Chuck2006s Blog on RealTravel

Kaikoura journal: Nature Watch

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 06:15:17 GMT

We drove for 7 hours from the West Coast of New Zealand over to the East Coast just 1 and half hours drive above Christchurch where we had to drop the car off in a few days before flying to Brisbane, Australia.

The place we have stopped at is called Kaikoura and is a big old bay with a mountain range which towers over it before dropping into the sea. It is very, very scenic.

The mountains end and below the water a massive valley starts, dropping from 90 feet around the bay to 800 feet. All the dead fish drop to the bottom releasing nutrients into the water which attracts Hector, ...

Sydney journal: Sydney - End Of The Road

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:36:17 GMT

We arrived in Sydney just before midnight after our flight from Cairns. We were dropped off by our taxi with the ominous words "you know there are many other cheap hostels around here".

We looked around for our hostel, the road was full of drunks, prostitutes, sex shows, sex shops and tramps. We found our hostel next to a sex shop with drunks either side of the door and beer and smashed glass on the floor inside. We paid for four nights and then walked to our room which comprised of a bunk bed with the top rail hanging off, a bathroom and the worlds first television and an ariel that ...

Port Douglas journal: Port Douglas

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 07:10:13 GMT

Port Douglas is another one of those places that are too nice and too expensive for me to live in.

There is a port which you would expect to be fair with the name its got. It has many big, new and shiny boats that only people with large amounts of money can buy and the main shopping street was full of white teethed, perma tanned elderly people and equally tanned younger sons and daughters following with clipped accents saying things like "daddy has just bought me a pony".

The things to do to pass time in port douglas is to talk loudly about how much money you have whilst standing ...

Cairns journal: Cairns 18/30

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:45:38 GMT

Another 8 hour drive was rewarded with the news that the booking we had made for the hostel we wanted wasn't received and we were homeless. So after an hour of looking for anywhere suitable we were advised to stay at the cairns beach house.

When we arrived we were really tired and gratefully took our key and brought our backpacks and bags up to our room which we realised had not been serviced. We asked for another and an apologetic receptionist gave us the key to a much nicer room with added bonus of a bathroom that smells so badly of fish that i expected to see a sealion being kept as ...

Airlie Beach journal: Airlie Beach

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 01:24:48 GMT

Airlie Beach is where backpackers and holiday makers meet the yacht owning set in Queensland and the thing to do when they all meet is drink and as noisily and starting as early as possible.

Airlie Beach has a main road that follows the contours of the beach all around, through a mixture of bars,cafes,hostels and tour companies. This is the cheaper part of the road, surprisingly the bit where we stayed. Eventually the road weaves up a hill, curls around and stops at expensive, plush hotels and apartments overlooking the bay and the manmade laguna where all the young and beautiful lay.

Hervey Bay journal: Australia Zoo and Hervey Bay Whales

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:39:52 GMT

We travelled for around 7 and a half hours to get to Hervey Bay. We stopped for a couple of hours though to go round Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo which was bedecked in wreaths, flowers and signed khaki shirts in rememberence.

Australia Zoo was really good, it was in sombre mood, i heard a few members of staff being asked about steve irwin's death and it was a constant topic of conversation.

The zoo itself is designed with kids in mind with the toys and had shows like the crocodile show where a croc would be fed from a foot away by eager keepers, i was expecting blood and carnage ...

Brisbane journal: Ozzie Land

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 00:23:57 GMT

Brisbane is a nice place a decent sized city with lots of ingredients with which to make an exciting place-cake. The city has a river running through it and a modern waterfront looking over it, tons of shops, a Subway and Mcdonalds on every corner, curry houses, bars, 8 million sex shops, a china town and "pokie" places. Fruit machines to UK people. It also has a street which we had to walk down to get anywhere which is full of tramps and nutters, the usual thing of shouting to nobody in particular, arguing with lamp posts etc.

We were only in Brisbane for a few days, it was a nice ...

