. . . . . . . . Alina

Of course all the beds on the 17 hours long train ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai were fully booked and I had to say Khop Kun Kha for a bench seat in the hallway. Departure: 10.00 pm = not too much else than darkness to view through the windows. Since my company somehow managed to sleep through the break-dance shaking ride, I had to find another hobby to entertain myself with. Ipod= all passed out by Australian dehydration, phones=drowned and book=run out of pages ages ago. So my excellent choice of train task was... THINKING. Besides important decisions about how long and happily I'm gonna live my life, I had also time to think...:



* I reckon I would hardly find neither canned mackerel paste in minced chilli or shrimp/curry flavoured chips a gourmet. (The massive spot-lighted advert sign right above my head was flashing it's grossness to me all night).


* I imagined what it would feel like to get my arm sucked out through the wide-open window next to me, optional fall out through the OPEN DOOR in front of me.

* The orange juice selling lady is one of the most novelty things I've ever experienced. This constantly laughing cute lady was like a giant baby in an over-grown woman's body. I was wondering if I could keep her as a souvenir.

* Amazing how you in randomly sudden moments find parts of your body, you barely knew existed, tingly-sleeping. Apparently one of the side effects by the 17649 long distance Thai train ride-positions.

* I wish I had a coffe, a king size bed, unlimited much sushi (passed 22 hours awake without food), a good movie on a wide-screen and a cat. Cats are hilarious.

* It smells funny. Just everywhere.




Eventually thinking got boring as well, so I went for coffee in the reastaurant cart with 11 old Thai army soldiers/officers. We drank in silence, just nodded once in a while to make sure all of our beverages were enjoyable. I realized our coffee party was coming to an end when the main officer (the biggest man, who looked the least happy and had the most medals) stood up for a finishing morning song. I nodded again and went back to my seat for a nap on the floor.

Misha, Luke and Zipp decided to follow the Asian chicken pad thai rules and stay sick in the room today. Alina and Harry found it much more entertaining to hang out with the celebrities at the Oscars' pre-party at Bangkok Paragon. Dressed up fancy in our best dirty flip flops and beach clothes and got to the most impressive movie theatre we've ever seen. And just to make the movie experience complete, we stopped by at 7/11 for some candy. You know, the usual movie snacks; sea weed, random seeds and chilli chick peas.



The movie, Faster, (guess who's choice...) was good, the sea weed was crispy but we still have no clue why we at one point totally randomly stood straight up with the rest of the cinema audience. I didn't like the silence there either cause my - as always - bad timing instantly set me in the worst need to cough. Bad.



Mum and dad, keep your eyes on the TV for thai news. Being on the press conference was boring, but falling over on the red carpet in front of mr. Camera man #1, 2, 3, 4, 5,.......and 46 was hilarious.




And here, some important facts; the taste of a scorpion is similar to chicken. Imagine a baby chicken toasted in the grill for way too long. Crispycrispycrispy, but the slimy inside had not run away in the grill. definitely still there.

Always on the run. The floods in Australia decided to cross our way and kick our journey. Not very polite. There was a few paddles and not even McDonalds had any food left, since nothing could come through.

One year in Cairns and of course our dear cyclone Yasi wanted to come and visit us, see how we were doing. I normally like surprises, but he could at least have given us some notice cause we had just left our home behind. Good old Yasi must have been disappointed in our useless company. Not much of a party there, sorry about that.


Killed a few city hours with game arcades and cinema.

We got further and to our next destination - Christchurch, New Zealand. X Base hostel had been closed since the earthquake in September. And you could tell, half the building was gone. But who does not want this amazing group to stay at their hostel? We arrived at 1 in the morning and "You are more than welcome to check in!!", They opened up again. Had an awesome road trip around the South island, then 2 recovering days of sleep back at Base before we abandonned NZ 20th of February. New Zealand's most damaging earthquake hit Christchurch at the 21st. At that hour we were watching Anthony Hopkins doing som exorcism exercising in Singapore. Saw our hostel on the CNN news in our Bangkok guesthouse room this morning. AND MY FAVOURITE COFFEE SHOP!!! :(:(:(:(
People have died and heaps are still stuck in what's left of the buildings on our street. 3rd time luck. Indeed.



