Prince | The Melbourne Arts Centre | 16th February

I'd seen prince two times before, both with a full band at larger venues, One in my top 10 gigs of all time. So, I went in a bit unsure as to how I'd deal with just the man himself and a Piano. My mind was open, my partner in crime....massively excited, the makings of a good night you'd hope.

I've never been to The Arts Centre in Melbourne always thinking of it as this weird structure with an over-ellaborate phone antenna type thing dumped on top of it. But on 15th/16th Feb it became a shrine to all things Purple. Weirdly, the first thing I noticed when I got into the venue was how much it smelt like my Nan and Grandad's house, something I hadn't smelt for literally 20 odd years. A bad omen you might think? Wrong, If anything it only added to the experience for all the right reasons.

Details of the gig were released under a week before it was due to actually take place, well done Prince. Who likes a 6-12 month wait to see massive gig. I umm’ed and arr'ed about getting a ticket, eventually deciding upon getting one of what would seemingly be the last tickets a couple of days before. I was on the last row in the balcony, right at the very back, slap bang in the middle, row J seat 20. There you go I remember my seat, that's how great this gig was. 

The stage setting was simple; a grand Piano centre stage surrounded by Candelabras, and Purple, lots of Purple. Prince's entrance was minimal yet oh so prince, a day glow arrow projected onto the stage floor pointing to his unmistakeable silhouette (cane in hand) behind a solid Purple backdrop. The door in front raised for him to emerge to a hugely appreciative crowd.

Nobody really knew what his set would consist or what Prince’s mood would be like. Reports from the night before had led us to believe it might be a bit of sombre affair following the news of the death of his beloved Vanity.  So there was an air of anticipation, apprehension and excitement in the cavernous theatre. Whilst there was some massively touching moments throughout the set and a tribute to the late Vanity, this definitely had more of a celebration type feel, a celebration of life and of course, all things Prince. 

Lets start with the voice; something like you've never heard. Soulful, funky, delicate, powerful, completely unique. With the Piano as his only instrument of choice, aside from a few minimal strings controlled by an iPad atop of the Piano, he played that thing like it was his only instrument ever. And we all know that's not the case. 

It was a career spanning set, which had me clapping, seat dancing, stand up dancing, gawping...like flies could've got in there, just completely spellbound. My highlights being Kiss and Little Red Corvette. There were tears at points (not from me). But, like me, the whole audience was in the same place throughout…In the palm of prince's hand.

I counted 5 encores, whether that was intentional or not, I don't care it was genius. Encores are a bit like orgasms, you know there's going to be One, Two is good because you didn't really know if a second one is coming. Anything over Two is incredible because you never know when it's going stop. Bands/ artists, please all take a leaf out of Prince’s book, even if it means starting your show half an hour earlier.

I left completely gobsmacked at what I'd seen. Walking out to look up and see the weird phone antenna thing on top of The Arts Centre, bathed in a Purple glow of light. Finally it made sense. Maybe I'm getting old but if all gigs in sit down theatres are like this, I'm down and here's to getting old. Sadly, I don't think that's going to be the case, because let's face it....There's only one Prince.

Switching from traditional to digital advertising - A suits view

First up, this is not a rant at digital, no matter how it sounds. I’m not against advertising in any sort of digital format, nor am saying it's the wrong thing to be doing. There’s sooooo many benefits that i’m not going to sit here and bore you with. Because you’ve all been in as many presentations as I have from people telling you about it being ‘the future’ of advertising and I don’t necessarily disagree. I’m not here to preach, i’m here to try and give some simple advice from someone that’s made the switch, and yes there is a little bit of me that misses the power a great piece of TV or Print used to have without having to integrate digital into the mix. Click here, go there, sign up for this, download this app, share this, like that for a chance to WIN this amazing prize, for this product I haven’t told you anything about yet because I was too busy wanking you off with my digital toys. All of which are great, used in the right way, with the right mix of other toys, for the right product. I’m a huge believer that if a traditional ad has the right creative idea, backed up by the right media, you don’t always need these bells and whistles to sell more product.

Before making the switch to digital, think long and hard about it. What aspects of the digital are you working on? Because there’s so many. Are you a website based, a social campaign manager, a display campaign manager? Are you all of the above? 

Yes, digital is the way forward. So, if you do decide to make the jump, DO NOT forget your roots. There’s so many transferrable skills, a few different technical terms and practices to pick up along the way, but fundamentally you can pretty much match up digital and traditional methods fairly easily. Everyone will try and over-wankify everything, that’s the nature of digital. My advice, keep it as simple as you possibly can, otherwise you end up confusing yourself and in turn the client. A confused client is probably one of the worst things to have to deal with, even worse than angry. At least you know what you need to do with any angry client.

Go forth and conquer, you’ll be great. 

Couples, who first?

I was writing a card to two friends getting married today. I’d written them a lovely heart-felt message and was feeling pretty pleased with myself. They’ll like this card, I thought to myself as I closed it up and managed to muster up some spit to lick the glue on the back of the envelope, god I love the taste of that. Do they flavour it especially for it? I’d love to get my hands on a pot of that there glue. Maybe I could become a Glue licker instead of a Glue sniffer, I know i’d be having more fun.

Anyway, after all the excitement of the envelope licking had died down, I came to the all important names on front of card. How else will anyone in world know who this card is for if I don’t put some names on the front? As I came to put my pen to the envelope I paused, I was stuck, who should I put first? Chris or Hannah? Hannah or Chris? Chis and Hannah or Hannah and Chris?

I stopped, as this now had me thinking, who had a I put first in the past? What do I say when i’m talking about them? I was literally blank. It really shouldn’t matter, they’re both my friends and the fact that i’m giving them a card with both of their names on is fine, why are you even thinking about this? I then started to think about my other couple friends, damn those smug lucky people. I think I found the formula. The person with the most syllables goes first? Same amount means it’s luck of the draw who comes out first. What a lottery.

Does anyone really care I thought to myself. I myself have not given one solitary shit about whether or not my ex girlfriends came before or after mine when we were referred to as a couple. BUT! I have met couples that do, which is weird. Maybe weirder than me writing way too many words about the subject, probably not.

Anyway. I went for Hannah & Chris / Chris & Hannah. These two definitely would’t care. Have I unearthed one of the worlds great unknown formulas? I could be the next Einstein of social taboos. Maybe not, but I look forward to putting my new-found theory to the test.

Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, USA......home

I've been meaning to finish this for AGES. Even if nobody reads this I want it to read back. To bring everyone up to speed, i've been living in Melbourne for the past 2 years 5 months, here's what's happened in between.