Franz Josef Glacier journal: Franz Josef Glacier

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:28:20 GMT

We got to Franz Josef village after a hellish 6 hour drive through more winding, precipitous, mountain roads with graves and flowers on bends with sheer drops as a reminder if it was needed that these were dangerous roads.

We got to Franz Josef Village and changed our pants. The wind was howling, we were in the clouds so visability was low and the rain was torrential. We couldn't see Franz Josef Glacier which the village was next to. This was the case for two days, the rain would wake you up at night as it was so fierce, the owner said it was the worst weather he had known for ...

Mount Cook journal: Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 20:31:14 GMT

A day trip to Mount Cook was exciting, well to me anyway, think Ruth was getting scenary-ied out by now. Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. On arrival we could see one mountain higher than the other and being the extremely clever people we are we reckoned "that will be Mount Cook then". and there it was, it's like a mountain but...like a really big one.

It was covered in cloud at the top and you could see for miles on the plateau we were in.

We decided to do the Governers Bush. Not as offensive as it sounds, it is a one hour bush walk up and down the side of the ...

Omarama journal: Omarama - House Of Wax

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:22:38 GMT

Ever seen the film "House Of Wax"? It is a horror movie whereby some evil brothers lure people into their distant town, kill them and make them into waxworks. In the film the town has a garage, a shop and a church, lighting for which is kept in the cellar of the evil brother's house.

Omarama is house of wax town.

There is a shop/canteen/souvenir place we walked into for lunch. When we entered the 3 staff who were sitting on a table together didn't acknowledge our presence. We stood for ages in the canteen until we got served, the whole transaction was done in silence presumably ...

Te Anau journal: Te Anau - Milford Sound

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:20:09 GMT

Te Anau is a small, beautiful lakeside town surrounded by snow-capped mountains. There are a few quaint cafes here and a shopping street should you be deficient in the stuff area.

We stayed in another holiday park, this one overlooking the un-naturally blue lake which Te Anau sits on. More importantly it had Sky TV! Thank god! i could see some Premiership football, i was getting the shakes with withdrawral symptoms, i think Ruth just cracked and said we could stay at this place to shut me up about not seeing any. So after 3 weeks sans football there was an hours highlight package on ...

Dunedin journal: Dunedin - Life In A Trailer Park

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:17:48 GMT

I'm currently in Franz Joseph village writing this blog from a bus filled with computers! don't see these every day.

An hour or so's drive from Oomaru got us to Dunedin, gaelic for Edinburgh apparently, lots of places seem to have been named by Scots the rest seems to be named by people with innuendo in mind for example: Shag Point, The Paps, arsetown...Made the last one up...but there are tons, it's not just my juvenile mind this time, must get photographic evidence to prove my point, watch this space.

Dunedin is a city with a large university which adds 20,000 students to it's ...

Oamaru journal: Missing Penguins

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:56:19 GMT

We arrived in Oomaru to see the penguins which are the big thing here, there are two colonies on nearby beaches.

We stopped in a trailer park and were told we had a choice of penguin, the blue-eyed ($15 each) or the yellow-eyed penguins (free), guess which ones we chose?

A 15 minute car ride later we were sitting on the top of a bluff looking over a cove with the light becoming non-existant.

Apparently the penguins need complete quiet and reassurance that there are no humans about. It was freezing and i had a cold, we sat there in complete silence which was only interupted ...

Auckland journal: Brrr It's Freezing

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:30:56 GMT

We got into Auckland around 5pm and the first thing we noticed after coming from asia is that it is absolutely freezing.We took the public bus complete with crazy shouting driver to our hostel. He asked every one of his passengers where they were going, when an American guy answered "Base City" the driver started shouting at him saying there was no such place and there was only "Base Backpackers". The guy was made an arse of in front of everyone and the American guy apologised to the driver for getting the name wrong once he got off...bit strange.

We stayed in Base Backpackers Hostel, ...

Bangkok journal: Bangkok Again

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:26:09 GMT

Ah Bangkok, the fresh smell of sewer hitting your nostrils, 20 tramps grabbing your legs, lady boys, drugs beer and a hostel next to a chicken farm, what's not to love.

