After Bangkok, Greg and I headed down South to the island and after a very bumpy and load bus, ferry and long boat taxi ride we arrived in Koh Tao where we spent the next five days. Koh Tao was amazingly beautiful, great snorkeling, peace and quiet and although hot very relaxing. Greg did a diving course and got his open water while I must admit that I did not very much except lie on the beach, swim and explored the town.

After Koh Tao we moved on to Koh Pangang which after Koh Tao was a great disappointment - too many Israelis, farang food (though to be fair we did have very good falafel for shabas...), bad music and too many tattoo parlours. Oi va voi! Time to head south again and after another long journey via Krabi we crossed the mainland and headed to Koh Lanta. Here we trekked though the jungle ( while being eaten my mozzies) and went exploring some underground caves with a local guide. While the cave is totally unspoilt and unlit, you still get a rush when you are balancing over a bamboo pole on the edge of a cliff in the darkness, clambering down ladders into the unknown and crawling out in the mud. After lunch we explored the old town, situated on a mangrove swamp and ate amazing prawn fritters and lunch on the water.

Then it was back to Bangkok for two days of viewing temples, Jim Thompson's house and making plans to head North. We honestly were very please to leave as the constant totes, scammers, noise and being constantly ripped off were starting to get to us and when Greg's sunglasses were stolen is was the final straw. We have spent the last two days in Kanchanaburi exploring the town which is situated on the River Kwai with the famous bridge just north of the town. Yesterday we took the train to Hell Fire Pass and explored the museums which detailed the use of Allied POWs as slave labour in building the railway in WW2 - unfortunately little mention is made of the thousands of Thais and Burmese who also died building it.

We arrived in Auytayya this afternoon, which is the ancient capital of Thailand and will rent bikes tomorrow to explore the temples around the old city. After that we are heading further North to Sukothai and Chaing Mai.

From Tasmania to Thailand...

Well it has been a hectic two weeks in some sense as I have done a lot of travelling, but I can't honestly say that life is very stressful when your main priorities are choosing which bikini to wear and which beach to lie on! I did write a long blog post this week detailing my journey over the last two weeks, but then the Internet connection died and i lost it all, so now that i am older and wiser I shall attempt to fill you in via smaller posts! Also Greg is posting on Jou Ma Se Blog and being more successful so most of you know whats up anyway.



Tamsmania was amazingly beautiful, cold and autumnal. I rented a car in Hobart and drove around for five days, singing alone to lots of music, (thanks to Ram!) mostly floks etc, going on scenic walks, breathing fresh air and exploring the wild western side of the island and its National Parks - Russel Falls, Lake St Claire, theFranklin River, Cradle Mountain - stopping in small towns, eating great food and drinking the local wine to stay warm and met some great fellow travellers. A bit f peace and quiet over Easter to sit back, relax, eat and Easter egg and get my head into holiday mode.Before I knew it is was over and I flew back to Melbourne for less than 18 hours, were I replaced my winter woolies with my bikini and filled my backpack ready to hit South East Asia and arrived in Bangkok in the middle of Songkran. Songkran is a festival celebrating the Buddist New Year - an intergral part of the festival is to clense yourself with water and the whole city turns into a water fight for four days, and while it is good fun, we decided to head down to the islands after 2 days as not much else was accessable in the city.

Happily Unemployed Again...

Well, I have just completed my last day of work, and paid employment, for potentially the next 18 months which is exciting but very daunting financially! I must say that I will miss Peter Mac, my little grannies, all the staff at the Foundation, my morning latte and my new Aussie friends but it is time for the next adventure.

A quick catch up is that I moved back to Bennett Street last weekend and it is great to be back here, despite missing Ram and Tal as they are off on their travels, but Lieu, Marta, Adam and I have been cooking up a storm. The Melbourne International Garden Show was on last weekend and the gardening fanatic in me came out (it has been hidden in awhile) to play. Some amazing flower exhibits, rumoured to be judged by Prince Charles, though he would have been accosted by a million old ladies and gay flower arrangers, and lots of garden displays. Needless to say I couldn't resist and I am breaking the Biodiversity Act posting some exotic bulbs home to my mum, but they will be kept in pots and out of the forest....

But the most exciting thing that I have done this week is going to the Best of the V Festival last night where I saw the Pixies live!!! They were fantastic and Gina (who also spent some of her formative years jumping around to the them at the Fringe) and I jumped up and down like mad things with some crazy Irish people (Fek, be-jesus!). Wish you guys had been there. Phoenix was also great, but Jarvis Cocker not so much... Lots of Jagermeister, vodka and a fantastic concert over looking the city from the Myer music bowl. I did take three video clips of the concern but I still am figuring out You Tube.

