Hello!

I thought i better move this thing on from the depressing top post it is currently at. I am now in Boston where it is 96 degrees Farenheit or 36 degrees Celsius; having literally come from two jumpers and overcoat weather in Canada it was a shock to the system. Here in Boston everyone seems tough and irish and Catholic and they all where the name 'Boston' somewhere on there clothing; can't imagine walking around home with 'Brisbane' emblazoned on my t-shirt and cap. The hostel i am staying in is pretty expensive (a Boston policy it seems) but it is nice and has a TV in the room that i roasted in last night. The manager, to my amusement, is 9 parts Norman Bates and 1 part Norman Bates' Mother which for those of you who have seen Hitchcock's Psycho means 10 parts crazy. When checking in he thought it apporiate to stall for 5 minutes, dead still and gentle sway to the chords of Them coming over the radio; freaked me out a little bit.

Either way things are fine. It is planned to go to Harvard this evening and meet up with one of Liz's many globally mobile friends. That should be cool.

Katie, she tells me, is lazing about the beaches of Thailand at the same location that 'The Beach' was filmed. Today she goes to the limestone cliff that the young DiCaprio jumps from in the film. Pretty awesome.

Hope everyone is keeping well,

Love david xoxoxoxo

p.s. 5 or 6 days till France depending on what hemisphere you're in. Bloggers will unite!

Ok, so I suppose the purpose of this blog was to depict the ups and downs of travelling and unfortuntely today is a definate low. Last night while i was sleeping i had my beautiful old German camera stolen from under my nose. It was literally 5cm max from my face. Of course, Katie had given it to me as a gift.

It was really my only valued pocession so insurance is really no condolence, but, Dad, anything we can do? I went to the police station and all that.

Ok, so sorry about that. I'll go back to staring off into the distance.

Dave.

This is a photo i took of Katie and Macca back in Australia with said camera:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWjILQfVqRdFLScDGayMrWdZX6qnhHqXmtC9JK-Na1-xPI5jmxNnxX9A9DgXRcpZUHATBz8BqIjQ8_WwPsPNAL5_lte8chPqOeUKHXgg2tp1knKuuqUKcS_9U3ohiAN9y3wIbX/s1600-h/590144-R1-021-9.jpg

Some more photos..for some reason the computer won't let me put them all up at once so i have to do it in parts, also it keeps deleting things and its all in Thai so i have to guess what i'm doing and just click randomly! Top photo is of (left to right) Mike, Kat, Ryan and Jess on the mountain. Then there is another one of the waterfall in Laos, a couple of a temple and one of us at a very posh hotel bar in Bangkok that we went to last night to meet one of the guys friends. I noted on walking through the front doors the sign with the dress code on also stated, and i kid you not; 'No backpackers', it made me laugh, they actually had to lend us all clothes too as we were to daggy to enter! I'm just all class aren't i?!
I'm getting on a bus in a couple of hours for Koh Phi Phi island so next time you'll hear from me i'll be kicking back on the beach! Love Katie

A few photos of recent events; the sunrise from the top of Phu Kadung Mountain where we went camping and a couple of shots of the waterfall we went to in Laos.

Well aside from learning French, which should really be my priority i know, i have learnt some Thai in the past few weeks. This provides both useful and hilarious to the locals who find it especially funny when you barter with them in Thai. Very strange but hey.
So the last time i blogged i believe i was in Vientiane in Laos and writing about how the next day i would head back in Thailand with a new group of people and go camping up a mountain. Well i left the internet cafe, bumped into Jess who was having the passport trouble and in short she had to leave Laos asap, so we packed our bags and jumped straight into a tuk-tuk headed for the border. It has ended up being the craziest, fun-filled and packed few days i've had on this trip. Basically it went like this: We left Laos, crossed the border and 8 buses/tuk-tuks and 24hrs later we arrived at the bottom of the mountain. For some reason the Lonely Planet has only one tiny paragraph on this mountain and the trek up it, which i find very strange because backpackers would love it, even though it is way, way off the beaten track! So we left all of our stuff two bus trips back at a hostel as there is nowhere for it at the bottom of the mountain and there was no way that we were lugging our stuff up there. We have to have been THE most unorganised, chaotic bunch of people i have ever seen, somehow we didn't prepare whatsoever and ended up climbing this mountain of 1200m (yes, i'm not kidding) with less than a litre of water each, one mango between six of us, no spare clothes, only a few of us had a jumper and waterproof clothing (i was one of them you'll be please to know mum!) a toothbrush and in flip-flops. Don't ask why, i'll never know, it was crazy, but extremely good fun! So the main idea of going up this mountain was to watch the sunset and sunrise, we missed the sunset because it was so cloudy and you couldn't see anything but the rain and dark clouds. We got given a tent and some very smelly blankets at the top (yes we forgot sleeping bags too) but the leeches were on the prowl and even though we got given some leech preventing powder we got attacked, it was like the Blob! So we got moved to an army tent that was pitched indoors and woke up at 4:30am to see the sunrise. It was still quite cloudy, but pretty and worth it all the same. Then it was time to walk back down and by this time my feet were so blistered from the flip-flops that i had to go barefoot. My feet at the end were in such bad condition, so bruised! I'm very glad we did it though, it was away from any tourists and something very different to do. Apparently locals youths go up the mountain to camp and drink as a Spring Break type thing!
So another 4 buses later and we are back in Bangkok and i am now going to go and buy my ticket to the islands today to leave tomorrow. I plan on sitting and lazing around on the beach for the remainder of my trip! Then bring on Paris! I spoke to Dave a few days ago for the first time on the trip which was fantastic!
Hope you are all well, Janelle i hope you enjoyed Toronto!
Love Katie xxx