My last few days in Queenstown were spent with my family, helping with the herbs, taking the dog out, eating good food and having a lovely time. Saying goodbye was sad but we said it in style: a trip on the Earnslaw boat with a sheep shearing show and as much food as u could eat before popping. Lovely stuff.

I joined the Kiwi bus from Cromwell and went up to Lake Tekapo, stopping at amazing view points of the Mount Cook National Park to take some cool pics. Lake Tekapo was a beautiful little place, with a tiny little row of shops and restaurants and the relatively famous beautiful little Church of the Good Shepherd. I arrived at my hostel after a ridiculously long walk with a ridiculously heavy bag. I was sweaty. But my hostel was lovely- I had the room to myself (YES!) and met a cool Aussie who I hung out with for a couple of days. We went up to view points, down to the church on a very very windy night, played cards, did magic and origami, did quizzes and drew monsters. Those of you who know me well will know that I had an awesome time pretending to be 8 years old again with drawing and magic. Fun fun fun :)

My next stop was Christchurch, my last city of New Zealand. Christchurch is hard to describe- since the earthquake a couple of years ago the city is pretty flat, with loads of construction work happening throughout the centre of the city. I got caught in a massive storm walking to the Warehouse, soaked myself through so treated myself to a hot chocolate. Lush. My time in Christchurch was spent being pretty lazy, and then it was time to fly! I was sad to leave NZ- such an amazing country. So beautiful and the autumn colours were stunning.
My flight was good! Up early to spent 13 hours on a plane. Watched a couple of good films and then had a Downtown Abbey marathon haha. I was making the most of the in flight entertainment for sure.

Bangkok airport. So exciting! Made it to Bangkok woo!!! It was awesome to be in a country different from home. I arrived at my lovely little hostel in Bangkok and met up with Georgia and Danielle- so so lovely to see them! We went out for dinner to Cabbages and Condoms, an awesome little restaurant recommended by my uncle Bob. Yum food and yum cocktails and SO many fairy lights. The decor was made out of condoms and instead of an after dinner mint you got a complimentary condom. Banter.

The next day we met Jonny, our total dude of a tuk tuk driver, and we went around a few of the temples. So much gold and so so many Buddhas. All beautiful. The only slightly tricky thing about actually trying to do something in Bangkok is the absolutely crazy heat. I never sweated so much in all my life. GROSS. In the evening we had planned to see a ping pong show but that had done us in. So instead we ventured to My Darling, got a lasagne and a massage with a Chang and headed to bed. Lovely.

The next day we went to the floating markets. This was a really bizarre place- floating stalls selling food with other stalls lining the boating ways. A big tourist market, just like the whole of Thailand really! 'Lady wha you want? I do good price!' Um no thanks. At the market I decided to hold a snake, and hated it. Yuck yuck. But it's one more thing ticked off the bucket list! We were SO HOT. Probably the hottest we had been yet. It was crazy. Nothing better than sweating from every single inch of your body. Wonderful.

In the evening we got dressed up (to an extent- not easy to do without a wardrobe or make up- and headed out onto the town! Whoop! Firstly we started at Sky Bar where The Hangover 2 was filmed. Really really posh. We all had a Hangovertini (pretty gross) and pretended to be posh. Once that charade was over we went to a Ping Pong show. Talk about contrasts! Not sure what I was expecting from a ping pong show. Maybe more of a show. But it turned out to be the weirdest, seediest, creepiest experience ever. Our tuk tuk drivers pulled up by what looked like an old working men's club and directed us inside. Down into the 'club' we went, paying 600 baht for the privilege. We then watched an hour of girls awkward dancing, asking the men for money, and pulling all sorts of objects out of their fannies. My personal favourite was the banana that she shot out at myself, Danielle and Georgia. YUCK. The worst was yet to come however. The show was concluded with a love sex show to the background of James Blunt's 'You're Beautiful'.' I think, unfortunately, that this experience will stay with me forever. Totally weird, the whole thing.

Moving on, we headed straight to Khao San Road to have some drinks and forget about the 'show'. Turned into a really fun night in Bangkok, dancing and drinking until the wee hours with new friends. Lovely.