I'm off to Tassie tomorrow for 6 days and I'm looking forward to eating oysters and sea food, driving round in my car and exploring the wild west coast. Happy Easter to all of you and I hope the bunny finds you where ever you may be.

The FINA Openning Extravaganza!!!

Oh my God! As Tal and I raced up the stairs of the Rod Laver Arena - usually centre court for the Australian Open, but converted into an Olympic sized pool- we were handed goodie bags and just made it to our seats after dodging hundreds of children dressed from head to toe in cerise for the opening ceremony of the FINA world swimming championships. The lights dimmed and a volenteer who must have been a prefect in her past life, turned around and told us to get out our lights and start waving them around. What? And the we looked around - everyone had a star light which changed colours and was waving them around welcoming in the Diva to sing us a song and the Aboriginies to give us some spiritual meaning to the whole performance. This was only the beginning of the cheesiness - soon we were treated to a reinactment of the pool being built, had acrobats twirling from the ceiling before a hundreds of pengiun dressed from head to toe in licra tap danced for us to River dance. Then came Shannon Knowl the Aussie idol who was then joined by some chicky who is an ex Neighbours star, we had a Ian Thorp basically coming out of the closet and a parade of nations!! How Aussie could you get???

Afterwards Tal and I walked back towards the city and Fed square through Batman park which has some crazy art instalations which I think can only be truley appreciated if you have taken a large amount of drugs - weird light intalations and songs about fish, a feild of mushroom like sculptures with the city scape in the background, massive tiled and painted sculptures... But fun - we were like kids in a playground!

Peter Mac Ocean Swim

Well as part of the FINA world championships Peter Mac, being the goodwill partner held an ocean swim at St Kilda and I am very pleased that I decided to volenteer rather than swim as it was freezng cold, raining, blowing a gale and felt like the middle of winter. Needless to say there were a few hundred mad Aussies that decided to brave the waves and some celebraty footballers who swam to save us all from cancer. I survived unscathed apart from being extremely grumpy after slamming my fingers in a fold up sign and not having coffee for the first hour (I have become a caffie addict as the coffee is too good to resist) and despite a brief embarrassing episode where I had to jump off the stage and commado crawl under it after someone's prize which had blown out of my hands, it was fun and we raised lots of money. This unfortunately was only the start of the FINA madness!

Yo La Tengo

Tal, Holly and I went to watch Yo La Tengo at the Corner Hotel in Richmond earlier this month which was fantastic but load as we were right next to the speakers! But then again maybe I am turning into Granny Al...

A perfect day in Melbourne

Yesterday, for a change the weather in Melbourne was perfect, no blazing heat, no humidity, rain or howling wind… Tal and I met on the corner of Johnson Street (after my customary coffee from Dench) and headed down to the Abbotsford Convent – the site of Tal new production “In other words”. But, on Saturday night, after going to a cult themed party in Carlton, while walking past Dench, we spied the bakers at 1am making bread and dancing to music in the kitchen – so there are secret gnomes making pastries in the middle of the night!

The Abbotsford convent is on the banks of the Yarra River and even though it is a 10 min bus ride down Johnson Street, it feels like you are in the middle of the country – I got a real shock seeing the city skyline, after being there for three hours. The site consists of a number of beautiful red brick and stone buildings, with huge wooden staircases, stained glass windows, Victorian tiled floors and huge rooms. The convent is slowly being restored after being saved by the local community from being turned into a housing development, but there are still a number of abandoned buildings which I happily wandered around while Tal sat at the old bakery and worked. The main building has been converted into a site for artists and musicians and feels very much like Frank Jobert, but on a larger scale. Lot happens on a Sunday – farmers markets, art exhibitions, which included some rather strange and wacky stuff as my mother would say… families, dogs, hippies (but not the smelly kind) etc. Tals performance will be held in the basement in the old laundry of the main building and the site is surrounded by beautiful (a bit dry in the drought) gardens.


Next door is the Collingwood Children’s Farm, complete with organic veggie patches, orchards, horses, hordes of geese, a pair of peacocks and Brahma chickens – sorry Paula, there were no Chinese Silkies, though I did look, and a tiger snake that lives near the green house – I did not stick around too investigate. After the farm I headed back to the convent for lunch with Tal at Lentil is everything and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee and eating g-free chocolate cake.

Lastly, I must report that Melbourne does have its share of nutters – namely Phil, the dodgy Frenchman, who followed Matt into our house on Saturday evening after seeing him in his skin tight leather pants (he is a rock star after all) and wanting to get some of his own Mardi Gras action – he was rapidly chased down the stairs with much shouting and followed by wails of laughter.