Nam

I arrived safe and sound in Ho Chi Min City. I am staying at a hotel Linneah boked for us living Luxury compared to all the hostels I have been staying at. Life is good. I am going to go try my luck at crossing the street through hundreds of scooters and explore the city. Imagine all the cabs in new york as scooters and then multiply that by 3 (becuase scooters are smaller) then you can visulize a crowded street here!

Bye Australia :(

Red back, funnel web, blue ringed octopus
Taipan, Tiger snake, Adderbox and
Jellyfish stone fish and the poison thing that lives in a shell,
that spikes you when you pick it up

Come to Australia
You might accidentally get killed
Your lifes constantly under threat Have you been bitten yet?
You've only got 3 minutes left
Before a massive coronary breakdown

Red back, funnel web, blue ringed octopus
Taipan, Tiger snake, Adderbox and Jellyfish
Big shark, just waiting for you to go swimming At Bondi Beach

Come on Come to Australia
You might accidentally get killed
Your blood is bound to be spilled
With fear your pants will be
Filled Because you might accidentally get killed

- Lyrics from "Come to Australia" Scared Weird Little Guys

I survived all those things and the song diddn't even mention Aligators or Casawary birds also known for killing people and the Dengue fever out break.

I can't wait to go back!!

Scuba Diving

I woke up early Friday morning to board the T5 diving ship. (Thank you Uncle Joey and Gina). It took about an hour on the water to get to Hasting reef where we were going to go diving. I got preped on how to dive, got suited up and was ready to go. Becuase this was a Luxury liner the boat staff did everything. I sat there and they put on my scuba tank, checked the air, cleaned my goggles and even put on my fins. I wasn't used to that, swim coaches just don't do that for you. Then I jumped in to the water and was led down the 12 meters for my first scuba dive!!! The reef was amazing. It was so clear, there were so many colors. Tons of fish of all sizes. I saw clown fish and parrot fish and giant clams. It was great. The experiance lasted about 25 minuets and it was amazing. I was given the option to do 2 more dives, but they were expensive and you need 12-24 hours between diving and going on a plane and I didn't want to push my luck. I instead choose to go snorkaling. The views were still great. The colors were even a little better becuase I was closer to the sun. about 5 minuets after I jumped in the water for last snorkle the sky opened up and it started pouring. it rained for a good 10 minuets, besides the water clarity decreasing a little, the rain didn't matter. The sun came out again and I enjoyed the rest of the time out on the water. After the boat headed in I took some time to stroll around Cains and see the town. Then later that night I met up with some other Oz Experiancers at Rino bar. Similar to the Whoolshed but we kept the dancing on the dance floor no tables for the last night in Cains.

Cape Tribulation

Layla, Eloise and I headed up to cape tribulation on wednesday. Cape tribulation is the only place that 2 national world heritage parks meet. The rainforest's meets the reef. Its very cool. We took a tour up to cape trib. It takes about 45 minuets go from Cape tribultion up to port douglas where we stopped at another wild animal park. I saw the cutest koala. It was awake, it moved, it ate and it even made noise. Our guide had never seen the koalas do all that in one trip. Usually they just sleep. I got to see another cassowary and feed some more kangaroo's and I even got to see a joey, a baby kangaroo, in the mom's pouch. From the animal park we went up and did a rainforest's walk in Port Douglas. We stoped for lunch after our rainforest treck. After lunch our guide promised us desert. He walked to one of the trees close by, picked up a green ant and lickd it. He instisted we all try the green ants. They were in fact good. I didn't eat a green ant. I liked a green ant. It tasted like lemon lime zest. The guide joked about popping some green ant bums in a carona. but really that would be quite good. From there I took a ride on the Daintree river to look for crocodiles. We saw a baby one. Then we to an exotic fruit farm. Where I had jack fruit, black sapote, green sapote and black mame ice cream. Then we went to our hostel, the beach house to relax after our long day of exploring. The Hostel was set in the middle of the rainforest. We went to lounge by the pool whichi was covered in all diffrent types of trees from the rainforest. It was very exotic. We also went down to beach so we could stand where the reef meets the rainforest. It was simialar to when you cross state lines. Rainforest, then I jumped to the Reef and back again. When I had called the hostel about what options there were for dinner the receptionist had told me they had a restraunt at the hostel and food was avilable. At most hostels they have food for around $7-15. At the beach house dinner was $24 not a bargin. So Laiya, Eloise and I trecked for a half down the road to the store ( near the hostel up in cape tribulation, PK's) Where were got that was much more afordable. Becuase the night life was soo crazy up at cape tribulation (there isn't any night life)) we settled in for a nice evening of monopoly. It was a very intense game. The lounge area closes at ten so we all called it a early night.
The next day we all woke up after having a nice sleep in. We didn't have to rush to wake up and we were the only ones in the room so we didn't have to worry about being quite or if we could turn the light on becuase someone was sleeping. It was a nice luxury. We had a nice luxurious breakfast, we relaxed. It was very nice. Just as we decided to start our day it started pouring. So we relaxed somemore and wait for the rain to stop. When the rain stopped we put on our thongs (flip flops) and headed for our afternoon hike. The hike included the treck to the general store, A look out at the Cape Tribulation beach, The daintree rainforest walk, and then masons swimming hole. The walk there was about 2 hours of walking. There were some great views at the lookout. The rainforest walk was very cool. There was a lot of flood damage along the rainforest walk. No damage to the boardwalk but a lot to the local wildlife. The swimming hole was one of the coolest things I have done. We were the only people at the swimming holes. It was beutiful cool clear water, freindly fish, great trees. It was a great experiance. Then after cooling off in the swimming hole and grabbing some lunch at Mason's store we headed back to the hostel so we could get a ride back to Cains. Back in Cains the 3 of us met up with some of the other people that we were travling with that had gone to mission beach for a day before comming up to Cains. We went to the infoumous Whoolshed for dinner and drinks. Portions here are huge if you are hungy in Cains and want a inexpensive meal go to the Whoolshed. After stuffing our faces( for $6.50 nice compared to $24 at the hostel the previous night) we went for a walk to the night market and the lagoon. The lagoon is less lagoon like then Airle beach and more pool like and open with life gaurds till late. The lagoon is similar to an infinity pool as it drops off into the harbor near by. Then after browsing the night market we went back to the whoolshed for some late night drinks and dancing. We had a danced the dance floor, the tables and the chairs it was a great night.

