The frivolous part of my serious life, and the serious part of my frivolous one.

Home again, home again...

2006-04-28T14:23:00.000+10:00

hey guys!
contrary to popular belief i haven't been in malaysia/indonesia for a month now, in truth i'm home and have been for quite awhile. i woke up one morning and thought "mmm, am thinking of my responsibilites back home more than the next awesome place i'm going... maybe i should go home"... so i did. 24 hours later i was back on aussie soil. and you know? i'm loving it :) i thought it would be much harder to adjust to life back home but it's been smashing (in one instance quite literally but i'll get to that!), new friends, old friends. i'm really enjoying life in geelong... even if the weather is appauling!

so what else is new? oh yeah, i make it safely around south america and south east asia, not a bit of harm coming to me. i'm back three weeks and in that three weeks i've been in a terrible car accident and caught the chicken pox! now it sounds pretty bad.. actually it was bloody scary but i've lived to tell the tale, and went to the pub afterwards so it can't be all that bad!

anyway, this entry is just to round things out. probably won't blog again.. or if i do, it'll be another day and another trip... but right now.. i'm ok right here :)
love you guys,
simone xxx

Georgetown, Bukit Lawang and Medan...

2006-03-28T15:16:00.000+11:00

OK, so I've been so enamoured at having kelly around to play with that i haven't been too bothered about blogging lately. to be honest we've been so all over the place that there really hasn't been the time.

i'll break this whole thing into chunks so that it isn't absolutely enormous.

Georgetown:
party, party, party! i often forget that little kelly can dance like she can! we hooked into some vodka, played some pool, drank some beers, explored the night life of a place called slippery singoritas. i believe that tells the whole story in itself.

Bukit Lawang:
north of medan, bukit laang is all jungle. we hung out there for two days. we went trekking for a day and at first it all seemed pretty easy going. we saw our first orangutan after about half an hour trekking. she was this gorgeous animal called sandra and she was seven months pregnant. i got to feed her, pat her and have a bit of a cuddle. her fur is a bit like orange steel wool. it was really weird and yet hugely amazing. it's one of the best things i've ever done.

it was all rad really until it started absolutely BUCKETING down rain. so we're now trekking up and down this steep as hill absolutely soaking wet and slipping and sliding all over the place. we all went on our bums at least once! kels rates it as the most challenging thing she's ever done. i reckon it was just bloody fun! never mind the weird tree rash that seems to have broken out all down my arm. hmmm, maybe i should get an indonesian witch doctor to look at it for me!

So we tubed back - more tractor tyres- and got even more saturated.

that night we sat around with the locals and drank a bit of "jungle juice" (i choose not to think about it too much) and played about a million rounds of an indonesian drinking game. don't worry folks, i'll teach you when i get home!

So the next day, very sore but happy we went over to see the feeding of the orangutans in the rehabilitation center. not only did we see about five orangutans we also saw some impromptu "monkey love"!!! was NOT prepared for that! i didn't realise what was happening until i heard yeeman and kelly gasp in shock and the guides pissing them selves laughing going "do it abdul!!! (the monkey...) do it JUNGLE STYLE!" ooooook then.....

Medan:
is basically a bit of a hole. but it does give me the chance to practice my indonesian. which is fine if i want to expain who i am, where i come from and if i'm already married 800,000 times a day. ah well, at least i can confidently teach the kids those phrases!

the future:
we're off again in the next two days. andre is joining us again after enjoy a zen period of diving in thailand. we're heading down to danau toba to have a bit of a chill out period after all the rushing about, but given that i'm heading home in about three weeks we can't rest too long!

anyway, that's me in a nutshell.. what's with you? let me know!
simone :)

Taman Negara...

2006-03-16T22:42:00.000+11:00

Ok, very, very cool day! So Burnsey, Yee-man and I made it out of KL and headed up to the 4343kms of national park that is Taman Negara. It is gorgeous. In a lot of ways it's very similar to the scenery we saw in Laos and Cambodia except in Malaysia it is much more tropical, dense and humid.

Last night we decided that we were going to try and see some of the park’s wildlife by going on a night safari. We were told that we might see kancils, tapir, leopard cats and of course, scads of monkeys. So Kels gamely climbs onto the roof of the ute, right next to the guide (who she proceeds to natter to like the afor mentioned monkey) and we all keep our eyes peeled for what promises to be simply loads of animals. One spider, a robin and two unidentified (and co-incidentally TINY) birds later we came home, shame-faced with our safari hats ready to go back onto the shelf. Great way to spend $15!!

The next day we decided that we weren’t going to be anyone’s sucker again and decided to attempt the canopy walk amongst the tree tops without the aid of a guide. This of course was a RIPPER decision and I stand by it. We cruised around the rope canopy, 45m above the ground for ages. It was so rad! High on the back of that achievement we decided to trek up to the top of the hill we were on. So we eventually arrived back to the base of the mountain, knackered but happy.

A quick lunch and then out to visit a local nomadic tribe, the Batek. There we learnt how to start a fire in the bush and the blow a poisonous blow dart using a pipe. Yes, much in the manner of a jungle man from the Amazon… or arguably Malaysia. It was SO cool. If I thought I stood even Buckley’s chance of getting it through customs I’d have bought one myself.

Anyway, that’s quite enough dribble out of me. We’re heading up to Penang tomorrow. Made famous for being the birth place of the soon to be great Australian author Zac Alexander… other than that, it’s also the place where we catch the ferry to Medan, Indonesia.

Hope you’re all safe and well, keep in touch hey?
Simone xx

Kuala Lumpur...

2006-03-11T15:10:00.000+11:00

Made it safe and sound. have seen absolutely nothing yet! got off the bus after 26 hours in transit and was promptly rescued by an aussie guy who pointed us in the direction of a youth hostel. i've never been more grateful i was so overwhelmed. KL just seems huge!

in the most exciting news, kelly is coming tomorrow! i have bored yee-man with nothing but tales of how cool my friends are for absolutely days, i'm sure she'll be relieved to just not hear it anymore! while we're on the subject of yee-man she made my birthday so lovely yesterday, suprising me with little gifts all day... two jack johnson cd's, a lovely necklace.. i was really lucky to spend the day with her.

thanks so much everyone for the birthday greetings and emails. it makes me feel very loved, i'm very lucky. thank you, thank you, thank you!!

anyway, that's quite enough blather from me... i've got to go and have some breaky, i've been slow grazing on cheetos for the last two days and i'm sure my body is simply about to shut down!

talk to you sson guys,
love
simone xxx

Ko Phangan...

2006-03-09T16:49:00.000+11:00

Well... what a half moon party! Let's put it this way, the party was two days ago, i still feel sick.. the girl i was hanging with passed out cold whilst dancing and i came home with shoes that don't match. i distinctly remember singing the vegemite song with a guy from sydney and telling a german guy how much i love munich. oh, and hanging out with a mother/daughter combo from denmark. i've never met so many scandanavians as i have in thailand!

the half moon party is set in the jungle surrounded by copious amounts of nothing with just stacks of black lights, glow paint and the world's most enroumous sound system. it make the sub-woofers of the boys doing chap-laps look like a joke (well... more of a joke than they actually are!)

erm what else about ko phangan? oh yes, it is ridiculously breath-takingly beautiful. perfect beaches, gorgeous water, lovely snorkelling. but that's all fairly stnadard for around here. where we were was lovely and quiet. yee-man and i have ventured fown to haad rin today to shoot the breeze before we start our two day odessey to Malaysia and i find the whole thing so gauche and backpackery. i know... pot calling the kettle black.

am SOOOO excited to be seeing burnsey... and of course i turn the big 2-4 tomorrow. what nicer way to spend it than cramped on a bus? aww, the simple pleasures :P am i older and wiser? i'm content and very happily single.. does that count for anything? do i seem clever than i was last week or even last year? maybe i have to wait until tomorrow and some sort of lightening change will come over me. hmmm... interesting.

alright chickens, i'll talk to you soon... and burnesy... i'll see soon!! :)
love
simone xxx

Bangkok...

2006-03-04T14:24:00.000+11:00

ok, ok, i'm a bad blogger i know it! I have since phenom phen been to siem reap, seen the wonders of angkor wat, shot the breeze with two fabulous aussie girls, two mad icelanders, a crazy (and not in a good way!) south african, some canadians, two gorgeous americans, a bunch of poms and did i mention that partridge and the pear tree? :) nah, honestly, angkor wat was sublime, made only more pleasurable by the company, we merry band giggled up a storm.

after that it was a short hop over to bangkok where i've been hanging out for the last week. i only meant to stay a day! how ever i've gone a stint of pampering after all the rubbish accomodation and bus rides we've put up with. i've been pediccured, manicured, massaged and shopped until i could take it no more. oh yeah, i have also returned to my native blonde. i'm not entirely sure if i dig it yet. butif the reactions of those around me are at all accurate, it goes alright.

so our next step? andre has headed down to ko tao already to do her padi's course (which i really want to do but desperately can not afford) so yee-man and i are heading down to ko phangan for the half moon party and a load of snorkelling. after that it's down to KL in Malaysia to meet burnsey!!! i have to get there by the 12th, mmm, did i mention it's already the sixth? ahh, never mind! i'll make it and it'll be grand!

questions? comments? anything i can answer for you?

so what's news with you guys? baby's, engagements, new jobs... really guys is that the best you can do? :)

write me ay?
love,
simone xxx

Phenom Phen....

2006-02-21T21:57:00.000+11:00

help!i'm stuck in phenom phen! i keep saying... "yeah, we'll leave tomorrow" and then someone comes up with a killer idea like... "oooh, let's all go to the pub!" and it's all over!

having an awesome, awesome, awesome time :)

love you guys,
simone x

Cambodia...

2006-02-16T22:28:00.000+11:00

Ahh after an action packed, glorious month the Laos government has wised up and chucked Andre and I out of their poor defenceless country.Though they clearly didn't think this whole thing too carefully as that means that Shinead, Yee-Man and Niall have been left unchaperoned down in the four thousand islands! Oh god, those poor little islands...

Ok, so i guess i have some gaps to fill. I've been a bit off the radar lately because...well...we've been living remote. After a few days in big town Vientene we decided to head down to the Bolaven Plataeu.We did not realise that was going to neccesitate travelling on buses for hours and hours (and hours and hours... etc!). Anyway, we ended up at this little one horse town called Tat Lo which is in fact just a series of guesthouses built onto the banks of a river at the base of a waterfall. It was just lovely. The locals were really friendly and kind to us and it was a lovely place to chill out and just swing in a hammock for awhile. So, although we would have loved to stick around longer concious of our tight time frame we headed down to the islands.