I left you about to enter Australia for the 1st time. After an 8 hour flight from Singapore including a stop over in Darwin I arrived in Cairns to start my tour of the East Coast. I checked in at Gilligan's which was a far cry from any of the hostels in Asia, this place is a purpose built backpacker haven. Pool, nightlclub, bar, free-ish meals, a friendly atmosphere, the perfect place to start. It got a little more perfect when I walked into my 8 bed dorm that I had to share with 7 Swedish girls! BIG SHIT! HA.

I spent 4 days in Cairns, partied a lot, spent a lot of time at the lagoon, which was a common feature down the Aus coast and is basically a really nice FREE public swimming pool. Nothing like this would ever work in England as it would get trashed by some scumbags but they really were a godsend! I booked all my travel and activities down to Sydney in Cairns which cost me just over $1000, big shock to the system! But this included my 'hop on, hop off'  bus all the way down to Sydney. A day boat out to the great barrier reef, a 3 day, 3 night Whitsundays boat cruise and a 3 day 2 night fraser island tour. With a fairly careful itinerary planned I got going, first stop was Airlie Beach.

After an overnight bus which I slept surprisingly well on I arrived at Nomads. The annoying thing about hostels in Aus is they never let you check in early, they always make you check out at 10am or something stupid like that and they charge you for everything! So, I started to get used to hanging around receptions with my bag, not using the internet because it was too expensive, anyway rant over. I learnt pretty fast it was good to buddy up with someone so you could cook together and save money. Gone were the days of eating out every night Asia stylee. Luckily the buses were really good places to meet people, I always seemed to find someone and a lot of people were going the same way as me.

First night in Airlie was all about stocking up on sleep and booze before the boat trip the next day. The next morning we set sail on The Clipper on the Whitsundays boat cruise. Little did I know, this was renowned for being 'the party boat'. Even so, we still did a lot, snorkelling, slides off the side of the boat, a trip to Whitehaven beach -  The best beach I have ever been to. Drinking games hosted by the crew at night and a few other random adventures. The food was amazing and the staff were pretty good too. Thoroughly recommended.

I stayed on in Airlie a couple of days after the boat to catch up with some friends from Asia and watch Man United lose the title...wahhhhhhhh!

Next stop was a trip to Agnes Water, the town of 1770 for a one night stop and a spot of chopper riding, well mopeds in the style of choppers, but still I felt like I was in Sons of Anarchy and donned the tattoos and leathers to ensure I looked the part for the Scooteroos bike ride. Really good fun, glad I stopped off for this one not only to do this but to break the journey up!

Next was the short ish ride down to Rainbow Beach, base camp for the Fraser Island, another sleepy little town with not a great deal going on apart from the backpacker activity and a beautiful beach. By now i'd met a few people going the same way as me and kept bumping into the same old faces which was nice! For my Fraser Island tour I was in a 4x4 with 6 Germans and 1 Canadian. Luckily all the Germans spoke goood English and were all good fun, the Canadian was better fun.

Fraser Island was definitely one of the highlights of the East Coast for me. The off road driving, which I thought was going to be super tame was actually pretty hardcore and the best fun! It shit down as soon as we pitched up camp and I soon discovered the tent i'd been given was not even close to being waterproof, yeah, so I spent 2 nights on the back seat of the 4x4, which actually turned out to be better than sleeping in tents by the sounds of it. The living was basic, we cooked on camp stoves for our groups and drank a fair bit in the evenings to stay warm....sure. I definitely came back pretty mucky. The days were filled with visiting different areas around the amazing Island. Creeks, rockpools, ship wrecks, lagoons. All sorts of beautiful natural wonders. I saw my first wild snake, a Brown, which would also be a pretty good description of the colour of my pants following that encounter. Dingoes are funny little fuckers. One thought about trying to attack me whilst I was busy doing 'something' in a hole. A poo. (Naughty people with dirty minds). So I had to give it a bit tap with a spade shall we say. Bye Dingoes.

Next stop was Brisbane, finally some almost proper civilisation. I was picked up by Leigh and Portia at the bus station and whisked back to their apartment over looking the city where I was welcomed so warmly! I had my own room and a double mattress, which doesn't sound like much but I have to say it was absolute heaven. I stayed with them for 4 nights, wish it could've been longer but my tight schedule was calling. I didn't do a whole lot in Brisbane apart from soak in some awesome hospitality, eat and drink a fair bit and watch my first state of origin game. Maroons all the way for me, to this day still. Big up to Leigh, Portia and Hannah for giving me a place to stay and looking after me so well!

Again, my schedule meant an overnighter to Sydney. Had to miss out on some beautiful east coast beach time but the i'd be back for them! I arrived early morning into Sydney and found my way to Base hostel. It was fine, not the best or worst I've stayed in but I had a couple of mates there so met up with them. My five days in Sydney ere spent pretty much sightseeing. I don't really think I got under the skin of the city, which is something I like to try and do. All my time was focussed on seeing 'stuff you have to see'. Which by all means, you should do. But I do love a fair bit of wandering time to get lost. So without reeling them all off. I saw all those things you're supposed to see in Sydney and was pretty lucky to arrive when I did as the festival of light was on at the same time.

Next stop was Adelaide to visit Bennet and Maddy. Two other Aussies from Asia who'd offered to put me up. Again I had my own room with a double bed....heaven! First night in and I experienced my first Parma, a true Aussie tradition which I still love to this day! We had a pretty wild first night out in Radlelaide. Next evening I witnessed my first game of Aussie rules footy. Absolutely NO idea what was going on but strangely enjoyed it. Next was another game of Aussie rules watching Bennet play. Park footy mate! Sunday was BIG. We did a wine tour in the Barossa, it was amazing and boozy. Not only were we drinking in wineries, we were drinking on the bus between the wineries, all the way back to the city, at a party after the tour, at a club after the party....you get the idea. None of which helped me get up for my early bus....many thanks to Bennet's Mum for pulling me out of bed and driving me to the bus station so I just about made it. Cue 12 hours of the worst hangover of my life on a bus. But, on my way to Melbourne to see the amazing Tayla for 2 weeks! I was soooo excited about this part of my trip and it didn't disappoint.

I arrived in Melbourne Late at night and was greeted by a massive hug from Tayla, it was so nice to see more familiar faces and know that I would be staying in a family home again. My first two weeks in Melbourne were a bit of blur, no not because I drunk to much, I mean....we did drank, but I was more drunk on Melbourne. I fell in love with the place. It just seemed to click with me, I loved the people, the culture, the sport, the music and it has this sense of a hidden underbelly that needs exploring. I ended up (as I knew I would) extending my stay and vowing to myself to come back at some point. Little did I know how soon.

