ARGHGGHGHGHHG!!!

Well I went Kayaking again, just as much fun as the first time. Right now I am in a jam AGAIN!! the last month has been pretty stressfull for me.
Well I haven't gotten my taxes back from Australia yet. They were supposed to come in a week ago. Well anyway my credit card maxed out, which leaves me with 0$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (literally)
BAH! oh the stress! Debby decided to go volunteer on the Burmese border with orphan children, which is cool, I was tempted to go aswell, but i'm not in the right frame of mind to do anything like that now, I've got my own (much smaller ) problems to think about!
Anyway i'm freaking out about a bit. I can't make up my mind as to what I'm doing, and the Tax guy is beign a GIGANTIC JERK!!!! and avoiding me!! I smell a scam!
BAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyway i catch a bus to Bangkok in a few hours, i'll take it from there

Found my new favourite place in Thailand

Well I spent almost a week in Bangkok. I hung around Kao Sarn for a day just shopping and bumming around. Then moved back To Suk 11, the same hostle I've been staying at for years now. There I met up with Derek. Was preetty much the same old stuff. I ate some Good Somtem (papaya salad) from the lady in the back, and had a Banana Roti from "happy" down the road. I also met (yet another) crazy English girl from London. Anyway we both didn't have any plans so we decided to hook up and head to Kanchaniburi. I've never been here before but it has been recommended by several people. I absolutly love it here.
This is where the bridge over the river Kwai is.
Well lucky for me, Debby is one of those people who loves to do things and get things done!
So in the past 3 days I went to the tigre temple ( I got to pet a tigre). Went for a hike up the most beautiful limestone water falls. I didn't swim in the pools though, Eventhough we had been hiking up-hill fo 3 hours and i was sweaty and hot and the pools were gorgeouse and blue. And the water was clear, so you could see each and every one of the fish, and there was lots of them, So i chickened out (ask me to pick up a snake, hold a spider, no problem, but swim with fish? Forget it!!)
anyway after that I went to Hellfire pass. which is where POWs and asian labourers built the way for the train to go through, many people died there, and also hung around the Bridge over the river Kwai.
Today I went Kayaking down the river Kwai, which was amazing!! We saw a pretty blue bird .I liked it so much I'm going to do it again tomorrow.
The reason why I love this city SO much is the people here are just so amazingly smiley and friendly and food, MY GOD the food, is just too good. Actually the only reason why I'm going kayaking again is to have a reason to stay one more day to eat more food!

thailand...sigh

Well I hopped on a bus and then a ferry and ended up on Koh Phi phi in Thailand! This is the island where "The Beach" was filmed. It was really beautiful... but unofrtunatly you can still see the mass damage the Tsunami did to it, but they're recovering well and have plenty of tourist to give em lots of money.
(Koh Phi phi, where the movie "The Beach" was filmed)
Unfortunately the second day we were there, or was it the third?? hmmmm...Mikey got some bad news from home, and immediatly flew home. I hopped a plane with him to Bangkok, because I figured bumming around on the islands on my own would be a) boring, b) too pricey.
So for like the MILIONTH time I am wandering around Bangkok confused and alone. It kind of sucks because I'm really burnt out from travelling, I was really looking forward to slowly and casualy meandering north with a friend (who was just as easy and hassle free about evrything as I am). Meh I guess that's travelling for ya.
Well the imfamous Derek is somewhere in this city at the moment aswell, though I haven't been able to reach him, I'm sure we'll meet up. I'll try to come up with a rough plan as to what I'm doing within the next few days!

Malaysia

(Mike and the trishaw driver)
hmmm what can I say about Malaysia. It was a pretty neutral place. I probably would have liked it a lot more had the air been half decent. I spent just over a week and only travelled through 3 cities, including Malacca, Kuala Lumpu (the huge twin petrona towers were nice except they were barely visible with the smog.) and Georgetown which was an island off of Penang. We really didn't do much but wander around and watch movies, we actually couldn't find more to do.. maybe we were just being lazy, i dunno...
anyway our stop after that was Koh Phi Phi which was that island where they filmed "the Beach"
(these are the Petronas, usually you can see them clearly form this tower, but thats how smoggy it was)

(on the trishaw with Mikey)

Singapore! cough, cough

Monday morning we had all our taxes figured out, We bought a plane ticket and flew to Singapore a few hours later. Hmmm what can I say about singapore. We didn't stay long at all. It was a weird country. The way I would describe it (and this is only after 3 days of being there ) is Singapore is to Asia as North America is to Europe.
Let me elaborate on that; In europe you have lots of different countries, each country having its own unique culture and way of life. then you go to North America, which is filled with people originally from europe all from different parts however. Because of this North america has no real culture or religion or one way of life, its just one big mess of everything. And in my personal opinion I felt like Singapore was exactly that to Asia. There were so many different Nationalities that it was just a big mess of randomness, plus everyone spoke perfect english ad drove fancy cars ( real clean looking fancy cars) and listenbed to 50 cent. It was strange..nice, and clean, and friendly...but strange...
what did we do there? hmm lots of walking around and taking the train all over the place..nothing too exciting, then again i don't think there was much more to do.

anyway I just got to Malaysia a couple hours ago to a city called Malacca. So far I like this place...
However, YAY for me, just in the Isabel way I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time again, Singapore and Malaysia are currently covered with a really bad haze. Its caused by forests they're burning in Sumatra, Indonesia. So everthing here is really dense and smoggy and the sky is grey (eventhough its sunny out) and its unbarebly humid and hot. My lungs hurt!
Stoooopid smoke!!!

here's some news about it
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/10/5/nation/15633707&sec=nation
(No DURIANS! HA! Durians are stinky fruit, I thought it was funny they forbade them in the subway)

Good-bye Australia

Life in Darwin has been pretty boring. At first it was alright, but i've been here over a week now and it a small town and I've run out of things to do. Anyway, while beign here I've been doing a lot thinking. And a lot of spending money, on NOTHING!! Where did it all go?!?!!?!?
Well with all my thinking and all my money spending I came to a conclusion. I don't have enough time left to work again, and I don't have enough money left too travel a month and a half in Australia, so i decided, I would go to Asia instead. I've got plenty of moula for a month and a half there. Mike decided he would want to come along too, so that should be cool
So that's what we're doing, we're waiting for our tax return, then booking our tickets. We might leave today, or in 2 days.

(good-bye my roadtripping friends)
Our flight will be landing in singapore. Then we plan to bus our way through malaysia to Thailand. Woohoo good times!
I can't wait to be back in Asia!
All in all Australia's been great times, I met some great people and did some cool things, but I'll ready to leave now, I've had enough, for now