Perfect Perth

View of the City from King's Park

As my first point of contact with Australia, and my home away from home, I believe I will always be biased towards Perth and Western Australia in general – I don’t believe I have ever been anywhere more beautiful though.

As a city, Perth does not necessarily tick all my boxes – it isn’t like Galway or Melbourne, but it is the second city I have ever lived in and it is the first city I have done the commuter thing in so I will always remember and love it for that. The museum is nice, and it’s good for shopping. It has a crisp, new air about it and now with the big cactus-esque statue in Forrest Place it has a really modern feel mixed and in contrast with buildings like the Train Station.

I spent my first few weeks in Perth settling in and spending time with Baby Aidan, Lena and Ian. I minded Aidan then when Lena went back to work. I had my lovely pre-made group of friends from Thailand to which my Marion was added so everything was perfect.

As well as hanging out and going out and playing with Aidan, I am lucky to have a sister and brother in law that brought me to see so many beautiful places. One of the most amazing was Bunker Bay. We stayed there at the resort for one night and I think it was one of the nicest resorts I’ve ever stayed in! I minded Aidan when they went to a wedding. I got up bright and early the next day for a swim in the pool and a walk on the beach. In just the last week, a surfer was killed by a shark at Bunker Bay; it is so sad and upsetting that such tragedy can take place somewhere so beautiful.

We then went on a mini winery tour which was my first but would not be my last!












When Jen moved over out of the blue, Lena brought us on another mini winery tour of the Swan Valley. I  loved the Feral Brewery and the little small winery on the way of the road whose name I can't remember but will find out!

Myself, Jen and Marion went to Rottnest Island for a day just before the weather broke for Autumn. It was beautiful, we met some Quokas and cycled around, what we thought was, most of the island. When myself and Séamus revisited months later and actually cycled around the full 17kms of the Island I realised how little ground myself and the girls actually covered. Rottnest Island is very different now to the Island it was a hundred years ago - it was originally populated as a prison island for Aboriginal prisoners. The living conditions were dire, but similar to any prisons for natives in new colonies. Now the Island is mainly a tourist attraction, but there is still friction, as there is all over Australia as a result of old customs and traditions and merging into a Modern multicultural non-descriminatory society. 

Another great day was spent at Caversham Wildlife Park, a place I also revisited with Séamus. I got to see Kangaroos and feed them and see a real-life Koala for the first time.

I also took a trip in a kayak with five others to Penguin Island. The little baby penguins were incredibly cute and as it turns out, Penguin Island is also one of the largest Pelican breading colonies in WA.

After six weeks of chilling in Perth I set off on my adventure around Australia. I returned with Séamus in June and spent a further few weeks helping with Aidan before going to Bali to change my Tourist Visa to a Working Holiday Visa and here I am; six weeks on and I’m working in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia and loving it.

 

 Life as a commuter suits me, I get to read my book for two hours a day; commuting in Perth would suit anyone. The transport system is the best I've ever been on - not that buses are always on time, but that it is all completely synchonised and one ticket can be used on bus, train and ferries. Dublin City take note!! 

Perth would be a perfect place to raise a family - each suburb has numerous parks and the weather suits for outdoor activities almost all year round. 

My life in Perth is very different to my backpacking life around Oz; I am cleaner and more organised and I go to bed at a resonable hour and I only drink at weekends, but I love it all the same and I am very grateful for the chance to spend some long overdue time with my lovely sister and to make sure my Godson knows me as well as a one year old possibly can.

I'll be sad to leave at the end of October for sure.


I'm absolutely positive I have left much out of this and one thing that comes to mind is FREO! Another post soon...

To Come...

Sunrise on Occasional Island, Lake Argyle, Kimberly, WA

Posts in the pipeline:

Perfect Perth including Caversham Wildlife park, Rottnest Island and some breweries


The Tour Files:
Kimberley Adventure Tours - Broome to Darwin
Groovy Grape - The Great Ocean Road
Western Xposure - Perth to Exmouth.

Bali on A Budget. 

I shall be up to date by October, and that is a promise to myself!

Le Grá,

Gabberific x

Sydney- One cold Hotspot.