Needless to say I was pretty depressed when I had to leave Tayla, her family and Melbourne for New Zealand, I have to say, when I arrived in Christchurch, I wasn't in a very good place and it took a couple of days to find my travelling feet again. Christchurch is a pretty odd place, clearly still very affected by the terrible earthquake, wandering around the streets was pretty eerie and in the end I was quite glad to get out. I'd booked a Kiwi Experience bus tour, after um'ing and ah'ing about it i'd decided it was the best way to meet new people and settled on the Kiwi purely based on price. As luck would have it, it was a great decision. I jumped on the bus in Christchurch and was immediately welcomed into the group. I knew i'd be saying goodbye to the group in Auckland and getting a new bunch on but got well involved none the less.

First stop was Kaikoura, which was a pretty sleepy little fishing village where you could do Whale/ Dolphin/ Seal spotting if you stayed on. I'd decided on my way up to Auckland i'd not do any activities and get there as quick as I could. We did however, get a free activity! Going to see some baby seals, which were fattening themselves up before heading out into the big wide world by hanging out in a river pretty close to the sea. They were majorly cute and definitely NOT camera shy. The evening was spent with some pretty chilled out beers and good Fush N Chups.

Next stop was Wellington for one night only, we pretty much smashed it and I left the next morning for Taupo pretty hung over. Again, I knew I'd be back here pretty soon so, it was a quick one nighter then off to Auckland the next day via hobbit town. I was't too interested in any of the lord of the rings stuff but I did discover NZ pies that day. From that day on I had one pretty much every day, they are the best!

Once in Auckland I knew I had a couple of days before I jumped on the new bus. I had some mates by then. A couple who were doing the same thing as me and some others who were departing. We spent a couple of lazy days in Auckland, going to the cinema, eating, drinking...generally checking the place out. Can't say I was in love with it and I was looking forward to jumping on the bus.

Now, when people say you can be on a 'good' or 'bad' bus I never quite got it. But it would appear that I had managed to get myself on a good bus! Everyone as awesome, sure some people matched better than others, but on the whole people got on well. We had a good group of around 15 or more of varying ages that bonded immediately and would go on to tour NZ for the next month, doing some of the coolest things I will ever do, drinking, laughing and getting sick along the way! Plus I wasn't the oldest!

First stop was Hot Water Beach via Cathedral Cove, where we played frisby on a super cool beach which had a natural cove cut out of a head in the land, pretty cool. Didn't swim, too cold. I saved myself for Hot Water Beach where we spent our first night. Why hot water beach you ask? Because it's a beach that has hot water I say? How you ask? Well, you basically dig a pool in certain parts of the sand and hot water rises up so you're left with a pool of hot water (sometimes too hot) to lay back and look at the amazing stars in the pitch black, on a beach with your new mates. Pretty good bonding and an amazing experience at the same time. That was followed by dinner and drinks. I was already cooking with a group to save on cash, love spag bol!

Onto Waitomo where we arrived in the morning for Black Water Caving that afternoon. Which I have to say I was slightly apprehensive of. I shouldn't have been, it was great, but bloody cold! 5 hours under ground in the water, some in a tube (slightly different to the last form of tubing I did). The rest manoevering through tight gaps in rocks with water gushing in your face. And glow warms, lots of glow worms which are very very cool. I don't think I ever really warmed up from this for the whole trip and probably to this day. However the 10 beer challenge (10 pints of different NZ beers) in the evening certainly helped. If unsure if you want to do Black Water Caving, make sure you do...It was one of my faves!

Next stop was Rotorua. We had a couple of nights here...The first was spent chilling out watching films. We also did luging, which was one the cheapest and best activities I did! $40 for 2 hours of mayhem and fun. You basically get a go cart type thing and a massive track down a hill to go down. You can pretty much do what you want and race your mates, could be fairly dangerous. I turned out to be pretty decent and really didn't want to stop. Next night we went to a traditional Maurae event where you learnt about the history of the people and got to take part in some activities. Have to say the best part of this though was the food, which was one of the best feeds I had all trip. Incredible!

On the way to Taupo we stopped off at a geothermal area to see some bubbling mud pools, geezers and have some eggs cooked in some boiling pools. It was ok!

Everyone was pretty excited to get to Taupo as that's where we'd get to skydive. I did the 15k ft jump, the highest you could, obvs...LAD. We had beautiful weather so you could see for miles. It was the best! The only time I really got scared was when the dude came to open the parachute, cos lets face it, that's pretty much when you know if you're going to die or not. Luckily I didn't. So high I was on this new found love of life, we all proceeded to go on a bit of a two day bender following this. From the afternoon of the jump to the morning after the next day. Apparently we didn't miss much so I guess that's ok?

It's probably a good job we left after two days or there would be no beer left in Taupo...ever. We moved onto river valley, where we had a night in a beautiful lodge, literally in the middle of nowhere. There were log fires, red wine and great food, Very romantic. Certainly not for our crew, whose reputation was growing by the day for being a bunch that 'liked a drink'. Lucklily we also did stuff so we weren't seen as complete wasters. I opted out of the white water rafting the next day, still warming up from the caving and starting to feel a bit sick, this would last all the way to Fiji.

Next stop was Wellington again, for one night only. There was NZ vs Ireland on that night, half the bus was Irish. You know what happens next. A big big night in Wellington. Somehow managed to get the Ferry next day, slept most of it. We then drove on to Kaiteriteri. Again, just a bit of a stop off here, not a lot going on. So a 'rest' evening, sure. It kind of turned into a bit of dinner party, with lots of wine. By the next day I was feeling rough rough rough. But was trying to suppress it with Nurofen.

The next stop was Westport, where the most exciting thing I did was the pub quiz and some mini golf, really wasn't feeling up to the mountain biking and kayaking some of the others took on and I wanted to save myself for the Poo pub next day.

You literally pull off the road to what looks like a shack on the side of the road, which turns out to be a pub. A pub that is clearly built for backpackers to party in, but it's class. You get fancy dress earlier in the day.....the theme being bold and bright. I went as Mr Mexicano, solid effort. You visit Lake Mahanipua early in the evening, which is totally beautiful, mirror perfect reflection in the water make for some pretty spectacular photos. You then head down the beach for sunset. Again we were lucky and it was totally amazing. Then all hell breaks loose, you get a good amount of food cooked for you by the pub landlord who is very old, very cool and very about to die. But good on him. You then get into your fancy dress and party the night away. Needless to say we gave it a very good crack.

The bus rolled on next morning, headed for Franz Josef we had two nights here and would get to hike on a real life Glacier. The place we stayed at was pretty awesome, had a hot tub...seemed as good of a place as any to spend a few hours, as well as the pub. The Glacier hike itself was ok. The helicopter ride up and down was the best part. If you're tossing up between this and other activities....do the others.

