Saturday: today we slept in, had a BIG free late breakfast before getting a taxi all the way back across Bangkok to Kohsarn road and our next hotel - the Sawasdee Banglumpoo. This is our 13.00 per night wonder and was actually really nice! i was so so surprised! Cheap and cheerful but clean and not ridiculously small :-) That evening we went to see Spiderman 3 at the Imax at the Siam Paragon - the largest screen in Thailand! It was a really cool experience - pity the film wasn't so great! The shopping centre was IMENSE - it will probably give you a good idea when i say that on the 3rd floor was several shops selling Ferrari's, Lamberghini's (if that's spelt right!), lotus and other super cars, god knows how they got them onto that floor!!

Sunday: Today we just moved back to our joining hotel to meet our new group. We knew that it was going to be a lively trip when one guy turned up an hour late saying 'sorry, i was out drinking!' This was at 5pm! Dint do much other than get a briefing of the trip and go out for some food....

Monday: Today the travelling started again! Early in the morning (early being 9am!) we set off in a longtail boat down the Chao Praya River to the Wat Po temple, the home of the HUGE reclining buddha. Tom and I had already been to this before so the temple was pretty bring but the boat ride was cool and we got to feed the GIGANTIC fish in he river with bread again so it was well worth it!

After the canal tour we got on a 3 hour bus ride to Kanchanaburi, home to the infamous 'Bridge on the River Kwai'. Once we arrived we went on a salmor tour around Kanchanaburi and visited the Brige on the River Kwai (really should be spelt Kwae) and the Prisoner of war memorial. This was a truly humbling experience, 100,000 people died building the bridge and it was awful seeing all of the memorial plates. I never realised the magnitude of the horrors that occurred there, i had heard of the bridge on the river Kawi and had a vague idea but this really opened my eyes.

That night we went to the local night market and then on to a bar across the road form our guesthouse.

Tuesday:

Tuesday morning we set off at about 10am to board our big floating raft where we spent the day cruising down the river Kwai, swimming and visiting temples. Now when the itinerary said 'raft' and 'sleeping under tha stars' we expected a raft as in a basic bamboo structure but oh no - our raft had a roof, and came complete with electricity, a bar, a disco ball and even Karaoke! We visited the Dragon temple which had a RIDICULOUS amount of stairs that we had to climb barefoot! Once we reached the top we found a cave that we decided to climb down into - still barefoot - which was pretty cool! It was a really cool cave, full of bats so it stunk but there were loads of stalagtites and cool rock shapes. It was also lit by loads of different coloured lights which gave it a really surreal feeling!

We spent the night on the raft and needless to say everyone eded up very very drunk doign karaoke whilst floating down the river! It was a really cool night! Yes i did do the karaoke despite being sober, and yes i am aware (as is the rest of the group now!) that i cant sing at all!

"i just wana dance with somebody.....!"

Wednesday:

Wednesday was an early start with us first visiting the Jeath War Museum and then heading off to Erawan National Park where we spent the next few hours walking up the 7 levels of thge waterfall. Now that was a hard climb, especially in flip flops that cost 4.00 and are not made for climbing in the slightest! The waterfall was beautiful though and it was really nice to swim in the cool water after a ridiculouslt hot climb - the only problem being htat you ended up with several fish trying to eat you! Fish nibbbling at you is a really strange sensation, one i've decided i dont like - especially when the fish are pretty big!!

After leaving the waterfall it was ont o the tiger temple where we were able to sit with and have our photos taken with tigers. It was sad seeing the tigers chainedup but they all looked really healthy and Tong (our guide) explained that they had been rescued from various different places as cubs and now couldnt be released due to illness and being too tame. It was amazing being sat next to these gorgeous animals and slightly scary as we had been warned not to wear pink, red or orange as they may think that it is blood!! There are many other anilams at the temple from cows to peacocks and there was also an adorable 1 month old baby tiger cub that had been born in captivity at the temple. The monks look after all of the animals who are free (except the tigers obviously!) to roam around the temple grounds as they please. It was such a beautiful area and a really cool place to visit!

Needless to say the evening was spent at another bar (every night so far has been and we are 5 days in!) - tom and i left at 1am mindful of the fact that we had a 4 hour bus journy at 8am the next morning - most of the others didnt get back until 4am completely wasted!

Thursday:

We ended up leaving at 8:45 due to the fact that many of te group were hungover from the previosu night's activities :-P Ahh well, it gave me time for breakfast! We left on a 2 hour bus journey, stopped for 10 minutes and changed buses before continuing on another 2 hour jouney to Ayuthaya.

On arrival we grabbed some lunch before going on a tour of the picturesque ruins and temples spread across the town. It was really cool to explore the old ruins, especially at wat Mahathat where we could see the Buddha head surrounded by Banyan tree roots. The head has been slowly emerging from the ground for the past 100 years to its current position. Most of the Buddha statues int he temple are headless because they were cut off and sold to people within Europe as they were believed to contain jewels. The story of the Buddha head in the tree roots is that a robber buried the head and then forgot there it was and the tree roots have been slowly beinging it up over time. Its really strange to see this head surrounded by tree roots - imangine how wierd it would be to see it half out of the ground!!

After our tour we had some food and then boarded yet another overnight train to Chiang Mai. This wasnt quite as adventourous as the last one (aka no face pulling competitions) but by all accounts a few of the group members were up until 3am getting very drunk!

Friday:

After a night of very poor sleep we arrived in Chiang Mai, had a quick breakfast and shower and set off to do some elephant riding. This was much more scary than last time as we had a HUGE male elephant who was ridiculously greedy (he ate all of our food as well as anyone who happened to be in front of us!) as well as a mind of his own. He kept leaving the trail and wandering off the find something to eat - ending up pretty much standing only on his back legs at one point while he was trying to reach a branch he though looked particularly tasty!! I didnt really like this elephant place - at the Elephant Conservation Centre where we visited last time the elephants were kept in well maintaned surroundings with nice buildings and all looked to be in good condition. Here was another story - the few buildings that there were had either already fallen over or were about too and most of the elephants were bleeding from where their guides had been hitting them to control their direction. They used the same method of controlling their direction at the conservation centre but none of the elephants had been hurt there. Neither Tom nor I were impressed with this although the elephant ride itself was loads of fun.

Next was a visit to the hilltop temple of Doi Suthep. Tom and i amused ourselves by wandering around the antiques shops at the base of the temple as we had visited before and wern't all that enthusiastic to be there again! No i didnt buy anything, io restrained byself although tom is interested in a gong.... Watch this space!

After the temple we went the trekking shop to rent our trekking gear ready for monday. We had to rent smaller bags to carry our trekking gear for 3 days along with purchasing toilet paper, ever important here!

That evening we went to watch some Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing) These wernt professionals as such - they ranged from age 8 to adult and were amazing! It is such a fast and brutal sport and so exciting to watch! After the 9 matches were over it was on to a local club (Bubble) to enjy some (awful) 'house' music which the rest of the gruop adored and Tom and I hated! We stuckl around for a few hours before leaving in search of some food around 2am - the others got back at about 5am!!