Magnetic Island and the road to Cains

After a big night out in Arlie beach. The entire bus, my self included was hung over so I was able to sleep most of the ride up to Townsville. Due to all the rain Queensland has been getting the roads to Townsville had been shut down, the roads just opened last week. I am so lucky. Townsville is the stop to get to Magnetic island. Magnetic island is supposed to have over 300 sunny days a year. However, because it is rainy season they have only had one days with one rain this year. That one day was not one of the days I was at Magnetic Island. One of the locals was telling me that in about two weeks the rain would stop and it wouldn't rain until January next year. crazy. Anyway, I took the ferry to Magentic island in the middle of the rain storm. It was not smooth sailing. I was not a happy camper but I made it. I stayed at Base Backpackers it was very nice Hostel. Beautiful view, cute, air conditioned rooms, lots of bugs. The rain stopped when I got there long enough for me to enjoy a lovely rainbow and see the view with out it down poring. The evening was spent playing drinking games. There was about 15 of that all ended up at base that had been traveling together for the last couple days. So it was nice for all of us to all hang out as a big group. We were like the cool kids because there was a lot of us that all knew each other.
The next day, the morning was very nice, a little cloudy but the day looked promising. until noon. Then The rain came crashing down. I decided that it a rainy day was an excellent time for me to catch up on my journal writing and time to do some research for Vietnam. It rained all day. We played cards, we watched the rain, we got wet. Finally, the rain let up a little bit and I was able to go on the Forts walk in the National park on the Island. The walk is supposed to take an hour and half. I did in 50 min. I didn't want to get stuck in a down poor. Due to the rain I didn't see any Kolas, but there are supposed to be a lot that live in that particular forest. The views from the walk were amazing. The Island is very majestic and would be very nice in the sun. After the taxing walk and dinner I went strait to bed I was exhausted from such a busy day.
Tuesday was a long day. I woke up early. We all had to get up early to catch the bus to catch the Ferry to meet the Oz bus so we could make our way up to Cains. The ride to Cains was about a 6-7 hour trip. My last long day on the oz bus. On the way to Cains, the bus stops at A crocodile farm. It was awesome. I got to hold fluffy a baby crocodile. It could have eaten me. I got to see a lot of really really big crocodiles. It was crazy. One of the crocks, Tank ( because he was HUGE!) popped out of the water, scared us all, then then ate the chicken that the trainer was holding. Then after watching a dozen crocodiles get fed, I got to hand feed a couple of Kangaroo's, a baby kangaroo, and a wallaby. They were adorable. Then I even go to hold a dingo. they also like to bite humans. I made it out safely! no worries! I finally arrived in Cains. I made it up the entire east coast from Sydney to Cains approx 1,695.33 miles that's a lot of traveling. This evening I had a pancake dinner, apparently that a traditional dinner before lent. I just think pancakes are an excellent dinner. Then a couple of went to cheep movie night. It was $9. Normally movies here are $14. I was not impressed with cheep movie night. I booked some more activities for the rest of my trip. I am going up to Cape Tribulation tomorrow for the night and I am going to go diving on the Reef on Friday and then Sat I leave for Vietnam. My trip flew by.