Wanaka was next on the tour and you could tell by this point everyone just wanted to get to Queenstown. I was feeling majorly ill by this point, i'd been fighting it and trying to battle through for a bit but I had to admit defeat and spend some time in a warm bed, where I sweated and shivered for most of my stay here. I wanted to be some form of ok for Queenstown.

Queenstown was SIIIIIIIIIICK. I wish I was fully well for the whole time here, I seemed to think I was ok. Then i'd go out and make myself sick again. Anyway, I spent 5 maybe 6 nights here and I could see in my head I was starting to reach the home straight of my travels so I gave it everything!

Across the days, I did the Canyon Swing twice, going off backwards and blindfolded. The Nevis Bungee. Frisby golf and mini golf. I ate a lot of fergburgers, nearly got a tattoo and drank a lot. I mean a lot a lot. It was a blast! The best activity was def the canyon swing, if you can only do one thing here, it has to be that.

After 6 days of craziness, goodbyes with good friends and an assault on the body and senses. it was time to start the long journey back up to Auckland. Luckily I only had to get up to Christchurch and had a flight from there. So one long drive to there and another uneventful night in 'Jail' (the name of the hostel there, literally because that's what it used to be) and I was off to Auckland again for another couple of uneventful days.

What did I learn from NZ? It's awesome, definitely spend as much money as you can here. I can't drink like i'm 21 anymore, I love pies and if you're sick...have a rest! Oh and i'm concerned about how fearless I am when it comes to throwing myself out of planes, off cliffs or generally anything that you could die doing. Maybe I should be a stunt man. Yes, I definitely should do that.

I loved New Zealand, up there with one of the favourite parts of my trip.

By now I knew I'd be home in two weeks after a stop off in Fiji for some 'me' time. I spent a week here,  don't worry I wasn't by myself the whole time! I spent a couple of nights in Nadi and then headed off down the coast to spend a few nights with a local family of a hostel owner I made friends with. The people are lovely, and those 4 peaceful days by the beach...catching my lunch and dinner with family and getting to know their way of life was a really good time for reflection and helped me plan out what I wanted to do when I eventually got back home. I ate fresh fish everyday, read some books and basically, got better from New Zealand!

Next was a quick 3 nights in LA. Bit of a culture shock as I hadn't been anywhere near a big bad city in a month or so. I spent a fair bit of time on Venice Beach and in Malibu. Talked to all the freaks on the beach, kinda liked it. Spent a couple of nights out with some people from the hostel. One of who ended up wanting to kill me. She took something I said totally the wrong way, luckily I had to leave the next day for MIA!

My last week was spent in Miami. This was not on my list when I set off but I couldn't have had a better spot to end the journey. I was in Sarah and Ian's swanky high-rise pad overlooking south beach. I had food coming out my ears, English TV on demand and two awesome people to spend time with. It was great! Just what I needed before I went home and it was so great to catch up with Sarah and properly meet Ian who became a pretty good drinking buddy, Sarah loved that!

After just over 8 months away it was time to head back to dear old blighty to start my next adventure. Basically....get back to Melbourne by any means possible. I stayed at home for 3 weeks, got myself a new passport. Got myself an Aus working hol visa and a 3k loan off ma (cheers mum, i've paid her back!), got myself a one way ticket to Melbourne and that's where you find me now, writing this 2 and half years later. Lots has happened in the last couple of years, which i'll save for another entry. This is long! To anyone that has read, I hope it has been somewhat entertaining/ informative. I'm guessing it sounds like a bit of ramble. Oh well.

Lots of love.

Nicholas x

Last bit of Vietnam, Cambodia, Thai Islands, Malaysia & Singapore

Right here goes, this is going to take ages!

Last time i updated this i was in Nha Trang, soooooo much has happened since then so this will probably be a long read for anyone that actually reads this!

I was awoken at 8am in Nha Trang by our lovely hostel recpetionist Thom, 'Mr Nick Mr Nick your bus here!' Clearly Dj'ing the night before got out of hand and i hadn't set an alarm. After 5 mins throwing things into my bag i stumbled onto the bus that was clearly pretty annoyed at me for holding them up. Anyway at least i slept pretty much all the 12 hour trip to Saigon to meet Mother. She'd booked a 5* hotel for the night which i was seriously looking forward to. I got a few funny looks as i walked into the lobby, probably because i was cooler than any of the folk in there or maybe beacause they had designer luggage and i rocked up with my back pack? Mother arrived about half an hour after me, to a tearful reunion...sure.  The hotel was amazing, i ate steak, i drunk beer on the rooftop bar, i stole all the soap from the room, i slept in a bed with 2 pillows! Cheers Lisa, needed that!

Next day we went for a bit of a walk round Saigon but had also booked a bus back up to Mui Ne that afternoon. We didn't really see anything that exciting but it was at least useful to give Mother a crash course in crossing Vietnamese roads. We arrived at Mui Ne that evening.

Mui Ne is ok, i'd say. Very quiet when we were there, not a great deal going on at night. LOADS of Russians. LOADS of kite surfing, which is hard and expensive. It was perfect for what we wanted which was a few days on a pretty nice beach or by a pool. Mother got rid of her jet lag and slept a lot, i continued working on my tan and ploughing through my book whilst picking up a bit of Russian on the way. We stayed here for 4 nights, then headed back to Saigon, again!

We were staying in the backpacker area of Saigon but in a pretty nice hotel, which was super-duper cheap with well friendly staff which i would recommend to anyone (Duoc Voang). We found some street drinking bars again, similar to Hanoi, plastic stools/ tables and V cheap beer! I met up with the group i'd been travelling down Vietnam with and we had few pretty mental nights out. On the tourist front we went to the indoor market which i thought was pretty cool, Mother was scared there would be snakes at every turn, there wasn't. The war museum was well worth a visit, parts of it were pretty horrific but the whole story was told really well. Finally the Cu Chi Tunnels were also an eye-opener, there's a few you can get in, i struggled in most of them and i'm small. I also fired an M-60 here which was sooooo cool, so loud and powerful got a massive rush from it. A word of advice to you all, don't ever ask a Vietnamese tour guide that likes opera and doesn't like football, if he likes football. I made that very mistake, the result being a full length opera rendition of Celine Dion's, my heart will go on, none of the bus knew where to look, did not see that one coming.

Next we were off to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Due to Mother suddenly developing an aversion to the bus, we flew, i wasn't complaining. She also developed a need for luxury, so we stayed in a seriously baller hotel here. Food was awesome and i even had a glass of Red which had been a long time coming. Tried to go out for a Guiness on Paddy's day but somehow managed to stumble into what looked like an Irish bar but turned out to be what i'm pretty sure was a make shift brothel, needless to say we got out of there quick.