And that brings me to today, Saturday, where we only got up at 1.30pm and have eaten McDonalds and sat on the internet due to the fact that there is a MAJOR storm raging outside and you get drenched within 1 minute if you go out! When it rains here it really does rain and it's been happening a lot recently! We have had some gorgous, really hot days and then many others which are gloomy, overcast and wet. The thunderstorms really are incredible though - they make things shake!!

xxx

The Start of Northern Thailand.... remains copyright of the author MasonL, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well we arrived back in Bangkok on Saturday and it was raining, and i mean raining! The weather hadnt got any better by monday, the first day of our trip so we wern't hopeful!

Koh Samet is a paradise island about 3 hours from bangkok, about 30mins off the coast. It is a national park and is absolutely gorgeous, there is nothing to do apart from scuba diving, watersports and lounging on the beach. Slight problem when the loudest/worst storms i have ever seen are hitting the island and the whole of Thailand! The rain didnt stop the entire time we were there which was unfortunate as it was our only real beach relaxing time until we go to Spain. We were both cold wearing jeans and long sleeves, we laughed at this when we found out that it was 33 degrees! The past 2 weeks had been 40 or above so we were finding 30 cold! God help us when we get back to good old English summer!

Due to a lack of anything else to do I decided to give scuba diving a go and see if my dodgy ears would actually equalise - they did! so now i have my first level scuba diving qualification which i am extremely happy with seeing as i've wanted to do this since i was 11 (dont worry Dad, i forgive that IOU!)! Due to the awful weather the visibility wasnt great, max 4 metres but i did see a HUGE puffa fish and loads of smaller fish. The coral was awesome too, blue and bright orange! The first place they took me to to dive was further out in the sea, the waves were 3 meters high which made me go really green, especially as the dive boat we were on was TINY! We had just started to kit up to get in when a huge wave crashed over the front of the boat, hitting me in the face - needless to say we moved to a different area! The dive instructor later said that we would have capsised if that wave had hit us side on!!! The second place we went in we got back ut again after 5 minutes because the visitbility was only about 2 feet max and there was a really strong current which separated our group. 3rd time lucky as they say! the next dive was perfect, i went down to 8metres no problem.

Due to the time we had wasted with all the other abandoned attampts i made my second dive the next day (Friday). My right ear was playing up loads and it took me forever and a LOT of going up and down to equalise but i finally made it and did all of the necessary skills to pass my PADI Scuba Diver! I didnt have time to do the open water as this btakes 4 days and i only had 3 - hopefully ill be able to do this in Spain or England at a later date! Mags - are you up for a trip!!??

Friday afternoon it was back on the boat and a 4 hour taxi ride back to the hotel which i have so far forgotten to mention! The hotel is AMAZING! bearing in mind that we have been sleeping on the floor, this hotel was awesome! We arrived by taxi and our bags were carried onto a trolley by the porter while we went to check in, our bags then arrived in the room without us even having to say where we were!! There was also a cool outside landscaped pool area with poolsode bar which we would have enjoyed if it hadnt been stormy! well we were impressed anyway!!

Thats all for now - hope eveything is ok

cant wait to see you all

xxxxxxxxxxx

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Monday:

We went to Sukhothai (the first capital of Thailand) we stayed in basic, cosy rooms beside some rice fields which was gorgeous. We spent most of the day travelling so by the time we got there we just went to the pool of a nearby hotel for an hour or so before having a buffet of traditional Thai food for tea. The food was gorgeous, one thing i have learned since being here is that EVERYTHING is so so spicy!! Even Tom is finding it spicy!!

On tuesday we went on a bike ride to the Sukhothai historical park which is basically a load of old ruined temples. It was so so nice just to ride through them and stop and wander round them. Both Tom and i much preferred these huge old ruins to the temples that are still in tact! There was something incredible about gigantic stone statues that were hundreds of years old - much much regal than everyhting covered in gold as is the way in every other temple!
We stopped and had a picnic lunch next to one of the temples before carrying on our bike ride. Doing it by bike was so much fune, it's AGES since i rode a bike! The temerature was 44 degrees which made it very sweaty and a bit harder but it was still fun!!

Wednesday started with a 4.5 hour bus journey to Lampang which is the only Thai-town to still use colourful horse-drawn carriages as a means of transport - of course ths was somehting we had to do!! Tom and I both felt really bad though because the 'horse' turned our to be a small, rather tired looking pony! Nevertheless the 30 minute ride around Lampang was cool and a good was of seeing the main parts of Lampang (there isnt much to see really!). Before the horse ride we all visited a local herbal spa for massages and mud-packs which was great fun! I really am not flexible enough for these Thai massages though! They bend and twist me in so many different ways and try to get me to touch my toes which really hasnt happened for a good 10 years! The boys opted out of the mud-packs for the sake of being manly and just had the Thai massage - Tom was left commenting on how many different times his back had cracked!!

That evening we were having a lovely meal on the Wang River bank when the heavens opened, and i mean OPENED!! I have never seen lightenng like it, nor heard thunder so so loud!! It really was incrediible to watch - instead of lightening every few minutes it was every few seconds pretty much continuously!! OUr accomodation that night was in a guesthouse where we slept pn matresses on the floor as the locals do! Despite my initial shock ('oh my god where are the beds!?') they proved to be very very comfortable and a great experience! I was highly confused in the orning as to what i was doing on the floor though!

Thursday was my favourite day of the whole trip so far. We visited an Elephant Conservation Centre just outside Lampang where we started by seeing the elephants having their morning bath which was so so cool! Their Mahout (trainer) went into the water riding them and then srcubed them which the elephants loved! After that we saw an elephant show. I hated the idea of seeing an elephant show after seeing them in the wild in Africa but it was really really good, less of a show than a demonstration. The 'show' was demonstratin how the elephants were used in the logging trade and the different ways in which they pulled, pushed and picked up the logs. AFterward swe fed them with sugar cane and bannanas. There was a really cute baby elephant (about 11 months old) which tom and i both fell in love bith and so fed loads and loads of bannanas!! Im sure you will see it ont he photos - we took loads!

After the show we went on elephant rides. This was a 30 minutes trek through the water where they had bathed and then up though the jungle - it just about beats the 10 minute ride you get at zoos!! It was the most incredible experience - i enjoyed it so so much!! At the end of the ride we went past a pen which was separated form the rest of the elephants. This held a mother elephant and her baby which was just 1 month old! It was the cutest thing i have ever seen!! Obvuiously loads and loads of photos were taken, no wonder my memory card is nearly full!!