The islands were a huge trip actually. No power connected, it is only generated for a couple of hours each night. And after no sleep the first night (due to some serious freaking out about the rat crawling around our hut rafters) we decided that maybe fishing would be a pretty zen thing to do. Only of course we were taken fishing in the most uncomprehendably stupidplace ever with nothing but some string tied to a stick... remind me again what i paid my $5 for? But anyway, we all made the best of the situation, swam, ate our picnic (a dry bread roll that was older than me and a banana that made the bread roll look like a spring chicken!) andhad a bitofa boat ride around the islands. but i guess it was the company that made the whole experience so much fun.

Andre and I left the girls for the first time in a month this morning. We're nowheading around Cambodia (but i'll get to that momentarily) but the girls havealready been here so they'reheading back to thailand to do some mediation and then get shinaed a flight back to ireland. Yee-man will continue on with us through the thai islands, malaysia and indonesia.although that whole schedule is looking a little shaky as we seem to have simply lost two weeks of time. not quite sure how that happened! but we will endevour! we're spending about two weeks in Cambodia, which sounds like a dream after Laos. Roads that are smooth; cool, clean, cheap accomodation and street food that doesn't put the fear of god into me. Not that i didn't adore Laos and want to cry as we were leaving!

So right now we're in a town in Cambodia called Kratie. There are apparently a whole bunch of dolphins hanging around near here so we'regoing to go check that tomorrow before heading to Phomn Phen (allegedly because i want to see S-21, a museum about the Pol Potregieme and the Khmer Rouge...but actually i hear they do fantastic cake by the lake there!But shh... don't tell anyone!) then Angkor Wat and after that..well...we'll let you know for sure when we're sure!

ok, i'd better go... there are no words for how expensive this internet access is!! keep emailing though guys... i miss you stacks and can't wait to see you at home soon :)

simone xxx

Buddah Park, Vientene, Laos...

2006-02-10T21:51:00.000+11:00

Got heaps of money to splash around? Why NOT build an enormous park filled with images of Hindu and Buddist characters and charge admittion to any sucker willing to catch the bus an hour out of town to visit? Actually, it was a smashing day, we had so much fun taking stupid photos with things. A huge laugh. Thought I'd share a couple with you... and of course it was highly sacreligious to climb all over these things, we prefer (in the immortal words of homor j. simpson) the term "sacrelicious"... I particularlly like the photo of the hell mouth, which is an actual physical mouth!

Awww, who would suspect these two girls of trouble? Especially in the company of a giant reclining buddah!

Me and the overview of Buddah Park. Taken from the top of the giant call that is supposed to represent the underworld. it's where you go after you enter the hell mouth. very odd!

Entering the hell mouth at buddah park...

Anyway, I'm heading off in a few days to the south of Laos. Only about ten days left on our visa before we have to head to Cambodia, so we're going to make the most of it by visiting some coffee country and the islands down south.

Love you guys,

Simone xxx

Photos from Laos...

2006-02-05T14:54:00.000+11:00

Yee-man in a jar at... suprise, suprise... the plain of jars!

At the waterfalls near Luang Prabang; from left to right: Me, Andre, George, Hannah, Dee and Yee-man. This is about ten seconds before Yee-man face planted into the lagoon!

Me at a waterfall... boring huh?

Two gorgeous girls in traditional dress sitting on the temple steps.

Monks ae a common place sight in this part of the world. Some of them are really devout and wouldn't consider even looking at a woman. some are really casual and easy going. You can certainly always tell the ones who are just doing their mandatoy monk time... because they chat you up, or as happened to andre... tell you a dirty joke!

vang vieng...

2006-02-05T13:56:00.000+11:00

had the BEST day yesteday!!! went down the mekong river in a tractor inner tyre, drank buckets of thai rum (literally, it comes in a bucket, is mixed with this cheap asian version of red bull, some coke and a dash of lime), oodles of lao beer and hung out with a cool quebequean named william. he saved poor yee-man from floating away down the river to an imminent death more times than i can count. it was awesome. the others contented themselves with jumping of as many ridiculously high rope swings as they could find. as i am a big sook with heights (and basically anything that involves chucking yourself off of a functional object) i contented myself to chatting to every person who would even look at me. as a result we now know lots of smashing people in vang vieng.

vang vieng is a little touristy but after the backwaters of phonsavan it is a welcome change. we went up to phonsavan to see the plain of jars... supposedly mystic and beautiful and remote... sure, they'e nice... but i don't like to throw the term over rated around. but seriously, when the shoe fits! to be fair, i did know it was going to be fairly awful, i was just going to take some photos.... which by the way i got and were fantastic. what i did NOT know was that i was going to get violently ill up on the plain of jars and have to wander into a mine field to do so. but hey, scary as hell, but i'm still here to tell the story!

in othe news, william and i wandered into a lao party last night and had such a great time! we wee quickly befriended by these local people who kept plying us with beer (like i hadn't aleady had enough tubing!!) and getting us to do this traditional laos cicle dance, which somehow denegrates into laos pop and jumping around half way through! still, a good time had by all.

anyway, i'd better keep it brief, but let it suffice to say that i am going to hit one of the friends bars (there are about six restuants who play nothing but friends all the time. andre and i got stuck there for eight hous the other day!!) and i'm going to convince myself that i'm not really as sickly and hung over as i think i am. it's just a phase, i'll grow out of it!

oh yeah, so after this? we're going kayaking fo a day o two i think, and then heading to the vientene (the capital) to have a look around and to get our cambodian visa. that is... if we ever make it out of vang vieng!

love you guys, miss you soooooo much. please write and tell me all you filthy gossip and lies, i love it. also a HUGE congrats to my bother michael and his fiance lesley who are expecting an addition to their lovely family in august. hooray! did i mention i am now insufferably clucky? well, more so than usual! congrats again...

love,
simone xxx

Luang Prabang...

2006-01-29T15:40:00.000+11:00

hey fellas,
am still in loas hanging out in this town called luang prabang. it is addictive! cake, movies in english, fantastic people and a wonderful bar. i think i may just stay here until it's time to come back for the wedding! andre and i are about as happy as pigs in mud! we've seen a lot of wats, markets and food shops here, but definitely the best thing we've done is head to the waterfalls. they are secluded, picturesque (ergo, i will publish some pictures soon) and fabulous to swim in. there was one moment though when we had all decided to climb out onto a tree limb to have someone take a photo of us all, when we hear our mate yee-man go "there's room for one more up here... EEEEK" Splash! and we all start wetting our selves over how funny it is that she's fallen into the water. until someone realises... yee-man can't swim! so we all jump out of the tree and jorge (our resident german) and a french guy leap to her rescue draggin her out of the waterfall pond. she is killing herself laughing the whole time and obiously being a dead weight until she all of a sudden comes over in a panic and realises that she (the chain smoker) now has no dry cigerattes and that none of us smoke. i've never seen someone panic so fast! but it was hilarious! poor yee-man.

as per travelling... andre and i were intending to spend a month in laos but we're having such a good time here i think the real figure will be something closer to five or six weeks. we keep hearing people talk about vang vieng which is where you go down the mekong river inside a tractor tyre tube and just drink, play on flying foxes and float through caevs. so we'll defintely end up there at some juncture. and even though i know it's going to be totally over rated i am still insisting that we visit the plain of jars so that i can take some photos. even though this means we will travelling 16 hours on a bus so i can spend ten minutes taking photos. gee, these girls put up with a lot of rubbish from me!! but i like to think i earn my keep in witty conversation nd by bringing in fun people for them to play with.

much as happened for australia day. we had a little party. i found some tim-tams so we had tim-tam straws and drank $2 champangne (which really is quite expensive for a 3 litre bottle!!). it was soooooo bad that it was almost good again! i hope you guys all had a lovely day and though i know some of you hit the bended elbow (tools... it's an english pub!) i'd love to hear what the rest of you guys did. and of course how the bush fires are going. is everything under control now? it all sounds like it's been fiarly eciting in austalia at the moment!

ok guys, i'm off to have some lunch with the crew. it's really awesome at the moment, most of the people we've met travelling seem to have turned up in luang prabang at the same time so there's about eight of us hanging around at any given time. it's rad.

write me hey?
love,
simone x

Laos...

2006-01-22T00:06:00.000+11:00

Hey guys,

sorry i've been a bit awol lately but it is not a lack of passion for the blog, but rather a lack of semi-decent internet connection. andre and i have hooked up with these two awesome girls called yee-man and shinaed from england and ireland respectively. We met them on the bus out of Pai and have hung out with them since. We came into Laos via Chaing Khong in Thailand and to get into Laos we actually had to take a longtail boat across the mekong river. We spent the night on the Laos side of the border in this one water buffalo town and then hooked up with these three mental boys and agreed to go to the bus station with them. We were told that the bus left at 8am so we turn up and find that the bus doesn’t leave until 9.30... dammit. Oh well we spent ages drinking coffee (made with oodles of sweetened condensed milk!) and getting to know the guys and met another german guy called yorge (of course entirely too hard to say after a few lao beers, so he is forever more known as george). Anyway, this ranks right up there as one of the WORST bus trips ever! it was heaps dusty, bumpy to the point of hitting your head on the roof, there was bus sickness going on all over the shop and the lao's on the bus persisted in touching us the whole way up. major points though to the rather fragrant piss taker who slobbered all over shinaed's breast whilst "sleeping". honestly, i didn't find it that bad, however the other girls suffered a fair bit. this is their first time abroad so they are more sensitive to stuff like that. i just bury my head in a book the whole way and if it's too bumpy for that then the mp3 player will fill the gap sufficiently.

anyway, ten hours after we started that ill fated trip, it FINALLY ended... which doesn't sound like a bit deal, but it bloody was. We arrived in Luang Nam Tha and we've been crashing out here for the last few days. Well, there was one little thing. The girls, george and I started a three day trek today. i got to the top of the first hill and started vomiting, so thought it best to come back down rather than chance three days being ill in the middle of no man's land. As it turns out, I'm fine but it means that i'm crashing out on my own in a bit of a one horse town for the next few days. but this is also a good thing. yesterday we hired some push bikes and went for a ride out into the country and i really enjoyed it, so i think i might engage in a bit more of that tomorrow. i think it'll be nice to just chill. especially in view that after this we have some more dusty bus rides ahead of us. on the up side laos is just the most gorgeous place. the rice paddies and huts are ridiculously picturesque and i spend my days in awe at all the cute kids, puppies and piglets. did i mention it makes me just a LITTLE bit clucky? but only for about 0.2 of a nano second! the other thing i find really amusing is the way we all shout road instructions to each other while riding. I’ll be pedaling along and all of a sudden i’ll hear someone shout “chicken crossing” or “get out of the way stupid puppy” or just “right, right, no the other bloody right shinaed!!”... all fairly standard road signs really. And amongst all this poor george stands there stoically trying to catch the rush of babbled girl English around him and stoically waiting for us to stop faffing around and actually fufill which ever activity we’ve pledged ourselves to. He also sat through two hours of s drinking beers and watching fashion tv last night. poor bloke must be REALLY desperate for company!

today was a bit of a stretch on the old nerves though. after my guide and i had climbed back down the hill we had to wait for a ride back into town. I look so strange to these people that they just stood there staring at me until i fell asleep on my own crossed arms (when i woke up they had dissipated). the whole thing made me feel a little bit like a science experiment! anyway, so we finally get a tuk-tuk (like a taxi) back into Luang Nam Tha and then get stopped at road works for four hours. The whole time I’m just trying to not heave and these Lao’s won’t stop looking at me and talking about me. I finally cracked and asked the guide what the group of men were talking about and she said they were discussing whether i was too old for marriage at 23 but if that could be compensated by my pale skinned chubby beauty! in the end one man did ask me if i’d consider being his wife and i told him that i’m far too young to be married, and besides, my laos visa runs out in twelve days and what would i do then? he admitted that those were fair reasons, taught me to count to five in Lao and gave me a discount on my tuk-tuk fare. can’t ask more than that can I? I did at one point consider asking how many water buffalo i’d be worth but i thought he might think i was just trying to barter a final sale price like the ladies in the market!

anyway, have made it back to luang nam tha safe and sound in one piece. I will endevour to try and do a bit more emailing and blogging in the near future. maybe even put up some pictures. though with internet speeds (and costs here) that may yet be an idle dream!

stay safe guys, and if you can figure out how many water buffalos i’m worth then let me know!

love,
simone xxx

Pai...