Whitsundays!

I didn't die from jellyfish!!!!! I will come back to the whitsundays.. they were amazing and I got so lucky and had amazing weather.

( I will continue later)

http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/whitsundays/?albumview=slideshow

Here are all the links to my pictures from Isreal to Arlie Beach.
I love having fast internet in an airconditioned room. Life is better that way.
My blackberry should be working now, I should be able to get BBM's again.

http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/Krombit%20family/ http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/Byron%20Bay/ http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/Frasiers%20ect/ http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/Noosa/
http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/Surfers/ http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/
http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/Taglit/

The Bush

http://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv136/Elyse82/Krombit%20family/

My tour took me off the coast and I went went to mid-western Queensland, the Bush. Not the outback that is in central Australia I was about 2 hours inland. I went to a cattle station called Krombit cattle station located on the Krombit Nature Preserve near biloeal (white cockatoo). There is a link to see some pictures. I got very lucky and I had a great group of people to travel with to the cattle station with. We were all a bit older and had a lot of fun. The day started off with a hearty steak lunch. yumm, steak from a cattle station. Krombit is a Cattle station. It has about 1,000 heads of cattle and then like 3 times as much land. Usually there is very limited food due to the lack of rain and drought so farms are limited to how much stock they have. Due to the heavy rains everything was green and lush, a real rarity. Anyway, a station is bigger then ranch or farm due to land not necessarily how much cattle/goats ect are on it. After lunch we all headed out to the farm. I pretended to shoot a huge gun. We had a goat rodeo. so much much fun so gross. The pen was muddy and full of goat shit it was gross but so much fun. Each group had one person catch the goat, flip and hold the goat and then pretend to brand the goat. You can tell from the pictures I as the goat flipper. I got "mud" all over it was great fun. we all smelled great that evening. Then after the goat rodeo we played spin the bottle station style. There is a picture of the bottle of gin. The cowboy, Andy, the was our leader had started the afternoon with a full bottle of gin and about 2 and half hours later the bottle was empty so we could use it for spin the bottle. I guess he need to be drunk to live on the station or just to deal with 26 tourists. As per usual spin the bottle rules all of us got in a circle and Andy spun the bottle. When the bottle stopped instead of kissing, the two people had to hold on to a two pronged electric rod. The entire circle had to hold hands and then the shock went through the entire circle. It was electric! haha. Then we proceeded to have our dinner appetizer. Grilled Goat, delicious. Then meat, potato and carrots for dinner. After dinner it was Monday inside out party day. So we had to dress up in clothes backwards, inside out, the boys cross dressed. It was hilarious. The evening preceded with a lesson on how to crack and whip and ridding a mechanical bull. I had a great time. Very entertaining. However, there were some negatives to the evening. The bugs. I hate, HATE bugs. I stayed in a cabin, I found 2 bugs in my bed before I went to bed. gross. and then I had to fall asleep trying to convince myself that there were no more bugs in my bed and no bugs were going to touch me while I slept. ugh!
Then the next morning I started my journey to Arlie Beach. is was a 10 hour day on the bus. We stoped at the tropic of Capricorn. there are some pictures from that in the album as well. I go sailing around the Whitsunday islands later today. I am hoping for good weather!!! I am planning on taking lots of drugs so I don't get sea sick. no worries.

Frasiers Island

I survived Frasiers Island!!!
The short version: I departed Rainbow beach early Thursday morning in a 4 wheel drive ready to go off roading on an all sand Island. 11 of us loaded in a land cruiser. After an hour and half of driving we got to the island and made our way to Eli Creek, the maheno shipwreck, the pinnacles, and Indian head. Then found our campsite on the beach. Found out that sand flies bite so do spiders and mosquito's. Saw Dingo's at a arms lengh. Then we bbqed on the beach under the moonlight and danced under the stars. then the next day we loaded up and went to lake Makenzie. Amazing!! Then the rain started. Then I hiked on the pile trail through a rain forest in the rain. I had to pick a leach off my foot. Then in the pouring rain returned to the camp site and decided to go to a hotel on the island. Lived in luxury for the night. Ate, drank, showered. Then in the morning a few of us went to lake Wabby. Then returned to the hotel and waited out the rain until we could get to the ferry to take us to the main land. In the rain. It was defiantly a unique experience. I will elaborate more when the Internet is faster and cheaper.