As a treat to Mum on Mother's day i decided to take her to shoot some guns, then to the Killing Fields, then to S-21 prison. I'm nice like that. In all seriousness it was a good, if not slightly haunting day. The killing fields are basically as they sound. A field where people were murdered while Pol Pot's, Khmer Rouge movement were in charge. It basically invloves a walking tour with a headset, there's loads of mass graves and stories behind them.You can still see bones fragments coming out of the ground along with the odd tooth, pretty gruesome but a 'must do' i would say. I'm glad i went and fired an AK-47 before going here as i don't think i'd have fancied playing with guns after i'd seen this. By the time i'd got to S-21 i think i'd seen enough, it was equally as gruesome as the killing fields, but again, think it's important we went.

On the move again, the next day to Sihanoukville for some more pool and beach time. We checked into one of my choices of hotel which had a pretty nice pool and spent the next day chilling here. The night before i met up with pretty much everyone i'd met since i had been away from about 3 different groups. For one reason or another we'd all ended up in the same place at the same time which was cool! I re-united with my divorced Vang Vieng wife Tayla and we decided we should go to Bamboo island in the next couple of days. Mother wasn't feeling too good around this time and decided it was time for more luxury so she checked into another 5* on another beach which i went to see her at, it was pretty special, and cheap for what it was i'm told! She was happy to go on her own as she wasn't too up for staying on an island in a hut with no toilet and no electricity for most of the day, so me and Tayls went together to Bamboo.

Bamboo island is beautiful! There's only one place to stay on the island which has a about 20 huts down an amazing beach, with turquoise water. The huts are basic to say the least and only have electricity between 18:00 - midnight, literally a bed with a mosquito net. You don't care though. There's a big common area where you can get food/ drink with loads of comfy cushions where everyone hangs around. It didn't get too rowdy but i was definitely NOT sober either night i was here. Skinny dipping happened in a big way here as there's glowing plankton at night which is soooooo cool to see, didn't want to get out of the water because i was totally mesmerised by it. The days were filled with exploring the island and playing shuttlecock with Jakey, Mac & Scott. Me and Jake brought it home for the English. Beatiful couple of nights here, loved it!

Next, i had to go and meet Mother in Siem Reap where she'd flown to the previous day due to her new found fear of buses. To be fair i can see where it may have come from, my trip from Sianoukville to Siem Reap wasn't ideal by any means. Won't go into it but it took about 5 hours longer than it said it would due to numerous stop offs to pick up all sorts of different things, then a cheeky 3 hour wait for a transfer to another bus in Phnom Penh. This seems to be the Cambodian way on the bus front.

Siem Reap was all about the temples of Angkor Wat. We were here 2 days and Mother had been there a day before so had sussed out a bit of a route. Whilst i would love to say it was one of the best experiences of my life, i'm afraid i can't, it wasn't. The temples themselves are amazing and i can't believe that they managed to make them. BUT, there was just too many people there to fully enjoy it. You're constantly dodging peoples photos and tripping over people. I'm glad i've seen it but my advice to anyone going would be to go as early as possible to miss the crowds! Oh and get a tuk-tuk to take you around.

By now it was time for Mother to return to the Motherland. I really enjoyed my 2 weeks with her and am glad that she got to see some stuff that i'm pretty sure she wouldn't have done otherwise. Hoping she enjoyed it too! Bye Lisa!

I had one more night of luxury in the 5* hotel then it was time to start the over complicated but cheaper trip to the Thai islands which started with a flight to Kuala Lumpur to stay for one night. KL was a massive shock, it was the most modern/ developed place i'd been to in a while, riding their version of the underground was wierd, but at the same time quite nice to have some sort of organised transport system, as well as proper roads. Didn't really do too much my one night here as had to be up the next day for a flight back to Thailand, Koh Samui.

My plan was to get the boat straight off Koh Samui to Koh Tao to meet up with Tayla and Ali, however when i arrived, i found out the last boat had gone 10 mins before i arrived so i had a bit of an unexpected night there. It turned out alright, i met a group of friendly Germans from the bungalows i stayed at and ended up going out with them, still managed to get up for the ferry to Koh Tao at 8 the next morning.

I immediately bumped into Ali and Tayla when i arrived in Koh Tao, which was pretty lucky. Managed to find a cheap room as well. The island itself is pretty tiny but seems to have the right mix of being pretty chilled and you can go out if you want. The snorkelling is amazing and it has some beautiful beaches. We had a quad bike for most of our time there which was loads of fun as well, a lot of the roads there are proper bumpy dirt tracks which i wouldn't fancy on a moped, plus they were usually up or down steep hills, heaps of fun though on a quad bike. I loved Koh Tao, it was one of my faves, but by i think it was 2nd April, we left to get to Koh Phangnan for full moon!

We hadn't booked anything in advance and kept on getting told we needed to. Liam had sent me some pretty detailed instructions on how to find a cheap bungalow when you get there, so we gambled and it paid off! We ended up in perfectly ok bunbglaow for 4 quid a night, nothing fancy, but clean enough and close enough to all the action. Everyone else was paying like 15 quid for a dorm so we were pretty happy with that. Not a lot happened apart from partying in Koh Phangan, which i sort of regret as the rest of the isalnd is supposed to be beautiful but we did no exploring! We were there 4 nights before full moon and each night gets busier and busier in the build up, i remember we went to a pool party, a waterfall party and a jungle party in the build up. All of which means not much activity in the day apart from laying on the beach. I managed to meet up with Phillips and Hairy, two old friends from school. Was wicked to see them, we had a right laugh catching up and playing many many games of Mexicano! Full Moon itself was awesome! Everoyne wears fluorescent clothes, me being me decided not to and just let Tayla do a massive full moon graffiti piece on my back which looked SIIIIIIIIICK! I then did a makeshift David Bowie lightening bolt on my face. I drunk a fair few buckets, fell through a stage, danced a lot and ended getting in at about 9am the next morning. Saw the beautiful sunrise with a few people i'd been travelling with for a while which was a nice way to end. Koh Phangan nearly tipped me over the edge, similar to Vang Vieng, i was ready to leave here. Was good while it lasted though!

Next stop was Krabi town, we were only supposed to stay one night but Tayla had to do a Visa run to Malaysia the next day. We didn't figure this out till late the night before she had to go so i had to make a quick decision on how to keep myself entertained the next day. I went on 'The James Bond Tour' which involved visiting the island where they filmed 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. I was really looking forward to this, me being a HUUUUUGE James Bond geek. Unfortunately it didn't really live up to expectations, the island was overun with sooooo many tourists, too many to even take decent photos. It ruined it a bit for me. The floating village we visited was cool, then we went to some naff temple and waterfall, we spent most of the time on the boat or bus but i guess it kept me busy for the day.

