Part 97: Reality check.... I was woken by a tickling sensation in my arm pit. Still half asleep I rolled over to discover it came from the biggest hairiest caterpillar I'd ever seen, perched in my under arm!!! I reacted, quickly flicking it off, plus my legs were covered in mosquito bites and were already itching like mad. On top of all that my bed was covered in insects too. It's not like I haven't encountered places like this whilst travelling - I've slept in...

Part 96: New challenges.... I boarded the plane to Vietnam with these doubtful thoughts still lingering in the back of my mind, but there was no going back - well not yet anyway, and despite the weather warnings, my flight to Ho Chi Minh international was really smooth. I landed at 130am and collected my 3 month visa at the immigration office. No drama! Then it just dawned on me, I had not booked any accommodation for the night, nor were there any busses to th...

Part 95: Typhoon Glenda.... Way back in March when I was travelling Vietnam, some of you who have been reading my blog, may recall I randomly met an Australian guy who was constructing a brand new backpacker hostel in Mui Ne. And at the time he offered me a job in the summer when it was due to open. Several months had passed and I'd all but given up hope of this ever happening, especially since he had not replied to any of my emails for a few weeks. Then right ...

Part 94: Treasure Hill... We arrived back in Taipei fresh from our hiking experience and decided to take it easy for a few days before the return to the Philippines, and there are fewer cities that I'd like to have time to kill than in Taipei. Aside from digging deeper into the culinary side of this great city, we explored some the creative hubs we had heard about. One of these talked about sites was called treasure hill. Now this was a place some of my graffit...

Part 93: Hualien..... We made the decision to head south out of the city to visit Hualien for a few days which was around 200 km from Taipei. So this was a good opportunity to experience the high speed trains everyone was raving about. Everything here was all about convenience, so once you get the hang of the language barrier it's easy to get around pretty much anywhere you want, and very cheap too. Soon as we got to the train station in Taipei and purchased ou...