That's about all there is to report from Bangkok. It was so much fun- we had an awesome time. Our next destination was Chiang Mai. We got on a very plush night bus with a hostess and everything up to Northern Thailand. We were on with all the locals and I'm pretty sure they hated the four over excited tourists at the back of the bus. But we all pretty much slept all the way and arrived into Chiang Mai to find it wasn't ridiculously hot! Hurray! We checked into Panda House into our little rooms (not dorms- what a treat) and proceeded to sleep all morning. Our time in Chiang Mai was spent visiting some really beautiful temples and eating Mexican. We went to a really cool night market (which was slightly different from all the others because of the food aisle-yum ) and I tried a traditional Thai sausage. It tasted like something you'd put in your bath. Whilst in Chiang Mai we also did the tourist thing and went to Tiger Kingdom to have our photos taken with the big cats. It was pretty amazing to be up so close to such beautiful animals. The babies were very cute and we got to feed them. Yay. The big cats were huge. Their keepers told us that because they were all born at the centre that they are used to human contact, but they were very drowsy so surely must have had some sort of sedative despite them assuring us otherwise. Who knows! Anyway, we got our photos, had a cuddle and ticked one more thing off the list.

We went from Chiang Mai up to Chiang Rai for a day trip. We stopped at the hot springs which was the biggest let down ever. Haha. We then however stopped at the White Temple which was one of the most amazing buildings I've ever seen. I felt like I was in 'It's a small world' at Disney. It was huge and white and intricately decorated with mirrored mosaic all over. The grounds were beautifully kept and it was just awesome. I can't describe it properly- you'll have to look at photos, or better, go there! It was so cool. We also stopped at the Golden Triangle which is where Thailand, Burma and Laos meet. Our final stop was to the Karen (also known as Long Neck) tribe. This experience was mixed for me. Although it was so lovely to talk to the young girls working to make scarfs to sell to the tourists, it was almost like a human zoo. Most tourists didn't speak to the people, just took their photos and moved on. It was weird. And talking to one of the girls we learnt that they were not able to go to school- it was not the done thing in their tribe- and she told us how much she wanted to leave; I thought of how jealous she must have been of us and the opportunities we have. We are so lucky to be educated without question and have the chance to see the world if we want to. I found it all a bit sad really. But that was the end of our day, and we went back to the guesthouse exhausted and ready for a film and bed. Rock and roll. Haha.

Pai was our next destination. The bus to Pai was so squishy and the road was so windy and never ending and this made me seriously aggy. But we made it to our beautiful little guest house, Family House, and, after a cocktail on the main street in Pai, settled into our very nice rooms for the night. We had opted for a bit of luxury seeing as it was Josh's bday. YAY! Josh's bday was spent relaxing by the pool. It was lovely to just chill out and take some time out to regroup! Haha. In the evening me and Georgia made Josh a very good cake (HA) and we had a well tasty meal at our accommodation before going out in Pai to have some fun. We ended up stumbling across a cool bar down one of the back alleys and met some people who took us round to all the good places for the night which was great as we didn't have a clue. It was a fun night and I think Josh had a good one from what he can remember! which was the most important thing- happy birthday, birthday boy!!!

The next day we went on an elephant ride. They are the most amazing animals- huge and looked so old and wise. They were so beautiful, but not very comfortable to sit on. They had fun in the water and you could tell that was where they felt at home. Probably because it was so hot! We also also hired scooters (bad idea..) and rode to a lovely waterfall with a pretty view out over the jungle. I really enjoyed my time in Pai- the place is a bit hipster so you can pretend to be a real hippy traveller haha and its a great place to chill out and soak up the beautiful scenery and sunshine.

The bus journey back to Chiang Mai was again windy and never ending but we did eventually reach the bus stop and all headed down on a night bus (VIP? debatable.) back down to Bangkok. You have to go back to Bangkok to get anywhere in Thailand really. In Bangkok I said goodbye to Danielle, Georgia and Josh which was so sad! :( Time for them to fly up to Vietnam and for me to head into Cambodia. Sob! We had loads of fun together, but I was now on my own. Eek. After a pretty discussing Mc Ds breakfast I jumped straight on another bus across to Siem Reap with three guys Sean, Doug and Benson. I had predicted a modest 26 hours for this journey in total. It turned out to be 30 and I was ready to kill someone by the end of it! Plus, we got scammed! I was so adamant to not let it happen but it did. We pulled into a cafe next to the boarder and I knew straight away that we were going to be the gullible tourists who give a man more money to do it all for us. To be fair this did make the boarder crossing much easier in the end so it wasn't all bad, but I was so determined to not let it happen to me! Oh well, it was an experience and we made it over a notoriously dodgy crossing with minimal hassle. The first hostel I tried when I reached Siem Reap town was full! Wahh! All I wanted was a bed somewhere, anywhere! So I quickly found another place and met some really awesome people there. We had a great time exploring the town and markets, visiting various restaurants, watching ladyboy shows, getting massages, swimming, playing battleships, practicing accents and dancing on the tables at Angkor What?! So much fun :)

