Vietnam and Cambodia

Hi to you all one final time, as I write this I am sat in our final hostel preparing for tomorrow’s flight back to the UK. More about that later though because the last two or three weeks have been some of the best of the trip, although I have found myself saying that quite a lot! We traveled through bordering countries Vietnam and Cambodia. Both are amazing places to visit but both have had troubled histories.

You may remember in the last post I said we traveled from Bangkok to Hanoi in northern Vietnam. Before going through what we got up to here I’ll give you a brief rundown as you may not know much about the country. It really is an unbelievable country, we were only there for around 10 days but I think it has to be one of my favourite countries. There is a real buzz. The chaotic traffic made up of thousands of motorbikes alongside the bustling night markets selling everything from cheap t-shirts to gold jewellery. However, throughout history, things have been very different. Up until 19 the country was ruled by the French, and before this the Chinese. Still to this day there is a lot French and Chinese influence, both in the food and the architecture, such as the buildings and statues. A revolution, led by the very famous and popular Ho Chi Minh, meant that Vietnam gained independence and was no longer ruled by the French. In the late 60′s, just as the country was beginning to experience some growth it was torn apart in a great war between north and south. The north being supported by China and Russia, and the south being supported by the USA. Thousands of people were killed, American’s and Vietnamese mostly but the war also affected neighbouring Cambodia.

Much of the visits that we have been on in Vietnam have in someway been connected to the war, mainly because it is such a significant part of the country’s history. Firstly, in Hanoi, we visited the war museum to learn a little more about the event. They have a variety of war memorabilia, including tanks and aircrafts which were used in the war. We also climbed up the flag tower which gave great views of parts of the city. Just as we were about to climb the flag tower two coaches full of school children got off and came running straight for the tower. They were all giggling at us and testing out their English, I must have said ‘hello’ to more than fifty children!

On one of the days we took a long walk around the city. We visited all the main attractions in Hanoi, such as the presidents palace and the Ho Chi Minh museum and mausoleum. All over Vietnam you see Ho Chi Minh’s picture, even on the money. Speaking of money, in Vietnam the equivalent of £1 is 30,000 VND (Vietnamese Dong). This meant that the ten days which we were here I was a millionaire! I went to the cash machine one time and took out 2 million VND! The only problem with being a millionaire in Vietnam is that you need to be very good at maths.

The main reason we visited Hanoi was because we wanted to take a trip to a place called Halong Bay. It is a world heritage site of 1,969 islands, most of which stand vertically out of the sea like soldiers standing to attention. We stayed overnight on a boat and sailed around the islands, visited a huge cave and also went kayaking. There are a number of floating villages in Halong Bay which people live on, some of the people living here will have never been on dry land! Here you can see our boat, the islands and the cave we went in.

After Hanoi we headed to the capital of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh city. We met a man from here and he told us there were three names for the capital. Saigon was the name before the war, this was then changed to Ho Chi Minh, named after the former president, and finally motorbike city!

Whilst here we visited the Cu Chi tunnels. During the war the Vietnamese constructed a very complex system of tunnels about 40 kilometres from Ho Chi Minh city. These tunnels were built very deep underground and it is here where the Vietnamese were able to hide from and attack the Americans. They also built a number of traps which were very brutal. Just seeing the way these tunnels were built was incredible. We also got a chance to go down one and walk about 20 metres. I can tell you that it was a very nerve-wracking experience. The tunnels were tiny, I don’t know how the Vietnamese soldiers managed to cope in those conditions.

The next day we were up early for a long bus ride to our final country of the trip, Cambodia! Now as mentioned Cambodia has been through an extremely violent recent past. Like Vietnam, the history shaped much of what we did in the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. Throughout the Vietnam war Cambodia was heavily bombed by the American planes for no clear reason. This obviously generated a lot of hatred from Cambodians, towards not only America but the western world in general. Consequently, an extremist political party called the Khmer Rouge formed and took control in Cambodia, led by a man named Pol Pot. Much like Hitler did for Germany, Pol Pot was able to enforce his extreme views the country. He believed that people should work long hours in the farms for the good of the country and because of this belief he forced professional people out of the cities and into the fields. Anyone that didn’t agree with his way was dealt with extremely harshly, usually beaten, sent to atrocious prisons and eventually killed. The Khmer Rouge regime killed over 3 million people, over 20% of the Cambodian population.

Whilst in Pnomh Penh we visited one of the biggest prisons, Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21. Although I wanted to go and see this place and find out more about what happened, I knew the experience was going to be extremely difficult and upsetting, and it was. The conditions which these innocent people were kept in was shocking. They were treat awfully, chained to the walls, they lived on very little food and water and were often beaten. Over 20,000 people came through the gates at S-21 and there were prisons like this all over Cambodia during the 1975-1979 regime.

