World Traveler

 

(Photo from www.freefoto.com)

I’m from England and have travelled there a fair bit but generally if I want a holiday I head straight to somewhere else in Europe as I always thought that they have nicer beaches. That was until I was introduced to Norfolk!

I went to a tiny place in the middle of no where called Sea Pauling but the beach stretches on for miles so there are plenty of other towns to choose from if you want more excitement. I was told that when you see the beach you think you’re in India or something, I laughed at that comment and thought that the person was just exaggerating. I walked up the huge sand dunes and when I reached to the top I was shocked. The beach was stunning and I never imagined that there was a place so beautiful just three hours from London. Obviously the sea is freezing but the sunsets were amazing! Plus you can go sand dune surfing – its so much fun but very tiring walking back up!

If you head to Norwich, you can hire canal boat and cruise down the river stopping at little towns along the way and there are even small boats that drive you to you and seel drinks and ice-creams, random! Norwich also has a fairly good nightlife. I never thought I would say it but you can actually have an excellent holiday in England and the weather there in the summer gets really hot (I don’t know if it’s ever going to be quite hot enough to go in the sea though!)

Read more about where to go in England……

 

I can’t help it, I’m an explorer and as soon as I get to a new destination, I’m straight to explore and find out every possible thing to do! I arrived in Perth and did just that and found out that I can see penguins and seals in the wild, obviously excited (I never seen a real seal, apart from TV of course) and even better, the Penguin and Seal Island were only a 40 minute journey from Perth.

I hoped on the train and got to the jetty. You can actually walk through the water to Penguin Island as it was fairly shallow but not to Seal Island, so I got a boat. Seal Island is very small and is protected so you can’t get off the boat, but you get within 10 metres of the seals and they are so cute to watch. The boat also takes you to Penguin Island which you can get off.

Penguin Island is home to the Fairy Penguin, also known as the Small Penguin (what an inventive name!) As they only come out after dark it’s hard to see them during the day but they usually lie under boardwalks so I managed to see some. However, for those that miss out there is a discovery centre with Penguin feeding time so you get to see them in action as well, very cute! The island is also home to Giant Pelicans and there is a whole nesting ground, plus plenty of other wildlife like Sting Rays, a variety of birdlife and skinks (they look like a short snake with legs!) The beach is deserted and absolutely beautiful with crystal clear water so great for snorkelling. Brilliant if you love wildlife and nature!

Read more about animal places…….

 

I was in Bangkok and I wanted somewhere to go that I hadn’t been before. Anyway, I got chatting to one of the tuk-tuk drivers and his English was excellent and he told me about loads of places that I hadn’t heard of and hadn’t been to. We set of for Lumpini Park which has a huge night market, plus a huge area where you can sit and have dinner and/or a drink. There is a huge stage where bands perform and dancers too. It was an excellent night and the tuk-tuk driver took us for free so I bought him a drink and we all had a fabulous time.

I then travelled around Thailand for a while and a few months later I got back to Bangkok, I was sat outside having a drink with some other travellers and I bumped into the same tuk-tuk driver, he stayed for a drink and we got chatting and he said he would take us out again and as I had a great time last time I trusted him to pick a good place.

We arrived at the place and paid to get in and shortly realised it was a ping pong show (not the sport, but it involves ladies on stage – get the gist?) I found it embarrassing enough but just to be a bit worse, I had my mum with me, but hey, I was in Thailand so I suppose it something that has to be seen! The girls on stage started the show by shooting ping pong balls (with their lady bits) into pint glasses, then proceeded to pull out, scarfs, flags and even razor blades which they actually demonstrated cutting paper with first!

After that, it just got worse and worse (I’d rather not go into detail but believe me it was horrible!) I stared at the wall the whole time as I couldn’t look and then made a swifty exit! It certainly was an experience that I never expected to have!

Read more about Thailand……

 

As I was travelling around Malaysia I discovered the beauty of Langkawi. The island itself is huge but there isn’t a great deal going on. On land there are a few waterfalls, and amazing white sand beaches that are totally deserted and a few temples. Although on land there isn’t a lot to keep you entertained for long, fortunately there is off land!

