and we only saw the north of the country... But travelling is about sacrifice sometimes blog fans :/ But I would probably come back again one day...

Other than that, blog fans – It looks like Cat and I will be sacrificing a trip to Sri Lanka, to spend more time in South Thailand and India... I don’t think we will regret the decision... Got such a big to do list, and NOT MUCH TIME LEFT! :-0 So that means only ONE MORE COUNTRY TO BLOG ABOUT! Maybe thats a good thing! You must be getting bored of them now... Also, my passport is like nearly full lol. Got 8 years left on it, and not that much space... Looks like ill be having my holidays in Bognor Regis from now on, blog fans ;) Haha

So penultimate country! Next blog will be Bangkok, south of Thailand, and MY BIIIRRTHDAAY!! Im gonna chunder EVERYWAAAHHH!!! Hahahaha!!! Hohoho!!!

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPAAA!!! x

Youtube link to RobCat Travel videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAfiBjNHpl_Rybkp7-v4Mag

Thailand Teaser

OK, blog fans! Lets rock this party like its July 2015!!

Woooo!!!!

So we came from Siem Reap in Cambodia, into Bangkok. Then hitting up northern Thailand for a couple weeks, before we cross into Laos. We gotta get our arses into gear now blog fans! :/ Zoooop! Keep your shorts tight for this!

SO! We crossed into Thailand by bus, and if you read my last blog, you would know I was feeling pretty sh*t stains in Cambodia at that time... Cat and I weren’t able to get a seat next to each other on the coach, so I had to sit next to some massive guy with a ponytail. He took up his whole seat... plus half of mine... So I had half a cheek on my chair, looking like a shrivelled little worm... On top of that, my sinusitis was in major evacuation mode. I went through a whole toilet roll, and coughed my guts up across the border. Two girls were sitting next to me, looking like I had just brought MERS to town... Wasn’t in a good mood... We got to Bangkok at night, and had a bit of chicken from a street food stall. It was more or less the first thing I had eaten, as I was recovering from chronic diarrhea... Well, I HOPED I was recovering blog fans! Because the next morning, we PLANNED on going to the Grand Palace... but instead, the only throne I got to see, was my bloody shitty hostel toilet seat! Was well annoyed!! I really wanted to get out, but I wasn’t able to leave the toilet for 5 minutes!... Roughly 48 times I went... I don’t think I’ve had diarrhea like that since I was in Croatia in 2011. So that was a pretty “SHITTY” way to start our Thailand trip... After my 49^th visit to the toilet, and 4 pills, I braved the outside world. We didn’t have enough time to justify the Royal Palaces entrance fee now. So we paid a visit to Wat Pho instead. That was a really beautiful area. It had the famous reclining Buddha there, and was surrounded by really nice golden shrines. As everywhere in Asia seems to be... It actually managed to cheer me up, and i felt goood :)

After that, Cat wanted to get a bus to the MBK shopping centre. We definitely don’t need to buy any more stuff blog fans, but according to Cat, its “a must see part of Bangkok anyway”. We walked through a park to a bus station and waited for our bus. Our bus number was marked on the bus stop, so we were sure it was stopping here... It never came... We must of waited AT LEAST an hour, and nothing... We just sat there, watching in hope... as every other bus was running more regular than my bowl movements... Typical. We walked to another bus stop, nothing... So then we decided to walk back to where we were able to see the sunset by Wat Arun. Which is also known as “The Temple of Dawn”. So it was kinda a blessing in disguise seeing that at sunset. We FINALLY got a bus to the MBK. But Cat was kind of stressing, as we were arriving as the shops were shutting... Didn’t bother me... By this time I decided to brave a chicken nugget meal from Burger King, to see if my stomach could handle it... We wondered around the closed shops regardless. Walked through arcades, then to the cinema area to watch trailers of movies that we had no idea were even being made... Then, the trailer for Jurassic World came on... It looked so sick, we decided to spontaneously go to the ticket booth to see if it was on... We were in luck :) So we watched that, and the evening panned out pretty well in the end.