...and literally spent the night on a bench/concrete floor. Someone should have warned me... It was not comfortable, at all. So I guess this is my warning, just don't do it. Not worth it.


Current location: Bangkok. We better get out of here before next coming disaster reaches us. So, lets go to... maybe... Laos? Yeh, lets book a ticket, right now.

1. I do NOT like this a single bit. Can't believe I keep doing this to myself.
2. Mum, I'm sorry, but if I die today you won't get any money. My travel insurance ran out in march 2010.
3. I wish Pheobe in Friends and I were friends in real life.

* Zaid is growing a moustache. The remaining 4 of us is happily encourageing this process and have hidden every single piece of razor and sharp edge to avoid any crazy shaving behaviour.




* We are all still alive after a 134 meters' bungy jump.


Misha: as an upside-down salmon, all way through.


Zaid: with a racer-speeding growth of his moustache while falling.


Harry: with a heart beating as a bitch. (Not the words of this blog's author)


Luke: Well, R. Kelly; Just... "I belieeeeeeeve I can flyyyyyy...!"


Alina: as last man jumping of a group of 15.





*We have a baby bird living in a plastic bowl in our camper. I believe he's some sort of sparrow/disabled duck. We made friends with Gobbles straight away at our first lakeside meeting. He's now more spoiled than ever with plums, crackers, cherries and baby napkins constantly provided. Hope your wing and feet get better soon, mate.

1. She looks more like she's TRYING to do some sort of Scandinavian imaginary dance.



2. Boys find it stupidly easy to fool her up on the top of a memorial stone. "It's just the start of the next goal!! Throw it from there!! The steps are on the back.." THERE WERE NO STEPS AND ALINA ALMOST DIED ON THE WAY DOWN, with a background sound of camera clicks and evil laughs.


3. To end up on top 5 of the Hall of famous-list, "Worst player in Queenstown ever" should just be reason enough.

Jill is amazingly loyal and we all admire her positive energy. Never complains about how we keep forcing her up steep mountain roads, how we (Luke) decorates her lovely inside with half-naked girls or how we make her play our all-novelty playlist on repeat, loudloudloud.



But there is one thing about Jill, SHE STINKS.  I can't make my mind up finding the correct reason, It may be the sink water that was meant to be drained a COUPLE of days ago and nowmore is plugged up in the sink and spread all over the floor. Or, might be the concept of 5 happy campers in the wilderness without a shower (20 second morning dips in the glacier water don't count, do they?). Or, burnt popcorn, garlic bread in combination with half-eaten cans of tuna/beans. I reckon, simply, everything together in a lovely mix. Sorry about that, Jill.





I wonder how you possibly can atract soooo many flies, You SMELLY CAT!!!



At least you see some good stuff on the way. (Harry, good photographing skills there on the go, through the window. And DEAR camera, I love you already).

Works best with 4 people or more. Make sure you sit so that you can see everyone, for example around a table.

RULES:
The goal is to not show your teeth, no matter what... Laughing makes it way easier to loose, so that's basically something to avoid. Wrap your lips around your teeth so that they're all covered (imagine a man/lady by the age of 95 or a VEGETABLE). Now, take it in turns, say a fruit/vegetable that hasn't been said before. SNOWPEA. Teeth have to be hidden all the time. First person to laugh so that a single piece of tooth is shown - is the LOSER. Use your voice in different ways as a weapon, it helps, to win. CAULIFLOWER!

A hilarious game, POTATOE, if you do NOT loose. Part 2 of the game: the loser has ti complete the mission that's been decided before game started. (Of course you all have to agree about this punishing task). HONEY DEW MELON!




Loser round 1: Alina
Mission: Ask around the camp sites for cinnamon.
Completed: YES

Loser round 2: Harry
Mission: Flirt a randomly picked old, OLD, lady up.
Completed: NO (Well tried, but got shot down by the lady who apparently was less senile than expected).

1. It was Misha, NOBODY ELSE, who smashed the window in room #101. Accident? Yeah right...



2. Don't think we could find a more secretive person than Miggs. We're talking about the man who mysteriously disappears every second day. We have almost given up trying to find out the details of these secret dates.



