Hey all,

Sorry its taken so long to update this, but been up to a fair bit. I’m currently on board a flight from Istanbul to Budapest in Hungary, which should be pretty cool, I think I will be in Budapest for 3 nights and then I fly to Geneva to catch up with and stay with my uncle, aunty and 2 cousins.

Since last time I updated this, I spent About 4 more days in Pai, relaxing and partying. I did go on an elephant ride as well with a couple of pommy guys I have been travelling on and off with since I was in Hanoi, I was s***ting myself to begin with cause they are so massive probably more so then when I went in the tigers cage, strange hey. We spent an hour walking through bush and an hour down in the river where the elephants soaked us, through us off them and made us ride them like a bull. Was the best part of it. But when we were up in the hill the elephant that Dan was on went wild and took off through the scrub, with no guide on top, dan was left on top of this 3500kg mammoth as it went bolting through bush, ending up with Dan having to bale off the top of it after getting s***loads of scratches from branches of the trees above him, was piss funny for us other 2 though.

Most my other time in Pai was either spent in my hammock reading a book or getting drunk at this bar called Ting Tong. Had some pretty loose nights at Ting Tong with a guy that worked there called Bank, he’s the dude the black afro in the photos, haha funny b****** that also gave me the hottest food I have eaten at about 5:30 one morning, I thought burning your bum hole the next day was just a myth, well I know no its not haha. The bar itself is a real cool sort of elevated bamboo sit down lounge bar around a heap of candles and a candle tree, there is a big section there for people to do fire twirling and yeah it was playing some pretty cool tunes, isn’t reminded me of being at em’s house after a party.

In summary, Pai was awesome, its full of art, tattoos, hippie stores and chill out bars. If I’m ever in the north of Thailand again I will definitely head back there.

When I got back to Chang Mai, I booked in to a bit of a nicer place, next door to the place I had stayed at previously as it was my last real night in asia. The next morning at about 6:00 am along with 2 dutch guys we went out to do Jungle Flight which is a series of 22 zip lines, foot bridges and absails up to 35m above the jungle floor, which is bloody high. Was great fun, pretty scary and nearly lost my breakfast a couple of times on the absails. That arvo I went back to the hotel had a swim, checked out and waited around for the overnight bus to head down to Bangkok. Got on the bus had a zanex which pretty much knocked me out for the whole trip, bloody awesome things they are!

I arrived in Bangkok at about 5am and caught a taxi to the Australian embassy, walked up the street had an early morning coffee and then went back and parked my ass with all my kit out the front of the embassy, I would have been a sight for sore eyes. It was a long bloody hour and a half waiting till 8 to go inside to see if I’d finally be back in the game and have a bank card inside. I was in there at exactly at and low and behold I picked up the letter with my pin number and my bank card, I was so over the moon, it had been a real pain in the ass travelling with no bank cards and being western unions number one customer for 8 weeks.

I asked the bird at the embassy if there were some shops around and went and bought a jacket for Gallipoli and a pair of decent black shoes for when Shan and I go to Monte Carlo casino. I then arrived at Bangkok airport with about 12 hours before my departure time, so I went and activated my credit card at an internet café and called a few people back home. My early check in time was 6:30 which I did straight away then straight to the BA lounge. When I walked in the lounge there was only me and this other bloke in there, about 8 staff members a smorgasbord of food and a free full bar. I was actually able to show a bit of restraint by going and having a shower first before getting stuck in to the buffet and the bourbon.

I was pretty much in there drinking for 4 solid hours un supervised and managed to polish off a full bottle of bourbon to myself, thank you QANTS club, and about 3 serves of curry and a couple of plates of other finger food hahaha. Needless to say when it cam to board my flight I was blind, lucky to of got on. I was sitting on the window seat and was passed out before the other 2 people even sat down next to me, god knows what they would of thought when they sat down next to this young bloke smelling like a Tennessee brewing barn passed out. I slept pretty solidly for about 5 hours before waking up startled and confused and needing to go to the toilet and realising I know had 2 new friends next to me that I hadn’t met and fast asleep, I woke up the bloke on the out side and told him that he would have to get up otherwise ill piss my self, apologised, told him to leave his wife asleep and that id just climb over, which I did would have been a bit strange had she woken up with the young drunk guys crotch in her face. When I went to the toilet I had a Zanez which then knocked me out till about an hour from Heathrow, so basically it was an awesome 10 hour flight where I slept for about 9 hours of it.

When I got to Heathrow, after clearing security and being transferred to another terminal (took 20 minutes just to get to the other terminal, heathrow is massive), I promptly returned to my new favourite spot, the BA lounge for about 3 serves of breakfast and 3 coffees. I loved walking in there in my pluggers, shorts and a jumper and having these pompous English businessmen staring at me as if I didn’t belong, so I’d just scratch my balls, which would piss them off even more hahaha I had about 2 bowls of rice bubbles, bowl of weetbix, 3 coffees, a croissant, 2 glasses of milk (realised how much I had missed my milk having not really drank it in 2 months) a couple of pieces of toast and an apple on the way out - got to make sure I get my monies worth. The flight to Istanbul was no dramas, just spent most of it listening to tunes and reading up on Istanbul.