I got a shock when I got off the plane in Sydney.  I’m not usually one to chase the sun, but it’s almost like that’s what I’ve been doing in Australia so far. Sydney, when I arrived was fifteen degrees, and it was a severe shock to my body coming from thirty degrees. On my first day I bought a coat. On my second I bought gloves and a pie to keep warm. I really had to cop myself on then and realise that I am Irish and that fifteen degrees should not affect me like this, I am not Austrian. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one affected by the cold in my hostel, maybe it was the hostel and not the cold, but four out of six of us in my room were sick by the day I left.

Though I’m not usually one to locate the nearest Irish bar and hibernate there, when the girls in my room invited me out one night to O’Malley’s I couldn’t say no. I went out that night with quite a culturally diverse group – two Germans, a French, a Taiwanese and me, an Irish. I don’t actually think there were any other Irish people in my hostel. 

I was lucky to be able to meet up with my friend Leo, though just for Pizza and also with Kaie, both on the same night as it happened. My meeting with Leo was brief because Kaie was arriving that evening just for an hour, but we caught up all the same and he was still the bubble of amazingness I remembered. I’m hoping another meeting will happen before he goes home! I met Kaie at Circular Quay, and it was the first time I’d actually seen the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I was exceptionally lucky that the Vivid light festival was taking place over the time I was in Sydney, so I got to see the Opera house lit up and beautiful four nights in total.

When Séamus arrived, jetlagged as he was, we did a tour of the Opera house which was very interesting and I would recommend it to anyone, it was well worth the money. Another touristy recommendation I have is to do the walking tour that leaves from the Anchor by Town Hall; it was absolutely brilliant. It was refreshing to have a guide, who was actually from the city and was very passionate about its history.

Because of the weather, most of the sites were less impressive than if it had been sunny, having said that, Sydney was a great city and, as with Darwin, I’m looking forward to returning! One thing I didn’t find, and had expected, was for the people not to be as helpful or friendly as in the other smaller cities. Everyone was lovely, a common trait I’m coming across in most Australians I meet!

Darwin - Detoxes and Distractions.

My Darwin experience was different to my other stays in my various other stops. Arriving smelling like the outback at 7pm in the evening to a room about the size of a camper van didn’t help I suppose. I think what made Darwin different for me was that when I arrived I already had friends – I had planned to meet all of my KAT friends that night in the Youth Shack for one last hurrah. As a result, I was in and out of my hostel within an hour of arriving. I didn’t even get the names of the two people I’d spoken to in my room (later I found out they were Liam from Co. Down and, I’m taking a guess at, Dutch Monique). In most other places I had made friends with people in my hostel or in my room on the first day, but here in Darwin it wasn’t until my fifth day that I made an effort with my hostel buddies.

On my first night, like I said, I met the KAT gang at the Youth Shack for a tearful goodbye with Kaie, the Austrians and the Swiss. Myself, Amaya, Tom and Simon stayed out for an eventful late night, and I bumped into the lovely Brendan, one of the fabulous English I met in Broome. The next day, it was as if the tour was continuing when myself, Tom and Amaya piled into the car with our guide for the night, Simon, for a trip to the Mindle Beach Market.  We went out as a group again the next night and then, minus Amaya on the Saturday, myself and Tom helped Simon clean the car and trailer after our amazing trip. We thought after eight days of rolling swags every morning that we would fly them, turns out rolling nine swags between two of us in thirty degree heat was not as easy as rolling one at 6.30am when the sun is just up. We had fun that day, and minus falling down a little waterfall at Berry Spring into some rocks and hurting my ankle and bruising my legs, it was one of my funnest days in Darwin!

When Tom, Amaya and Simon departed on Sunday, I visited Brendan in the YHA, went to the Library, hung out a bit at the Waterfront and made friends with some lovely Irish girls (and one Irish boy).

The one thing that struck me about Darwin was the Irish population – it was full of them. I think, to get a proper view of Darwin and if I really like it or not, I need to go back, in the same way I need to go back to Adelaide. Maybe I didn’t warm to Darwin because I wanted a detox, and Darwin of all places is the last place you should plan a detox. Especially as an Irish Backpacker. 