2006-01-15T00:55:00.000+11:00

Hey crew, a few days ago andre and I left sunny Chaing Mai, for sunny Pai. We did quite a bit of bludging around in Chaing Mai, shopping (I am now the proud owner of some very stylish black fisherman's pants) and just generally shooting the breeze with some people that we met trekking. But onwards and upwards. Pai is about 4 hours mini bus ride away from Chaing Mai. It is this totally hippy town set into the middle of northern thailand nothingness. it's ace. Andre and I set ourselves a personal challenge and have thus decided to learn how to ride a motor scooter. Honestly, not as god awful as it sounds! We've had no tumbles or stacks yet, of course this could have something to do with the fact that i adamantly refuse to go more than 40kms an hour. no matter what. So hardcore bikers we're not, however our new form of transportation has opened up a whole new world for us (other than one where dogs darting across the road are to be considered "the enemy"), we can now see a lot more of the countryside. So today we went and visited some hot springs and tomorrow we're going to visit some waterfalls. Too cool. We try to pack our days for a variety of reasons.
1) it's the point of us being away
2) it stops us from slow graze eating all the time. which given the choice, we would do.
3) it tuckers us out so we don't have to spend heaps of money on Chang beer to do the job.

Oh yeah, one other cool thing. Andre and I are currently the happy renters of our very own bamboo hut. it has no toilet, shower and only one light which is on a series with every other light in the place (ergo, if someone turns a light on in their hut, our light dims). There are shared toilets and showers. It's a bit like camping at Lorne... without the Guiney's, but with a bamboo hut!

So after this... and this may last a few days yet... we're going to head to Laos I think. We were going to see the long necked Karen tribe, but we've heard a few terrible things about tourist practices there and believe it or not, I try my best not to encourage human exploitation. So we're going to give it a miss. Hmm... Laos... wish I knew anything about it! Any facts would be gratefully accepted as at this juncture I know... well... nothing.

Please write and tell me about your lives. I really enjoy your emails and messages, and though i am notoriously rubbish at answering them, I promise they are joyously recieved.

Stay safe,
Simone x

Trekking from Chaing Mai...

2006-01-09T22:46:00.000+11:00

andre and i have been a bit out of the loop for the last few days as we've been up in remote northern thailand doing some trekking to visit some of the traditional hill tribes. it was really hard going on the first day but things eased up after that, never the less i still took a few tumbles for my efforts. never mind, someone has to and let's face it, it's not like i'm the most co-ordinated person in the world. to break up our long stretches of trekking we also did some elephant riding and bamboo rafting, of course the rafting guides couldn't resist the chance to throw us off our mode of transportation, thank goodness the elephant guides didn't feel the same way! we rode an pregnant elephant called meemu and were trailed by a lovely little baby elephant. each night we crashed out in one big bamboo hut with the other four people who were trekking with us. these huts are really rustic with no electricity and only an outdoor squatter to boast of as facilities. but it was awesome. i am cut, scratched and bruised and proud of it. i earnt these injuries. but thankfully none of them are serious.

anyway, i guess if you want anymore details you'll ask.

simone

The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew

2006-01-04T14:25:00.000+11:00

Yesterday Andre and I took in the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew (A wat being a buhuddist temple). It was amazing!

The Wat:
The whole thing is made up of a series of buildings, most one the ones in the wat are compltely covered in mosaic tiles. It is visually stunning. The walls are massive and considering the whole thing was built in the 15th century, it's in suprisingly good nick! There are these fantastic statues of mythical creatures all over the place, each is elaboratly painted. I guess the wat is one of those places where i just don't have words to describe it. Well, actually, there is one word... shiny. Honestly, there is so much gold and mirror and glass in this place that the glare is almost painful, but it's so beautiful that you welcome it (except for one idiodic moment where i tried to take a photo of myself against the gold of the dome with the sun glaring into my eyes, off the gold, off my shiny camera, back into my eyes. i'm stupid!). The coolest thing about the wat were these funky monkey demon things. Of course, with them standing in a variety of bizarre poses Andre and I were obligated to copy them for the sake of prosperity. Ok, I admit it. Prosperity be damned, it was bloody funny!

The big deal about Wat Phra Kaew is that it houses the Emerald Bhudda. Which I think personally sounds like it belongs in an Indiana Jones movie... Indiana Jones and The Curse of the Emerald Bhudda... not that i can actually attest to any real curse on the icon! This particular statue has been fought over by Thailand, Laos and Myanmar for hundreds of years. The whole thing was covered in plaster and put into hiding and it wasn't until some clumsy Thai knocked it over and shattered the encasing plaster that they realised the whole thing was made of jade. (Emerald is a misnomer... it was believed to be made up of that until about a hundred years ago and rumour and name were both firmly embedded in Thai conciousness by then). Anyway, it's a big deal... thousands of poeple come to visit the Emerald Bhudda a day and you can be thrown out of the Wat for pointing your feet at it or taking a photo of it. To the thai's both are the equivalant of spittingon or graffitting it.

The Grand Palace:
Not so cool as the wat, it's a bunch of fancy shmancy buildings. We did see a Thai version of the changing of the gaurds which was cool. Except the gaurds were about tweleve years old and looked like they were not old enough to be sporting the fire arms they were. Other than that the whole thing was lovely and peaceful with a bunch of cool elephant statues, all of which are in rememberance of the white elephants the Thai kings used to keep, though i'm not sure to what purpose. I guess when you're the king of Thailand you don't need a reason for doing anything. You just do it.

Wish I was a king. Or a queen even. Although you feel a bit like it here. People keep commenting on my white skin and my smile. The weirdest thing that has happened so far is when a little old lady came up to me in the street, slapped my on the tummy mutters something in Thai, gave me a winning smile and walked away cackling in delight. Andre and I ust sort of stood there in bemusement!

Other than that it's all normal really!! Andre and I are going to head up to Chaing Mai in a few days. Do some trekking, elephant riding and maybe some bamboo rafting or a cooking school. Haven't decided which yet. But I will endevour to keep you informed. Thanks for all your emials and MSN chats and stuff. The time difference with Australia isn't so unreasonable here so I'm luckily catching quite a few of you online! I will in the next few days try to upload some photos for you, I had a go today but the computer went a bit spiv! Never mind, it'll wait.

Anyway, talk to you soon lovies,

Simone xxx

Bangkok

2006-01-02T20:58:00.000+11:00

Hey guys,
So... I'm in Bangkok and have been here for two and a half days now. Let me run you through things on a day by day basis...

Day One: Arrived in Bangkok (New Years Eve) and caught the bus into town. Got chatting to this guy called Nick who it turns out is from Frankson. We made the obligatory jokes about each other's home town and occupation, got on like a house on fire actually. Andre (who is suffering tremendously from jet lag) dozed. Nick advised us on how to get to the hostel we'd picked and told us about Bangkok. Turns out that our place is a bit of a mint green prision, the upside being it's very secure and safe. It's also about a 2 minute walk from Khao San Road, which is like backpacker central. I honestly have never seen so many dreadlocks, fisherman pants and mac pacs in one place. There are stalls up and down the street selling anything you could possibly ever imagine needing for backpacking, including the bags themselves!

Anyway, so we drop all our stuff, get changed and head over to Chryso and Shivan (Andre's sister and her Boyfriend)'s hotel. The Novotel Lotus. In the good end of town it is about a SQUILLION times nicer than ours! For example, it has hot and cold water. Ours only has cold. Their toilets take paper. Ours don't. But other than that, exactly the same i'm sure! So after being awestruck by their environs we headed over to the Bed Supper Club. http://www.bedsupperclub.com/home.php

Which is AMAZING! It's been regularly listed as one of the best clubs in the world and i can see why. This place is a minimalist's dream barbie house. So we counted down the new year here and drank cocktails and Shivan suprised us all with a bottle of Moet. Good lord, what a way to start the new year, shame all of the next few months won't be like that! Andre and I then headed home and came across an elephant. Just hanging out in the street with it's owner going for a walk. Returned to our mint green prison and slept off the comsopolitan martini's.

Day Two: So Andre and I got up RELTIVELY early and headed down to Khao San Road o just have a look around and get the vibe for the place. At which point I decided to fufil one of my new years resolutions. Get my nose pierced. So for the small price of 500 baht, i am the proud owner of a shiny little nose stud. It's only taken me two days of trying to rember that it's meant to be there and is not a bit of snot that needs to be blown out. Seriously though, it's awesome. It absolutely caned straight up but now it's fine and it looks really good (obviously in my own very humble opinon!). Andre, Shivan and Chryso we're killing themselves laughing th whole time i was having it done. Bastards :P (But don;t worry, mum the whole thing was very clean, hygenic and didn't hurt any more than i deserve for letting a bald thai man shove a piece of metal through my face!)

Having been so brave during that whole adventure the crew and I decided it was enough to merit a nice calming Thai massage. Which in essence is paying someone money to bash me up! They twist, crack and manuvour your body in ways that you didn't know it hysically could go and it was the most relaxing thing i've ever done. I did start to feel a little dubious when she grabbed my arms twied them backwards and then crack my back with her feet, but the whole thing turned out ok in the end!

After a refreshing juice shake we all headed out to thins POSH resturant on the river. It was so beautiful and calming. The only distressing thing is Shivan and Chryso's ability to let Andre and I pay for anything. I know it's lovely and wonderful because otherwise we wouldn't be having all these amazin experiences but I like to contribute! Anyway, It's incredibly nice of them and all finished now so i an rest easier again.