Updates

The Animals I have seen so far:
Wild turkey
Flying fox
A giant lizard similar to a bearded dragon
Kangaroo
Dolphins
Wale
Kookaburra bird
Goanna
Sea turtle
Koala
Dingo
Giant Snake
Eagle
Hawk
White cockatoo

Beers I have drank:
Beez Neez
James Squire, golden ale
VB (Victoria bitter)
Toothys light. Stag
Hann. premium light/super dry
Casacade light
Pure Blond * Currently my drink of choice.
XXXX gold and bitter

Noosa (continued)

Noosa is great. It is very relaxing. The hostle I am staying out is about a 3 min walk from the beach. I am such a spoiled brat. The night activities here include a group of us all crowded around a guitar and plenty of beer. Then at 11pm we all get kicked out of the comman area of the hostle and we go to the beach. Becuase the last few nights have almost been a full moon the beach has been great. Good times. I went to the Nature Preserve to go to one of the more secluded beaches Tea tree beach and to hopefully see a Koala. its about a 25 min trek to the beach but worth it. No life guards, no screaming kids. It is very nice. The water is so warm here that you don't go in the water to cool off. you just go in to the ocean to avoid cooking on the beach. While walking from Tea tree beach to another beach I finnally got to see not 1 koala but 2 koalas!!!! Very excitting!!! I leave tomorrow to continue north to Rainbow Beach. From Rainbow beach I am going on a 3 days trip on Fraiser Island. Frasier island is a giant sand island and I will going off roading for 3 days. There are supposed to be a lot of bugs there so I am tring to load up on all forms of bug repelent. The mosquitos, spiders and i think bitting flies have been thrilled that I have to Australia. They see me as a new food group. I am so glad I helping them to a new food source. I am trying not to take benadryl untill after fraiser island becuase I am afraid I will get feasted on and have to live on it after that experiance. besides helping the bugs get fat all is well here.

Noosa

After my adventures in Surfers Paridise I had a quick night in Brisbine. I was only there for a couple of hours. I did manage to hit the casino, the Story Bridge, Queen st, The Valley and China Town. I was impressed with everything I managed to do. Then I continued north to Noosa. Along the way I went to the glass house mountains. The land was flat then all of a sudden there large mountins pop out of the country side. I think Captain cook named them the Glass house mountins becuase they looked like glass houses ( or farm mills). Noosa is very similar to Byron bay. Everyone is laid back and the emphasis is relaxation. In Byron Bay there are lots of little boutique stores and a very stong hippie influance. Here, becuase the town is smaller the surfers have a larger influnace on town life as well as tourism. There are a handful of resorts and high end stores even a fair amount of brand name stores. People who live in Noosa seldom work here, instead they work in the surrounding towns. I am staying at the Hasle Lodge.It is a very cute hostle. Its one of the last wooden lodges in queensland. A world of diffrence from the arts factory. There is was camping, here is it fancy camping. There is a Nature Presever here home to a variety of wildlife including koalas. There are 5 main trails in the park. I combined two trails and the the coastal walk and the another walk that took me through the park. There are some really nice vies from the coastal walk. Beautiful blue ocean set again against the dark rocks makes a nice contrast. There are also a lot of beachs that you can only get to via the coastal path so there are a lot of surfers searching for the best waves on all the quiet beachs along the coast. Then the walk through the park was very nice. It was very quiet, I only saw 2 people my entire walk through. I did however see a handful of wild turkeys, lots of birds, and a lace monitor lizard ( also called a goanna lizard...it was huge). I made some firends here at this hostle. It's nice to meet some other people my age instead of the abundance of 18-21 yr olds that I had met early on in the trip.

Sunrise

I know I am skipping ahead. Earlier today at 5am I went to the lighthouse in Byron Bay to see the sunrise. The sun slowly made an appearance over the ocean. The scenery was amazing. The ocean was accented with the first rays of sunshine. I saw a whale on the horizon. Then after watching the sun come up for about an hour. I made the trek through the coastal rain forest to the beach. Along the way I was able to go to the official eastern most tip of Australia and then I went to what the locals say is the eastern most tip. Along the rocks I saw a small pod of dolphins playing in the waves. The path took me along the beach and I was able to fully appreciate the morning. The sand was cool and soft, the sun was slowly getting warmer and warmer. The ocean was a clear blue. I watched the people surfing. so amazing! I just keep thinking, I am in Australia and I am so lucky! I had such a nice morning. Then I had to come back to my hostel to check out. I leave Byron Bay today and head up to a town called Surfers Paradise. Apparently the two towns are very diff rent. Byron is very laid back, similar to Telegraph Ave on the beach. Surfers is more of town. Here in Byron I feel like I am on holiday (they don't say vacation here, they say holiday). I woke up and had to decide what bathing suit and when I was going to the beach and how long I wanted to stay there. Clearly I was faced with major decisions. No worrys I only have 2 suits and don't have to keep to a time schedule so I was o.k.

