Dennis Thompson

We went to the Golden Triangle for the day and had the option of a boat trip across to Laos where we could go round a market and not have to go through customs. Biggest difference here was the things they sell, from Thailand where things are all pretty normal there were suddenly bottles of moonshine whisky with snakes and scorpions inside as well as a variety of other oddities. We also saw a strange bear like animal and a lively monkey. Then it poured down and we had to wait out the rain before going back.

After a year in Australia its niceto see a different culture, the thai’s do not speak much English, have some unusual driving habits and a really great Country. The place is definitely cheap although it takes a while to become accustomed tohow things like the bartering work which is not the same as in other places like North Africa.

No food poisoning yet.

As I’ve only just got here – lots of bartering seems fairly cheap generally, weather is hot, humid and the air is dirty, lots of cars driving round like nutters.

Will update review probably in a few weeks.

Malaysia’s pretty cheap, not quite on the beaten track though and certainly not an essential place to visit, they have lots of temples a growing economy and lots of space as well as a fair few cultures making a go of it together. Malaysia celebrates 50 years of independance this year in August so there might be some good stuff to see then, otherwise Penang is nice, Kl worth seeing and if you do go there get to the Petronas towers early in the morning so you can get a free ticket to go across the skybridge, otherwise there is a telecom tower you can go up which gives you a higher and better view of the city.

Adelaide is a place where you can live quite cheaply, house costs are low, but then there aren’t too many jobs unlike places like Perth or Sydney. It’s a nice enough place, just doesn’t have the outstanding features of other major cities, then again it doesn’t really pretend to be a major city. Adelaide is nice enough, the people are friendly and thats whats important after all, I love the way people line up at bus stops in the city all facing the road in a line waiting for the bus, they say an Englishman forms an orderly queue of 1, well the people here probably do as well. Most tourists come here because its on the routes from other places like Darwin to Melbourne/Sydney will mean you get to Adelaide often, Perth to MElbourne Sydney also means you come through Adelaide.

Seems strange putting this down as a place I’ve “visited” since I grew up here and lived most of my life here, still now I can give advice on it and hopefully get it back as my hometwn for a month and a bit at least

I love Darwin and the NT for its numberplates – because the entire population of the territory is around 200 thousand people compared to 4 million plus in other places and the territory like all states has its own numberplates it makes it really easy and cheap to get your own personalised numberplates. Taxi’s here in Darwin have numberplates like Taxi 1, Taxi 8 etc, I saw a tour bus called the tour tub which had the numberplate 2r tub and my favourite so far was a school bus with the numberplate Brat Pak, I’m hoping I can get a new camera soon so that I can take pictures of some of these numberplates.

First day in Darwin despite hardly having had any sleep I had lots of energy because of the heat. I went around the city and foud almost all of the things I needed and in a fairly short time. It is a place which is big enough to have the things you would need or want, but small enough that you can find them all fairly quickly. I spent the late afternoon on the beach until sunset and saw one of those picture postcard moments and the sun went down and turned the sky orange and then red. I sat there thinking I live here, how great is this.

I had trouble finding an internet cafe, when I arrived I was tired, made it to the hotel using the MTR system which is fantastic and then slept, then I went out expecting to find an internet cafe easily or a phone box like you can in London and after an hour I found a phone box but it wouldn’t phone mobile numbers. Eventually I used the internet and the phone at the hotel and looked up other internet cafe’s on their internet, but I had a lot of advice saved online that I could have done with on my first day here.

Went here in October for one week for £120 flight and accomodation. We stayed in Ayios Nicklaus I think saw the leper colony and Knossos. we also hired a car which somehow survived as the roads there often become gravel tracks.