After a lovely restful evening what do all sane people do in Bangkok. Of course! Go and see a sex show in Patpong. Let's just say the whole thing was sad, and that i will never look at a banana in quite the same way again. I defintely do NOT recommend it to people.

Then after my fifth fruit shake of the day and Andre and I crashed out home.

Day Three: Andre and I were wandering through the temple next to our guesthouse and came across a Thai school where the kids are taught by monks. Had a chat to the year two teacher and go to have a look around and talk to some kids. It was fantastic. The kids are so little and cute. They wear the most immaculate school uniforms!

We then took a two hour boat trip around the canals of Bangkok taking in the floating markets, an orchid market, some temples and all the houses of the river. It was fantastic. It opened up a whole new side of the city to me. It felt like just being in a rural area.

Anyway, after a lovely lunch in Khao San Road we bid Shivan and Chryso good bye. Which brings me to now... and god only knows what comes after this! I've been wrapped, ripped off, amazed and appauled. It's onyl day three, how will i cope with the sensory overlead for another four months! It's going to be awesome. I'll try to get some photos up in the next day or two and blog more regularly so you don't have to read enormous boring misives like this!! Hope you all had a wonderful new year and are safe and well.

Talk to you soon,

Simone xxx

Leaving London...

2005-12-31T03:04:00.000+11:00

So there's twenty five minutes until we have to leave for Southgate station to go to Heathrow to fly to Bangkok. You think we'd be pretty organised huh? Erm, not as the case may be. Well, I'm organised, have tried to post home my parcel full of Christmas presents only to be told that it's going to cost me £65 to send 2.07 kilograms to Australia. I spluttered and cried foul and then quietly returned all of the presents. I'm sorry guys. i just can't afford to spend $130 Aussie dollars on postage. So what are Andre and I ddoing at this cosmic moment? I'm waiting for my oven chips to finish cooking so I don't have to pay for food at Heathrow. Andre is running around like a chook with its head cut off. She is so far from organised I dread to think of it. I have yet to do a few little things like drop a bag off at Oxfam and go to the bank to withdraw cash. She has a few little things to do... like finish packing. I choose not to think about it at this cosmic moment!!! So i'm a bit sad to be leaving London, I'm always sad to leave where ever I am though. I'm comforted by the fact that it has rained all day it's pitch black to 4.10pm and the top temperature today was 4 degrees celcius. Yup, there is definitely an upside on returning to the southern hemisphere!

Anyway, this is the start of four and a half months in south east asia for us; taking in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong. Following that there's a month in New Zealand and then back home to Melbourne, hopefully safe and sound! Then of course there's the wedding, but that's another blogs worth!

Things I am going to miss most about London:
Friends
Andre's Family
The antiodean scene
Temple Walkabout
Pubs
Islington
Jim Thompson's
Mayonasise
Chocolate
Clubbing on a Monday
Marks and Spencers Food Hall

That's not all, but it's a best of I guess :)

Thanks for reading, commenting, calling and texting guys. I really appreciate it. I know it's easy to tune someone out when they're gone for as long as I've been and it shows what awesome friends you are that you keep writing and informing, humouring and keeping me in the loop.

Love you guys,

Simone xxx

P.S. When I get to Bangkok are you finally all going to stop boasting about your nice weather? :P

Snow Day...

2005-12-28T12:06:00.000+11:00

It snowed today. Not once. Not twice. But thrice!! How cool is that?!? This is what I've eaited for for two years! Real snow of the fall out of the sky persuassion! All this on the day that the Adamou's were having their outdoor BBQ. I know it's wrong... but i find it so funny. Adam (Andre's dad) was out there barbequing in the snow with his coat and hat on! Poor thing, I just wanted to show him some photos to show him how the whole BBQ thing is supposed to work! :)

Anyway, the whole thing is worth blogging for two reasons.

1) Snow makes me VERY, VERY happy.

2) On Friday I fly out to Bangkok to start the next four and a half month part of my journey around South East Asia. It's going to be a long time before I see snow again.

So... questions? Comments? Thanks for the Selamat Hari Natal Kelso and Zac for the Non-Denominational-Whatever-Whosit-Greeting. Lovely to know you're thinking of me and Rod and Stace and Chris and Lisa and Alex and so on and so forth who made contact in their own way. Love your work guys :)

Merry Christmas...

2005-12-25T21:40:00.000+11:00

Merry Christmas guys! Hope Santa was good to you and that you enjoyed your day. Things here are peachy keen, though a litttle too cold for my Christmas tastes. Give me the sun, the beach and laying flat on the floor... Talk to you soon,

Love,
Simone

Finding Love in London...

2005-12-18T22:32:00.000+11:00

So it's happened... I found him, the one who makes me happy. Keeps me company at nights, makes me laugh and if I ever lost him I would cry like never before. He's stylish, fun, interesting, clever and slightly on the petite side. He has a serious sex factor and I am absolutely addicted to him. Where did I meet him? On the internet... and then I picked him up in Curry's on the A10. Yes, I am totally in love with my Rio Carbon 6gig Pearl Mp3 player. We're very happy together. (Come on, as IF there's a boy that good at any of the London clubs I go to!)

My god, I have become a total Mp3 player junkie. It is never out of my head and I finally feel like a complete human being again, I had forgotten how music dependant I am! I have done very little since thursday (when i wagged work to go and buy it) except fiddle with it, arrange it's playlists and download music for it. It's like suddenly aquiring a child! i did consider going for the ipod nano, but I've not heard a single positive thing about it. Besides my darling Rio has a 20 hour battery life which is far better for me travelling.

Speaking of travelling, those in the know are already aware but i was supposed to go to russia last week (in fact, supposed to be there now) but due to a totally forseen economic crisis i decided that sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for the long term good. Read, go to russia, blow all your money and then have to cut south east asia a month short. which would suck. As it is I am probably going to end up doing a mad woman's tour of New Zealand doing the whole lot in like a week because I'll have no money left. Alternately I suppose I could get a job in NZ, but we're only there for a month before I have to get home for the wedding, so we'll just have to see. Andre of course has scads of money and I hate her for it. But I'm going to make her live like a tight arse like me... and eat the most disguisting things I can physically pry into her mouth!

We leave in two weeks for Bangkok. We're flying out on the 30th of December to land at 4pm on New Years Eve. Andre and I are meeting her sister Chryso and her boyfriend Shivan who are living and working (as high powered lawyers!) in Hong Kong. Andre's going to visit them over there in January and I'm going to hang out and see a bit more of Northern Thailand. There's some villages and caving up there that i'm really interested in seeing, and let's face it. It's not like I've never been abroad on my own before! I guess I'm getting excited now. I'll be sad to leave London again, but then... it's a step forward. It's been a very different but the same sort of experience this time. If I were to come back again I would do it as a for keeps move and I would probably look for a flat closer into the city. Which is a total pipe dream since.. well.. I have no money and am very unlikely to ever have THAT sort of money! So until then I'll just keep dreaming about a house in Victoria (and make sure I've processed all my paper work for here. Just in case!)

So, it's nearly Christmas. The tree is up in Trafalger Square (I saw it last night in my stumble home from Temple!) And the lights are on in Oxford and Regent Street. Lovely. I am still campaining for a stint of outdoor ice skating but everyone seems to have gone all delicate and shy on me. Bastards... oh well, thus is life. Worst comes to worst (and really it's very good) Andre and I will just get rugged up and go on our own. THIs year I'll be having a greek Christmas at Andre's auntie's house. She is this fabulous roudy woman who is oozing life and vivaciousnes. There is absolutely zero doubt that i'm welcome in her home for christmas. In fact if i didn't turn up I think she'd gather a posse to find me! She's really lovely, but then all of Andre's family is... with the exception of one dubious Uncle! Who offered to french kiss Amrina and I over Sunday lunch. Ewww.... !!

Anyway kids, I'd better go and do something productive (shower, dress, walk to the post box and then go to Max's for drinks... never mind that despite have brushed my teeth three times I can still taste the snakebites from last night!), so I'll catch you on the flipside,

Love,
Simone x

2005-12-07T04:33:00.002+11:00

Ok, so at this juncture maybe I'd had a FEW snakebites...

2005-12-07T04:33:00.001+11:00

Andre's smashed. Thank goodness I've so clearly got it together!

2005-12-07T04:33:00.000+11:00

Rosie's rocking out! Imagine that now in every colour of the rainbow.. much like throwing a packet of fluffy skittles really... or not...as it were...

2005-12-07T04:32:00.000+11:00

Ahh, how sweet, Andre, me and Emma have a bonding photo in the toilets. Where the toilet woman remembered me from times past. Seriously. She greeted me by name. It's been more than half a year since I was last year. That makes a strong statement. I'm scared to think what that statement is!

2005-12-07T04:30:00.000+11:00

The whole gang, minus Andre and I who seem to have gone missing... plus a few randoms. Nothing lures the folks like a collection of naff dresses...

2005-12-07T04:29:00.001+11:00

See, I had to drink snakebites... They matched my beautiful dress.

2005-12-07T04:29:00.000+11:00

Two perfect looking bridesmaids. We could never get up to mischief... specially not in those dainty little Dior shoes. (No joke I got them for �6 from the op shop!) Oh and that's the Thames in the backgound, it was bloody freezing!

2005-12-07T04:28:00.000+11:00

Oh Andre..not one, but TWO snakebites? You little Aussie battler!

An Ode to the Walkabout...

2005-12-05T01:18:00.000+11:00

Every weekend I swear I'm not going to the Walkabout and guess where I've ended up the last two weekends in a row? Yup, Shaftsbury Ave last weekend and Temple last night. God I love Temple. It's like the Lamby's, only not packed with 17 year olds, not so dark, you can breathe and the band aren't quite so chronic as Passionfruit Pulp. (I that even their name?) SO... long and the short of it, I've really missed going to a bar having a chat and a good old jump around and well... snakebites are gold. It's really nice to just be able to talk to strangers and shoot the breeze and hang out with mates. Though there's much more of that at Temple than at Shaftsbury Ave, which has gone a bit too generic west end club for my liking. If i wanted to go to a west end club I'd got to a proper one like Cirque.

So last night was Rosie's 30th birthday party. And she chose the theme "Bridesmaids and Pageboys". We were invited with strict instructions to hit all the op shops and find the biggest, brightest, ugliest dress we possibly could. Now, those who know me well will realise that I will do just about anything to get into a foofy dress. My 21st being a prime example of that! So I took Rosie's instructions as gospel, hit up the Cancer Reaserch shop and came up with dress gold. Let's put it this way, more than one person (lads and lassies alike) came up to me last night, tugged on my puffy sleves and said "oh my god, you like like Bridesmaid Barbie"... and really what's not to love about a fairy floss pink dress with tulle petticoats. (I'll upload a photo as I can be bothered!) Anyway, let me just tell you that there is nothing funnier than nine girls in bridesmaids dresses moshing to nivarna. Absolutely hilarious. I wish I'd made a movie of it but I was having too much fun to remember!