Once the ride was finished we visited the gift shop and bought some paper made from elephant dung (it really doesn't smell at all!!)
before going next door to the worlds first elephant hospital. This was so so sad. We saw an 11 month old baby whose foot had been blown off after it stepped on a landmine and also a 46 year old adult who had suffered the same. The adult was in the guiness book of world records for being the first elephant to undergo surgery of this kind and also for the most medical professionals involved in a procedure - there were 150 people involved! It was so sad seeing these animals with only 3 feet and obviosuly their size makes it so much harder for them. The big elephant had lost 30cm from her leg which stil hasnt healed properly (8 years after the operation) and is having problems with the leg son her other sides as they are struggling to take the extra weight so keep getting sores and infected. The baby is doing much better, she only lost 10 cm andd being a baby her muscles have been able to grow more and faster to support the extra weight. Her small size also helps. It was just so sad - the mines were in Burma and the elephants were rescued from their :-(

We were picked up from the elephant hospital by the local people we were going to spend the night with and taken to visit the Karen hilltribe in a remote village. These people still live very very basically and make cloth trough traditional weaving methods. I took some cool photos and bought 3 hanging decoration thins which you see everywhere in Thailand - don't really know where i'm going to hang them now on second thoughts but hey they cost 1.00 for the three and were supporting some poor local people.... Thats my justification anyway!! They are pretty and blue, need i say more?

We then travelled on to the homestay where we were sharing 4 to a room, again sleeping on the floor. The house was gorgeous - very simple and traditional but beautiful! Some children from the lcoal school came and played traditional Thai instruments for us and then tried (!) to show us how to play them which was great fun! We then had a northern Thai khantoke dinner which involved 4 poeple sitting on the floor around a raised circular table. It was great fun and the food was gorgeous!! After dinner we were treated to some Traditional thai dancing. The girls did one where they held lit candles between their fingers and twirled around really gracefully - not dropping hot wax on themselves at all. They then picked 3 girls from our group (yes i was an unfortunate one!!) and we had to do the same! Let's just say iu wasnt graceful, the wax did drop on me and i dont do twirling!! Honestly i wasnt that bad bt no where near as good as them, apparently it was a dance that the King's daughter had done for him and was now a really popular dance in Thailand. When the dancing was over we lit a Thai lantern which was a huge cylinder made of paper type material with a wick underneath. You light it, the cylinder fills with hot air and rises up into the sky .We had fireworks attached underneath so as it rose the fireworks went off, it was beautiful to watch!

Friday morning was an early start with us getting up at 7am to offer alms (food) to the monks. This is done daily by the locals and HAS to be done - the monks dont make themselves breakfast! After a godo breakfast we went on a bike ride through the surrounding villages and countryside. The scenery was lovely and it was ncie to be out in completely unpolluted fresh air cycling through the rice paddies. We stopped and visited a mushroom farm and picked some lunch, i cant stand mushrooms but it was really interesting to see their way of farming - its so different! We also stopped at a village house where they make traditional clothing and bags to pick up some souvenirs.... No i restrained myself this time although Tom picked up some things!!

We retiurned to the house for lunch before travelling the 40 minutes to Chaing Mai. There was time for a shower and a small rest before we caught taxis up to the hilltop temple of Doi Suthep. The view out over Chaing Mai was amazing from so hight up! We stayed and listened to the Monks chanting which was cool but slightly eerie before returning to our hotel in time to do some serious shopping in the night bazzar! The entire street wasa packed with stalls and both tom and i spent hours (and lots of money!) wandering around the stalls and doing a LOT of haggling. At about 12pm, after a subway, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel. It was then that we realised that we hadnt even gone to the night bazzar, it was a separate shopping centre-looking thing on the side of the road! We had just spent hours in the street stalls without even getting to the bazzar!! Ahh well, we return to Chaing Mai in about 14 days at the end of our next trip... night bazzar watch out!!

Next day we got the overnight train back to Bangkok, again this was a lovely bumpy ride with very little sleep gained!

Treasures of the North.... remains copyright of the author MasonL, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Monday was spent travelling in a combination of minibuses and then a public bus that seemed to be made entirely of shiny tin. This had no air conditioning and was PACKED! Our tour leader told us that the journey was supposed to be 2 hours but it turned out to in fact be a 5 hour journey, NOT the most comfortable experience!! Due to the time that we arrived in Nakhon Si Thamarat all we did this evening was eat and sleep.

On Tuesday we got up early and went to Wat Phra Mahathat the biggest wat (buddhist temple) in southern Thailand which was really cool - there was so so much gold everywhere and loads of Buddha statues! We met some monk chioldren who were there on a trip and had some photos taken before leaving to get a bus and ferry to koh Samui. We arrived in Koh Samui at about 4pm and went straight to the sea!! It is such a beautiful place - a real paradise island as im sure you will have seen from the photos!

Wednesday was a day trip to some of the nearby islands where we went snorkelling in the marine park, lazed on the beach and went to see the emerald lake. The snorkelling was AMAZING, the gides gave us bread to take in with us so the fish were eatign out of our hands and there were hundreds of them!! We were completely surrounded by fish that were swimming on toip of each other, all we could see was fish! We had lunch on the beachof a random island before going to another small island to visit the emerald lake. This is a saltwater lake supplied only by an underground tunnel frrm the sea and is THE most amazing green colour. It was quite a trek to get to it though, loads and loads of really steep steps up over ths hills and then back down to the lake - it was worth it though! That evening we went into Chaweng (the main place in Koh Samui) and went to a ladyboy cabaret show which was fantastic!! Once you got over the initial shock it truly was a great show - the costumes were really cool! Obviously there were lots of very very very strange looking people there but most you could not tell that they weren't 'real' women - much to the worry of the guys in our group!! We had such a great night, it was such a laugh and something i would really recommend doing!!

On Thursday Tom and I along with the other couple (nick and Trish) ventured to Chaweng - the main beach and shopping area on Koh Samui. This is the tourist area and the whole essence of Koh Samui and being in paradise was spoiled by evertyhing being exectly as it is in spain - i truly could have been on Calpe beach!! I much preferred our beach which was beautiful and quiet and hardly touristy at all. I had a wonderful Thai massage next to the pool - i have NEVER been stretched in so many different ways, it was really bizarre!!

Friday was our day of leaving :-( We caught the ferry back to the mainland before getting a bus for 1 1/2 hours to the train station where we caught the overnight train to Bangkok. This was a really really long journey - 12 hours on the train!! I was much much better than we expected - we had been told to expect cramped, hot and noisy conditions however we found ourselves in a carriage with really big spacious seats, roomy bunk beds and so airconditioned it was cold (i had to put a jumper on!) Also pretty much the entire carriage was asleep in their bunks at 8pm so not noisy at all!! Despite this none of us slept well at all due to the fact that the train bumped along the tracks so much we thought it was about to/had already derailed!!

Saturday was spent mainly sleeping and recovering from the lack of sleep from the night before then some shopping on Kohsan Road!!

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After Kuala Lumpur we went to a small island near Kuala Kangsar to live with a Malay family for 2 days. The family live on a small island in the middle of a lake which was created by the first dam ever bilt in Asia. We arrived on the evening of Friday 13th and were welcomed by a beautiful dinner of traditional malay food (such as rice cooked in banana leaves). we spent the evening playing traditional malay games and speaking to o ur hosts - Aziz and Asiah and their 3 year old son Azam.