Broometime

When I arrived at the airport in Broome, slightly tired after my last night in Adelaide I realised I had no contact number for my hostel, The Kimberly Klub, and no idea how to get to it. I saw a desk in the ‘Arrivals’ hall, which I learned was the same as the ‘Departures’ lounge,  that said ‘Shuttle Bus’ so I decided that was probably my safest bet. When I asked if the bus went to town, I was told it stopped in the centre at the Roebuck Hotel. The man at the desk then asked me where I was staying and scoffed at my wanting a taxi. His directions were ‘Out the gate, turn left, walk for ten minutes and it’s on the opposite side of the road when you come to a T-Junction’. His ten minutes was actually five. I’ve never been to an airport so close to a town. It was literally ten minutes from the centre, five minutes from the Kimberly Klub. A few days later I experienced the incoming and outgoing planes’ roar as they came in and out of town and soared low over the small town. It was surreal.

I arrived at the Kimberly Klub a little disorientated from the flight and the hour and a half time difference; checked into my room and quickly fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke, it was dark and I hadn’t changed the time on my phone (though I thought I had) so in my head I’d slept for about six hours and completely missed my first day in Broome. It turns out that by half past five the sun leaves Broome and it had actually only been about six o’ clock.

I got dressed, stumbled downstairs and realised that the only item of food I had to my name was a jar of Vegemite. I remembered then that the girl at the reception had told me that Woolies was only five minutes up the road. Two minutes up the pitch black road I realised that the notices about Broome not being safe after dark alone were not false and I legged it back to the KK and located the two friendliest faces in the bar – a blonde Dutch girl and a brunette named Julia from Switzerland. I asked them where I could get food and again they told me not to go anywhere alone. Then the Dutch girl said that they had dinner left over and that I could have that. I was more grateful for that vegetable curry than I had been for anything ever in my life.

After I finished, I went to join them in the bar. The Dutch girl left and myself and Julia had a beer and bonded over being left alone. That night we went out for a strange night which began with drinking a can in the car park (as with all YHA there is a strict no BYO policy so backpackers are forced to be inventive with places to drink cheaply). We then went to the windy Town Beach where we stayed for about an hour before nearly getting blown into the ocean. And so we piled into some guy’s camper; all millions of us and drove uncomfortably back to the KK.

The next day, myself and Julia adopted Jana, a German girl, and we went shopping and generally hung out together. My first trip to Cable Beach was with Jana and Scottish Lauren. It was the Beach you expect when you think of WA; deserted and beautiful with the odd naked person.

The night after my Cable Beach experience, I convinced an Aussie, Sniper, to bring myself and Jana, since we weren’t allowed walk alone and didn’t know the way anyway, to Murphy’s Irish Bar for Open Mic Night. We were late and missed all the bands, but had half an hour with the in-house Aboriginal band. Murphy’s (and actually Broome in general) was the only place so far in Australia that I’ve come across Australians and Aborigines hanging out together and socialising in the same places. I have to say I really liked it.

After that, my expected one and only night out in Broome, I spent my last expected actual day packing and hanging out in the KK. I had sent a bag to Darwin with my dresses and ‘nice’ clothes and kept all my ‘practical’ clothing for my tour to Darwin that was set to begin the next day, Thursday 12^th May.  I got a call, however, at 4pm on Wednesday 11^th May to say that my tour, that I’d booked  in March, had been somehow overbooked by one and that I was the only single traveller and therefore the only feasible person to make change tour dates (jeepers I felt special). So after the throwing around of many a possible arrangement, myself and Jen of Kimberley Adventure Tours settled that I would spend twelve more days in Broome and take the next tour from Broome with them – I was very generously compensated for the inconvenience (Thanks a mill KAT!) and am actually delighted I got to stay in one place a little longer than planned as I actually got to know and grew to love Broome.

The natural phenomenon of Staircase to the Moon took place on Wednesday 18^th and 19^th of May, another reason I’m grateful to KAT for messing up my tour dates is that I got to go to Town Beach and see it. We piled into two cars and trucked down to Town Beach. As we waited for the moon to show its face, we had a feeling we were missing something, that the moon was behind a tree on the other side of the beach, or that somehow it just wasn’t going to work. We were of course proven incorrect when the pinky orange moon peaking up over the horizon created exactly what it said on the tin – a staircase across the water to the moon. It was beautiful.  Broome is definitely, and rightly so, renowned for its natural phenomena – the beautiful sunsets at Cable Beach (I saw three) certainly rival any I’ve ever seen in the beauty stakes.