....later friday night in Surfers Paridise I met up with leah's friend, Becks and her boy friend Dan. We went to all the hot spots in Surfers; The Clock, Waxy's, & Sin City. fun times. Surfers paridise besides having 4 major theme parks also has a casio. Becuase of this the clientel in Surfers has a wied range. There are the people who come on vacation, the people that come to pick up the people on vacation, some avid senior citizens that come to gamble, non- senior citizens who come to gamble, backpackers, and then the people who live here. It creates a very bizare city dynamic.

Oz Experiance

Oz Experience. I left Sydney at 6:30 am Monday to start my adventure on my own. I made a friend before I got on the bus, one of the girls was lost and couldn't find the oz experience office so I helped her. I didn't want to tell her that I had no idea where I was going and directions were not my forte but luckily the office wasn't far. Due to lack of planning and my laid back "it will just work out attitude, I had no idea how long my first bus ride was or what the plan was once I got on the bus. I found out quickly that basically I was going to be spending about 12-13 hours on the bus the first day. Ugh. However, due to my lack of sleep and abundance of beer, sleeping was easy. The first day took me up to a surf camp called Spot X near Coffs Harbour. Oz experiance takes us all to a bottle shop to buy our drink of choice and then everyone spends the night drinking and meet each other. Here I found out that I had about 3-7 years on everyone on the bus. Its luck of the draw with who is on your bus and this first stop was filled with 18-21 years old and there goal was to get wasted. After drinking for 5 days strait all I wanted was a night off and was not in the mood for drunk crazyness. oh well.

Surfing!
"You'd catch 'em surfin' at Del MarVentura County lineSanta Cruz and Trestle Australia's Narrabeen All over Manhattan And down Doheny Way" -Beach boys Surfing USA
The bus driver tottally played this as we drove in to the surf camp. I loved it. Surfing was so much fun to always want to learn how to surf and then finnally go surfing. YAY!!!! I think I am still in shock that I got to learn how to surf, in Australia none the less. crazy. I even managed to stand up a couple of times. I had so much fun!!! I don't have pictures :( so you have to believe me. After surfing I made my way up to Byron bay for lots of beaching and relaxing.

"All we need is a bag of money"

Sunday Feb 1st. Andrea, Meagan, Chad and I started our day off by taking the ferry from Sydney to Manly beach. There are great views of the bridge, opera house, various beach on the coast and some great scenery. After the ferry ride the four of us went to get ready for the Cole 2k open water swim. None of us paid to the swim so we deemed our selves team Pirates and had to sneak in to the swim. While getting our barrings on how to sneak into the swim with out getting caught, I ran in to Mel vonHartitzsch. crazy. She moved here about 2 months ago and is living in Sydney. The aquatic community is so small. The open water swim was awesome. The water was a perfect temperature, it was clear, some waves..it was so much fun. Also the backdrop for the swim was a blue sky, no clouds and great scenery. I swam with Chad for most of the swim, It made it so much easier having a veteran open water swimmer swimming with me. (Thank You!) Then after our swim we decided we all deserved bloody marys, oysters, and burgers. After our lunch by the sea we went walked to another beach in the area to play in the waves. Fighting the crashing waves was a little different then our swim earlier. both were fun. Then we ran into some of Chad's beach volleyball friends playing in a tournament. So we grabbed some beers and drank them discreetly . Your not really supposed to drink on the beach but the guy at the bottle shop told us we were fine as long as you don't get caught. We figured we were fine. At this point in the day we all decided that we were having a perfect day. We decided that the only way the day could get better would be if we found a bag of money. During the tournament we were very helpful to one of the Coogee teams playing and made sure they were well hydrated (our beer). After the team got 2nd in the tournament we helped them celebrate there victory at one of the local restaurants. We felt we had helped them win since we had given them beer so we even celebrated our own victory. From volleyball we changed our focus to tennis and more drinking. Fun times. Tennis was drawing to a close when Mike, one of the volleyball players that lives in Coogee asked us if we need a ride home from Manly(about hour from Bondi via ferry and bus). Here is where we found our "bag of money" We took advantage of the ride home and even got to Coogee in time to watch the end of the tennis and close the bar. It was great last day in Sydney!