The next morning we got up to visit the worlds biggest market... Cat finally got her shopping fix. Ironically I saw a pretty sick shop as soon as I came out the train station, and bought 3 t-shirts :/ Bit excessive I know... I definitely didn’t need 3 new t-shirts, but what I DID need, was a pair of cheap jeans... We also made plans to go to Banyan Tree hotel for drinks that night. Banyan Tree is voted the best roof top bar in Bangkok, and one of the best in the world. Even better than the one from Hangover 2 apparently... So I needed the jeans to meet dress code standards... Luckily I managed to find a pair that was decent, cheap, and fit me... So we headed off to the bar... Just to give you an idea of the cheapness of the market, and the prices of the drinks we were paying at this bar... My jeans were cheaper than ONE, SMALL Chang Beer :/ Psssht! But when we got there, the views were AMAZING. We were so high up, and there was literally nothing to obscure our 360 degree view. We got there just in time, before the last seat was taken too. We looked around, and even though we made a decent effort, it kinda felt like we were two ragamuffins who snuck in through the back doors of an Oscar winning after party or something. We got speaking to a Swedish guy sitting next to us. He was with his girlfriend, who looked super beautiful, and super high maintenance... She wasn’t too impressed he started to speak to us... But he was pretty cool. He built home cinemas for mega rich people, and was obviously well off. He still seemed super jealous, and super impressed of our commitment to travel for the past couple of years as well though. His girlfriend got up and left us at one point. He was tempted to come to the dirty part of Bangkok to carry on drinking with us, but it was his last night in Thailand, so I suggested he should probably spend it with his lady lol. After we finished our small beers veerrry slowly, we wlaked around the other parts of the roof, and took photos that didn’t do the view or atmosphere any justice. We also walked through the restaurant area. And if we thought the people around the bar were posh, these guys took the biscuit. Some of the women there looked like the type that would be pissed off if their olives weren’t picked off a vine that grew out of Hugh Grants bum hole... “Oh Margaret! I do believe this silly waiter brought me a peanut marinated in unicorn tears, instead of angel tears, as I clearly stated! I shall call the police immediately!”

That was our last action of Bangkok, part 1 blog fans... We only had 3 nights there, knowing we would be back soon... We were heading up north to Sukhothai next.  I spent the previous night researching hostels, writing down prices, addresses, and phone numbers. Then, when we got to the bus station in Sukhothai, there was a guy advertising his hostel that was better than the rest. So we just went with him... Typical... We weren’t in Sukhothai long. The main draw there was the old temples in the old town... Coz obviously me and Cat haven’t had enough of temples yet(!) After 3 days at Angkor Watt, last week... But we were able to cycle around these ones, go around town, and stuff... So that was a nice change I guess...

Then we swiftly moved on to Chiang Mai. I was excited about this place :) We got a random message from Lena (girl from Birmingham, who beat me at beer pong and made me puke), who also arrived in Chiang Mai the same day as us. We went for food and a few drinks, then wondered around the night market. Had a really good buzzing atmosphere there... We wondered around a bit more, and got offered to come in to watch some Thai Boxing. The guy offered entry at a quarter of the advertised price, so we went in... After barging my wall through all the ladyboys tying to get me to their bar... We got to the ring, front row seats, and managed to watch several mediocre fights. We even saw a blindfolded fight, that was a bit like the one Karl Pilkington did :p So that was funny... We didn’t get too drunk that night though, as the next day we had ELEPHANTS!! :D This was definitely a bucket list thing to do for me... We rode elephants before in Bali. But this was different. They advertise it as “elephant training”. You ride the elephant bare back, and control them yourselves with only words, and wiggling their ears. You get to feed them, and learn 10 commands. Our guide was pretty funny. He confessed that he thought he had the day off, and got really wasted the night before. So he was seriously hanging balls... Seemed like my kinda guy. He loved me too for some reason. He was always shouting “Mr Rob! Mr Rob! Watch this! Mr Rob, come look!” Guess im just a lovable guy blog fans :p The main draw for me with the elephants, was the washing and water fighting :) Its something Ive seen a lot from other tourist photos, and it always looked so cool. We all went to the lakes and the elephants looked genuinely happy, and smiling to be washed and splashed. Was a really cool moment. As all this was going on, there was another elephant from a rival tour company watching us from the banks. Apparently this one hated people, and had recently thrown a Chinese tourist off his back, and fatally stamped him to death :/ Our guides had to get the biggest elephant in our group, Magnum, to protect us lol. Was pretty wild....

After all that excitement, we continued the pace, by heading out to a ladyboy show with Lena that night... I wasn’t too overly excited about this... Obviously I was a bit sceptical... I was expecting it to be really crude, lots of penises, sex jokes, and... gayness lol. Im not homophobic by any means, and I was happy to go along. But I was expecting a lot of awkward moments of men in drag, touching me up, and trying to kiss me... So we went in, sat down, and then a man in drag touched me up, and kissed me LOL! Wasn’t expecting that was I blog fans(!) After Cat and I got a selfie with him, and we tipped him, he left us alone a bit more... Just stroking my chin, or jiggling my tits as he walked past...But honestly, all that aside, the show was REALLY GOOD! Its all cabaret, miming gay anthems, with Thai, male, Tina Turner look-a-likes, lipsinking, and doing jazz hands. But they were all really good performers... It made everyone laugh, feel good, and turned everyone there COMPLETELY GAY... (and by “gay” I mean happy) :D

The night didn’t end there though blog fans. We moved on to a rock bar, where they had a band covering Nirvana, Guns N Roses, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC... So that was awesome... We got a beer tower, got a bit more drunk, then moved on to “Zoe in Yellow”. Which was a weird little area, full of bars, and drunken backpackers. Felt like we were in Zante or something for a minute. But it was cool. We had a few more drinks, danced, and said bye to Lena, who was moving on...