The pleasures of Bangkok, in particular sitting down for something to eat when the smell of chicken crap, sewer and BO hit you at once while trying to eat a sandwich.

I wasn't at my best to be honest, the room was boiling hot, had the biggest and fastest cockroach i had seen for quite a while. The battle started with a scuttling noise coming from the area of ruth's rucksack, i looked down saw the giant creature ...

Ko Samui Region journal: Big Buddha is Watching

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:44:01 GMT

Big Buddha Beach, lovely, besides the fact it has rained for 3 days and our hut is on the runway of the airport, literally 1 kilometre away. I can't express the sheer terror of being woken at 6 in the morning absolutely convinced a giant plane is going to come through your window. When we are out and about and having breakfast it is amazing to see how low the planes are when passing overhead...i mean really stupidly low... The hut shakes, the windows rattle people run around on fire screaming, that sort of thing.

Big buddha beach itself is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, there ...

Ko Samui Region journal: Nice hotel although you are on the runway of the airport, expect to experience the feeling of imminent death by plane hourly.

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:17:10 GMT

Ko Samui Region journal: Nice Big Room, decent cable tv channels, nice selection of ants in shower

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 04:33:21 GMT

Ko Phangan journal: Stormy Weather

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:10:58 GMT

After an up-and-downy ride by a boat held together by chewing gum we got from Ko Samui to Ko Phangan.

Neither of us were sick but half the boat look like they were going to be. Everyone seemed at least 10 years younger than us and in various states of inebriation, either drunk or hungover. Some girls fell sideways into the boat and started playing the loadest game of snap they could, giggling on the way and lurching from one side to another.

We got off and our bags were thrown from 8 foot away onto the top of a shared taxi who made us pay 3 times the amount you would normally pay ...

Ko Phangan journal: Nice, Clean Bungalow Huts On The Beach

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 05:01:52 GMT

Ko Phangan journal: Life's a beach

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 05:01:52 GMT

We got a nice and bumpy boat from Ko Samui to Ko Phangan which had zero space on it. So we plonked ourselves on the floor with our bags everywhere and sat for 45 minutes going up and down as i we looked around and saw the majority of the people on the boat where about 10 years younger than us and most of them looked either drunk or hungover. I however looked like adonis with 4 days of beard growth and people thinking i was smuggling a beach ball under my t-shirt.

We were dumped off the boat and into the clutches of the evil share-taxi men who overcharged everyone for their lifts to ...

Ko Samui Region journal: Smack My Beach Up

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 05:26:02 GMT

Here at Ko Samui now. We started off at Lamai beach which was pretty quiet unless we walked for 20 minutes through frogs and lizard which had came out in the rain.

Had a horrific hangover from the one night out we had which has taken me two days to get over, the local Sangsorm rum and my inability to stop drinking being the main culprits.

Now at the much more lively Chaweng Beach and Yay we have a room with a tv. 3 nights of sitting in because it was raining without any books, tv or anything wasn't great..especially as i got beat in scrabble when we played with a hangover and i ...

Bangkok journal: Bangkok Nose Jobs

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:31:25 GMT

Bangkok, about the forth time i have been here and it is still as odd as i remember it. Our hotel was just downright bizarre. The Baan Siri was chosen as it had a swimming pool and it was away from the centre, so we could just chill out. The room was fine, the pool was fine, the staff friendly enough but it was just the fact that everyone there seemed to be in various stages of bodily reconstruction.

We first noticed the place was a bit odd when we saw that the hotel was also a "24 hour dance studio"..cos that makes sense, you know, often i have lay awake at 4 in the morning and ...

Bangkok journal: Bizarre place, nice rooms, strange guests strange ever present ballroom dancing

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 01:51:20 GMT

Bangkok journal: The sign says "your real home from home". This would be true if i lived in a hot box room in a building where everyone looked at me as if i had pooed in their coffee. Service with a snarl.

