At last... Photos

Firstly, I have uploaded some photos, these are just a selection of the ones off my camera, it has been such a hassle getting them up that I haven't had chance to get any of Sophie's camera yet. Thanks to Will for helping me upload some of them. Anyway go and have a look, click on the Photo Gallery link to the right.

Our plans have changed due to us deciding it would be better this way with our visas. So right now we are in Bangkok, had the 10 hour bus journey today. Tomorrow we are sorting out about getting down to the south of the island, where we will stay till mid-November, when we will go to Cambodia -> Vietnam -> Laos and get back to the south of Thailand around December 20th. Hopefully we will be on a beach within a few days! We are staying tonight on the famous Khaosan Road, in a place that's 2.25 each per night and is very basic, though does have a hot shower. On the bus journey to Bangkok we had to sit through 2 thai films that seemed to be about ladyboys, presumably chosen by the "hostess" who was starting to get a bit of stubble on his face. Finished reading my book "Panic" by Jeff Abbot today, well worth a read. (If you wonder why I write things like what we ate/read/etc it's to remind me when I look over all this in the future.) So go look at the photos and leave us some comments.

Far Trek

Ok firstly some things I forgot to say in the last post - we didn't travel by train in the end as it was cancelled due to floods on the line so we got an 11 hour bus instead which was cheaper and not as bad as I thought it would be. We staying at a hotel called Pornping Tower which was very nice and paid for by my Dad. We are now staying somewhere that costs us just over a quid a night, it has a hot shower and is alright, a place called Midtown House.
Anyway, our 3 day trek was amazing. The first day was really hard work, walking and climbing through the jungle for 3 hours, it was such hard work, I've climbed Snowdon several times and I was nowhere near as knackered as I was after that. We got to a little village with their wooden shacks, it was great, they made us food and we sat round with our guide (Mr Whiskey) playing the guitar, drinking beers and chilling out. They had a bloody cockerill that decided to cockadoodledoo every hour throughout the night for some reason which was a little annoying.
The next day we had breakfast, boiled egg and toast, which was just like being at home apart from the wooden knives, then we set off on a trek to see 3 waterfalls, we went swimming in the first one which was awesome. It was really hard work trekking again, even though it was mostly downhill, it was down dangerous paths and things like walking over rivers on tiny logs where one slip means you're in serious trouble. We both made it safely though I did manage to headbutt a large rock which has left a big lump. We arrived at a different village, ate a nice meal and sat around a campfire. The toilets in these places are just holes in the ground and the showers are a bucket of water with a bowl, luxury!
Today was the best day, walked for 40 minutes to the Elephant park, went for a walk on Sonka the Elephant who was very cheeky and was stealing other peoples bananas. We then went in a rubber raft through the rapids and then cruised down the river on a bamboo raft.
I don't really have enough time to explain how amazing the last 3 days were but we took loads of photos and I will upload them either today or tomorrow.
Tomorrow we are going to look round some temples and then the zoo, also going to book a bus ticket to Laos for Friday. We have started taking our malaria tablets, no side affects yet.
What's happening with BGCC 3rds and 4ths then, are they both going into div 3? Great news about Worcs CCC.
Look out for the photos coming soon (so long as I can find a good enough computer.)

Trekking plans

Things we did today: Went for a swim in the hotel pool; went to the night market where Sophie bought some cheap sandals and a purse with thanks to my haggling skills; ate sweet and sour chicken & a chicken salad (guess which I had); bought a cheap 1 gig USB stick; had a massage that did my feet, legs, back, shoulders, arms and hands, 1 hour for just over 3 quid.
We also booked ourselves onto a 3 day/2 night trek, we leave tomorrow at 9:30, we will be going elephant riding, bamboo rafting, going in some big rubber ring type thing, visiting waterfalls and staying in tribal villages where the women have bizarrely long necks! So won't be able to get online for a few days so leave us some messages for when we get back.
At the time of writing Villa are 2-0 up against Charlton which has pleased me immensely. Also Worcestershire CC have just won, I'm not sure what that means for our promotion bid though as Essex are still playing, can someone leave a message and let me know?
Will take my camera on the trek so hopefully have some photos to put up, these computers I'm using are pretty slow though so will have to try and have a good one.
Be in touch in a few days.