3. "If you've got a tent, you've gotta try it!!!", Misha's opinion. The assistant hostel manager had other thoughts about the situation. To, during the daily room check, walk into THE messiest room of Global Waterfront and find a TENT squized in between the bunk beds... I didn't judge her when we all heard a loud: "OH MY GOD!!! SOMEONE IS CAMPING IN THE ROOM!! AND WHERE IS THE MATTRESS??!! CLAIRE, HELP ME OUT HERE! WHAAAAAAAT!! A PERSON IS SLEEPING IN THERE!!" A good wake-up alarm for you there, Mish.



4. His most used line is "I'll squash you like a little maggott!!". At first we were all a little bit scared of this Dutch behaviour, but nowmore we barly notice when it gets shouted out  loud in his sleep.




5. MISHA EATS HORSE!! CRAAAAAAAZY DUTCH MAN!!

Here comes the answer of every human being's biggest secret question:
1.



2.


3.



You are welcome, don't have to wonder or worry about it anymore. Got all the facts you need.

Just to make sure you all know who is actually travelling we're gonna start a series of funny facts. Today's chapter is all about Zaid.




1. Ziddle was once gone for hours. Night time, Cairns, darkness... We were all worried to death, since Zaid's strongest skill is NOT to answer his phone. Eventually he dropped into the room, proud and super happy about his new friend. We welcomed Stanley the FROG (!!!) with open arms. Since that day Zaid Elgawarsha is only allowed to collect pets where we can see him and not after 10 PM.



2. Worse than missing Zaid for 5 hours is missing Zaid for 2 MONTHS. He seems to like disappearing and this time - TO A FARM!!! Zaid abandonned us, our group, our family, to live on a farm. Unforgiveable.



3. His afro. The growth of this forest has been going since he left Bellingham, Washington (the state, not DC) One time I found my mastercard in there. But I love it and he's under NO circumstances allowed to cut it off.



4. There is actually a unique song written about and dedicated to Zaid. This one is only played be special requests and in exclusive occasions. But will be released very, very soon. Keep your ears open.



5. We're all struggleing to get our hand luggage packed together by every stop we travel. Zaid's hand luggage: a BICYCLE.

Luke: It was kind of ridiculous, but novelty and definitely worth it. Wouldn't do it again though.




Alina: It reminded me of "Happy feet", except from the fact that the feet were plastic-ish hard and not that happy.





Harry: I was just happier than I ever thought I would be playing with a dead animal.





Misha: Both cute and disturbing at the same time.





Zaid: You know what... I didn't wanna touch it, that's about it. Wasn't upset, just didn't wanna touch it. Kind of gross. And it smelt funny.

* ...get Harry stung by a jellyfish in Bondi Beach. This greedy little creature found his favourite buffet and took both foot and face. PAIN. We probably didn't read the jellyfish instructions properly, but next time we know that rubbing it into and all over your skin is a bad, BAD, idea.



Good old pepsi MAX!!!


* ...se Melbourne. A 5 hour experience.

* ...make a hattrick in fast food. McDonald's breakfast, Burgerking lunch and KFC dinner. Alina was happy with her sushi, since we were still in Sydney, the sushi capital of OZ.

* ...almost miss our flight to New Zealand. OF COURSE. Don't think we could ever be in good time enough. Things always seem to cross our way and try to destroy our plans.


A random bridge we found....


* ...Learn the fact that a great white shark has the weight of 115 suitcases. Glad I didn't bring mine (10), would cost me a lot in overweight charges at the airpiort. Made the right decision there.

* ...say Good Bye to the country that's been our home for the last 14 months. But don't cry tooo much, we'll see you again in 2 weeks baby!!! :) :) :) :)


The camera is this way...?

Cyclone Yasi, worst in the history: Due to hit Australia - Queensland tomorrow.
Alina, Harry, Misha, Luke and Zaid: Due to cross the ocean Australia - New Zealand by flight tomorrow.

This could be fun.









Soooo, our first plan for NZ:
(If you're unpatience, just fast-forward half a minute).
AJ Hackett's Nevis Bungy jump, 134 metres, a bit of a backup plan for if I by chance would survive the cyclone.