Thailand and Sydney

1 October: London - Bangkok

With eastern Europe in my rearview mirror and after a few days to catch up with some folks in London, first stop was Bangkok to see friends who've been living there for a few years. They've got a sweet expat lifestyle there and it's always good to see them. They've got a good bunch of friends they've met in the time they've been there and we had a good night out for Ellie's birthday. I don't think I've ever seen as many mojitos sunk in a single session.

One thing that always amazes me is the size of the city. I like Bangkok and its craziness. Not so keen on seeing fat old white men wandering around with Thai juniors, but in a bizarre way you don't notice it after a while.



I've visited Thailand half a dozen times in the last 2 or 3 years and usually spend a few days in Bangkok before heading down south to the islands. We had a good day out wakeboarding, just outside of the city and with a temple in the background to make an interesting setting.



This time I'd have liked to do something different and go north to Chiang Mai for some walking around in forest, but there was a typhoon around and if the thunderstorms up north would have been anything like the ones in Bangkok it would have been pretty miserable. So I went south again. Not such hard luck really.






I was in Thailand for a couple of months around xmas last year and spent a fair amount of time on Phi Phi. It was pretty much wiped out in the tsunami so it's weird sitting in a beach bar and looking up and down the beach and imagining nothing being there.



8 October: Bangkok - Sydney

Next stop was just a weekend in Sydney seeing friends, on the way back to NZ. I've been a couple of times before. The first time I didn't rate Sydney as I stayed in Bondi which I thought was a bit up its own arse. Last time I came I visited friends in Manly and had a completely different experience. That got me thinking I'd like to spend a few years in Sydney when I leave London. This time pretty much set that plan in stone.



Sydney's got it all. Great beaches, good climate and the idea of living in Manly and getting a boat to the city to work each day sounds pretty mellow. Plus having friends there already and being closer to NZ makes it a no brainer

Check out the artwork with the seaweed here.



Next up's a roadie around NZ for a month.

Final Thoughts

So, here I am back in London at the end of it all. Eastern Europe is amazing. Beautiful, interesting and fun - and that's just the people. It's hard to say I had a favourite place as I liked different places for different reasons. I guess I liked the Baltics for the women, Kiev and Budapest for stunning cities, Slovakia and Poland for the scenery, Bosnia and Serbia for surprise packages and Croatia for the partying. So it was all good.

It's amazing how easy it was to get around. Almost everywhere, anyone under 35 speaks good English. It wasn't as cheap as I'd anticipated, and after a while I abandoned my budget and decided to just enjoy it.

The recent history of so many places was pretty sobering. Around 1989 - 1992 there was so much change all over eastern Europe. The fall of communism, the USSR and Yugoslavia were massive and I guess it's pretty amazing how quickly it all happened, and around the same time. Almost overnight, so many new countries on the map. The people are so outward looking and just keen to get on with their lives. Which I guess is human nature.

Now, I'm heading to Bangkok, Sydney, New Zealand and finally South America.

Croatia, Munich & Prague

5 September: Mostar - Dubrovnik

I'm gonna be lazy now and whip through the last few days of my trip. I went to Dubrovnik and hung out there with the kiwi dude I met in Mostar for a couple of days. It's a beautiful little city and even the abundance of tourists doesn't put you off. It was super hot so I hung out at the beach for a couple of afternoons. "Beach" is a little ambitious, given it was rocks and not sand so doesn't qualify as a beach for my money. Still it was nice though and the Adriatic water was amazing.





From there I went to Split, a little up the coast. I was thinking of going to Zagreb to try and get a ticket for the Croatia v England football World Cup qualifier. But decided in the end I couldn't be arsed sitting on a bus for another 5 hours without a guarantee of getting in. Plus I didn't want to be there if the English lost and a bunch of hooligans ran around smashing up the city centre. So I went to an island just off Split called Hvar and hung out with 3 English I met on the ferry on the way over. We took a day trip the next day around some tiny islands off Hvar, which was pretty sweet. The water was amazing and the sun was shining.



From there it was back to Split for another night to get on the Sail Croatia party boat for a week. Picture the scene if you can: 44 people on the boat sailing from island to island, with a couple of mainland overnights as well. 37 of those 44 were girls. Seriously. This is what I'm talkin' about:




I was lucky enough to have great people on my boat (there are 8 boats all going at the same time) and had a fantastic time. The only downer was the weather, which turned for pretty much the whole week. It was a shame for the people who were only on holiday for a couple of weeks. I wasn't too worried as I'd not seen any rain for several weeks and the G&Ts helped to take the edge off too....

22 September: Croatia - Munich

So after a week of little sleep and much partying it was off to Munich for Oktoberfest for, um, more of the same for 3 days. Oktoberfest is mental. But such good fun. I met up with a boatmate and while we were there we bumped into a guy she works with in Sydney. He was there seeing a few of his mates that live and work in Munich so we were well looked after.







I went to Prague after 3 nights. Well that's not strictly true - I was meant to go to Prague but fell asleep on the train leaving Munich and missed my stop to connect to Prague. So woke up at the end of the line in a place called Hof, somewhere else in Germany. I had to get a room there for a night and get to Prague the next day. I met up with a couple I'd met in Hvar who are studying in Prague (he's from Slovakia, she's Japanese) and they took me out with a big bunch of their mates who are also studying there. So it was another late night which was a fitting end to my Europe adventure.