And in other news... Matt (Batty) and I celebrated Hump Day in fine style this week. We headed out to Islington to Mem and Laz and had some sensational food (Mem and Laz is my absolute favourite resturant in the whole world. It used to be Tonic but that seems to have been abandoned now!) Mem and LAz is fun, vibey and feels really friendly and if you fancy something that's not on the menu... ahh.. no worries. They'll make it for you anyway. They also have a really good beer range. Sounds pretty peachy to me! Anyway, we followed up by visiting the Beirodrome. Matt has gotten into a couple of different sorts of beers so the Beirodrome with over 60 types of beer seemed like a good place to hit up. And oh my god... how good. He introduced to a belgian strawberry beer called Fruli. It's like a strawberry smoothie and is so thick and lovely. This is not one for serious beer afficinados but the girls will love it and boys, it's worth a crack. If you don't like it, hand it over to your chicks, it'll be nice for them to finish off your beers for once!

anyway, that's quite enough prattle out of me for awhile. I will try to be a little more regular with my blogging and I'll get my act together and talk about travel sometime soon. We have to start thinking about it, it's only a month away now.

Talk to you soon,
love
simone x

2005-11-23T10:23:00.000+11:00

And the back home crew... love 'em :)

2005-11-23T10:05:00.000+11:00

The whole gang... Me, Tanyelle, Andrea, Andre and Nick.

2005-11-23T10:04:00.000+11:00

God, I am SUCH a poser!

2005-11-23T10:03:00.000+11:00

Andrea, me and Tanyelle writing our names in sparklers... which are a big deal here! Don't even suggest putting thme on a birthday cake you will only be laughed at!

2005-11-23T10:02:00.000+11:00

It was fireworks night (guy fawkes night) here last month. The incredible tale of how guy fawkes an anti-king activist tried to blow up the houses of parliment. yes, englands very first terrorist. the attack was foiled. So now, four hundred years on, how do the english celebrate? By selling fireworks to children of course! Or doing as I did and going to a cracking fireworks display at Alexandra Palace. I went with Andre and some of her buddies. It was a great night actually. After the fireworks, everyonein north london (including us!) went and had some nosh in posho Muswell Hill. Anyway, I know some of you have already seen these photos, but oh well! This one is Ally Pally on the night.

2005-11-23T09:42:00.000+11:00

My man Dragon... he's a math lecturer at the University of Cambridge. And the only man to ever ask me "Has it ever occured to you that roman numerals are base five?"... and i'm sure I'm the only girl who's ever sighed and said "Yes" and quite seriously meant it. Love at first sight... only i'll never see him again!

2005-11-23T09:41:00.000+11:00

The bridge of sighs... as ripped off from Venice.

2005-11-23T09:39:00.000+11:00

Punting on the Cam River.

2005-11-23T09:37:00.000+11:00

The million pushies of Cambridge, let's hear it for student transport.

2005-11-23T09:36:00.000+11:00

Andre and Bob Marley the bunny - Love at first sight!

2005-11-23T09:32:00.000+11:00

Sook gets a kebab in his bathrobe... as you do.

2005-11-23T09:29:00.001+11:00

Aww... drunken cuddles...

2005-11-23T09:29:00.000+11:00

Andrea and Cam get funky...

2005-11-23T09:22:00.000+11:00

Cambridge

The wizard of oz

2005-11-15T08:23:00.000+11:00

ok, it's a little abstract... but here's what i'm thinking. my life is the wizard of oz. (see how that's funny, cause i'm an australian and people always say that we're from oz... just like the wizard.... oh shut up, it was funny in my brain!) now... i hear you say "simone, that's a little weird" but let's review the facts. i'm away from home, i've met lots of interesting people who are also looking for something; sometimes tangible like a heart and sometimes intangible, like the nerve. (and before you start to worry, at no point is this exercise in dribble going to extend to a lesson on transitive and intransitive verbs. poor alex coped enough of that with my eternal lectures of the correct uses of two, too and to. if you would however like a comprehensive lesson email me... or better yet, kelly, she actually knows what it means. i would happily make something up and pretend it was fact).

but, i'm getting away from my self.... the story so far...
there's a chick, living in the country having an alright time when suddenly she is whisked away through the sky (her: tornado; me: airplane) she lands in a strange and colourful land (her: oz; me: south america) only to find that she's actually in a right old dilly of a pickle (her: squashed weirdo witches sister with a house; me: no money, no spanish, no clue) but against all odds they befriend some rather strange and unusual people (her: munchkins; me: random smelly backpackers) to aid her in her quest to get home. And then she meets a friend to help guide her on her way (her: an empty headed scarecrow; me: an unmarried greek north london girl). She enters hostile territory (her: the wooded forests where the trees throw the apples; me: harringay) miraculously she makes it out alive (stuff her, i'm talking about me!). She then meets a heartless but rather suave looking man (her: the tinman; me: every london man) and they continue their quest together.

now this is about as far as i've got with my journey so i figure this is about the part where the flying monkeys must turn up! hooray! everyone loves a flying monkey. the only part i can't figure is an arch nemesis. i don't really have one, so if anyone wants to apply for the position then i'd be more than happy to consider you for it. also she's valiantly trying to get home, which i guess is my goal too... as long as i get a pir of ruby slippers out of it! but at least i'm enjoying the journey. i've not run across any lions or tigers or bears (oh my!) yet. so i'll be interested to meet some. in a purely allegorical sense, of course (though an elephant would be cool!).

so to those people who keep asking me what my london life is like... you do one of two things. assume it is exactly the same as yours, only much colder... or go rent the wizard of oz. the two are exactly the same.

love you guys,
later potatas,
simone

i'm in london still...

2005-10-29T19:32:00.000+10:00

how very waif's... actually, i am in london and i am phenomenally glad to be here. i'm staying with andre at the moment and she and her family have been just absolute god sends. they are warm and have graciously opened their home to me. and let me watch margrita's wedding video 9,000 times (and i still get all mushy every single time).

it's so weird, in a lot of ways it's like i never left, but i wouldn't have missed my six months home for anything. it's also odd being here and knowing that everyone else isn't (except matt, who i'm meeting up with today)... but i keep thinking... "ooh, might just give kat or alex a ring and see if they want to do something". which is fine except one is in sydney and the other new zealand. i do have a new phone number by the way, but i'll forward you all that in a private email... rather than publish my phone number on the internet! i know i'll make more friends, but right now me and andre are hanging out and that's cool and amrina came over last night and it was tops catching up with her (kelly: she and marcus are still together!).

i've done a few kitchy things since i've been here like done the sainsbury and tesco tours (both are supermarkets i particullarly like) and of course the obligatrory stroll down oxford street. but i'm not really a tourist here, i did all that stuff years ago. but i'm certainly enjoying it anyway.

i start work on monday (thank GOD cause i'm broke!), i'm doing two days in bethnal green and one in mile end. they're closer to the city and i chose them because i haven't worked there before. so i'll just have to see how it goes! any work at this juncture is most graciously accepted.

oh there might be a few things you're wondering...

q. how did you get to london?
a. via rio in brazil... stupidist idea ever. cost me way too much and was too much stress. i didn't enjoy it at all.

q. how long are you in london?
a. two months. then andre and i hit asia and new zealand for five months.

q. sooo... do you sound like a pom again yet?
a. yes.

q. going to find yourself a london fella?
a. going to have a look :)

well, that about covers the obvious ones! any more questions feel free to ask them. i do love hearing from you guys. anyway, i'd better check out. meeting matt at 2pm and the way transport is here it means i have to leave andre's at 12.20. so i'd better hurry!

write me hey?

love
simone

iguazu falls...

2005-10-24T04:29:00.000+10:00

oh... my... god...

yeah so i went to the iguazu falls (the argentinian side) and it was the MOST COOLEST AWESOMEST BIGGEST BESTEST nature thing i have ever seen! The falls are huge and amazing they gush millions of litres of water into this giant river. the falls are set in a national park that is really lush and tropical. It absolutely bucketed down for half the time we were there but it didn´t matter, it just made everything lush, glossy and gorgeous. there are three walks you can take around the park; the upper curcuit which gives you an overview of the falls and makes you feel as if you could drop over the edge of them any second, the lower curcuit where you stand under the spray of the falls and get absolutely soaking wet (but it is SO exhilerating!) and the thrid is to a section of the falls called the devils throat which is in fact this enormous canyon where about ten huge water falls empty into and with the mist and the distance (you can~t see the bottom) it honestly looks like the hole that is the end of the earth.

unfortuantely for me the second i walked into the park i ran out of camera battery.. isn´t that always the way? so i only have a few photos and a mate of mine ellie that i was hanging out with there is going to send me some fabulous shots we both took. fingers crossed.

anyway, long and the short of it is, it was absolutley phenomenal. definitely the best thing i~ve done in south america. and the place i stayed in was absurd! it used to be a five star hotel and so has a pool, is absolutely lush... and only cost $12 a night. which is rad since i have almost no money left!

oh yeah, here´s a picture of the falls so you can get some idea of what they look like...

photos...

2005-10-21T05:56:00.000+10:00

I played in the snow here for ages...in my thongs! It´s actually right next to the international border crossing between Chile and Argentina in the Andes.

B. Aires...

A house in the La Boca area. It´s a realy working class area and quite dangerous. It´s also home of the Boca Juniors, a world famous soccer team. Huge shock, I´d never heard of them. Or their star player Marradona. Oops... the argentines don´t like to hear that!

Over the other end of town is fancy pants Recoletta. It´s home of most of the museums and any high end brand you can think of. It is also home to Recoletta cemetery, which is where Eva Peron is (contraversially) buried. Interesting story, remind me to tell you it sometime.

This is a giant flower in the city. It opens itself during the day and closes at night. It´s gorgeous and the best piece of art I´ve seen anywhere. I just liked it is all...

b.a.... still and wishfully forever...