Saturday saw us getting an early start to go across the lake to a local malay village where we were able to see traditional malay homes and the rubber tapping industry that these people survive on. Most of the trees in the jungle were rubber trees and it was really cool to see the pots attached to the trees and the rubber comming out. We carried on further into the jungle on a pretty hard trek to a waterfall. Due to the fact that it had rained most of the previous night and all that morning there were LOADS of leeches so we were given lemons to squeeze on them to get them off. They are the most foul creatures i have EVER seen!! They were all over my legs and i even ended up with one on my back and one at the top of my thigh :-( NOT good!! The waterfall was beautiful though, as was the jungle we had to walk through, so it was very much worthwhile despite the leeches traumatising me! We spent the afternoon swimming in the lake before we got dressed up in traditional malay sarongs to enjoy a traditional malay mean. This was all traditional malay food eaten whilst sat on the floor. You can only eat with your right hand as, ion their culture, the left hand is used for toilet duty! It was pretty hard to master picking up rice and sauce with only 1 hand, and messy too, but really really good fun!

On Sunday morning we left at 9am to go around Kuala Kangsar. we visited the Sultan's mosque which was beautiful although not as large as many others we have visited. We also drove past the palace and visited a street market next to the river which sold loads of wierd and wonderful local fruits. We then caught a bus and ferry to our next stop, Penang.

Tom and I were in a Taxi with another couple (trish and Nick) and the taxi driver decided that he couldnt remember the name of our hotel despite our tour leader having shown him a map and the address! this was a problem as none of us knew the name of the hotel so after driving round Penang for an hour on what was supposed to be a 20 minute journey we abandoned the taxi and trish and i sat in a barw ith a drink whilst the boys went on a search for the rest of our group. Luckily we had ended up only a 5 minute walk away from our hotel and found a cool bar selling mexican food at the same time! We spent the afternoonw andering around local shopping centre (its GIGANTIC!!) before goign to a local night food market for dinner. I ended up spending the grand total of 85p on my dinner which was roasted duck with noodles and a can of coke - the BEST duck and noodles ever :-D All od the weight i lost in tanzania is quickly goign back on - all the food here is so fatty and greasy and so so good! All the people seem to do here is eat!

After dinner we went back to the hotel and hahd a party in our tour leader's room as he had a penthouse room with a rooftop terrace thing. Needless to say everyone apart form myself got ridiculously drunk and had a great night!

It's now 12:55 on Monday and we are in an internet cafe after only gettiing up and leavign the hotel at about 11 - it was a really good night! Time to go now and explore penang before we leave for Thailand tomorrow.

miss you!

lou

xx

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On Sunday (8th April) we spent the day wandering around Chinatown in Singapore before meeting our group (there are 12 of us in total) at 5pm. There is another couple in the group, Nick and Trish who are both English, an irish guy called noel, an australian guy called Ben and an English girl called Meeta as well as an Australian family of 4 which is quite cool. For the suatralian family this is the first time the parents have left Australia in over 25 years and the first time ever the children have left the country or gone more than 2 hours away from home (they are 19 and 14) which is quite strange for us as they are very very VERY naive - especially the 19 year ofl girl, we thought she was 15!! Everyone is really nice - only slight downside being that they are a bit quiet and not as much fun as the greenforce lot, possibly due to the family being a large part of the group and also the mixture of ages. Everyone gets on really really well though which is good as we have some really long bus journey's!!

Monday (9th April) - Today we set off at 8am to Melaka which was a 6 hour bus journey. I thought this would be a killer but, aside from when we were crossing the border from Singapore into Malaysia, i slept for the ENTIRE journey!! The pillow nan mason bought me is really comming in handy - it is SO comfortable! Melaka is an old port town which started off as a small fishing town but now, mainly due to tourism, is pretty large with a big shopping centre etc. It was really nice to spend the afternoon wandering around the small shops down the narrow streets -VERY different from Singapore! In the evening we went on a trishaw tour of Melaka and stopped to visit the oldest chinese temple along the way. The temple was beautiful -considering it's age and the materials it is made out of it is in wonderful condition and it was really interesting to hear about the history of why it was built there. The trishaw's were AMAZING! we had seen trishaw's before in Singapore but didnt go on one but these were in a different league - they were so so elaborately decorated (the one Tom and I went in was shaped like a boat and COVERED in fake flowers and fairy lights) and many had music and flashing lights! I felt awful when we learned that the driver (or rider maybe?) was 65 as were most of the other riders! I felt like I should sit him in the back and I should ride - especially as it was a pretty long ride (about 45 mins) up some hills! We had great fun though and it was a great way to see a lot in a short time.Melaka is the type of place that i would like to have more time to explore - we arrived at 2pm and left at 11am the next morning so didnt have too much time and the winding streets and wooden shoes that they make there were calling me!!

Tuesday (10th April) - we set off to Kuala Lumpur today, a slightly shorter bus journey at only 5ish hours. Our hotel is in the mioddle of Chinatown which is really cool and right next to Petlang street which is a big night market selling LOADS of gucci bags and rolex watches etc - im sure you get the picture. The only difference is that these are REALLY good quality and ridiculously cheap! It's a really fun vibrant place to wander round and the haggling is great - i'm ruthless!! Our evening meal was in a cool (and very cheap) chinese restaurant where the food was amazing. We just spent the evening wandering around the night marketbefore getting a relatively early night.

Wednesday (today - 11th April) - Today we went on what was supposed to be a half day tour of Kuala Lumpur but we set off at 9am and got back at 3.30 so more of a full day really!! Fist we went to the King's Palace, the grounds were gorgeous and so so well maintained and the building looked amazing but obviously it was a long way back from the gates!

We also visted the largest Mosque in Kuala Lumpur which was very very impressive although we wernt allowed to go into the main prayer area for some unkown reason as we are usually allowed to. The women all had to wear full length robes (alter server style) and head scarves - these were so HOTand claustrophobic, i really dont know how the women wear them all the time!!

Next was Petronus towers - unfortunately we didnt get to go up as it would have meant several hours queuing but we went and stood at the bottom and got some cool photos - they really are GIGANTIC!! They are more commonly know here as the twin towers (for obvious reasons) and since September 11th, they are now the tallest twin towers in the world - 88 storeys and stand at 452 metres above sea level.

Then onto the Royal Selangor pewter factory - the largest pewter factory in the world where wee went on a guided tour and saw how they made most of their stuff. It was really cool to see the really detailed engravings being done - such monotonus and manual jobs though, very hard work and SO boring! We saw the largest pewter bear tankard in the world and a really big model of patronus towers made entirely out of normal sized petwer been tankards which was pretty impressive. Unfortunately everything was REALLY expensive so souvenirs were out of the question! :-(

Next was Menara telecommunications tower. It is one of the tallest concrete towers in the world, standing at 421m. It is the tallest tower in south-east Asia and ranks fourth in the tallest telecommunications towers in the world. We got a guided tour so now i'm an expert on this tower!! Despite the fact that it was raining we got a really good view over Kuala Lumpur and took some cool photos. The view would have been awesome if it hadnt rained but it seems to do that a lot here!!