The main reason to go to Siem Reap is of course to visit the temples of Angkor. So myself, Chad and George decided to get up nice and early and hit up the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was really beautiful and totally worth the early alarm, and I was surprised at how busy and hot it was by 5 am. We started to look around the temples straight away, putting off breakfast which worked out well as we were practically the only ones walking around the temples which was so awesome. Angkor Wat was huge, with many different buildings all engraved delicately and intricately with buddhas, elephants and religious Hindu symbols and gods. The stone had been faded and weathered to create some amazing colours on the temples. The temple took 30 years to build, but it was said that if it was built today it would take much much longer. I took some photos but the place was so amazing- no photos would do it justice. Our next temple was the 'tomb raider' one (not sure of real name!). This was soooo cool with trees growing all over the ruins. It looked incredibly dangerous, like it could fall apart any second, and despite this Chad went climbing all over the temple. We were the only people there which was so great. Awesome stuff. We then went to a massive pyramid temple which was much more together that the tomb raider one. We climbed the many many steps to the top and had to sit and rest for a while because the heat was starting to sore. Over 35 degrees means climbing temples is hard, sweaty work! We then proceeded to get lost in a world of temples. Haha. The mysterious 'West gate' where our guide was waiting for us seemed a million miles away and, by the time we reached it, it felt like a million miles away too. It was by the Bayan Temple with over 50 faces carved into the pillars all over the temple. There was a total Asian Invasion by the time we got there; it was getting later by then, around 11pm, so all the real tourists had started to rock up in their hundreds. We were sweaty, exhausted and ready to get some air con after this temple so we headed back to our hostel and jumped straight in the pool. After a relaxing afternoon recovering, we headed out to partaaay on Bar Street, so western, and dance on the tables in Angkor Wat until the early hours of the morning. Fun stuff!

My bus to Phnom Penn leaved a lot to be desired. I was stuck in the corner at the back on a seat the sloped forward whilst being swashed next to a Thai lady with her hair on my shoulder. This was a thoroughly uncomfortable 5 hours, but I got there in the end and, once getting some cash out from the bank across the busiest death trap of a road ever, I headed straight to the Killing Fields and S21, the torture fields and prison of the Pol Pot Regime in Cambodia. The Killing Fields had an eerie silence and serenity about them; it was very hard to believe that such monsterous things could have happened there despite seeing the mass graves of hundreds of victims. During his reign, Pol Pot's regime caused near 3 million Cambodians to be killed by other Cambodians; Pol Pot's desire to have a society of farmers and working people meant that any academics were first up to be executed. Wearing glasses was enough of an excuse. Whole families were killed, including children and babies, to prevent any revenge in the future. S21 was the genocide prison, and only 7 people survived their time there. The photos throughout the prison, formerly a secondary school, were haunting, and it is shocking and totally surreal to think that this utterly disgusting treatment of fellow human beings happened only 40 years ago. It wasn't very nice to see, but I'm so pleased I went there and learnt more about Cambodia's important history. It is because of this mass genocide by Pol Pot and his workers that aproximately fifty percent of all Cambodians now are under 18 years old.

In the evening, I met a lovely group of people in my dorm room and we set out to explore the more developed part of Phnom Penn along the riverside bars. We had a great night- starting with Killer Pool and ending in killer dance moves with the locals.

I was sad to leave in the morning but was catching a flight back to Bangkok in order to meet George, go shopping in the posher part of BK, and then catch an overnight bus (featuring the film, The Marine 3) and ferry down to Koh Tao. The overnight bus was, as expected, not much fun, but we got there in the end, and checked into our nice cool, clean dorm room. Lovely.