Looking back, and apart from go to the beach and attending the odd Wet T-shirt and Dance competition in Oasis, I actually didn’t do all that much in Broome. To be honest, I think that the fact that I stayed there sixteen days in total and actually had the chance to form (what I think were…) actual friendships is why I liked Broome so much!  I met some great Germans girls, some fabulous English and some amazing Aussies; some of these people I know I will see again, whether it’s on the East Coast of Oz, when they visit me in Ireland or I visit them in their native lands, I’m hopeful and looking forward to some serious shuffling at some amazing reunions! Oh how I miss you guys!

Adios Adelaide.

I arrived late on the first Thursday in May to Adelaide, and promptly got lost. I was tired after my three days on the Great Ocean Road see. Brenda came to my rescue and brought me to her cosy house on the Waterfront and made me feel right at home.

I have to be honest that Adelaide for me consisted of two (great, might I add) nights in JP O’Reilly’s and a very brief trip around the city!

It was a nice city, but I really didn’t get a proper feel for it as I only had one full day to explore and I didn’t do the city justice in this day of exploration.

Looks like I’ll just have to go back…

Melbourne Toast.

A word of advice, don’t fly Tiger Airways to Melbourne: From Avalon it takes a year to get to the city and the flights are at stupid o’clock. I arrived in my hostel in Melbourne, Collingwood Backpackers, at about 5am and, as was previously arranged, I spent my first night on the couch. This was to set the tone for my stay in Melbourne, which was nothing like any of my other experiences of the other places I’ve visited and this is mainly due to the Houseshare  hostel I stayed in. 

Collingwood Backpackers is not your average or normal hostel. There is no way you can compare it to a YHA or a standard hostel that has rules, because there really weren’t that many. In fact, right now the only rule I remember is that people didn’t smoke in the kitchen. And this may not have even been a rule but something people did out of courtesy. It’s a small hostel, with a kitchen that’s open 24hrs a day, extremely cheap wifi, and had the feel of a big house full of friends rather than a hostel.

I left Melbourne thinking I was going to go live in an Ashram and be a real-life hippy because of a great American girl, Arielle, who I met in my room on my first day. She brought me to the Hare Krishna kitchen that day and I ate the best curry I’d ever had (until my last day in Melbourne when I went back!) and a few days later, she brought me to Lentil as Anything, a pay what you think the meal is worth restaurant that was also veggie and gorgeous!

As well as finding my inner hippy, I found a little bit of home away from home by meeting Aoife and Paula from Athlone for a lovely day on a Roof in Melbourne; a day that continued for myself and Paula, and our new friend Leslie, from, as far as I can remember, Alabama, to a Burlesque club, Red Benny’s.

As well as dirty dancing and hippy living, I spent a day out in ST. Kilda, the backpacker hub of Melbourne. It was, as it promised, beautiful and eclectic and I really enjoyed it. St. Kilda wouldn’t be somewhere I myself would like to live, but I can see why so many people are drawn to it. 

My day in St. Kilda

I can’t really explain why I liked Melbourne so much, it wasn’t necessarily how it looked, it was more how it felt. As Paula said to me that day in Roof, the city has a heartbeat, and you can feel it.There's a really subltly nice atmosphere around the city that didn't feel too businessy or too hippy, just right for me.

I have to say, that Melbourne has been my favourite city so far in Australia and that I cannot wait to go back there…so much so I fly there on January fifth 2012!

Perth, the beginning and middle and turning point of my travels.

You'd think that because I've spent the bulk of my time here that it would be easy to verbalise how I feel about it. Well it's not.
So as I continue to try to write something about this city, my home away from home, I'll continue to post my journey leaving Perth out for the moment.
To Melbourne...

Bangkok: The Big Bang…The beginning and end of Southeast Asia.

Hmmm, where to start? 

I arrived in Bangkok for the first time on 13^th February 2011. I left it for the last time on 14^th March, the last of three trips to the city.

When I arrived I was tired, but not overly so, and overwhelmed, very much so. We were staying in China town, which happened as a result of Chinese whispers of a nice place to stay, whose name changed from one thing to another and as a result we ended up there.