Next day we went to Railey bay, which is on the mainland but you can only get to it by boat. We didn't have anywhere to stay but managed to find a really cool, cheap bungalow resort up in the hills in the middle of the jungle which turned out to be a godsend the next day as we had a Tsunami warning! I had gone to get drinks down the beach, when i got back i noticed a lot of people running away from me to get inland. Now i had been lying in the sun all day but i definitely didn't smell that bad. Then i saw Tayla waving at me telling me to hurry up. Why i didn't think something was up at this point i don't know, i continued casually stroll along the beach. When i finally got to Tayla she'd packed all my stuff up into to my bag and told me that there was a Tsunami coming. I still didn't seem too worried and kept saying it'd be fine. As we were walking off the beach it finally hit home when what i can only imagine what an air raid siren sounds like went off. This shit me up a bit and i knew it was for real now. We were told to get to highy ground, luckily we were right next to one of the climbs to a viewpoint really high up, so we headed up there. We spent the next 6 hours there, there was a huge storm, the sea had gone right out, it looked like the world was going to end and we had the perfect view. Thankfully it never came, but it was a nervous few hours. After dark we lit a fire and waited until we were told it was safe to come down. The next challenge was getting down in the dark, when i say dark i mean pitch black down a 400 odd metre climb. Luckily there were a few guides from the island there who had torches and i had my iPod, still pretty tough going though, took about an hour to get down. We asked at the bottom where we should go if there's another warning only to be told that where we were staying was the safest place on the island and that's where everyone would be heading if anything hit! HA sometimes going cheap pays off, we slept well that night.

The next day we decided to climb back up what we had come down the previous night, then down to a lagoon inside the mountain. I'm not sure how we managed to get down in one piece the night before! The climb the other side was challenging to say the least, it was actually a climb with ropes and all, not scramble, pretty dangerous. I'm not sure how they're allowed to let people down there, sure they get plenty of injuries, good fun though, even managed it in bare feet because we're hard!

The rest of the day was spent exploring the last few beaches on the island and then watching the sunset with a few beers/ cocktails. That's the beauty of this place, you can walk everywhere and there's more than enough to keep you occupied for a few days. Railey is cool!

Reluctantly, we left the next morning to go to Phi Phi, which i was really looking forward to especially as we were arriving on the first day of  Songkram (3 days of celebrations for Thai new year). The first day is a giant water fight, which we arrived right in the middle of. We were soaked from head to toe with all our bags  by the time we got to a hostel, it was quite a long walk though so being soaked with cold water every now and then was actually quite nice! We headed out straight away to get some revenge on people, armed to the teeth with the best super soaker 200bht could buy we water fought the rest of the day and went partying on the beach at night. Thai new year rocks! However i'm pretty sure it was the cause of a giant abscess on my back, what was a spot that got squeezed by Tayla turned into about a 4 inch wide volcano on my back. It was MINGING! In the end i had to get some antibiotics as it was pretty painful, squeezing it was pretty gruesome and left me with a huge hole in my back, Iodine must've taken a fair bit more money this week as i used loads! Only now has it just about healed.
Phi Phi was far more party orientated than i had expected, so we went out quite a lot to the many many beach parties, there was a really cool place called Reggae bar, don't let the name fool you. It basically has a full size Muay Thai ring in the middle and anyone can challenge anyone to a fight, they provide you with the full gear and a ref and you get a free bucket. I would've loved to get up there and show off my impressive skills, but as you all know i have a precious face, so had to stay out, lucky for everyone that wanted to fight me i would've totally battered all of them, obviously. Tayla on the other hand fancied a go at some butch girl that looked to be trained in martial arts, she gave a good pre-fight show waving to the crowd and bowing down in the corner, mimicking a prayer just like a pro. Then the bell went and something changed, we found out that Tayla can not fight but is quite good at running round a ring away from punches, apart from a couple to the nose which swelled up the next day, good effort though Tayls!

Obviously we did a boat tour of the surrounding islands and went to see 'the beach' which was absolutely beautiful, but again a place with too many people! We managed to survive another near death experience on the trip back, the boat broke down and was drifting pretty quickly towards some rocks. Luckily we got picked up by a bigger one just before we hit and a storm was in full swing. Oh, and another Tsunami warning, but we were pro's at these by now.

We decided that next up we'd go to Koh Lipe. I fancied crossing the border to Malysia by boat, Koh Lipe seemed to be the only place you could do this from, plus i'd been told it was beautiful. I wasn't wrong! We arrived towards the end of the season but the weather was pretty good the whole time we were there bar a couple of short sharp storms. Similar to Railey, this is a tiny place and you can walk the whole island in a few hours. There's 3 main beaches, all of which beautiful in their own way. We spent most of our 4 days here on the beach topping up tans and watching sunsets, we finally got an amazing one on our last night, fully red! We managed to find a really cool bar on the beach called Mia Luna, which was decked out like some kind of Voodoo camp with black lights and freaky skulls, cool though. We went there a couple of nights, it wasn't that busy but still heaps of fun. No Tsunami's here, i loved Koh Lipe, sad to leave.

Our next adventure was a speedboat to Langkawi, which is in Malaysia. Easily the coolest/ easiest border crossing ever! It takes about an hour, all you have to do is give someone your passport before you get on, they go off get it stamped for you. Then you do the same at the other end, ace!
Langkawi is a world away from any of the Thai islands in terms of how developed it is, not nearly as beautiful though. We had some more beach time here, found a pretty cool bar called Babylon to spend the nights and our hostel was like cat village, we adopted one and named her Milky, she would pretty much either live in our room or wait on our doorstep till we got back. We had a day out riding the island on mopeds which was cool apart from losing a couple of hours to a tropical storm. Saw an amazing waterfall and visited a deserted beach, the sun was POWERFUL here though so we had to be pretty careful how long we stayed out.

After 3 days in Langkawi it was time to get back to the big bad city. Our taxi left at 06:30am we managed to put our phones on silent so didn't hear alarms! For some reason i woke up at 06:25 and luckily looked at my  watch, cue 5 mins mad dash to get ready. Luckily we made our ferry and got to KL early that evening.
KL was cool, beer was expensive. We shopped a lot, walked a lot and saw a few sites. Time seemed to go pretty fast here and before we knew it, it was time for Tayla to go home! Sad times. I left the same evening as her on the night bus to Singapore.

What a great place to finish off my time in SE Asia! I love it here. It's clean, modern, vibrant, the people are friendly, the food is amazing, everything just works! I've spent the last 3 days just wandering around and taking it all in. I've walked everywhere bar a few underground trips and feel like i've properly fallen in love with the place. Could definitely see myself back here. Only problem is, the beer is mega expensive, but the place almost makes up for that.