That afternoon we headed down to the beach and chilled out, falling asleep in the shade of palm trees. So so nice. Koh Tao has turned into a bit of a blur for me; we drank cocktails, ate good food, sunbathed, read my book, watched fire dancers, swam in the sea and generally chilled out. We visited Freedom beach on one of the days and walked along the coast of the island to a beautiful little place for lunch looking out over the bay- date day!!! Another day we also went on a snorkeling trip around Koh Tao. The see was incredibly clear and the coral and fish were amazing. The coral was so many different types and colours, and so were the fish; it was the best snorkeling I've done so far and the 30 degree water temperature helped too I reckon! I was so hoping to see a shark but no such luck-It will have to wait until next time! I also bumped into some guys I'd met in Siem Reap which was really nice. Sometimes it seems like a very small world out here.

And that brings me to the end of my trip. Sob.

I left Koh Tao yesterday and arrived in Bangkok last night, back to my original hostel to complete my Thailand/Cambodia circuit. My flight leaves this evening for the UK, 12 hours of good films and dodgy food, and then back to good old Gravesend and the luxuries of home life. I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone, especially my family (I have missed the banter), but I will be very sad to leave South East Asia. It's another world, but that's precisely why I like it.

My travelling experience has been nothing short of amazing- I have experienced so many amazing things, visited so many incredible cities and countries.

I stayed in the Amazon jungle and swam in the river whilst singing Disney songs, vistied local Equadorians and eaten grubs in their homes. I swam in the hot pools from an active volcano, jumped off a 100m bridge and saw hundreds of skulls. I watched the sun rise over a lost city, trekked the Inca Trail, the same trail walked by hundreds of Incas thousands of years before me, I slept in a room of salt. I rapped at the boarder crossing. I failed the 24 hour challenge by an hour but salsaed until my shoe broke. I visited a floating island, ate far too much steak and drunk far too much wine, made best friends with a stray dog, bush-peed with a backdrop of the Andes. I absolutely balled my eyes out when I left and silently swore to return one day.

I swam with turtles, visited a Great Natural Wonder of the World, grazed my bum surfing, tried and loved chicken salt, tried and disliked goon. I slept on a boat, on an island, in a HOT tent. Love Actually and charades were part of my wonderful Brissy Christmas. I saw a wombat and fell in love. I brought in the new year with new friends. 2013, living the dream. I set my alarm for 5am for two months and got home sick, I burnt my hand 5 times, I had BBQs every weekend and reunited with (2 month) old friends. The Jolly became my home and family with whom I turned 23. I visited the Capital, the most Southern tip, and the highest point. I celebrated St. Paddy's day in Melbourne style, and felt wonderfully welcome and at home for 10 days. I participated in Koala watch in an open topped car. I jumped out of a helicopter.

I ate eggs cooked in a geizer for Easter, I contemplated climbing Mount Doom. I swam in freezing lakes, dressed myself in a binliner, made someFFLs, did beach olympics. I bossed it in flip flops. LTD was said regularly and with vigour and hills were climed with much of the same. I saw some of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen and became jealous of all Kiwis. I packed herbs, drank vodka from teapots and ate burgers the size of my face. I saw my family :)

I had a night of firsts in Bangkok, I saw a lady shoot ping pong balls out of her fanny. I stroked a tiger and bathed an elephant. I ate all things thai off the street, and sweated the most I've ever sweated in my life. I got my first massage, got scammed, watched ladyboy shows, slept on too many buses. I watched the sun rise over an ancient temple, climbed on ruins, drank Chang, went exploring and got burnt.

I am so so incredibly lucky to have experienced so many amazing things over the past 8 months and I will be really sad to leave. But I'm very excited to see everyone and rejoin the family banter, have a roast dinner, have a wardrobe, wear my dressing gown, drive my car, sleep in a room without any snoring strangers, and hopefully start to get the old career on track!

And then start planning my next trip... :)

My taxi arrives in 2 hours. Just time to buy some last minute souvineers and get my bag packed up for the last time. WOOHOO!!! NO MORE LIVING OUT OF A BAG!!!

Equador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Cambodia- thank you for welcoming me and being so awesome!

Thank you to my family, especially my mum and dad, for being endlessly supportive and always being on the other end of the phone whenever I missed home or just for a chat.

And my lovely, lovely new friends who made my first trip away from home unforgetable, you will be with me in my memories until we meet again one day. Thank you so much for showing me love and friendship.

IT HAS BEEN AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Catch you on the flip side UK.

Peace out. :)

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