Unfortunately, due to the heavy rain we didnt get to go to the botanical gardens but we had a really really good day and saw most of the main places in Kuala Lumpur. We ate at a dodgy chinese/malay street restaurant for tea and had some really nice noodles :-D

And now im sat in an internet cafe writing to you! Tomorrow we go to Kuala Kangsar for 2 nights where we stay with a traditional malay family and visit some waterfalls and the beach which should be cool!

In the mean time i have sent another CD home when i wa sin singapore with photos on but the links below will take you to all of my photos - some of them you will have seen but many are new...

My Birthday Party:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4020&l=77a94&id=602500397

Mid phase Break:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4024&l=0a748&id=602500397

Mid Phase Break continued:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4026&l=f0ad0&id=602500397

Camp:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4030&l=b3608&id=602500397

Meserani Snake Park Pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12751&l=7b84f&id=602500397

Eluai Pics: (Eluai is the name of the Maasai village we lived in):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12755&l=f7ec7&id=602500397

Random Tanzania Pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4022&l=5b9e8&id=602500397

Zanzibar Pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12757&l=905f9&id=602500397

Singapore:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12764&l=cc02e&id=602500397

Melaka Pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13489&l=4b359&id=602500397

Kuala Lumpur pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13493&l=20f2a&id=602500397

If you cant click on the link just copy and paste it into the address bar at the top

Enjoy!!

miss you

lou

xxx

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Zanzibar started with a 9 hour coach journey to Dar es Salaam on a surprisingly good coach (we expected to stand of a cramemd bus thing!). We even got served free soda, water and sweets. The best bit of the journey has to be watching the dodgy african films that they were showing on the TV - dancing hearts 1 & 2, probably the worst films I have ever watched with no plot or storyline! Ahh it made the journey go faster though!

When we arrived in Dar we got a 4 hour ferry to Zanzibar. This was an interesting ride as here we were all crammed in (i was sat on the floor and got pins and needles from my waist down for pretty much the whole journey - not good!) Also there was a coffin on board (apparently a singer from Zanzibar) which was pretty awkward as the lady accompanying the coffin proceeded to wail for the entire 4 hours whilst we sat there and tried not to look.

We spent the first night (Monday) on Zanzibar in the Stone Town - the old part of Zanzibar. This was a really nice area where we went to a local night market and tried various things such as zanzibar pizza (it's sooo good!) Tuesday morning was spent wandering around the streets of stone town and shopping :-) Tuesday afternoon we went to Kendwa rocks - the beach that we stayed at. Our accomodation was pretty basic huts on the edge of the beach - needless to say the view from them was gorgeous and we were more than happy despite the fact that they were made out of wood, had no filling between the pieces of wood and the inside walls were covered with scrappy bits of cloth to try and disguise this fact.

The beach was incredible, the sand was pure white and the water was so so warm. We spent the afternooon lazing on the beach and i had my first beach massage - i was addicted!! The evening was spent in the beach bar eating gorgeous food and just chilling out.

Wednesday was Hannah's birthday so we spent the day lazing on the beach havign massages, henna and I got by hair braided which was interesting! It took forever and hurt like hell but i think it looked pretty cool once finished!! anyway for 1.00 it was worth it!! (for some bizarre reason the PC's in Tanzania and singapore dont have pound signs on them!!)

Thursday was our snorkelling trip to a local island. We travelled by Dow boat, a traditional fishing boat which took 4 hours to get to the island as we sailed along at what can only be described as a 'leisurely' pace! I fell asleep on this journey and, despite being smothered in sun cream, got ridiculously sunburned and didnt realise until the next day when i couldnt walk, stand, lie down, sit - basically i couldnt move!! Snorkelling was cool though - saw soem really random fish and shells that were as big as a computer screen and bigger!

Afetr the snorkelling trip we completeed our last night in Zanzibar in style by staying up until 4am dancing on the bach and everyone else drinking FAR too much. At Approx 1am we all stripped to our underwear and went swinmming in the sea where mikey proceeded to be sick (i sat him at the edge as he was too drunk to swim!) The girls however all got their tops stolen while we were int he water which was HIGHLY annoying as it was one of my favourite tops!! Thjis didnt spoil the mood though and everyone continued to have a great time and get far far too drunk!

Friday was the start of our journey back to Arusha which left everyone regretting the night before! We left 2 girls in Zanzibar to do a scuba diving course, one of the boys went to join his family who has flown out to Zanzibar the night before for a family holiday and the scientist also stayed in zanzibar for a holiday. The rest of us piled back onto the ferry for a very very rough journey back to dar which resulted in severeal people being sick!

Saturday morning was the deathly bus journey back to Arusha - the coach wasnt as nice thisd time and the journey took about 2 hours longer for some reason!! Saturday night was just spent in Arusha before we all split up on Sunday to get our various fights.....

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Friday: Today we went to Sentosa island 'Singapore's resort island'. The viewing tower was pretty cool, great views out over singapore and we arrived on the island via cable car from the city which was very very cool. however aside form the beach there was a distinct lack of things to do without paying large amount of money for the privilage and being cheap travellers we didnt want to do that!

in saying that we did pay to go on the luge - a cool go-kart type thing where you go down the side of one of the hills which gives you great views out over singapore and the sea. A skylift takes you back up to the top - i e-mailed mum a photo of tom and i on that :-)

The most impressive thing about sentosa island was seeing the merlion, one of the main images of singapore which was very impressive!

We left sentosa in the afternoon and got the monorail to vivo ciity - the largest shopping centre in singapore. It's HUGE! It only opened 3 months ago so is incredibly modern, there is a park on the roof with a really big grassy area as well as a shallow swimming pool and a kids play area - a really really nice place to shop apart from beign riduculously busy but it probably didnt help that we went on a bank holiday...

Despite the disapointments we had a really good day out at Sentosa - and tom was happy because it didnt involve TOO much shopping (although he's bought more than me since we got here!!)

When we got back to the centre of Singaporewe went to the cinema and watched Mr Bean. Everyone was going crazy for it -laughing at absolutely everything and loving it!! It was a really cool film, made cooler by the fact we were watching it ini singapore with chinese subtitles!

Saturday: Today we went to Singapore zoo which was incredible and also saddening at the same time. It was an amazing zoo, almost like being in a rainforest as it was full or greenery and awesome trees and the animal displays were fantastic, they looked really real and comfortable. However, the problem being that, once you have seen these animals in the wild, no matter how nice their cage is it is still upsetting to see them in captivity. Especially saddening was the big cats - metres of space to roam around in rather than miles and miles of African bush. A really cool zoo though, and we had an ace day out :-)

Sunday we left the Hangout (*sob*) and moved to The Royal Peacock Hotel in Chinatown which is where we start our first trip. We are currently sat in an internet cafe in Chinatown, we meet the rest of the group at 5pm - looking forward to that! Tomorrow we start the trip by travelling to Melaka in Malaysia, we enter Thailand on the 16th April.