Langkawi has the best Marine National Park that I have ever been too, and the nicest water. I decided to take a day tour out on a sailing boat, no, not one of those posh ones, it looked like a pirate ship! The boat set sail and a drag net was put out (it’s basically a net that you can sit in, in the water, while sailing). Everyone else was too scared to go first so as usual I was the Guinea Pig. Stupidly I was wearing a bikini and a loose on at that, trying to keep my head above water whilst holding by bikini top over my boobs at the same time holding my bikini pants on to stop them floating away was almost impossible and I had visions of the bikini pants getting pulled off by the strong current I was fighting against and seeing them float off into the sunset with out me in them. Luckily I managed to keep everything on, without flashing anyone, I was very proud of myself! We then saw a huge Monitor Lizard (about 3 metres long) in the water near us swimming, at which most people freaked out and got out of the water, but they are harmless.

The boat stopped and we all went for a swim (except one man that refused to go in the water again after seeing the Monitor Lizard) and I thought there was a coconut floating next to me, until someone screamed and I realised it was a huge jelly fish. I don’t think I have ever moved that quickly in my life and jelly fish always sting me – not this time!

We visited deserted islands, had lunch, relaxed, swam and kayaked through caves. It was a day from heaven and a totally amazing experience and I can’t wait to go back!

Read more about beautiful places…….

If you are vegetarian and thinking about going to The Philippines, please, think again! I was warned about it before I went but like usual I took no notice and thought that it wouldn’t be as extreme as I had been told. Once again I was wrong!

People seem to survive on eating meat and cakes only, you can’t even find vegetables anywhere and that’s probably why every second shop is a pharmacy! I was there for 21 days and after six hours I was already wondering how I was going to manage.

In the odd restaurant there was a vegetarian option, although that was very rare and I was always asked what mean I would like with it but I spent most of the three weeks I was there eating cakes. Bakeries are open 24 hours, even in remote towns where there are hardly any people – very strange! Cake for breakfast, cake for lunch and, lucky me, cake for dinner. Don’t get me wrong, I love cake but I was actually getting good at being healthy before all this!

As I travelled around some of the 7,000 islands of the Philippines, occasionally I was lucky enough to come across a Pizza Hut so I could actually eat “a real meal� and by the time that my 21 days were up I was craving vegetables, I would even dream of them. At least I finally found a way of getting my mind to stop thinking about cake all day, but it didn’t work for long!

Read more about mishaps in The Philippines……

 

( The 12 Apostles, photo by Robert S Butler)

The Great Ocean Road stretches along the coast not to far from Australia’s well loved Melbourne and it’s a great place for adventure, spotting wildlife, surfing and generally experiencing some of Victoria’s beauty. There are plenty of day tours, 2 day tours and even 3 day tours but its better to hire a car as there are so many things that the tours don’t cover and there is so much to see so you can travel at your own pace.

Along the great ocean road there are plenty of places that you can stop and see kangaroo’s and Koala’s which are funny, very lazy creatures but so cute! There is the Kennett River where you can hire kayaks and have a very good chance of seeing a Platypus. I love Australia’s animals; they really are like no other!

Torquay is a popular stop on the Greta Ocean Road, it’s a big surf town, freezing water but huge waves, I tried to put a toe in but it’s far too cold for me! Surfing competitions are often held in Torquay.

There are tree top walks through rainforests, famous rock formations like London Bridge (yes you guessed it, it looks like a bridge) and The Twelve Apostles; which are basically, now 8 bits of tall rock that jet out from the sea. There used to be 12 but some have since collapsed!

Slightly inland there are plenty of wineries to keep you entertained and also a volcanic crater. Its fantastic on a sunny day, very cold and not so much fun on a bad day – I have done both.

Read more about Australian wildlife……

 

(Photo taken by Trevor Lowe)

I remember going to Egypt to see the pyramids in Giza a few years back. I was really excited to be there even though I was melting due to the heat, and it wasn’t even summer! As soon as I got out of the car I was surrounded by Egyptian men that kept trying to grab me and put me on camels, in a scary way, not in a “please have a camel ride� kind of way. It really freaked me out and there were loads of guys like that, in the end my group had to join in with other people’s groups just for the safety in numbers and it didn’t seem to happen to anyone else – it’s always me!

The safety in numbers thing seemed to work better and as I began to relax I was able to admire the beauty of the pyramids and the sheer size of them. This trip was quite a while ago, back in the days where you could go inside a pyramid, to which I had no hesitation as I hadn’t really thought through what would be in there.