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 01:51:20 GMT

Siem Reap journal: Siem Reap - Preah Khan

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 05:24:47 GMT

The second day followed the first getting up late, mooching around for somewhere that could do something resembling a decent breakfast then meeting up with the tuk tuk driver to explore the temples around siem reap. This time the less well known ones.

At around 5 pm the heavens opened again but this time we were prepared.

The last day was spent driving to Tonle Sap lake where we saw the floating village of Chong Khneas. We hired a small boat out and wove our way through the village with little kids swimming in the water, people swinging on hammocks, people fishing, keeping fish, ...

Siem Reap journal: Siem Reap - Angkor Wat

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 05:01:26 GMT

The main place i had heard of and a place i wanted to see for ages was Angkor Wat. Built around 1113 to 1150 as a temple dedicated to Vishnu It is a vast walled temple complex with a water filled moat surrounding it. Most people come here late to see the sunset, we arrived just in time to see it too but it didn't quite go to plan.

We drove to Angkor for just before 5pm, the driver said "you are not going to get a sunset today", we looked at him quizzically and carried on and crossed the causeway on the approach to Angkor Wat. When you arrive at the entrance there are walls filled with ...

Siem Reap journal: Siem Reap - Bayon Temples

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:05:02 GMT

The tuk tuk on the first day drove us around what is called "the little circuit" which means tons and tons of temples yay!..Ruth was getting temple fatigue after a couple of them and i don't think she was as impressed as me as i ran off camera in hand jumping from boulder to boulder like a mountain lion and then falling off them like a fat English tourist.

One of the fisrst set of temple are called The Bayon... I thought these were fantastic. They are a group of face towers which are meant to create a stone mountain of ascending peaks. Some towers have a face on each side some only 2 ...

Siem Reap journal: Land Mines, Temples And Cows

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 01:27:10 GMT

We flew into Siem Reap to avoid going through Phnom Pehn by bus as we heard phnom pehn was somewhat lawless and we only really wanted to see the temples of Angkor in the north. So we flew into the airport on the most antique propeller driven plane ever. The airport is finished largely in wood and looks kinda like a temple and has little ponds all around it, how cool is that!

The immediate impression upon flying over the country was that it was very rural and once we had landed and got our tuk tuk airport pick up it was apparent that the city was not very flush with cash to say the ...

Siem Reap journal: Bed Bugs, Zero Housekeeping, 5 items on menu, crap. Owner helpful though

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 06:29:19 GMT

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) journal: Worst Haircut In Saigon

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 04:29:19 GMT

Ho Chi Minh City or Siagon as it used to be.. Not the sprawling metropolis i imagined. It sprawls, it's a metropolis but there are lots of bits of greenary and it is smaller than i imagined.

We got in and went for the first indian meal we have had for 2 months. The food came with people wearing biohazard suits and holding our meals with tongs. Anyone who was in the line of delivery ran out screaming as their hair caught on fire for being near the curry. The walls started to melt, the tablecloth was set alight. After half an hour of dousing it with a fire extinguisher i began to ...

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) journal: Good, Nice and Cheap And Clean

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 04:15:13 GMT

Nice place, nice clean rooms

Mui Ne journal: Mui Ne Nights

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 02:37:06 GMT

We arrived by 5 hour rickety bus in the little coastal resort of Mui Ne.

Mui Ne is basically a big stretch of road circing round the coast of the south china sea with lots of little boutique hotels dotted along the road.

We chose to stay at the Little Mui Ne Cottages so i booked online and on the day we arrived we looked to see how far the cottages were. It was a fair walk with back packs on. We got pestered inevitably by motobike taxis, ruth gets the fear at the mere mention of motorbikes so we trudged onto the hotel with happy incidents such as ruth getting glass in her foot on ...

Nha Trang journal: Nha Trang

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:26:42 GMT

After the small town of Hoi An we got the train from Danang to the monstrosity that was Nha Trang.

We got in the train early in the morning after a taxi to danang and a 2 hour wait.