Bye Bye Bangkok

Well tomorrow we are leaving Bangkok, we are doing a 12 hour train journey to Chaing Mai at 8:30am, 2nd class with air conditioning so it should be OK. Today we went on the train, the skytrain and even a boat which was really cool. Just eaten "American Fried Rice" which was rice with an egg, sausages and ham so it was nice but won't bother having it again. Sophie ate spicy shrimp.
When we booked our train tickets, there were loads of soldiers with guns walking round the place, I'll be glad when we get to somewhere nice and stable like Vietnam and Cambodia, errr...

Coup Coup

Well, what are the chances. We arrive in Bangkok, stay here for 1 day and there's a bloody military coup! I was wondering why all they were showing on TV was pictures of their beloved King and then we heard about it on BBC World News. We have seen tanks and military personel, but not got too close... Nobody here that we have met seems particularly bothered. Was a bit annoying that they declared today a bank holiday as we weren't aware of this and took a while to get our money changed.
We spent today once again sorting out visas, we have to go back to the Vietnamese embassy tomorrow to pick up our visa and we will be leaving Bangkok on Friday when we are going to Chaing Mai and will hopefully be able to have some more relaxing days. We have done a LOT of walking lately. We have also done lots of travelling on this Sky Train thing which is quite cool.
We have just eaten a nice, cheap meal, in what I think must be a restaurant run by ladyboys, either that or they are unfortunate looking/sounding women.
We are staying tonight in a small hotel called Sri ayuttaya which seems quite nice.
Anyways, nothing much to report really so I'll leave it there for now, I'm sure I'll be on tomorrow to see how many Villa hammer Scunthorpe by. What's all this stuff about bungs by the way?

Arrived

Here we are in Bangkok, sitting in an internet cafe over the road from our hotel. It's around 8pm now which is 6 hours ahead of the UK. Our flight was alright, 11 hours, watched a couple of films (XMen 3 and Confidence), only got about 2 hours sleep so was totally knackered when we arrived.
Our hotel is very nice, we chose to eat there last night as we were so tired, this was a bad idea as the portions were ridiculously large and rather expensive. We ate out tonight and both our meals and drinks were under 2 quid.
We spent today sorting out visas for the other countries and still have a bit more of that to do tomorrow. We are also going to find another place to stay for a couple of nights as tonight is our last night in the posh hotel.
Good to see that Doug Ellis has been replaced by Randy Lerner. Anything else of any note happened? Leave us a comment at the end of this post, or on the message board please. Anyone know if Susan passed her driving test?
I imagine we'll be in an internet cafe again within the next couple of days, this is an expensive one, 50p an hour! ;-)
Not taken any photos yet but once we get a few I'll upload them onto the gallery, maybe in a month or so.
Much love
Jamie and Sophie

Updates

I have added a message board to the site, it would be good if you can post and leave us messages so that we know we haven't been forgotten, and remember you can post comments on each of our posts by clicking on the comment bit below.
I have also added a Photo Gallery, at the moment it just has a few images from home for us to look at if we get homesick or whatever but the plan is to put some photos that we take whilst we are away on there, you can leave comments on each of the photos aswell.
Can't believe it's just 3 days until we go away, exciting times...

First Blog

Hey,this is where myself and Sophie will be keeping you posted with where we are and what we are up to. We fly to Bangkok this Sunday at 10pm from Heathrow. We are flying back home on August 25th 2007. A full itinerary will be posted soon, but basically we are going to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore and Bali in the first half of our trip, then flying to Darwin in Australia mid February, where we will be doing a tour to Ayers Rock and then flying to Melbourne. After spending some time in Oz, hopefully doing some sort of work, we will go to New Zealand for about a month, then Fiji for a few weeks before flying home, stopping off in Los Angeles for a few nights.

I will have a new email address that I'll be using for the trip, which is jamielongmore (at) hotmail (dot) co.uk - (I wrote it like that to stop spammers by the way). Please give me an email so that I can add you to my contact list.

Also if you don't have me on MSN messenger, my address for that is jamie (at) eggboys (dot) net
As another way for you guys to keep in touch with us, click on the comment button below one of our posts and you can write us a message, please remember to leave your name so we know who it's from. Try doing it now so you know how it works.