It's now just a few hours before my flight to Aus, which i'm really looking forward now. Sure it's going to be totally different and a hell of a lot more expensive but it's definitely time for somewhere new! I've met loads of cool people, seen some crazy things, been to loads of beautiful and not so beautiful places, SE Asia has been a mad three and half months that i will never forget!

Bye for now! Nicholas X

Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang (again) Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang

I left you last time in Vang Vieng. To be honest i'm suprised i even managed to write any form of update there. I really struggle to remember much and i'm afraid most of the things i can recall have to stay in Vang Vieng, group pact. What i can tell you is that we had a really good group of about 15 people at it's highest. We got drunk A LOT. We watched friends A LOT. We went to the tubing river A LOT. We didn't do much else A LOT. I think in total we were there around 7 days and in the end i was quite glad to get out, my body definitely thanked me and i manged to lose my camera, which was annoying, what a week though well done to everyone involved, you know who you are.

To get out of VV i went back to Luang Prabang with Liam and Clare for one night only, they wanted to see the waterfalls before we headed off to Hanoi. What i failed to remember was the minging bus ride i would have to enjure to get there. It's only 8 hours but the roads are soooooooo bad and on a bus you're just constantly bumping about and seeing the drops over the side don't make you feel any better about the roads you're driving on. However, we made it there and managed to eventually find a hostel after a couple of hours wandering around town. To tired to do anything that night, so went to Lao Lao, had a bit of food/ medicine and went to bed.

We were pretty busy the next day, i got up and sorted the bus to Hanoi which left at 18:30 that night, so we had to be quick getting to the waterfalls and back. The bus itself was one of the worst experiences since i've been away. It was sold as a 24 hour journey on a 'VIP' bus with a toilet, whilst it was a sleeper a bus, it certainly was not VIP and there was no toilet. I had a 'bed' That was about 5ft long so sleep did not happen that night on the 'sleeper' bus, especially when a large Amercian woman decides it's acceptable to have a wee in  a plastic bag in the aisle of the bus, scarred for life. We arrived at the Vietnamese border at about 4 in the morning to find out that the crossing wasn't actually open till 8 so we had to try and sleep again. The border crossing itslef took about 3 hours and was long and annoying, but i guess the only way to get through it is to do as your told and be patient which i have found i'm becoming very good at! The rest of the day is a complete blur of drifting in and out of consciousness through lack of sleep and some strong tablets! We were supposed to arrive in Hanoi around 6, we ended up there around 10. I was properly de-hydrated, reason being, you never know when they're going to stop so the last thing you want to do is end up needing to go to the toliet on a bus with no toilet. Difficult balancing act that i'm clearly not very good at! But, we made it and i'm still alive to tell the tale, but i would not fancy doing that journey again in a hurry.

Hanoi turned out to be pretty cool, can't say i was looking forward to being back in a big city, but it proved me wrong. We'd booked a decent hostel and bumped back into Dan, we reluctantly let him re-join our group to bring the numbers up to 4. The hostel served free beer between 7-8  which we happily took advantage of. The 1st couple of days here we wandered the streets, managed to find a little make shift bar on the corner of some crossroads, where they served 20p beer, not really sure what the beer was but who cares, it was 20p. We spent a good afternoon there, just people watching and seeing what the strangest thing we could see on the back of a moped was. Winner at the moment is a whole cow. I'm hoping to top this. We'd been recommended to do a tour round Halong Bay from one of the other hostels that was a bit more expensive than the others but was worth it. It was billed as the booze cruise, my of my how were we not ready for this. It cost 160$, this included 3 days and 2 nights of various activities and excursions, all our meals and transport, only thing not included, alcohol. Or sleep. Day one we got to the harbour, which took around 4 hours by bus. We were greeted with a wall of thick fog. Apparently it was going to clear and we would get out to the bay eventually. A few hours passed and we still hadn't gone anywhere, lots of beer had already been drunk and we were then told the Vietnamese boat police would not let anyone move anywhere because the fog was so bad, apparently this was the 1st time this had happened in 5 years. The outcome was we'd have to stay the night on the boat and start the tour again the next day. So basically we got a free night on the boat. The rest of the night involved lots of drinking games and nakedness. I think we finished up around 4, maybe.

Next morning we got a nice 7am wake up call, the Vietnamese boat crew did not like you sleeping in or missing breakfast, so we were literally pulled out of bed. We then started our cruise into the bay, the weather had cleared really well and we had beautiful sunshine. It's a pretty breathtaking place, i swear it's never ending and the scenery is beautiful. We anchored up around 14:00 and were then allowed to jump in to the sea, which was cold but it woke you up with the jump from the top of the boat being about 15ft and the shock of the water temp when you get in, still, got to be done! We then went kayaking around the bay to see some caves and the floating village where they filmed Top Gear apparently, i'm not sure it was the actual one but whatever, it looked pretty similar. It was then back to the boat for another night of fun and games, this is the night Dan Vieng was created. Basically he got drunk a bottle Vodka, decided he wasn't drunk enough and that it was watered down. To fix this he decided he needed 6 Tequila shots in  row, it worked, massively. He got carried to bed and his final words were: 'I'm Dan Vieng, you don't even know'.

Another 7am wake up call the next day, can you see a theme occurring here? We switched boats to the ferry to get to castaway island. Today was action day. Beach Volleyball, Frisby, Climbing and Wakeboarding. I was fucking ace at wakeboarding which is strange as i have no strengh in my arms or legs. The night was slightly tamer than the boat nights but only just. Needless to say by the end of the trip i was pretty tired, from no sleep and lots of booze. However, upon my return to the hostel i found out it was spurs arsenal which i obviously had to watch, i don't want to talk about that though.

We spent a couple more nights in Hanoi, recovering/ drinking. Then moved onto Hue. Not much to say about that place it was pretty boring and the weather was rubbish and by now i was craving sun so we stayed one night and moved onto Hoi An. The weather wasn't looking any better until we went through this massive tunnel, got to the other side and suddenly it was beautiful sunshine. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

We stayed in Hoi An 2 nights, it was a strange old place, hard to describe, but good fun. We did a lot of Vodka drinking on the rooftop terrace, me and Dan Vieng started the trent of a robe party, it got a bit silly. We rented bikes out one day and drove the 50km ride out to My Son. Basically some ruins in a park, not that impressive, i enjoyed the bike ride more, i say enjoyed, i was knackered after it. The Vietnamese traffic laws are pretty loose to say the least, by loose i mean there are none, so you had to concentrate pretty hard. Other than that we finally got to a beach and had a couple of really nice meals. Most people got something made as it's supposed to be the cheapest and best place in Vietnam. I did not, but i'm sure everyone elses will look lovely!

We then got a relatively easy 11 hour night bus to Nha Trang. Me and Dan sounded like we got lucky compared to the others in our group, drunk Vietnamese men throwing up on people and things like that. Oh well.