2005-10-19T13:52:00.000+10:00

i love b.a. i could live here forever and ever. it is hip, comsmopolitan, jumping with people and irrespective of the fact that no one seems to sleep a great place to be. i've been here two days so far and have just partied the whole time. unfortunately i have to head back out of here tomorrow (but the falls are supposed to be phenomenal!) but i have to admit, i am dragging my feet a little about going. i have met so many cool people here. i'm staying at the hostel called milhouse - http://www.milhousehostel.com/ - and it absolutley rips it up. i'm sharing a room (amongst others) with kat from scotland and she cracks me up. We went out with a group of people last night and got home at about seven am this morning and then i sat around shooting the breeze with some other people for a couple of hours. about eight thirty it seemed like a good ifdea to grab a few hours sleep before my walking tour in boca today. boca was really cool, very vibey and funky, it's also crazy dangerous which is why i opted to do it in a tour with some other cool kids from my hostel. i didn't know anyone when we started but we're all having a hell of a time now. as i type it is one am the beers are flowing one (i admit i'm sipping mine much slower tonight!) and they're all shooting the breeze while the music is pumping. not a bad effort for a tuesday. from what i gather, it's an everyday thing...and all this after my tour today a little kip and then a two hour tango class. dancing with a variety of boys, some of them sizzling and some of them... erm... fizzling. but we all had a bit of a laugh and that's what it's about. tomorrow i'm off to have another look at recoleta (i already went once to check out the MALBA and the andy warhol exibition of silent films) but tomorrow i'm checking out the cemetery which houses eva peron's grave and getting a bit of history about that.

alright guys, the crew are still hanging but i think it's almost time i went to bed... ahh hell, someone just put greenday on... and now they're dancing. somehow i don't think it's going to quiet down for awhile! but i'll have a crack at sleeping and worst comes to worst... i'll come back and join the party.

stay safe guys, londoners... ONE WEEK BABIES!!! aussies, i love you, i miss you... *mwah* and well done chris on another fine australians win... yeah! and kiwi.... i now have comeplete undeniable proof that new zealanders can not tango. but that everyone knows about new zealand and cares about it far more than oz.... oh well, can't win them all! write me ay?

love
s xxx

p.s. rod and tate - i'll do some price lists when i hit london for everywhere i've been. assuming i have any money left to calculate after b.a!

b.a.

2005-10-18T03:36:00.000+10:00

hey guys have been transiting all over the place... saw some phenomenal mountains, played in some snow... went back and stayed with jose and sonya in santiago and met a really decent guy called matthew from phillidelphia. so all in all things are going pretty well. i've been busing and flying all over the place so i'm really glad to have two and a half days in b.a. just doing stuff, although it seems dismally short now that i'm here! then the next step from thsi is the iguazu falls, i'm not quite sure how that's going to go!

anyway, i'll check in tomorrow. good to hear from some of you :)
love,
simone

the case of the vanishing backpack...

2005-10-15T00:09:00.000+10:00

ok, we all love a mystery story, here´s mine...

i cross the border from bolivia into argentina, no worries. then i buy a ticket to salta, argentina... approximately 10 hours further south in argentina (let us also ponder that i have already been on a bus for 20 hours at this stage). i buy my ticket, hand over my backpack (as is customary) and ask, do i need a receipt? They scoff. "No" the woman in the office says, "this is ARGENTINA". "Ok", I think to myself, "back to toilets that take paper, food that is edible. this is argentina, that makes sense". So i merrily eat some food and jump on the bus. After a ride that wasn´t too chronic, (i mean hey, who doesn´t want to watch dodgeball in spanish, still funny in my book) I arrive in Salta. This is of course after we were stopped and searched for cocaine, where in I didn´t see my bag and i thought, "mmm, that´s a little weird". So i get off the bus and for once don´t make my usual mad rush for the toilet but rather wait patiently for my bag to be unloaded, and wait, and wait. I then explain to the guys that my bag isn´t there. So they point me in the direction of the office. who don´t give a damn. So i do what any girl with a lick of sense who has been wearing the same clothes for three days and who is vaugely starting to smell does. I gathered a posse. So i gathered together this group of about 8 guys who can speak some english and explained to them what had happened, and of course they are suitably upset for me and we got back to the office to find out what happened (because i figure, sure they can ignore me, but can they really ignore me AND 8 spanish speaking blokes... nope.) anyway, after much dilly dallying and arguing the guys in the office say that i have to ring the office in la quincintera (where i left from) gave me the number and showed me the door. THANK GOD for horatio. He rang them, talked to them, then followed up with them again when i was told i had to go back to the bus station an hour and a half later and then chased them down again this morning and then... hero that he is... got my bag back! after a day of "your bag´s not here" from both sides (and one woman at the company´s brilliant suggestion that it was my fault that i didn´t get off the bus at every town we stopped in to check if my bag was still there!) i am so relieved and grateful at this juncture that marraige to a 22 year old argentian who barely speaks english would be a great idea if he thought to ask! i had written off all my stuff and last night was so tired and frustrated i actually burst into tears in front of my posse. (Which i think is what spurred them on to finding the bag).

I still don´t know how they found it, or where it was, there in lies the mystery. But i tell you what, the beers are definitely on me tonight. And before you ask... yes the cost of replacing everything in the bag, including the bag.. would still be cheaper than the travel insurance. Though the beers may not be!

So mystery solved, i have my stuff back (it all still desperately smells and direly needs a wash, but i´m hoping that will take care of itself in b.a.). I´ll probably get a direct bus down there tomorrow. i was planning to leave salta tonight but i think i´ll stick around one more day to show the guys my appreciation. then down to b.a. for a few days, up to the iguazu falls and across to rio.

so what´s news with you? do let me know guys. as one friend said to me "my life is just the same..." doesn´t mean i don´t want to hear about it!

anyway, i´m off to see what´s good in salta, talk to you soon guys,
love
simone

sucre...

2005-10-12T22:09:00.000+10:00

ok folks, i'm still in sucre. which by south american standards is really beautiful. i've been here since last i wrote, partly because it's an enormous bus ride to get anywhere else, partly because i've met some really cool people here. i've been spending a lot of time with kate and alice, to girls from oxford, england. these girls are fun, they certainly know how to have a good time. we've been drinking cocktails, hanging out, watching movies and generally just shooting the breeze while we wait for alice and i to get our tummies in order.

sucre is, as i've mentioned previously, the constitutional capital of bolivia. all i take this to mean is that they get a fancy plaza and the people obviously have more money. there just isn't the same density of people, polution and of poverty that there is in la paz. and yet, it's still a lot of fun. we've been spending stupid amounts of time at this cafe called joyriders. fantastic movies, amazing food and great cocktails makes it my kind of place, plus they have a book exchange with things in english (plus the obligatrary german and dutch, who knew these two nations were so well read!), plus every gringo who comes to town inevitably comes to joyriders, the place is always packed and this is low season! i can only imagine what an absolute party it would be in high season. as it is the brits and i went to joyriders on sunday night, got a bit smashed and then headed out to this club called tropical, which was just bloody dire! the girls and i all got up and did some tragic kareoke, which was fine because we were the only people in the place!

anyway, i've had a small change in itinerary. instead of going all the way back to santiago from here i have decided to go straight through argintina and head to B.A. and then stick to the plan and head up to brazil. the reasons are mainly fiscal, it's much cheaper in argintina than chile and for the sake of a flight it will also save me time so i can do some more stuff. so i guess from here i'm heading to the border of bolivia, then changing buses there and heading to salta argintina, which i don't REALLY know anything about yet. but i guess i will by the time i get there!

i have another 13 days in south america, so i'm past the half way mark now and i've seen some cool stuff, but the coolest thing is the people. they're a bit more intent and serious than people travelling through europe (one reason i'll be infinetely glad to get to london) but they are all universally interesting, which of course makes me feel terminally boring! still, there ar esome definte cool characters, like in'bel who i'm hanging out with at the moment, she's 22, just spent the last month playing with a puma up at a nature reserve and has just come out of four years of working intelligence in the israelli army, oh and she has the largest stuffed toy collection known to man. how random! but she's lovely and has quite a quick wit. i went out with her and this dutch couple last night and it's an interesting concept to be sitting around a table conversing in english, knowing you're the only one who a) speaks it fluently
b) has it as a first language
don't get me wrong, they are so good at english, better than i am at dutch and hebrew! so i am eminitntlly grateful for their skills!

ok kids, i've got to go and sort some stuff and then i'm starting all my bus journeys tomorrow. be good!
love
simone

la paz...

2005-10-09T02:05:00.000+10:00

hey folks, still in la paz but feeling a lot better now. turns out that friday night in la paz is the time for mayhem! today i went and checked out the main church in town and it was garishly religious. if they ripped down all the gilded gold maybe then bolivia wouldn´t be in so much debt and poverty! it´s been pretty good this morning though. i had an empanada for breakfast and a tuna sandwitch for lunch.. and it actually looked like it was meant to! believe me, that´s a big deal! the main food here is deep friend chicken and chips and if i have to eat it one more time i will spew. everywhere... that is not a threat, it´s a promise! they have these big chunky deep fried chips with everything here, and a serve of rice. i´m used to it now. i don´t know what my life is going to be like when i order spagetti bolenganse and don´t get chips and rice with it. all on one plate. mmm, tasty.

so today i checked out the witch´s market. yes, as in the type that ride on a broomstick. turns out you can buy spells and potions and all sorts of things. maybe i´ll buy a love potion, or a dried llama feotus, apparently it wards bad spirits away from your house. i would bet guests and salesmen too! these things are pretty ugly, i´ll try and get a photo of one, but the last thing i want to do is make a bolivian witch cross! ordinary bolivian women are scary enough! i love the clothes they wear though... they wear flat court shoes, a big foofy skirt (called a polletra or chicken cage), a t-shirt, a cardigan and a bowler hat. yep, like a bowler hat! they also usually wear a big piece of cloth that ties together around their back like a hammock, but they use it to carry stuff in, including their children! every now and again you´ll hear one of the back sacks crying! originally i thought these outfits were just for the tourists, but it´s not true. they do everything in them from the farming to playing football! i want one of the skirts, but at $95 US, i can live with out it!

ok, the future... i think i´m going to head to sucre tonight (see if i can get on overnight bus so i don´t have to pay for another night´s accomadation) which is the real capital of bolivia. (la paz is the de facto capital), it´s also home to some mighty fine chocolate. then to salta in argentina, which is supposed to be a swinging little town.

anyway, scott has started wandering into the street (which oddly he does whenever he feels it´s time to move on!) so i´d better pay my 1 boliviano and motor.

talk to you soon guys,
love,
simone

bolivia...