I only had one night in Bangkok that first time, and we hit Khao San Road after a quick nap and a necessary shower. It was exactly how I had imagined as a twelve year old innocent little girl reading Alex Garland’s The Beach – dirty, busy and exciting. Apart from Khao San Road, I didn’t get a feel for the city until our third visit when we actually did some sightseeing. 

My second trip to the city came after the Paradise of Koh Tao and before the experience of Vietnam. We had more time this time. We went to the monstrous MBK shopping centre where I bought some Benefit that turned out to be fake. It was a fiver. I should have known. After an eventful night in the Khao San Inn, which included hearing some English boys abusing two Thai girls, and being confronted by the industry of prostitution on Khao San Road smack bang in the face, we jetted off to Hanoi early in the Morning of March 2^nd.

When we arrived back to Bangkok for our third and final visit, we knew we had to do some sightseeing and actually see some of the city that wasn’t Khao San Road or China Town. So we ventured to the Grand Palace, and grand it was. We went all around until we were bored, then we got the normal transport boat up and down the river for the afternoon; something I would recommend to anyone who ever thought about paying 400Baht for a tourist boat, as we paid a total of 13Baht each.  We experienced the sense of calm only present in a Bhuddist temple when we visited the Emerald Bhudda in the Grand Palace. It was the kind of peace that would make you think about all you believed in, all you didn’t believe, everything you’ve done in your life, things you will do, things you hope to do and nothing all at the same time. 

On our last day of our trip, we decided to pamper ourselves. So, with a total of €25 spent each, we got facials, massages, haircuts, manicures and fish pedicures. It was the sort of day that trips to Thailand have to include. Never at home would I dream of getting a facial, manicure and Fish Pedicure in one day. The fish were hilarious. Alice was off getting a Massage and Rach had gone for a stroll around our new favourite street, Rambuttri Road, when I put my feet into the tank of nibbling skin eaters. I squealed as only a big girl would. With one foot in for the first five minutes, I realised they weren’t going to eat my feet off so I put them both in and ‘relaxed’ to the ‘gentle’ vibration of creepy crawlies eating the dead skin off my heels, and from in between my toes. The result was well worth it though. My feet were baby soft even though I only spent 20 minutes in the tank – fifteen minutes of which I was on my own and five minutes of it I was accompanied by a South African who had been travelling in Asia for six months. They gave him all their love once he arrived, but they did a great job so I can’t really fault the little fishies. 

In general, Bangkok was an experience like no other. It will always be the first place in Asia on which I laid my feet. It will also be the only place, while riding in a Tuk Tuk from Khao San Road on my fist night, I turned to anyone and said, deadly seriously, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Asians’. It’s true, but I’ve seen far more now, and the novelty has worn off. I don’t like Bangkok in the way I liked Hanoi, but at the same time, it’s a fascinating city. It has the mandatory divide between rich backpacker and poor native that is so obvious around Thailand especially; it also has a feel of being one of the first points in backpacker history. Maybe I only see it this way because of its iconic description in Garland’s The Beach, or maybe it’s because it was always somewhere that I had heard of other people visiting but never thought I would, nor did I dream how comfortably at home I would feel in this Backpacker Heaven/Hell. 

Vietnam: Hanoi, Halong Bay and Hazes

We arrived in Hanoi to a chill. Having come from Bangkok, and being blissfully unaware of the distance we were travelling, we were greeted by weather in the teens, when we'd been used to late to mid thirties, and a foggy misty haze when we were used to cloudless blue skies. And we were starving, and we only had ten dollars between us along with a couple of hundred Thai Baht (which of course was useless). So we arrived to Hanoi Backpackers in Ma Mai and were surprised by what we found; a modern, clean and friendly hostel where we could feel at home. Unfortunately we couldn't check in straight away and after an hour in the rec room, we decided to go for a walk, get some money and eat some food.

The money situation didn’t exactly help us with the cold. We realised that not even Alice, whose bank card seemed fearlessly able to deal with ‘high risk’ countries, could take out enough money to pay for our hostel (that didn’t take credit card) and eat and pay for a trip to Halong Bay in one day. So we took out two million dong a day (about €67) until we had paid our debts. And that my friend is all I will say about our financial woes.