Having processed through security and customs at the airport I was to go outside the door and find the tour company sign I was doing my tour with and wait for the rest of my group. When I walked outside there was about 1000 turks banging on and making a racket, half were cabbies trying to pick up a fair and the other half were tour operators with signs for there companies. I walked up and down the line twice and could not find my sign, after about 20 minutes of thinking the worst managed to find it and eventually got on the bus with a bunch of other aussies and kiwis all there for Anzac day. We went back to the hotel had a quick shower than had a meeting down stairs to discuss the trip.

At the meeting our guide Jamile, basically drilled in to us that we were in for a horrible experience, because we would be getting up at 5:30, having him push us through the museum on the peninsula, lone pine, and chunuck bair which is the kiwi memorial on the peninsula before heading down to Anzac cove to line up, go through security and then wait around for the night, and the cold! So the night before leaving I went and bought some groceries and water for the next couple of days because we were told not to trust the kebabs out at Gallipoli cause last year a couple of people got food poisoning. The next morning we got up early and I slept for most of the 4.5 hour bus trip out to the peninsula.

Once we got there went through the museum and the 2 memorial sites pretty quickly allowing us to get down to ANZAC cove early and get a decent position, that afternoon there wasn’t much to do, after I had been for a walk around the cove and taken some photos, except talk garbage with the rest of the tour and eat all my food which I did. I was surprised when I found out that we would actually be watching the ceremony from where we slept. They packed in as many as they could on to the grass areas and then everybody who turned up after that, had to sit in the stands in the freezing cold over night, so glad we didn’t have to do that. That night I had another zanex and somehow managed to get about 5 hours sleep considering how cold it was. Some backpackers in the days after were saying that it got down to zero and was apparently the coldest ANZAC day in20 years, don’t know how true that is, but it was bloody cold and I had 5 layers on, a sleeping bag, and a plastic tarp thing that I pinched from the hotel the night before, could not imagine what it would have been like 94 years ago bailing out in to waist deep water, being shot at and then having to dig in for protection.

The actual dawn service was like any other one I have been to but was far more emotional because we were there, the night before they put up a picture of a young feller that died there at 15 and10 months which is what really hit home for a lot of people, but me personally like usual was the last post and the 2 minutes silence. After the ceremony I bolted down to the beach, which we were not allowed on the night before as it was heavily guarded with the army and their automatic weapons, down the beach I filled a drink bottle with sand for souvenirs and took a couple of photos, then on the way up I picked a flower from the grass and laid it with the other wreaths haha haha

We then walked up to Lone Pine where the Australian memorial was held. We were entertained by a cartoonist from one of the Sydney papers, cant remember his name but he told a few awesome stories about being Australian, remembering the past, honoured the vets in the crowd, there was a world war 2 vet there who received a standing ovation when he stood up and a few old war stories. The ceremony was pretty similar to the Anzac Cove one, after the ceremony we walked up to Cheunuk Bair (Spelling), all the aussies just laid down and despite my attempts to get a game of 2 up going, everybody was pretty keen for some sleep. We waited around in the sun till for about 4 hours before we were picked up to be taken back to Istanbul.

On the way home, some how the bus ran over a tractor pulling a plough, so we had to wait around for about an hour or so until the police came. Fortunately for us it happened opposite a servo, which also happened to serve beer, so we turned it in to a beer garden which would set the tone for a pretty loose bus ride home with heaps of toilet stops.

When we got back to town, we got our guide to take us out on the town, well we got him too drunk and dragged him out anyway and ended up partying at some underground Turkish techno club with heaps of locals. The turks are pretty protective of their girls so much so, we nearly had a couple of dust ups whenever one of us was to try and talk to one of them. It was a pretty loose night I think we finished up about 5:30.

The next couple of days I spent wondering around Istanbul, its hard to imagine that it as 4000 years of history and has a city population of 17 million. I really enjoyed my time there, I loved checking out the different buildings and the mosques, I actually sat in a half hour prayer, which was definitely an eye opener and interesting. . Also loved the wide streets tram system euro coffee lifestyle of the placeI went in to an underground reservoir that was built in the 600s which was pretty cool. Caught a ferry there as well to the asian side of the city but to be honest was pretty boring so thought I better have a kebab and got straight back on the ferry and went back to the European side.

Once again, am continuing to make heaps of new friends, actually made a lot of aussie friends that are all based in the uk, which will be cool to catch up with them later.

Im now at my hostel in Budapest and now officially in Europe. Was a cool surprise to hear Angus and Julia Stone on the radio from the airport to hear as well.

Im off, hopefully next time I will update this a bit sooner then this time, mainly cause its taken forever to write, anyway, will update again soon.

Cheers