2005-10-08T08:30:00.000+10:00

hey guys i´m in La Paz, Bolivia at the moment. what can i say, i was in puno and decided that i´d had quite enough of being in peru and that iwasn´t totally enjoying the tourist experience so i decided to take a walk on the wild side and come to bolivia. and the wild side is completely apt. this is the south america that everyone is worried about. it´s poor, it´s dirty, the food isn´t that crash and the traffic is absolutely insane. the shoeshine boys here (and they´re everywhere in south america) wear balakavas and hats to hide their identity. so there are all these young men running around and all you can see are their two eye holes. they do it because they´re working to support their family or to finance their educations and there is a huge social stigmatism attached to it, so they prefer to be totally anonamous. which doesn´t make them look any less ominous! i feel a lot better about being here because i met up with another aussie who is helping me out. he´s called scott is 28, married (so no cracks please guys!) and he´s been travelling around since april. his wife has gone back to london to get them set up again but he´s still cruising around. a fact that i am eminitly grateful for! he speaks spanish and is fun so we spent yesterday hanging out in copacobana (not the brazillian beach or the hottest place north of havana) but rather a quaint little town on the shore of lake titicaca. where life is cheap! and now coming to la paz and having to pay a stack of cash for things again i am not well pleased! i had a really great time in copacobana and i´ve really enjoyed the travelling around bit, rustic buses where your luggage is strapped to the top of the bus, a boat across lake titicaca and more buses and taxis!

anyway, i´m going to stick it out in la paz for a few days and see how it goes. if it gets a bit much here i´ll head back down to argintina and then to santiago in chile, where i have to be by the 17th anyway!

ok, i´m out guys.. talk to you soon,
love,
simone x

machu pichu and puno...

2005-10-06T03:55:00.000+10:00

so i went to machu pichu, clambered around it at six in the morning, and it was breath taking and beautiful. we were the first people there and nilo our guide was just fantastic telling us stories about the site and the people who lived there. it was so serene and beautiful. the fact that the whole site was built by hand is just amazing.

anyway, i spent two hours just walking around inside the site being absolutely awestruck and then the colarado girls announce that they´re going to hike up Huayna Picchu, this mountain at the back of the site which leads to the temple of the moon. I decide to do it too (only not with them because they´re all incredibly good hikers!) so set out on my own, the 23rd person on the mountain. This thing was so damn hard! The mountain summit comes in at just under 3000m, at some stages it is just bare arse rock and you have to climb up with your hands, sometimes there´s a rope to help you. Right up the top you have to climb these stairs that are about 15cms wide and there´s nothing there to help you. If you fall, that´s it, you go right off the mountain. I was so genuinely scared at that point that i wondered what the hell I was doing and knew intrinsicly this was by far the stupidest thing i had ever done! Three people died on Huayna Picchu last year, one woman got bitten by a poisonous snake, one woman fell off the mountain (i took a few slides i totally see how that happened!) and one guy had a heart attack getting to the summit. It took me two hours to reach the summit and it was phenomenally scary! i kept passing all these people who had to stop because they were suffering from vertigo. I´m glad i didn´t go with the girls because they made it to the top in an hour... i´d have died for sure!

Anyway, i got to the top and was monumentally proud of myself and then realised something that hadn´t occured to me before... how the hell was i going to get down again. Now i´m not going to lie to you, i did consider just staying up there and becoming the wise woman of Huayna Picchu, but considering that all i had to sustain me was three vegemite rolls and a handfull of lollies, i thought i´d better work out how to get down. It was so frightening! Coming up you don´t realise how steep, narrow and slippery it is. You bloody do coming down! So that took, me two hours too... i am nothing if not consistent!

Yesterday i caught the six hour bus to Puno, which is on the shore of Lake Titicaca (go on, get your giggles out now, i´m going to be saying it quite a lot in the next few days!). For those in the know, Puno is just like Padang. If the people here didn´t speak Spanish and spoke Bahasa instead you´d think it was the same town. Very weird. But it´s more like the South America I thought i was going to encounter than anything else so far. It´s poor, dirty and politically aware, but happy all the same. So I tried to walk around Puno yesterady and realise i physically couldn´t, so ihad a rest day in Puno today. I also got bitten by heaps of sandflys in Machu Pichu, so that coupled with the cold, soreness and the fact that my discman has mysteriously stopped working, i needed a day to just be quiet and do nothing! So, i´m ok now, and i´ll head off to the lake tomorrow.

Oh, some other things...
Slater: Congrats! When´s the wedding?
Kelly and Shane: Thanks for reading the blog, i miss you guys :)
Alex: I´m glad you have nothing better to do than mess about on the internet, reading my blog. At least it´s consistant with every other job i´ve known you to have :P
Andre: You´re mad bird, check your inbox.

I miss you guys heaps. Being away has made me think a few things through and I think this might be my last big trip for awhile and i´m going to join the landed gentry in a year or so. With a bit of luck. OK, a last few photos and i´ll talk to you guys soon...

Part of Machu Pichu as seen from Huayna Picchu.

Me, on top of a mountain. I was sitting where the guy in the green t-shirt is, quickly realised i didn´t have a death wish and so got down!

I saw this at Machu Pichu while i was hiking around. Is it a rabbit? Is it a squirel? Is it a possum? A dollar to the genius who works it out!

some photos...

2005-10-06T03:27:00.000+10:00

This is the Moreno Glacier...

And me sitting on a log in front of it. The thing about traveling alone is that everyone seems to want to take your photo, especially the Sth Americans!

This one´s for you Zac... a llama! Actually it´s a gunaco, which is another breed of camelid. For more information about the difference try this link...

http://www.llama.co.uk/guanaco.htm

This is coca tea... mate´de coca.

i love coca tea...

2005-10-03T09:26:00.000+10:00

i love coca tea, basically for three reasons:

1) it tastes good
2) it´s the same leaf they make cocaine from (and that´s a cool claim to fame)
3) it beats altitude sickness

what´s not to love?

i´ve been suffering really badly from altitude sickness lately, in essence because cuzco sits 4000 miles above sea level. but gee it´s a hell of a town. i´ve met so many trippy people in cuzco. most of them americans!
the boston boys; jason, tom and blair... so funny! we went out for tea and drinks in cuzco and they were so laid back and a lot of fun. they just got back from exploring easter island. the lucky things. wish i´d thought of that! it was just really nice to sit down to dinner and shoot the breeze and have a couple of beers and take it easy. i´ve been pushing really hard lately because there´s so much to do here, but now i´ve had a few days to take it easy i feel much better. (except for my cold, i blow my nose about 850 times a day. at least!)
anyway...

jason from washington d.c; jason is 21 and this is his first trip o-s. he´s been reading all these books about mythology and he said something really profound to me the other night. he told me that he´s look for his animal skin, a la´ hercules. he told me flat out that he´s on a quest. i love that. so i had a think about what i´m questing for... i came up with it. i know this is the thing my likfe has been missing. paddington bear! he´s from deepest darkest peru but i can´t find him or his relatives anywhere! so i will find him, he is my fleece :) ok maybe not, but i´ll find something i hope...

and then...
the colarado girls;
i actually met them not in cuzco but where i am now. we´re heading up to machu pichu tomorrow and we´ve spent some time chilling and stuff today. they´re a lot of fun, it´s good to hang out with girls. although i am suprised by the number of chicks my age traveling south america, some of them alone like me and they haven´t had any trouble either. south america is awesome. it´s much easier to manage than i had anticipated and i´ve really enjoyed everything so far.

there are only three things that really anren´t so crash about south america, particullarly peru.

the poverty: is absolutely heart breaking. particullarly in cuzco, kids who are hawking things in the street to make enough money to pay for somewhere to sleep and the money to pay their school fees. a lot of them live in a local orphanage, but they have to pay their own keep there, so they have no choice but to work. i´ve donated a lot of money to various kids over the last few days, but it makes e so frustrated that i can´t do anything else about it.

the showers: i have had two hot showers the whole time i´ve been gone. this is not good for my soul as anyone who has lived with me can attest, i shower about three times a day. not so in south america.

the toilets: peruvians use toilet paper... HOORAY! however the surage system can´t handle the paper, so it goes into a handy dandy little bin next to the toilets. and they smell! bad... really bad kid!

other than that everything is peachy keen. the people here gringos and peruvians alike are lovely, warm, friendly and fun. the scenery is amazing! i went to the hot springs this afternoon (ok, spade a shovel, the tepid springs) and just layed there looking at the mountains and the clouds rolling in and hearing the river crashing over the rocks. very zen. there is a lot to love about this place.

anyway, i´d better motor. i have a meeting with my tour guide for tomorrow in an hour and i have to work up the nerve for a much needed cold shower. and of course a cup of coca tea never goes astray ;)

let me know if you´re reading this hey guys? and mum, did you post my police check thing? isit back? did you send it to andre? (a, my mum´s sending you something for me.. ok? thanks bird :P)

talk to you soon,
love
simone xxx

cuzco...

2005-10-01T06:04:00.000+10:00

i´ve now been awake for 36 hours. i´m light headed and naeusas from the altitude. i´ve got to get some mate´del coca into me to beat the altitude sickness. i feel like i´ve got the worst hang over ever. this is not OK! but on the up side, i am in cuzco which is the kick off point to machu pichu and the sacred valley. i´m heading to machu pichu on sunday, and it´s costing a big old stack of cash. am slightly startingto worry about my finances. i seem to be about $300 short, i think there may have been a problem with my last bit of pay from bellarine, hopefully it´s just still being transfered. but i somehowsense this might be a bit of an idle dream. anyway, if things start to look a bit too skint i´ll head down to santiago and crash out with sonya and vanessa. i know they´d be wrapped by that.

anyway, i´ve got to hit the hay,just thought i´dlet you know i´m alive and well(ish!),

talk you you soon ay?
love,
simone x

moreno glacier and torres del paine

2005-09-29T09:04:00.000+10:00

when i grow up i want to be an iceberg. seriously. i have seen some mega super awesome icebergs in the last few days. or a llama. they´re so cool. and pretty. and they walk funny.

ok, first things first. i went to el calafate in argentina. it´s a swinging little town. it looks very european, like a little austrian ski chalet village. except of course everyone speaks spanish. anyway, i spent a few hours (six to be exact) going between chile and argentina ended up in a room in calafate. the next morning we cruised to perito moreno glacier. it´s SO big. 60 meters high and 4.5 kilometers wide, this iceberg covers 642 square kms. we´re talking seriously big. and it calves (drops) ice and i saw it do it heaps. you see the ice fall then you hear the sound of it and it´s like a huge rumble of thunder. amazing.

so in the morning we went for this massive two hour hike that involved scrambling over rocks and through mud... i choose to think of it as expanding my physical repitore to gain visualistic gain, rather than slogging my guts out for a view. both are technically accurate. anyway, it was good.

in the afternoon we took a boat cruise on the lake with the iceberg in it. OH MY GOD! so good! freezing cold with a mega wind chill factor, but so amazing, we were so close to the glacier. and then it calved right in front of the boat. of course my digi cam which had been switched on all day, just happened to be switched off. dammit. but it was cool, take my word for it.

anyway, last night i spent another night in calafate and headed back towards peurto natales today. except i get to the border between argentina and chile (which p.s. is in the middle of NO WHERE!) and swa to the right bus and this guy hands me a form and says here you need to fill this in to get into the national park. so i explain to his very nicely that i am in fact not going to torres del paine but rather back to natales. he says "do you wnat to come anyway? i´ll take you back to natales with the rest of the group tonight". OK! like i´m going to refuse a free tour anywhere let alone to somewhere amazing that i wanted to go but thought i was going to miss.

torres del paine is gorgeous. we saw little icebergs, i got to hold a huge chunk of ice that had calved off it, see a massive waterfall, get close to some llamas(although they´re a slightly different breed and called something else here), see this bird that is like the cousin of the emu, some condors and get really close to a grey fox. such a nice day. there are paths that people trek for days around the lakes and mountains of the park and to the torres themselves (three huge granite pillars) but one day was enough for me. it´s a pretty hardcore kind of place.

anyway, i´m staying one more naight in natales and then flying off to santiago and lima tomorrow from punta arenas (for those of you playing on the map at home). i´m going to try and score a flight to cuzco from lima rather than get the bus. for the simple reason being that i´m stupid and didn´t realise that particular bus takes 30 hours. and it´s 1 hour to fly. so, i´m trying to use my spanglish to navigate a cheap deal tomorrow.

keep your fingers crossed for me kids!

ok, i´m off to eat some empanadas, drink some mate and dream about becoming an iceberg... or a llama.

see you soon guys,
love,
simone xxx

Patagonia...