Having arrived so early on that dreary Monday morning, we decided we had to do our Halong Bay cruise the next day. We had initially wanted to do the two night one, but due to the money issue (oops, I mentioned it) we realised we couldn’t possible pay for it before leaving on the Friday morning at disgusting O’clock in the morning as there was no ATM in Halong Bay (obviously). 

We boarded the Jolly Roger bright (ok not so bright) and early on the Tuesday. The night before we bumped into a girl called Sinéad at the ATM (whilst we were discussing what to do) and as it happened she and her travelling partner, Rachael, had gone to the same school as us; of course Rachael had Mammy for English too; only re-iterating our previous thoughts that the world is too small…or The Bower is too big!

So they were our friends the next day too on our Halong Bay cruise. It began strangely when we realised our guide was a tool, but as soon as we stopped listening to him we began enjoying ourselves. I suppose I hadn’t realised what exactly I was missing with the bad fog blocking our view, but apparently there are thousands of islands in the Bay; we actually only saw the ones directly in front of us.

After people jumped into the freezing water, and froze a bit, we went kayaking. We went to, I think it was called, Dragon’s Cave. It was interesting but I couldn’t understand our Israeli* guide very well so I actually learned nothing. Then we kayaked around the corner and into a floating village. It was at this point I began to slightly regret my choice of kayak buddy. I cannot for the life of me remember his name but he was a charming enough English boy who’d just come from a big mad trek in Nepal. I chose him because we were supposed to go Girl/Boy to a kayak for strength’s sake and he had no partner and neither did I. Simples. His idea of fun, however, was paddling up to an innocent looking boy on one of the flotillas and saying hello. This ‘innocent’ little boy, with what was actually a vicious dog, then grabbed on to the front of our kayak and would not let go. It seems this was the little boy’s idea of fun. He seemed practiced at it too. After that incident, I was not going to take direction from my private schooled friend. We had our qualms about the way I paddled etc. but in general it was an enjoyable two hours.   

During Lunch I was displaced from our table due to dietary requirements and put sitting beside a hungover American named Leo. As a table we talked about X factor, pop music and Leo’s inability to get any decent British pop in the states. Oh and we also spoke about his love of Cheryl Cole. It was during this interesting conversation that it came out that Leo had been on American Idol two years previous and had made it as far as the cut off point for the live shows. He was officially my favourite person on the boat. Later that night, we coaxed Leo Marlowe into an impromptu live show for the Athlonians up in our room. He was awesome. I can’t wait to meet him again when I get to Sydney, where he is now, bartending, and by his Facebook statuses, he’s loving it!

That night, I was the only one of us who seemed to have a thirst, and after a disastrously awful game of Kings, after the live show, and after the girls went to bed, I stayed up a bit with some new friends; notably Leo (obviously), Leo’s friend Katrina who was teaching English in Bangkok and Polly, who was off to Chiang Mai to Meditate with Monks. 

The next day, we woke up ridiculously early to a noise we didn’t recognise – an alarm through a speaker on the boat. Half the tour went on to the bug island, whose name I can’t remember, to stay in shacks and be bitten alive, and we headed back to Hanoi with the Athlone girls and a gang of others.

We spent the next day, Thursday, in Hanoi itself. We were delighted we only stayed one night on the cruise because we got to spend a good day strolling around the French/Asian city. We went to the prison, but apart from that we just looked around the city. The French influence was so obvious, we couldn’t believe. It was like Paris, but with heaps of Asians. The atmosphere and the feeling of the city was just the break we needed from the hustling bustling Khao San Road of Bangkok (more of that later).

I forget most places we ate in Hanoi. But the food was lovely. I do remember Pineapple on our last night though. We had, because I had suggested, left it until the last night because it was very expensive (90,000 dong for a meal).

Hanoi and Halong Bay were just a brief taster of what Vietnam had to offer. I will return some day for sure to go south to Ho Chi Min and experience the rest of the fascinating country with its paddy fields and women with triangular hats. 

*I’ve spelled this word incorrectly my whole live. English degree, what English degree?

A little help...