We shared the 4 bed train compartment with a vietnamese bloke, his wife and his daughter who would stare at the strange white people all through the journey.

We arrived at Nha Trang station tired and irritable and in no mood for the inevitable battle with taxi drivers and hotel sellers. We had only a rough idea of where the beach front was and no hotle booking and it was 11 at night.

A ...

Hoi An journal: Happy Budda

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:20:27 GMT

Hoi An, beautiful little town on the south china sea. It's been tough, getting up and having a swim while the sun beats down well into high 30's here. Then breakfast and cycle to the beach. Life is just so hard.

We went to the beach today and sat down for 30 seconds and we hadn't even put our towel down before a pineapple seller tried to sell us mangos, pineapple and other strange fruit. "A pineapple a day keeps the doctor away" she said. Yep but maybe not a pineapple every 30 seconds which was the time window before a new pineapple attack.

I bought a football and immediately ...

Hoi An journal: Lovely Pool, Nice rooms, fresh fruit in room every day, bargain price, reccommend

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:36:38 GMT

Hanoi journal: Hanoi Frogger

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 03:28:00 GMT

Hello Hanoi, Another country after a month, this trip just seems to have flown by. The airport in Hanoi was tiny for an international airport and only had one baggage conveyor thingy, which i thought was a bit odd. As was the fact there was only about 2 planes there also...not as vast as i would have thought

We got picked up at the airport and drove traditional kamikaze-style 60 mph to the hostel, the windscreen wiper wiping off motorbike riders and pedestrians as we went.

I stop the thread of this briefly to mention that i am in the worlds most ancient internet place in Hue. No ...

Kunming journal: The Land That Excitement Forgot

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 02:34:43 GMT

Wow Kunming...what a place! it has everything you would like if you were depressed and wanted to slit your wrists.

Every street seems identical, whenever we look for hotels the same three only appear so we ended up going back to the Camelia hotel complete with perfect english speaking reception staff..unless you actually speak to them, then it gets difficult.

We arrived in the rain and immediately my thoughts were on the world cup quarter final England against Portugal. Everything was going fine, passports were handed over, money paid and then i made the mistake of asking a ...

Yangshuo journal: Fried Dog, Snake and Rat on the menu other food quite nice though

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:16:52 GMT

Yangshuo journal: Yangshou And Guilin

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 02:57:04 GMT

Am now in lovely Yangshou on the Li river. It is a million degrees and there are dragonflies the size of Fiat Puntos flying around the place, they are huge.

The place itself is a bit wierd, going through the village is West Street, a long strip of bars, clubs and eateries. With the blazing sun it reminds me of a street in Ibiza. If you follow the road to the end though there is a market and a wall that stretches for a fair bit. Over this wall is the Li river with herds of water buffalo on it, tourist boats and bamboo and fishing boats. It really is a strange mix.

I have been ...

Yangshuo journal: Nice Place to Spend A Few Hours If it Is Not In The Middle Of Summer And 1000 Degrees

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 03:15:32 GMT

Dali journal: Fun In Dali

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 03:36:39 GMT

We got out of Kunming the day after on a 7 hour train on a "hard seat". We sat down as 2 young chinese lads and a chinese girl sat in front of us on our wooden seat. Almost as soon as we set off the young guys started smoking full-strength cigarettes ignoring the no smoking signs. "that's a bit rebelious" i thought.

Half an hour of shouting to the person next to them they started eating sunflower seeds and throwing them all over the floor. "hey these guys are crazy" i thought. The pretty young girl they were with started spitting pleghm out of the window after snorting so much into ...

Kunming journal: Kunming Hotel Bathroom

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 06:01:08 GMT

Wow Kunming...what can i say....besides i didn't see much of it. Not that there looked to much there anyway.

After i landed i told the taxi driver not to spare the horses and get to the hotel..The Camelia Youth hostel.... More like an hotel we found, no youth hostel bit at all. Must be in another building i suppose.