The entrance was pretty small so I had to duck down and there was a line of people going into the pyramid and a line of people coming out of the pyramid, all through the same little tunnel, all the people bending low. About half way down I freaked out, I couldn’t breathe and had a full blown panic attack, and soon realised that I was claustrophobic! Unfortunately there was nothing anyone could do, I had to continue to the bottom and then come back up in order to get out of the pyramid obviously I didn’t therefore pay much attention to what was inside the pyramid. All in all it was a crazy day!

Read more about Africa…….

 

I was in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, at the train station trying to get to Pula. My train was due to arrive at any moment, according to my watch, and sure enough a train pulled up at the platform. I hoisted my huge backpack and suitcase on to the train and made myself comfortable.

The train set off and what I thought was the ticket man was walking down the isle so I got out my ticket but he was actually checking passports. Strange I thought as I was off to somewhere within the same country. I didn’t really think anything of it, then a second passport control check was done, a third, to which I thought it was getting a bit crazy and then finally the ticket man. I showed him my ticket and he shouted at me in a language I didn’t understand and I was told to stand by the door. I waited for ages and then he returned with another man. I told him where I wanted to go and apparently I was on a train that was about to cross the Slovenian border – whoops!

They two men stopped the train, made a phone call to get another train to take me back and shoed me off the train on to the tracks (with no platform!) and the train drove off. Meanwhile I am stood by the train tracks with my giant luggage in the middle of the night in the middle of know where with no idea what was happening. Eventually another train came and collected me and dropped me back off where it all began.

 I got off the train and then freaked out as I thought I would have missed the train that I should have gotten on and that I would have to wait 24 hours till the next one. I tried to communicate with someone who worked at the train station to when the next train was and he just keeps pointing at another train. That’s when I realised I forgot to wind my watch backwards 1 hour!

Read about more mishaps……..

 

I was In Europe and from some of the lesser known cities it can be really hard to find a flight to another lesser known city without having to change planes three times. The journey that I wanted to do was from Croatia to Greece but it was proving a nightmare, in the end I decided to get a train. The train was supposed to take 33 hours but we had a bed on the train and brought a lot of alcohol to last us so I thought it would be ok.

The train had no buffet and didn’t make any stops long enough to buy food, we had brought a little though. We immediately started chatting to other travellers on the train and had a great time, by the end of the evening there was the steward and a few other people we met, playing accordions and guitars in our cabin and we had a blast. My mum went to sleep and so not to disturb her I went in the cabin next door to continue chatting the night away, then went to be a few hours later.

When we work up my mum couldn’t find her wallet anywhere, we had waist pouches to be secure and that’s where we put our money, however, I had no cash on me as my bank card had snapped so was borrowing off my mum but we looked everywhere and the wallet must have been stolen. That was all her bank cards, all the money we had. I had money in my bank account but I couldn’t get it out because of the broken bank card and banks wont send replacement cards abroad.

Luckily one of the other passengers lent us some money so I could phone home and get money wired to us but the whole process was a nightmare. We couldn’t even report this to the police as the train crossed borders neither the Croatian or Greek police wanted to hear about it. We then had to wait around for our bank cards to be sent to our home addresses, and then for family to courier them out to us. It was such a nightmare, so now I always make sure I have at least three different bank cards in three different places!

Read about more mishaps……

 

There really isn’t much call for surfing in London, none at all actually and that’s where I am from so I have never tried it. I don’t do sport in general (unless its dancing or shopping, that’s as sporty as I get!) Surfing is one of those sports that I just thought it looks easy and that I would naturally be an expert (I can hear those of you that surf laughing right now!) Anyway, I arrived in Bali, where everyone is surf crazy, and with the size of the waves plus the hot weather I see why.

There are loads of people on the beach offering surf lessons and board hire so I put myself down for an hour and a half lesson. First we practiced a little on the beach, that wore be out straight away and immediately I felt like I needed a cigarette break but I continued anyway.

I always joked that I would probably end up knocking myself out with my board and as soon as I got into the water I managed to hit myself on the head with it, luckily I didn’t do it so hard that I lost consciousness, it just hurt a lot! The water was filthy so I kept getting plastic bags and other rubbish attached to me, and the waves were huge so IU was half drowning at the same time. It wasn’t quite like I had imagined. Even laying on the board was hard to balance. I never got to stand but I was quite impressed with myself when I knee surfed.
After an hour and a half I was aching all over and had cuts on my feet and knees, I swallowed about a gallon of water and I was now dying for a cigarette! Very hard work. Al the muscles in my body ached for the next five days, talk about exercise! It was fun, but very very hard work!