My sister Aislinn and her Fiancé Robbie have entered the Golden Pages Golden Wedding Competition. Please please, anyone who stumbles upon this, give them a vite if you have no one else running in the compettion.
They really deserve it - they're currently trying to get their house together to be liveable in and save for the wedding at the same time; Aislinn is a trainee teacher and Robbie is an artist, whose work is amazing but it's not exactly a lucrative business in times of recession!
I'm completely helpless in the planning of the wedding because I'm on the wrong side of the world so I suppose this is me trying to make up for my absence!
It only takes a second, you just have to like this Facebook link. Simple.

Thanks in advance,
Gabberific xx

Aislinn and Robbie's Golden Wedding

Koh Tao: Paradise and Pyromania.

There is only one word to describe my twelve night stay in the paradise that is Koh Tao, and that word is fire.

Possible the best photo ever.

Our stay in Koh Tao can only be defined by the beautiful food and the fire show at Lotus Bar on Sairee Beach. And of course by the friends we made.
We got the boat from Koh Phangan, the fast one, on the Monday after Full Moon so that the Hangovers would be well and truly gone. At the port in Koh Phangan we bumped into three Irish boys, Damien (Damo), Diarmuid (Diarmo) and Khalid (Kylo), who we had met sporadically on Koh Phangan, and we saw them every night (and some days) until they left a week later. Though the boys were infinitely intrigued by our love of the fire, they willingly stuck by us through the buckets, the late night pancakes and the pork flavoured noodles. We were delighted to have met them again, not only becuase they kept us seats every night but because we got on like poi on fire.

Myo, playing with fire

It wasn't just the fire show that kept us going back to Lotus bar every night; we were enthralled by the lives of the burmese boys who threw it too. Nearly everyday we discovered more about their fascinating lives, lives that were so far removed from anything we knew ourselves. One, my personal favourite, had only been to school for two years, from the age of five to seven, and then worked with his family making some sort of fabric. He arrived in Koh Tao in 2006, with no English or Thai but with an English-Burmese dictionary. Though his English wasn't perfect, even in the two weeks we were there he always asked questions about words and was definitely extrememly interested in the language. On our last night, he told me that he wanted to perfect his English and move to Europe; his girlfriend was Swiss and Europe was his ultimate goal. He was twenty-one. I didn't really get to know the others as well, but each of them had their own unbelievably difficult stories; full of both sadness and quests for freedom at the same time. We became very good friends with one of their girlfriends, Libby. She was from London and was sweet and fun and we loved hanging out with her. She told us so many more stories about our new burmese friends that they didn't tell us that we felt like, I suppose, we knew them better than we actually did. That said, I still think we got a fair idea of how they lived and who they were and it was a fortnight that really, in the end, made me appreciate where I was born and the oppurtunities that have been awarded to me as a result.

It's not the first time this feeling has come over me, the feeling of absolute gratuity for my place of birth. It happened a few times on Koh Phangan as well, especially when we saw little children roaming the streets when we were walking from dinner to the beach or even from the beach home at the ungodly hours we did; another time was when myself and Rachael were on one of our walks and talks around Haad Rin and we saw how the locals lived in their little huts. Well, my face was green after the complaining we did about the proximity of the shower to the toilet in our bungalow, I'll tell you that.

Instead of spending my whole Koh Tao post talking about how bad I feel for the things I have, I will be utterly selfish and also tell you all a little about the FOOD we ate on Koh Tao. And beautiful food it was. We ate in Sairee Cottage Restaurant on our first night, where I sampled my first (and last) Penang Curry. It was too spicy and sufficed to say I was unable to attend the fire show that night! On our third night, Claire's last night, we ate in The White Elephant, which was definitely one of our favourite restaurants. Our other favourites were our expensive Italian Portobello and the delicious Fizz which we returned to twice, but only discovered during our second week, even though we walked by it every day. The day of Claire's departure, we decided to eat close enough to the fire show so that we would get there early. We settled on Blue Wind where we'd had cocktails that afternoon. The food was beautiful, Massaman Curries all round, but it took almost an hour for us to get our meals so our ploy to be early for Fire show was kaput.