NOW... This is where it gets controversial blog fans... The next day, we were planning on going to TIGER KINGDOM!... DUM DUM DARRRR.... The place that so many people have divided opinions on. Arguing that its either the greatest place in the world, or an animal torture house, full of drugged up cubs... This is where I stand on it blog fans... I’ve always been annoyed by the tourists taking cheesy photos of wild animals, and exploiting them for that “one special profile pic” shot... On the other hand, Im also a bit annoyed by the people who so confidently blast “OH THEY’RE DEFINITLEY DRUGGED”. Like they’re animal behaviour experts or something... I always live my life with the philosophy that “Idiots think they know everything. Whilst smart people know, they know nothing at all”. And as Cat LOVES tigers, and i’ll never have the chance to do this again, we decided to go... I figured, if I think its cruel, my reviews to my MILLIONS of blog fans, will do more damage, than my measly entrance fee contributes... Anyway, when we arrived to Tiger Kingdom, we had several choices of packages we could pay for. Categorizing them by “Big, Medium, Small, or Smallest”. You also get the choice of seeing 2, or 3, or all of them. I said to Cat, I wouldn’t mind seeing the smallest ones. Maybe they would be like little kittens to play with. Cat really wanted to see the biggest one, as she seems to get a boner over the sheer size of them... So we went to pay for the Big and Smallest package... But there was a problem... They had a little theme park style measuring wall, and Cat was TOO SMALL to see the big tigers! :D Mega lolz blog fans haha... So we settled on seeing medium and smallest instead. As we walked round, waiting for our number to be called out for the cage entry, we saw lots of big tigers, playing with their trainers. On first impression, they didn’t seem sedated, or depressed. The trainer had leaves on the end of a stick, and he was waving it around for the tigers to pounce on... Just like a domestic cat... Other, bigger tigers we saw were the same. There were trainers in there, tigers playing with leaves, in water, all seemed fine to me... Then me and Cat had our numbers called out. We went into the play pen area of the medium sized tigers, that were still pretty bloody big! There was 3 of them, lying in the shade, resting... Then one starting playing near us... Kinda scary... We were told to approach them from behind, stroke firmly, don’t be scared... We asked them a few questions... Louis Theroux style lol...

“They sleepy now?”

“Yes. Rest in day. Play at 6 oclock”

“They friendly?”

“Yes... Only boy tigers here... Females more dangerous”

Everything they said seemed feasible and made a lot of sense...  We left the medium sized tigers with a few good photos, and heading off to see the “smallest” ones... The smallest ones were actually a lot bigger than i imagined... I pictured kitten you could pick up, but in reality, they were the size of a big dog... But, as I approached the play pen for these little ones blog fans, I didn’t seem as convinced as I did before. There was a LOT more high demand for pics from tourists here, and we were going in and out like a chicken factory... When we went in, a keeper introduced us to one, who was completely konked out on the floor. He told me to stroke it, lift its paw up to feel the weight... But to be honest, I just wanted to let the poor bastard sleep lol. He took us to a few others, said we could lay next to them and stuff. We did it pretty discretely, then let them be. After that I was kinda feeling a little bit bad for them... If I had to conclude my personal opinion on the place, I would still say I don’t think they are drugged... I think the worst thing going on here is sleep deprivation lol. Which is pretty bad for a tiger cub, who grows so fast and needs his sleep... So im not gonna throw fuel on the fire, and jump on the druggy bandwagon... All in all, I don’t think this is a bad place... Ive been to the Steve Irwin zoo in Australia, and seen a zookeeper swim and play with 2 big tigers there. No one battered an eyelid at that. Ive also been to a zoo in Argentina that was TERRIBLE! And I think that MAYBE people are a bit racist, and I like to assume Asians tend to be more cruel to animals, and therefore must have really bad zoos. Where other countries / continents don’t get that rep... I know its not ideal. No “zoo” is ideal... Im a pretty left wing kinda guy... But, you know, most wild animals are not exactly living an ideal life right now either. And I think this place generally does a good job raising them, keeping them healthy and happy... I just think maybe the little ones should get more undisturbed sleep lol.