Nha Trang has been loads of fun so far. It's ridiculously hot so my tan is coming on nicely. There's a beautiful beach about 5 minutes walk from the hostel. Had the best day ever at the Vinpearl waterpark, there was some ceeeeerazy slides and some not so ceeeeerazy rides, but the whole day was so much fun. Not done great deal more than that, still seem to be drinking quite a lot though. We took on the Vietnamese at football and won 13-8 obviously, i scored 4 goals obviosuly. Tonight, about 8 of us have managed to organise a night at Red Apple club and we're getting free food, free beer and free accomodation for the night all i have to do is DJ some indie dancefloor classics for a few hours which will be a god send, i'm seriously craving some decent music. Should be a lovely warm up for the 8am bus tomorrow morning.

Hopefully 2 weeks with Mother will be a much needed detox, however she does like her Gin, so maybe i'll just be drinking more expensively. Plan is to head to Saigon, meet up, then head back up north to Mui Ne for some more beach time. Then probs back to Saigon and through Cambodia. I fly out of Cambodia on the 28th March to Kuala Lumpar for one night, then to Koh Samui for about a month in the Thai islands. Bit of a long way round to get there, but i have to fly into Thailand to get my 30 day visa and it's cheaper take 2 flights to KL then Ko Samui than it is to take a flight to Bangkok then a train down to the islands. Wierd.

That's it for now, that was a long one. Reckon my next one will be when i get to the islands. I know for a  fact that there's huges spelling and grammar errors in this, for those that know me, you will know how much this annoys me but i'm not really bov'ed anymore.

Peace and Love to all. X

Pai, Slowboat, Luang Prabang & Vang Vieng

So, last update i was about to leave Chiang Mai, which was great fun and met some really cool people there. I then moved onto Pai. I'd only heard good things about this place so was looking forward to getting there. The 3 hour minivan, was interesting. The guy was driving like an absolute nutter, with a full bus of people. Tyres screeching, the lot. It was a beautiful ride up there though. Twisty roads through the mountains with amazing scenery. We thankfully all arrived in one piece and I headed for my hostel called SpicyPai. It was basically a few bamboo huts in the the middle of a few rice fields. There was a common area in the middle with some hammocks and cushions. Very chilled, very cool. I loved it., even if it was a bit cold at night in my treehouse style bed! Felt like a lost boy in the film Hook sleeping there.

First night there was a charity reggae gig on so we all piled down there, the band played The Specials, so i was happy. Pai itself is a small little town and it is so chilled out! They fucking love Reggae there as well, maybe to the point i was getting a bit sick of it by the end. I was only planning on staying for 2 days but ended up there for 4 as i loved it so much. I hired a moped for the duration of the stay. Those who know me well enough will know what i mean when i say i made sure i took it easy! All was fine, literally like riding a bike!I One day we went on a little loop of the town on the bikes, fed some Elephants and went to a beautiful canyon for sunset. Also spent a day swimming at some waterfalls and by a pool just chilling out really. Met some really cool people here and was sad to leave. But after 4 days me Ali, Suzie and Tayla started the 3 day, 2 night trip to Luang Prabang.

The journey started with a 9 hour minivan to Chang Kong, which is right on the border with Laos. We got there around midnight and were all knackered, we had to be up at 7 the next morning so it was straight to bed, we were randomly in the next room to Dan, who was the 1st person i met in Pai, so he joined the group which was a cool! My morning started interestingly. Woke up at about 6 for a drink of water. Next thing i knew i was throwing it up everywhere. No water for me then that morning. I felt like absolute bollocks and i'd say the Thailand to Laos border crossing is pretty horrific at the best of times. It invloved getting stamped out of Thailand, a boat acros to Laos, then about 3 more q's for visas and visa fees and then finally getting stamped in the country. Jokes. Needless to say by the time that was all over all i wanted to do was get on the boat so i could lie down and sleep! Luckily we got on the boat last and managed to sit up the front with some locals which meant i could lie down and didn't have to cram in at the back with 'the masses'! By now i managed to keep some water down so started to feel better throughout the day and take in some of the beautiful scenery, it was truly stunning! We got to our overnight stop off at around 6 and managed to find our hostel. Again we had to be up early the next morning, so it was a relatively quiet one that night, and with me feeling like i did earlier in the day i laid off it for a night! I think the place was called Pabang, but it was literally in the middle of nowhere. Had a really good nights sleep and felt so much better the next day. Again by getting on the boat last we somehow managed to bag the best seats on a quieter boat, result! The day started off pretty quietly and then we got a bit tipsy throughout the day. We met a few people on the boat. Nathan and Jack, both from England and then two Swedish guys, Simon & Ulf (I fucking love that name!). It was a good day!

We got to Luang Prabang around 5 and headed to SpicyLoas. Not to be linked with SpicyPai in anyway, nowhere near as good! But alright, we managed to get ourselves our own little sectioned off room of 3 which was cool. 1st night we didn't really get up to that much it was my b'day the next day so we went to some place called Utopia  for food which was a really cool little hidden Gem. Then headed to Lao Lao, again really cool little place, We discovered that they gave away free shots everytime you asked for them of this stuff called Lao Lao, made from rice, Red in colour and totally leathal! It became known as our 'medicine' and the waiter was the doctor! Nice work Jack, funny shit.

The next day was my birthday! Started of bright and early, went and got food and then headed out the Kuang Si waterfall. It was totally breathtaking. A series of turquoise pools where you can swim and jump in from rope swings or off the top of the waterfall, i got sung happy birthday at the top on my own by the gang, nice touch. Perfect way to spend the day. We got back, washed up and headed out for some festivities. Went and had an amazing Steak at Utopia, then headed for some medicine at Lao Lao. Got a couple of little presents and a card , then it's a bit hazy. The weird thing about Luang Prabang is everything shuts down at 11:30 and the only place open that serves alcohol late is a bowling alley about 10 mins out of town by tuk tuk. So basically everyone piles down there bang on 11:30 to go bowling till the early hours. So weird. But obviously we obliged and proceeded to drink some Lion King whiskey and bowl, badly. It was a top birthday and i can't thank Dan, Ali, Suzie, Tayla, Jack & Nathan for helping me celebrate.

The only other thing of any significance i did in LP was to get up at 5:30am to go and give the monks some sweets. It was pretty boring, i was wish i'd stayed in bed. Oh yeah we also played football with some kids on a beach by the river. They were cool, much better thank English kids. The main thing i'll take away is Lao Lao, Where are all the monks going? Who's touching the monks!?

I'm now in Vang Vieng which i'll leave till next time as i've not been here long. It's pretty mental though i can assure you of that!

Till next time! X

P.s. I still haven't seen a drop of rain since i've been here! Bye! x