On the plus side, that night we met Barney, the barrister from London. He did what I hope if I ever need to do I will be able; he appraoched our group as we ate. He was over in Koh Tao after spending a few days in Koh Samui with his mum. He was learning to dive. He joined us, even after our rudeness of leaving him mid-meal to leg it to the fire show, each night of the three nights of his stay. We had fun with Barney and were delighted he approached us that night. We even got to meet his mum, and even she stayed an extra night on Koh Tao.

Which I suppose brings me to the explanation of why we stayed so long when initially our time on Koh Tao was supposed to fit in Chiang Mai as well. You see, Koh Tao is an island people go to for a week and stay three years. Take Libby for instance. She was on her gap year, travelling the world. Thailand was one of her first stops. And she stayed on Koh Tao a whole year. People stay for numerous reasons. We even bumped into a girl we went to school with, Sarah, who was doing her Diving Instuctor training on the island. I got the impression she'll stay a while too. At first we stayed two extra nights because the Irish guys were, and well, we just didn't want to leave. So we booked our boat/bus with Kylo who was heading back to Bangkok to meet 'Charlie and the girls' (Charlie is in fact a boy) for the Sunday afternoon. We had some time after check out, breakfast and before our boat left so we decided to go to Lotus Bar for one last good-bye. We didn't think anyone would actually be there, but we just wanted to see the bar before we left anyway.

When we arrived down, only Cyrus, the fourteen year old swiss Fire Man was there. He duly, though we hadn't asked him to, woke all the boys and they came out one by one to 'say good-bye'. As we sat there, on the little cushions, on the deck, talking, a rush of 'I don't want to leave' energy passed through us. It had always been between myself and Rachael I suppose, an unsaid thing that was understood, but Alice had been on the Chiang Mai train ever since we'd arrived in Thailand. I can't remember who said it first, but suddenly we were tossing a coin, and deciding our future in Thailand. Kylo, who had been with us the whole time, was watching our ridiculousness in amazement. It was ten to two. The bus to the boat left at two. Kylo had to get the bus to the boat. We, after three tosses, were destined to stay in Koh Tao.*

So we had ten minutes to find out if we could get our money back for our boat tickets. We walked more quickly than we had ever done down the street to The Silver Sands, and amazingly we struck a deal. So we waved our son, Kylo, off as he, or so it felt, set off to war, and we jumped up and down in excitement.

There was a worry, however, in the back of our minds that the process of getting our Visas for our planned trip to Vietnam a week later would be a week long ordeal. It turned out, we could do it easily online, but more about that later. So we stayed in Koh Tao an extra six nights. And they were as good as the first.
We have no regrets about staying because we know we are going to try to go back to Thailand at some point so we haven't missed out on anything really. 

We didn't just go to the fire show either. We occasionally did stuff during the day. On the Friday before the Irish boys left, we went snorkelling around Koh Tao. We had a beautiful day, but it was not with out mishap. In the first bay we were snorkelling, we were just making our way back to the boat when Diarmo and Damo started shouting at Rachael; A trigger fish was making his way to her and looking like he wanted a nibble. Rachael looked down just in time to see the massive fish take a bite out of foot! Luckily, the only thing she lost was a flipper and we didn't even have to pay for! The oddest part of the day, was when we were just off Nang Yuan island. We were in the middle of the beautiful ocean, looking at tropical fish and lovely colourful coral. It was the day of Election '11 and we began talking politics. I'd say it's the strangest place the future of the Irish language in relation to an Irish Election has ever been discussed!
Myself and the girls went to Nang Yuan one day ourselves, when the boys had left. We spent a gorgeous afternoon, on the private island. It was absolutely magical and we agreed that if it didn't cost a fiver (200thb) to get to, we'd be there everyday!

Nang Yuan as seen from Koh Tao

I don't feel like I've done Koh Tao justice in this post; it was the most relaxing and at the same time fun twelve days of my travels so far. So much happened that I can't remember, because when you keep a diary and take photos, they become all you remember. I do remember the happy feeling though. And I doubt I'll ever forget it.

The Alii - A girlband styled by Alice :)

*We actually tossed the coin a fourth time after we got Koh Tao on the third toss. It was Chiang Mai. But because our decision had been made, we were oblivious to the Universe and its 'signs'. We were staing in Koh Tao.

Thanks to Alice and Rachael for the photos, yours were better than mine!