ANYWAY... Enough of that... After Tiger Kingdom, we got a scooter and drove up a hill in a national park to see more temples... We were going cold turkey... Had been at least 3 days without a temple by then lol... We then went to a market, ate, and looked around the stalls. There was also a free concert going on in town. Some sort of celebration of South-East Asian culture. Theres always something going on in the evenings, in Chiang Mai. Its so cool... Saying that though, we had another action packed day the following morning... We got to cross off something that been on Cats bucket list for a long time... “ATV and White Water Rafting” :) ATV, meaning, “All Terrain Vehicle” aka... a quad bike lol... Cat loves driving quad bikes. We shared one bike to save money. But as she doesn’t have a licence to drive real cars, and she cant drive the scooters whenever we hire them, I let her drive 75% of the time. They took us on an awesome route, and had a decent amount of time on it too. After that, we had lunch, and got straight into white water rafting. This is one of those things ive never really thought about doing, or been bothered about. But knew I would like it once im there. We shared a boat with a guide and 2 Irish girls, and it was SCARY! We all had to work hard together, paddling, and listening to instructions... We went down the first rapid or two, then Cat went OVER BOARD :0 I saw her fly off, and under the choppy waters, and I was like “So... Cats dead”. Luckily, the instructor, who didn’t seem too shocked or flustered pulled her back in quickly... I was expecting a bone to be protruding from her shin, or one eye dangling from her face... but she was actually fine! We both somehow managed to get through it, with no major injuries... or death... and we had a good laugh doing it. Had water fights with other boats on the calm bits, prayed for our lives on the scary bits...

We finished off our stay in Chiang Mai by going to the “Saturday Walking Market” with a French girl from our hostel. Again, we didn’t really need to buy anything. But I managed to get some 2^nd hand hiking boots, as we have a few treks coming up in Laos... Also stuffed my face with the good food there too :)

So, that was 5 action packed days in Chiang Mai! We were sad to leave... We decided to go head to a place that had NOTHING in common, and no similarities to Chiang Mai, AT ALL.... Chiang RAI ;) Completely different blog fans... Which is where we are now actually :) We came here just for one night, mainly to see the “White Temple” Wat Rong Khun... We were expecting to get here today, and go on an easy bike ride to the temple, then come back to rest before heading off to the Laos border tomorrow... Didnt happen that way blog fans... The hostel had no cheap bikes left, so we went for a walk around town looking for a bargain rental, in the SWELTERING heat... We finally found one, got ready to go, then she demanded we gave her a drivers licence. Which i didn’t have on me... So we power walked, in the heat, sweating our tits off, back to the hotel, to get my licence... Got it, and headed off... The lady at our reception previously told me both of the two main roads going south, headed to the temple... “They both meet in the middle, just go down”. You can see where this is going blog fans... I drove, and drove, and drove, and drove.... By this point I knew we had about an hour til the temple shut, so I just kept bombing it down... Then it came to the point it got ridiculous... We stopped and asked how much further it was. The old lady couldn’t speak English, but pointed back the way we came... Cat checked her watch, and we had 30mins left... I was so angry... I tried speeding back up... then realised from road signs we were 30km south of Chiang Rai... And I knew the temple was 13km south... We knew we wouldn’t make it... I was so pissed... We could of gone straight to Laos today, but instead we got the bus here, paid for a room, looked for a bike, and now its all gone tits up... On top of that, the weather took a drastic change from sweltering hot, to PISSING IT DOWN! By this point I was tempted to drive on the other side of the road, just to crash into someone, to cause damage to myself, the bike, and someone elses vehicle... Thats how i get when im that angry blog fans.... We pulled in to some shelter safely though. Safe, but drenched and fuming... I just sat silently, taking deep breaths, staring out in the distance... as Cat read the guide book, trying not to laugh at me lol....

That was a few hours ago now, and I feel better blog fans... We are gonna try to see the temple early in the morning, then come back to get a bus across the border to Laos. It doesn’t seem to be a straight forward process though... So Ill let you know how that goes in the beginning of my next entry blog fans ;) Keep your shorts tight for THAT!

So yeah... Thats it for now. Laos next, then back down to Bangkok, and the south of Thailand. Looking forward to seeing the darker side of Bangkok, and the beautiful partying islands down south.... Might even enjoy a game of ping-pong whilst im at it ;)

Thanks for reading again blog fans...

Hope it aint as much of a pain in the arse to read, as it is to write lol

Until next time....

Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopaaa!! 

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!!