2005-09-27T01:09:00.000+10:00

ok, let me tell you something interesting using my now very fluent and extensive chilean slang spanish. the word patagonia can be broken down into two parts the first being "pata" which is slang for foot, ergo "gonia" must be spanish for biggest damn thing i`ve ever seen in my whole entire life. see, my spanish is flawless.

in fact i´ve been having a go at more and more spanish. people still look at me like am an idiot but at least now they´re smiling endearingly as they do it. so that´s something at least.

anyway, back to patagonia, aka the biggest thing known to man. i´ve landed in puerto natales which is a charming little town. there is literally nothing here. except... this enromous series of snow capped mountains that sweep down into the sea.

pretty neat, huh?

it is breath takingly beautiful here. crazy cold too. not so much when you´re just cruising around, but standing on the pier looking out to the sea and the mountains it is bitter. the problem is not the climate, but the wind! being at the bottom of south america peurto natales gets wind from everywhere except the north and a hell of a lot of the stuff from antarctica, which isn´t that far from here. it´s so beautiful here it makes me wish that i was a better author or a poet laurate so that i could adequetly express this place. if i could write a book about anywhere it would be patagonia. even the people here are something else. take for example rustilon, awn american guy who owns the hostel i´m staying in. not only does he run a hostel, he writes the local forgien language newspaper and is a treasure hunter. i kid you not, a treasure hunter. like he goes down to this place where thousands of shipwreaks happended at the bottom of chile and he is salvaging stuff from there. how random. and more than that, this is a serious business claim down here. how can stuff like that happen in real life? this place is the stuff of movies, and beyond that these people make you believe that things like that are viable. these are the most charsmatic men (there are less women here) i´ve met in my life. they are dreamers and drifters, people with big lives, stories and visions. they are amazing. makes me wonder how i got to be here!

there is a baby, she´s about three years old sitting next to me, babbling away at me in spanish. i can´t understand a damn word she´s saying but she is the cutest thing i have ever seen in my whole entire life. she just took her gum out of her mouth and offered it to me. eww and aww, all at once. she just climbed up onto my lap and got me to do up her shoe lace. her parents are sitting right next to me and they´re not worried. so chilled out. i could live here. it´s such a simple way of life.

the people i´ve met have been so interesting and gracious. all i heard aboutt before i came was how dangerous and unhospitable south america was going to be. bollocks. every person i´ve met and seen has been so kind and wonderful. they would give you the shirt off their back if they thought you needed it. i certainly hope that as tourism down here increases (and it will) that this place doesn´t lose its innocence.

now a few little notes:
lisa, the men here are so cute! but not for me. they´re very charismatic and charming. i think patagoina is the place for you. there´s even cows here if you´re thinking of running a bovine cultural exchange program.

tate, on big trip south america if you don´t come here and do torres del paine and the moreno glacier, i will have you killed. like, killed. you´ll love it. stay at this hostel, it´s awesome. best deal in town...
it´s called erratic rock, here´s the details
http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/ErraticRockHostel-PuertoNatales-9120?

to everyone else... thanks for your emails and so on. they´re awesome. i´ll get back to them as i can. off to el carafte this arvo and the moreno glacier tomorrow. ´let you know how it goes.

love you guys,
simone

Santiago and Punta Arenas

2005-09-25T06:01:00.000+10:00

hey guys,
so i´m still alive! who´d have thunk it? actually, it´s all going really well. i´m in chile at the moment (obviously) and things haven´t been anywhere near as hard as i thought they would be. i have to admit i was FREAKING out for a little while there, but i stand corrected. the reason it´s been good is because of the people i´ve met. they are so bright, friendly and kind.

i came into santiago yesterday after 20 hours in transit (god i´m an awful human being after that!) and then had to find my way in the center of santiago. managed to get my way onto a bus, no problem and then struck up conversation with the chilean girls in front of me. luckily they both speak some english and we got along really well. sonya and vanessa (the girls) agreed to help me find where to get off the bus, they said they were going where i had to go anyway so they´d come with me. ripper. so we´re chatting and laughing and sonya asks me where i´m planning to stay. so i tell her. and she gets this REALLY worried look on her face and says to me, "show me your list, you´re not staying there, it´s dangerous". i happily obliged. so she and vanessa argue the relative merits of the places and come to the conclusion that i should stay at sonya´s place. anyway, i was a bit worried of inconviencing her at first, but she seemed legit so i agreed. sonya lives with her husband jose and 11 year old daughter. they are the loveliest family i´ve ever met. took me in, fed me chilean food and put me up for the night. the girls and i went out and had some beers in town and then jose organised a realy cheap and safe connection to the airport today. such lovely people. good fun too. but totally safe, so don´t worry!

anyway, next time i stay in santiago i´ll stay with them again.

this morning i headed down to punta arenas... which in the immortal words of paul keating is "the arse end of the world". it seems ok though. i´m using it as a kick off point to go and see the ice glaciers. the flight into here is amazing though. you fly over patagonia which is in essence, bare, hardarse rock with nothing on them except the occasional snow capped mountain. and it is HUGE! the only this you can see for hundreds of kilometers flying in is rock and the shadows of the clouds on them. just amazing. a bit change t o flying out of santiago where you are literally flying about the clouds next to the andes. they are enormous. everything is in south america i think. the lakes too, massive.

anyway, for those of you playing at home my next steps are:
peurto natales
el cafare (argintina)
monegro glacier
and then back again because then i fly back to santiago.

anyway, get or keep in touch and let me know if you´re reading the blog and how thing are OZ side. most importantly, who won the grand final? i bet a dollar it was sydney.

i´ll get in tough again soon,
love,
simone

Auckland...

2005-09-23T14:08:00.000+10:00

damn! wrote a clever, witty post... lost it. dumb bum!

am safe and well in transit through nz. saw the bay of islands as we flew in... SO BEAUTIFUL. am really looking forward to spending some time here in may.

so i'm six hours in, my butt hurts, i'm crampy but i am content and better educated. i've bought some brain food (animal farm - geroge orwell and the great gatsby) to keep me entertained. i read animal farm between sydney and auckland. great read 4 stars. very interesting and thought provoking. next time on oprah's book club i'll give you the other. speaking of i picked up anna kerenina, then put it down because it looked too hard!

anyway, only 12 hours to go... i'll keep you informed.
yours,
simone

p.s. i miss you guys already! :)

Itinerary

2005-09-14T10:58:00.000+10:00

23 SEP 05 - DEPART - MELBOURNE/TULLAMARINE

23 SEP 05 - DEPART - SYDNEY/SYDNEY KINGSFORD (Transit)

24SEP 05 - DEPART - SANTIAGO/ARTURO MERINO

24 SEP 05 - ARRIVE - PUNTA ARENAS/PRESIDENTE (Here be iceburgs!)

29 SEP 05 - ARRIVE - SANTIAGO/ARTURO MERINO

29SEP 05 - DEPART - SANTIAGO/ARTURO MERINO

29 SEP 05 - ARRIVE - LIMA (Make my way back overland to...)

17 OCT 05 - DEPART - SANTIAGO/ARTURO MERINO

24 OCT 05 - DEPART - RIO DE JANEIRO/RIO INTE

15DEC 05 - DEPART - LONDON/HEATHROW

22DEC 05 - DEPART - ST PETERSBURG/PULKOVO (Just for a little mini break)

30 DEC 05 - DEPART - LONDON/HEATHROW

31 DEC 05 - ARRIVE - BANGKOK/BANGKOK INTL AR (Andre and I will muck about overland and head to...)

13APR 06 - DEPART - DENPASAR/NGURAH RAI ARP

13APR 06 - DEPART - HONG KONG/HONG KONG INT (date potentially to be changed)

21APR 06 - DEPART - CHRISTCHURCH/CHRISTCHUR

22APR 06 - ARRIVE - MELBOURNE (actual arrival date in melbourne is 15th of May 2006)

The Dark Side...

2005-09-13T05:35:00.000+10:00

Ok, i admit it... hand me the Djionaise, I'm about to eat my hat. I, Simone Alexander, staunch anti-blog campaigner, have joined the dark side. I apologise...

So, welcome to my blog, which as the best of IT geeks have informed me is a much more practical and hassle free way to send people information about my big trip. I'm not overly sure that anyone really cares about it, but Andy assures me that much in the style of an outdated Kevin Cosner film "If i write it, they will come". Or something...

Ok, so here's the deal... I'm going OS, and not as my title wittily suggests, for eighty days, but rather for eight months. "Hmm", I hear you say, "that sounds like rather a long time, are you prepared for this?", the answer is undeniably, unequivicobly, no. Absolutely shagging not. I'm heading to South America first up. And do you think I can speak Spanish... ummm... nope. I can say "The room is infested with rats" and "I'm pregnant"... but hopeful one isn't related to the other.... ewww weird rat babies. That's gross, and yet, kinda cool. Nope, the verdict is in... that's gross.

So, South America. Here's what i know so far:
1) it can be both very hot and very cold
2) it's big. Like crazy big.
3) most places speak Spanish. Except for Brazil, which speak Portuguese.
4) under no circumstances will i be indulging in a brazillan wax. I just wanted to get that idea over and out of everyone's brain before it became an issue.

Other than that... i'm not sure what's going to happen. I'll put up another posting with an itinerary and stuff so that you'll know where i'll be, then you'll know as much as i do.

Anyway, let me know if you like the blog. Will you read it? I'm normally a mad journal writer, but I think this blog thing is worth a go.

Catch you on the flip side,
simone

*Disclaimer* The author is in no way to be held responsible for any mistakes (spelling, grammatical, conceptial iadeas or otherwise) contained in this blog. And please don't tease her.. she cries easily.