Anyway nothing else to update for now, ill e-mail and blog as often as i can though unsure as to how much acess to internet we will have

miss you

lou

xxx

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The city itself is amazing - the shopping (all we have done so far) is incredible. On both sides of the road the whole way down are shpping centres that are (at the smallest) 5 or 6 times as big as St. Georges and sell everything from Gucci and Armani to Topshop and random foreign clothes.It's taken almost 2 whole days for us to get through about half of the shopping centres. That doesnt include being right next to singapore's largest street market which is unbelieveable as well as chinatown and little india. Tomorrow is another day of shopping (i could spend SO much money in this place!!) then on Thursday we are going to Sentosa Island - an island just of the coast of Singapore where we can go to the beach, view singapore from the country's highest viewing platform and do random other fun things. Friday we are going to singapore zoo which should be cool :-)

Sorted out our visas's for Thailand so they will now let us in the country!! They cost 50 singapore dollars which is approx 17 pounds - in England it would have cost me 50 punds to get the visa!!

Singapore is so cool and vibrant and I love how modern everything is as well as being immaculately clean. Even down to the MRT - the underground. It is beasically a cleaner, safer and generally better run version of the London Underground!

McDonalds is EVERYWHERE!! literally every building has one. Also they have something called McCafe here, pretty explanatory by the name but this is also on every street corner! For lunch today tom and i had noodles, some meat (no idea what it was) and a fruit juice drink for 1.50! its great! and this is singapore, can only imagine hoe cheap the rest of malaysia will be! Obviosuly there are some spectacular restauants. We tend to go somewhere nicer for our evening meal - we splash out and spend about 15.00 for the two of us :-P

the heat here is so different to that of Africa. The temperature is still the same (around 30 celcius) but it's really humid here rather than just HOT as it was in Africa. Finding the heat ok though, will be much much hotter in Thailand as we will be there at the hottest point of their year. We go to Thailand on 16th APril so watch this space fo the weather report!

Missing my Maasai friends - after seeing them everyday for 3 months and learning to live with their endearing wierdness it's strange when they are gone. Keepingi n touch with the other volunteers though - already had several updates from them about where they are and what they are up to so not missing them as much.

Anyway shall update more when i can - going to upload photos tomorrow (for some reason this computer won't allow it) and also will be posting a CD with my photos on back home.

Missing you

lou

xxxxx

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My last week in Zanzibar was amazing it was a paradise beach with white sand, hammocks on the beach and clear brilliant blue sea that you could see right to the bottom of. I had massages on the beach (for the very extortionate price of 50p!!), got some henna done and also got all of my hair braided in corn row type things - see the pictures, it really didnt look that bad!!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent lazing on the beach indulging in the above activites or ocasionally venturing from the hammocks to the bar and then into the sea. On Thursday we went on a snorkelling trip for the day to a nearby island and had King fish for lunch (yes i am tending to eat fish now) barbecued for us on the boat. All was great until i woke up on Friday realising that, having faleln asleep on the boat ont he 2 hour journey to the island i was now ridiculously red on my front making walking, sitting, sleeping, standing (pretty much just existing) painful! my head was also burned in between the braids - not good!! Im more brown than red now but it is 4 days later and i am strangely patchy!

Saturday saw us make a 10 hours bus journey from Dar es Salaam abck to Arusha which was painful as there was no air-conditioning and we only stopped once...

On Sunday we left to begin our marathon journey to Singapore which was suppoed to begin with an 8.00am flight from Kilimanjiro airport to Nairobi but upon turning up at 6am (2 hours before the flight..) we were told that the flight was at 6am, it always was at 6am and there had never been an 8am flight to nairobi!! Due to it beign sunday STA (our travel agents) were closed and for some reason do not have a 24 hour helpline so it was left for me to go mad at the airport staff which resulted in us beign put on the next flight (1hr 20 mins later) free of charge. Upon arriving at nairobi we had a 7hour wait until our flight at 5.15 to Dubai - a 5.5 hour flight. I was amazed by the plane - they all had TV's and playstation's in the backs of the seats so you could watch whatever you wanetd or play games. You could also play games with other people on the flight, send e-mails, texts and even make phone calls. Now why don't they do that for spain!Dubai airport is AMAZING. Its like a bigger and more stylish version of the trafford centre - not like an airport at all! I FINALLY got the McDonalds i had been craving for 3 months at 1.30am (yes it was worth the weight - rice and cabbage really makes you want some pure junk!)

After 3 hours in Dubai it was time for the flight to Singapore - 7 hours, again on an amazing plane. The other thing that i love about these long haul flights is the food - pasta, chicken, curry and it is all such good tasting food and its a 3 course meal. You also constantly get free drinks throughout the flight, i sat there in luxury. Well actually i slept for most of it!!

We got to singapore at 2.30pm (7 hours ahead of the UK i do believe) and it was so refreshing to be in a nice clean airport where people understood what you were asking and everything went prefectly, our bags only took 10 mins to get off the plane all all arrived perfectly! A taxi took us to our hostel which turns out to be incredibly big and very very very nice (tom and my room has 3 beds, an en-suite bathroom, an incredible view of the city, a desk and a sofa as well as a large wardrobe and a lot of room to walk around - its HUGE!! There is a laundry room (the first thing i did was wash all of my clothes, having been handwashed for 3 months they wernt looking or smelling their best!), free internet access, the roof is a big flat area which loads of deck chairs, a swimming pool and a barbecue area, there is a pool table, and a chill out room where there is a huge plasma screen TV that shows movies daily. The whole place is immaculately clean and decrorated to a really high standard - its nicer than any hotel i have been to in england!!

Anyway enough ranting about how amazing 'The Hangout' is, tonight we wnt for a wander to get some food and see the city. We ended up eating at KFC (yes old habits die hard!!) before spending hours wandering around a gigantic street market. Due to the time differernces we are both pretty jet lagged so are havign an early night (well 10.30). Tomorrow we are going on a hunt for the Thai embassy to sort out getting our visas - we couldnt get them before we left the UK because they are only valid for 3 months from date of issue.

We will be in Singapore until Sunday 8th when our first tour from singapore to Bangkok begins... soemthing to look forward to! until then we will be exploring this city - so far i love it. It;s big and exciting whilst being clean and you can cross the road without thinking you are going to get squashed!

One thing id never get used to in tanzania is the driving - and you thought spaniards were bad!! nI have NEVER seen so many near misses in my whole life - people drive with smashed windowscreens, bumpers hang off often trailing on the floor, the cars dont have seatbelts, traffic lights are something very very rarely seen, people drive 3 abreast up the wrong side of the road and just sit there when its busy blocking up the whole thing and the roads are usually dirt tracks so you feel like you are in a washing machine!!

