Right, I’m finally here properly and things are OK now. Met up with Ais and Minty for a few drinks. Ended up staying in a gay bar for 2 hours before we realised Ais was the only female and drew our conclusions.

Anyway, when I left them I went back to my hostel and I’m still here. Met so really cool people that are making this way easier. Michelle is working with the peace corp and Martha is doing research on the Tsunami. Alister is an English Engineer and is really making me feel at home.

Long day tomorrow, so I have to go. Ill do a proper update when I can work this keyboard. I love you Sal! and I miss you so much! XXXXXXXXXXXX

Arrived in Bangkok and OH MY GOD, this is like the craziest city in the world. I have never experienced anything quite like it. It is such a huge culture shock. In the 5 minutes I’ve been here, I cried a little bit, a one legged boy grabbed my leg and wouldn’t let go until I gave him money, I took an outdoor shower and a lizard crawled on me.

Although, when I came out of my hostel, its was all worth while when a little Thai girl smiled and bowed at me. Very strange feeling.

Anyway, I have to try find a phone to call home. I’ll write again with some photos later

OK, so I finally got some pretty detailed maps done up of my locations. I had originally had the world map but had way too much fun and decided to do …. ehem… a few more localized ones. You can pretty much see my journey in both phase one and phase two (As I am calling them). Phase one being my solo round the world trip and phase 2 being my European rail trip with Sarah Feel free to comment on any of them. This is by no means a definite guide as we all know, even the best laid plans are subject to change…and thats why it’s an adventure.

In other news, I have all my accommodation for Thailand, Hong Kong and California booked and ready. How organized am I! Good owl “Internet money” allowing me to save my cash for more …. necessities. 😉 Starting to get really nervous now. Just a few little bits and bobs to tie up and I’m good to go.

Finally, regarding the site, I have sorted out the new photos and discussion areas. Anyone can now view my entire gallery and have a little chat with me depending on where I am. Hope SOMEONE apart from me finds it useful.

Enough of my rants. Its the first of the month. I’m supposed to be sorting out my sleep pattern.

OK, so today me and Sarah went into town to collect my tickets and guess what? NOTHING went wrong! Everything was exactly the way it should have been. The names on the tickets were correct, the address, even the destinations were correct! Something must be amiss….

Anyway, Melissa was not there today, but thats grand cos shes not the boss of me and Sarah was there so it was really nice. Thanks Sal, I know you didn’t want to be there, but I appreciated it a lot. Thanks for coming to cafe aroma with me too! 😉

After many phone calls this week to various travel insurance companies, I ended up forking out over 250 Euros to USIT for their worldwide travel insurance that covered “Hazardous activities” which I had to get because for some reason, the insurance company thinks its “Hazardous” to ride on an elephant, scuba dive and snorkel! Snorkel for god sake! Do we need insurance to dip our faces into the bath when playing submarines? The answer to that is that we do not play submarines.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, I have not even left yet and I’m talking pony. Just have to save like an Essex whore now to pay for the trip!

On an off note, the site forum and photo gallery are about 99.99% complete. Not that anyones interested, but I’ll let you know. Click my ads!

This post is just to showcase some images in my new gallery based on the (EDIT** New WordPress Image handling). These images are just really to help be look back and remember my friends and family while I am away. Most are completely irrelevant to the function of this blog and only serve the purpose of testing and memory.

All images will be viewable in my up and coming “Proper” gallery based on the SPG gallery (Links to come) which will have its place on the site when it arrives. Read the full post to see my photos…

Welcome to my new world travel journal / blog. I have worked really hard on this site modifying the incredibly flexible WordPress to suit my needs. I have heavily modified the original script and I will now be using this website to document my travels around the world. So many modifications to the original engine have been made that I will need a separate post/page for them. This was set up so that I can easily change my location and post relevancy when I am in each location. It is primarily for my family and friends to keep track of where I am and what I am doing and any relevant news that I have for them. This has been thought out so well and so much that I more than likely missed something. At least I have nearly three weeks to get all the little bugs worked out.

The main aim of this website is to provide my friends and family an easy way to not only contact me while I am away, but keep updated on my location, what I am up to and any news that I have. I also plan to have the entire blog published at the end of my trip as a memoir of my travels.

So Far, I have gotten most of my funding together and have a lot of my accommodation sorted for most places. I have all my vaccines now (I did not cry) and I am just working on spending some time with Sarah before I leave.

I hope someone finds this useful because I know I will.

Please note that I have not set up this site to reflect my locations in phase 2 of my trip. When I arrive home, I will be back for two weeks, (For Sarah’s 21st) then I will travel on around Europe with her on our Inter-rail trip for a month and a half (Or thereabouts). More on that to come.
Anyway, enjoy!