Read more about Indonesia……

 

Everyone all over Europe raves about Croatia and how amazing it is so I had to go and see what all the fuss was about, I’m curious like that! I planned to visit quite a few places in Croatia but only ended up seeing the capital; Zagreb and then Pula and Dubrovnik.

I arrived in the capital city Zagreb on a Sunday and the pace was like a ghost town, most businesses were closed and there wasn’t a person to be seen anywhere, it was really strange. Just trying to find a café that was open was difficult, what do the people that live there do on a Sunday? How boring! After reading about it in my guidebook I didn’t plan on staying there anyway but I had to wait all day to catch a train that departed at 1am, again very strange!

The Train was overnight and arrived in Pula the next morning. Pula is a pretty town and there is a huge ruin of an amphitheatre in the middle of the town which looks amazing and it’s a beautiful town to walk around with little cobbled streets, a market and a ridiculous amount of ice cream and pizza eateries, in fact, it was actually har5d to find anything else! It was so hot when we arrived that most girls just walk about in bikinis and even drive motorbikes in bikinis!

I moved on to Dubrovnik, again a small town but very beautiful. Most of the town is inside a huge old castle and the architecture is totally amazing and it looks like new. The “castle” (I’m sure it has a technical term but I have no idea what that term might be!) was surrounded by the sea and there is a drawbridge that you enter through. Apart from that there wasn’t a huge amount to do.

Coastal drives in Croatia are fantastic, but watch out as the water is freezing even in the high of summer! There is never any sand either, just rocks that you have to jump off to get in the sea. The sea is very clean though. Croatia was a nice place but I don’t get what all the hype is about, its not like its Turkey, or Thailand!

Read more about Europe……

 

I travelled around as much as I could of the Philippines for three weeks and it seems that not much can be done during that time at all. Travelling around just proves to be an annoying, time consuming nightmare! I hardly saw any tourists on my travels, that was until I arrived on the beautiful island of Borocay.

At first I was wow-ed and it felt like paradise but after a look around its so set up for tourists that everything there just seems so fake, even down to the fake sand walkways. With its perfect little beaches, fair rides for kids, water sports and western buildings. Compared to the rest of the Philippines its like a different country and you get no sense of culture what so ever, probably because there is none there. Its ok for a holiday I guess but not if you want to see the world. I found most of the tourists there are male, and older, you get the picture. So if you go out in the evenings and you are female you get treated like a piece of meat and that’s whether you go to restaurants or bars so there isn’t really any getting away from it either. Talking about spoiling my appetite (I didn’t think that was possible!)

I find it strange to see how Borocay became to be in amongst the islands of the Philippines as it shows no resemblance to the rest of the country at all except for the tourists, they certainly show a fair bit of resemblance to the ones in the rest of the country!

Read more about adventures in The Philippines…..

 

I was in the Philippines and as I am from the UK I only get 21 days on my visa, not realizing that it takes two days to get several boats and buses, coaches etc to get to the next destination I decided to forget my plan and just go to the nearest place, that’s how I ended up in Bantayan!
 
As soon as I stepped off the boat I was met by about thirty tricycle drivers, all shouting for my attention. First I tried the “No thank you� technique, to which is always ignored, so decided to try and ignore them. So they followed me for 45 minutes, all of them, still shouting for my attention and it started to become really annoying. I found a hostel, unpacked and went for a wonder, and surprise surprise, there they were outside my door. I headed straight for the beach (their wheels don’t work on sand – ha ha ha!) and finally found a safe haven!
 
The beach was beautiful, pure white sand, clear water and almost deserted and I saw a starfish as big as a football! The town was really small and consisted of a bakery shop, a couple of bars and a couple of places to eat. Some places I walked in I wasn’t sure if I was walking into a café or into someone’s home, even when was in there t was hard to tell! Nightlife consisted of karaoke or pool, no other choices but I enjoyed myself all the same. It’s a very peaceful place and there are hardly any tourists there, great for a few days relaxing.

Read more about the Philippines…..