I really did love Tanzania, despite being dirty, driving being Horrendous and nothing ever getting done when it is supposed to (the motto for Africa is 'no hurry in africa' which is extrermely fitting!) and the Maasai are wondeful people. I will definately go back at some point when i have finished my travels of the rest of the world, Tanzania had a certain heart and vibe about the place, everyone is always singing and dancing and havign a good time - even those who dont have anything.

On the subject of the Maasai 6 of them are comming to run the London marathon in 2008 to raise money for a water hoel int heir willage!! At the moment they have to walk miles to a disgustingly dirty reservoir which always goes dry int he dry seasonlevaing them with no access to water - clean or otherwise. The Maasai are running the marathon free of charge and will be the first people ever to run without wearing numbers. All are terrified of the idea of flying - many have never even left their tiny village in the middle of knowhere before but they are all really excited about comming to London. AT the moment we have been given the task of getting the 20,000 sponsorship needed for the waterhole so if anyoen has any ideas of who may help, tom and i are going to be contacting Carphone Warehouse to see if they will - the BBC has already expressed an interest.

Anyway time for me to go and catch up on my much needed beauty sleep, will update on my travels around singapore as the week goes on. I will also be uploading all of my photos from Africa and will be sending them home once again.

I have also sent a parcel home containing some gifts my Maasai friends ghave me and stuff i bought which you will probably find really interesting - they were delivered to tom's house on Sunday so Mum will be able to show you them once they get to mine.\

Hope eveyone is well - missing you

lou

xxxxx

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We move on today to manyara for 5 days. Manyara is where the new project is going to be so we are spending a few days there helping to set it up and doe\ing some of the conservation work we came to Tanzania to do! Really looking forward to it - apparently there are LOADS of elephants in the area and they just wander around camp all the time :-)

We are really out in the bush for the next week (still in tents) so no showers, toilets or intenet but lots and lots of rice and cabbage!! :-(

we come back to the snake park next saturday then its on to Zanzibar until 31st March, i fly to singapore on 1st April.

Tom and I are both great, just got itchy feet and want to move on now!!

next saturday i will have some new photos to put up so watch this space....

hope everyone is ok - missing you all!

lou

xxx

Moving on.... remains copyright of the author MasonL, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Lessons at the learning centre are goign really well - tom and i have been put in charge of computer lessons at the learning centre and are going really really well. We have also managed to get 7 computers working now which they are really really happy with.

The science work should be starting tomorrow - hopefully we will get our permit today which willl be cool as the lessons are only once a day so the rest of the day appears to be wasted reading many many books - not that im complaining though!

anyway nothing much to update on so i'll go for now until we have done somehting more interesting!!

miss you

lou

xxx

P.S. we are now at 40oC!!

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We have been continuing to teach at the school and have prepared an environmental seminar to do on Saturday to help educate the local people on water conservation etc.

We will be leaving the snake park next week to spend a week at the new project which is in the process of being set up before going to Zanzibar for our final week which i really cant wait for!!

Happy birthday to Trish and Mags although ill have already rung you by now!

We fly to Spingapore on 1st April, i really cant wait to move on now. Tanzania ia amazing but The far east is calling!

hope everyone is ok, ill update you all once something more happens!

Thanks for the phone calls, its really nice to hear from people.

speak soon

lou

xx

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We are planning on being here for 3 weeks at the moment but it may increase dependant upon other plans. At the moment we are teaching in a local learning centre which caters for everyone from children to adults which is really cool, i have been doing coputer lessons today and yesterday and tom, Mikey and I have managed to get 3 computers working that they had written off which is ace! They tried to rope me into doing maths lessons but that wouldnt have been such a great idea seeing as the 10 year olds are all doing algebra - they are ridiculously good at maths unfortunately!!

We will be doing some science work once we get permission from Tanzanian Wildlife foundation - so much paperwork to be done but we will be doind surveys to find out what animals are living in the area!

Still eating ridiculous amounts of rice and now cabbage added to that pleasure - wonderful!! At least the snake park has a bar that serves toasties (only cheese and tomato though) so dont worry nan - i wont starve!!

we are all ok, having a great time here and looking forward to the science stuff to come (though personally i much prefer the school!)

the weather is incredibly hot now - the last 2 days have been almost unbearable heat - not that im complaining as there's always a nice cold drink to be found in the bar!

hope you liked the pictures

miss you lots

lou

xxxxxx

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they still havent decided what we are going to do but whatever it is starts tomorow so this may be my last e-mail/update for a while. We may be working in a snake park which sounds so exciting - i really hope we do that!

we are both ok - having a grat time despite everything.

miss you all loads

love you

lou

xxxx

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so we got back from our mid-phase break yesterday so i'll give you the run-down. It was incredible!!

On Saturday we started our trip by going to the waterfall camp where we will be spending all of next week. We spent the afternoon swimming in the waterfalls and just lazing around in the sun whilst our 3 course meal (!)yes no rice!! was cooked for us by the safari cook. The only downside to this day was that tom, dave (our expedition leader) and Mikey got their shoes stolen while they were swimming! It's just not our lucky trip i guess!

Anyway on Sunday we climed a mountain/very veyr big hill which nearly killed me! my new cheap army boots (bought due to the lack of any walking boots in Arusha) are 1 size too big and despite 3 pairs of walking socks still gave me the biggest blisters EVER - not good! That afternoon we drove to our next campsite and just spent the evening drinking - we do that quite a lot!

Monday was spent at ngoro ngoro crater on safari where we saw:

lion (lots!)
cheetah
Black rhino (we saw 7 and there are only 80 in the world!!)
ostrich
hippo
giraffe
elephant
zebra
hyaena
buffalo
monkey
gazelle
dik dik
wilderbeast
and loads of birds.

Unfortunately my camera battery had died so i had to use my phone camera so the pictures are going to be harder to get onto the computer. They are amazing photos though (the camera on my phone is almost as good as my real camera!) so ill get them up asap.

We then drove to Arusha to our next camp site and again spent the evening drinking and playing pontoon.

On Tuesday we went on a wlaking safari in Arusha national park where we saw loads and loads of giraffe - they were so close it's incredible! they are so tall and majestic - the photos i took dont do them justice! I managed to charge my camera the previous night so i had photos of this! We also saw loads of monkeys and buffalo too. We then went on a canoe safari in momella lake in the park where we saw hippo and also more bufallo along with a HUGE water python. It really was awesome thoguh i truly am incapable of rowing in a straight line!

We then left Arusha and drove to our next campsite - the hot water springs. Unfortunately by the time we arrived it was too late to do anything other than eat (yes another 3 course meal!) and sleep (i forgot to mention - we were in tents for this entire trip - it was BOILING!)

Wednesday morning we went for a walk along the river to look for crocodiles, of which we found 3 before going back to camp and spending several hours in the beautiful sperings. It was a series of gorgeous pools in a glade that was refreshingly cool whilst also being pleasantly warm. It was ace! there's photos of the pool and us in it on the other site which hopefullly should be working now.