I really needed my now compulsary 12 o'clock toilet interface. This was as it was a full 20 minutes since my last one. We got to the reception and it was soo slow. "we have a booking".....yes..."ok would you want my name at all or are you just going to hand me a ...

Lijiang journal: Lijiang

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 06:44:58 GMT

Lijiang really is a lovely place. We flew in to the airport flanked by mountains on either side, it was a bit unnerving to see land above us on both sides and so close to the plane as we landed, especially as the turbulance started to attack the plane.

We arrived in Lijiang in one piece but still in our usual tired state. After i had extracted ruth's nails from the armrests of her plane seat and sedated her we got the airport bus to town which amazingly stopped in a taxi rank..funny that, almost as if the bus company and the taxi firm were in cahoots. We showed the taxi driver where ...

Lijiang journal: Picturesque Place To Spend an hour Or So

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 03:55:55 GMT

Chengdu journal: Sichuan Sichuan we all fall down

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:19:29 GMT

Forgot to mention in the previous post, the picture is of The Maglev, it is a tilting train we took to the airport, it goes 430 km per hour.

It takes 7 minutes to gets from it's 1 stop to the airport and has a first class part. This will give your average 1st class passenger the chance to sit down, be handed a drink by an assistant which will be poured into a glass while another stows your bags, you will then be told to stand up, your bags be handed back and your drink poured down the sink.

It was a good old scrap for a place on the plane. We all had allocated seating but why ...

Shanghai journal: Bit Like Bladerunner

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 04:47:54 GMT

Shanghai was a real shock in comparison to everywhere else. We got off the plane and easily got a bus into the city centre and towards the train station where we had to get on the metro to our hostel via two different lines. After an hour or so we were thrown off the bus, told to fend for ourselves as the driver laughed manically while driving away.

"hotel, you want hotel?"...it was raining, belting it down in fact, it was night-time, all the skyscrapers had neon all over them, there were lazers coming off a few of them it was just like Bladerunner, without Daryll Hanna trying to kill ...

Xi'an journal: Last Day in Beijing Into Xian

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:02:49 GMT

We got up on our last day in Beijing as we had booked an excursion to the Mutanyu section of the great wall. There was the usual spitting chorus to wake up to in the hotel. So i got up and headed towards the bathroom, it was closed for cleaning, of course, genius... because who in their right mind would want to clean their teeth at the crazy hour of 8 in the morning. I was told to go to a rival bathroom at the end of the hall. I got there and had to bang on the shower room door as some huge chinese bloke had locked himself in there as he was apparently king of the shower room. He let me ...

Beijing journal: Beijing and onto Xian - Strange Lolly Ices

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:35:23 GMT

Ni Hao, I am not actually in Beijing as the blog says so suppose i will do another page in a mo as i do like the little map with circle and trail this site does, makes me feel a bit like philleas fogg, the decent old film version not the crap new one with jackie chan. I am in xian at the moment, We took the overnight sleeper from Beijing, we cleverly deduced the huge station our hostel was outside was a cunning decoy and we in fact wanted Beijing West which was a fair drive and an even bigger station, it was massive. We got there and sat in the departure lounge, the only europeans there. ...

Beijing journal: City of a million cockroaches

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:56:09 GMT

I got on the plane full of joy and anticipation with the spirit of adventure that this trip deserved or half asleep with a scab the size of belgium on my bruised and cracked lips as my new now toothless socket became infected and i whipped open the penicilin tablets.

We flew to Copenhagen without incident with myself answering ruths questions with a grunt out the side of my mouth. The 9 or so hours in Copenhagen airport were largely spent playing boardgames with Guess Who being my new "most hated". What a cr*p game that is! Has he got a beard ...silence.......Yes.. .cue faces on the ...

Beijing journal: To many options, all far too hot for me, got wrong order, late food

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 07:56:16 GMT

China journal: China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand NZ and Oz

Tue, 30 May 2006 14:18:37 GMT

Travelling from Uk to Asia and New Zealand And Australia for 4 months.