Wednesday afternoon we spent driving back to Arusha and you got my update form yesterday and here i am now!

to view my full phots you need to go on www.facebook.com and log on using kath@56.eclipse.co.uk and the password is louise (no capitals)

on th left hand side scroll down and you will see a picture of me, click on it and you will be able to view my photos :-)

enjoy!

hope everyone is ok, say hi to nan for me

love you and miss you lots

tom says hi too!

lou

xxxxxxxxxx

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http://www.facebook.com/p/Louise_Mason/602500397

you will need to log in th\o view them all - the e-mail address is kath@56.eclipse.co.uk and the password is louise (no capitals)

these arent all the photos - all the ones frpm the safari are on my phone as my camera battery was dead and the others i took were on a memory card that went missing in the raid :-(

hope you like these photos - as you can see my birthday was interesting!

Not got time for a full update now - the photos have taken 2 hours to upload! but ill come back online tomorrow to fill you in!

love you and miss you

lou

xxxxxx

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So its my birthday and ive been trailing round Arusha trying to buy a pair of walking boots - completely impossible and expensive!

So much stuff was stolen in the raid, i lost the most but others lost thing such as passports.

The ring tom got me
my watch
approx 100.00 cash
ipod
ipod speakers
walking boots
binoculars
penknife
torch
solar charger
mobile phone (rachies :-( )
and my purse with all my cards and driving licence

its so damn annoying!! the good thing is we are all fine, a bit bruised and shaken but everyone is ok :-) its too dangerous for us to go back to camp so we are going to be doing some different work. Firstly we are going on safari for a week, tomorrow to ngoo ngoro crater and to a beautiful watefall camp to give us a break then we will be comming back to arusha and doing som work in the school we are supposed to be teaching at/ painting and building for 3 days then going back to waterfall camp for approx 1 wek building a camp site to encourang tourism to the area before moving to a mango plantation on the cost where we will be teaching in the local school and doing wildlife surveys. After that we will go to Zanzibar for the last week and a half.

Im really upset we have to leave the Massai as the are amazing people and they are going to lose so much from us leaving and its not their fault what happened but it is just too dangerous to stay
:-(

tonight we are going out to a club and for a meal for my birthday which should be cool.

Anyway i've got to go now, ill stay in touch - itll be about a week beofre i can e-mail again though - when we get back from safari.

love you all lots - dont worry about me or tom, we are both completely fine.

miss you

lou

xxxxxxxx

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It has been torrential rain for the last 2 days which has turned camp into a swamp of mud and yes i was wearing my hat and scarf!! The temperature just drops so quickly when it starts to rain - we could see our breath!! anyway its hot and sunny today with a prefectly clear sky so we are going to go back to camp and spend the day in the school which will be ACE!

Anyway so far everything is good, pretty sick of eating rice for 2 meals per day but hanging in there with it - not much choice really! We are sleeping in mud huts on beds made of sticks which is an interesting experience!! The huts are really cool though which is great when its ridiculously hot outside!

So far we havent done too much, just been learning about the different types of birds we will have to identify when we go out walking. On Wednedsay we got up at 6am to do a 6KM Mammal transect - basically walking for 6Km looking to mammals on the way - now thats a way to wake up!

I've got some really great photos but because we left camp in a hurry i didnt have chance to bring my cable to connect it to the computer :-(

In about 3 weeks we will be having a mid-phase break where we will be having a break going on safari for a week in the serengati so i should be able to email just before or after that with some pics :-)

Tom is good - he says hi to everyone

Just been told that a parcel has arrived for me at the post office - mum's parcels have come quicker than most so just going to go pick it up :-)

Looking forward to my birthday though its going to be strange without everyone :-(

Time to go now to get going to school....

Miss you all, text me and i should be able to reply!!

love you

lou

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So Far... remains copyright of the author MasonL, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Just a correction from my last entry - 'so far Tanzania IS amazing!'

it's still really really hot but at night it is a nice temperature. Curently we are staying in a house in Arusha, tomorrow we go to the Massai village where we will be living in mud huts :-D

On monday night w went out to a club which was completely empty when we got there but the 12 of us had a great time - we got on the dance floor to dodgy 80's hits whilst everyone got incredibly drunk of Conyagi (a very very very strong drink) - Maa lessons the next morning with hangovers were 'interesting'!!

Last night (Tuesday) we all went out for a meal at a place called 'Massai Camp'. We were all sat on the floor on cushions drinking and eating pizza and chips before staying up until 3am playing cards!

For the last few days we have been learning Maa - the Massai language which is incredibly hard! Starting to get there though! Tonight is our last night in Arusha so we are having a barbeque outside which will be ace.

I've never eaten this healthily in my life!! Its porridge, fruit and toast for beakfast then pasta or a bean stew for lunch and tea or some kind of meat stew. One issue being.................

I WONT BE ABLE TO EAT MEAT FOR THE NEXT 8 WEEKS!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

when we go to camp we only eat rice and vegetables (usually beans) how am i going to cope!! I need KFC!!

Sorry mum for ringing you at 6am (i forgot that Tanzania is 3 hours ahead!!)

This is the last time i'm going to be able to write on here or e-mail for the next 8 weeks as there is no internet access at camp and we wont be back in town until just before we go to Zanzibar in March :-(

I hope to have a load of e-mails waiting for me when i next log on!

I will be able to send and recieve texts though as a Mast has been put up right near the village.... just a random phone mast in the middle of the African bush!! All of the Massai tribe live in mud huts and only eat rice etec but they ALL have mobile phones around their necks... it's really surreal! They are really poor and tradional but all have mobiles!

Anyway hope everyone is good, next time i log on here i will have some pictures for you :-)

Take care

miss you all

lots of love

Lou

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Found!! remains copyright of the author MasonL, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had an 'interesting' journey - the weather in Amsterdam was AWFUL so we were stuck on the plane for ages as it was too rough to land :-( so instead of the 3 hours we were supposed to have in amsterdam we had to run straight to the flight to Kilimanjiro which was 10 hours!

The food was great - we got unlimited free drinks (including alcohol), free icecream as well as 2 meals :-D

All of my bags arrived fine, tom's guitar didnt come neither did the rucksacks belonging to 2 of the girls. We've got to ring the airline later today to see if they have managed to trace them.

Tanzania is incredible so far, just so interesting and different as well as being BOILING!!

Anyway time to go because the internet is INCREDIBLY slow so its taken about 30 mins to write and save this!

hope everything is ok

miss you all

lou

(and tom says hi!)

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Day 1 & 2 remains copyright of the author MasonL, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I love you all very much and i will miss you loads :-(

I'll keep in touch as best I can - make sure I get loads of e-mails!!

Thank you all so much for everything you have done which has made it possible for me to go :-)

Anyway i shall keep you updated.... watch this space!

lots of love

Lou

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The Evening Before.... remains copyright of the author MasonL, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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