Once prisoners left these places their lives were effectively over, which unbelievably, they were glad of at this stage. They were taken in large numbers to sites like the one we visited on the next day. Known simply as the Pnomh Penh killing fields it is where people were killed and buried in mass graves. The visit was very interesting but again was incredibly upsetting, we couldn’t work out how one human could do some of the things which the Khmer Rouge soldiers did to other humans. During the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot managed to escape and lived in Thailand until he died, which is an incredible injustice. However, other leading men are now in prison and will be until they die. This is very little consolation to the families of the 3 million people killed. These people are still coming to terms with the events and many of the people we met have very real memories of the brutality of the Khmer Rouge. Yet despite this obvious tragedy they are amongst the most friendly and welcoming people I have ever met.

After Pnomh Penh we headed north to Siem Reap, a place that has become famous around the world thanks to the ancient temple village Angkor Wat. We visited Angkor Wat just before it got dark because it was just so hot in the day, this was a nice time to go though because the sun was just setting. The temples were built in the early 12th century by King Suryavaman II, meaning they have been standing for over 800 years. They will have been constructed by thousands of Buddhist monks, along with the help of elephants who carried the huge blocks of stone. An amazing place to visit!

Our last bus ride was from Siem Reap to Bangkok in Thailand, where I am now. We only got to spend two days here so we visited some of the famous Buddhist temples and also the Grand Palace. Bangkok is a very hectic and lively place, you can’t walk ten metres down the road without being asked if you want a tuk-tuk ride or if you need a new suit! We were stopping close to a place called Khaosan Road which is a huge backpacker area. I’m now tired of meeting people who are just starting their trip because when they start telling me where they’re going I get very jealous.

So, this is the end of the amazing adventure. It doesn’t seem two minutes since I was excitedly waking up at home ready for a long flight to San Francisco. The last six mons have been fantastic, the best thing I have ever done. I think if I had to choose my favourite place it would be between New Zealand and Vietnam, both for different reasons. I enjoyed New Zealand because we did so much, had our own car and could just go off when and where we wanted but I also loved Vietnam for the feeling I had when I was there. There was a great atmosphere in the restaurants and at the bustling street markets, and the people were so friendly! I am sad to be leaving but also looking forward to seeing my friends and family. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my blogs as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

See you all soon,

Mr White

The Land of Smiles…Thailand!

Hello everyone again. Hope you are all ok and working hard, I’m sure you are! It has been another busy few weeks. Firstly, maybe you can guess why Thailand has been called the land of smiles. It is obviously because the Thai people are so friendly, having been here for two weeks I have felt very safe and not threatened at all, everywhere you look there is a local person smiling at you. Even if you were having a bad day you can’t help but feel happy so give it a try. I guarantee it will make you feel better!

Our overnight train took us to an island in the the south of Thailand called Phuket. As we were on the train we passed miles and miles of paddy fields growing rice. Thailand is the worlds largest exporter of rice.

We spent a few days in Phuket and then moved on to a smaller island named Koh Phi Phi. The beaches all around here are very beautiful and people from all over the world come here to sun themselves. The heat was incredible, not quite like the weather in England at the moment. Whilst in Phi Phi we took a day trip on a typical Thai longboat, there are hundreds of them, to visit a number of local beaches and even smaller islands.

The highlight was a place called Maya Bay which was stunning, it was here where Leonardo Di Caprio starred in a film called The Beach. We also sailed to monkey island which was good fun, this is basically an area of Phi Phi which has been taken over by monkeys, they are very greedy and very cheeky!

After Koh Phi Phi we made the long journey across the south of Thailand over to another island called Koh Phangan. It was on this island where I spent my birthday and me and Ollie had a really good time. We had a lot of days lazing around the pool and on the beach which was close by. After these six days of laziness it was time for us to meet back up with Ash who we had left in Australia so we made another long trip back to Phuket where we met him and flew right up to the north of Thailand to a place called Chiang Mai. Despite the obvious beauty of these southern islands I don’t think they are typical of Thailand, instead they have been taken over by backpackers like me and my friends looking to have fun. This is good for a short time but for us it felt more like a holiday and less like we were traveling. Chiang Mai, however, is the opposite.

You do still get your fair share of backpackers in Chiang Mai but they are here for other reasons than beaches and parties. The city has many cultural attractions and is enclosed by a moat and large city walls.

We decided to embrace the culture and visit a number of Buddhist temples, known in Thai as a ‘Wat’. It was an extremely interesting experience, firstly the sheer size of the Wat is incredible, draped in silver and gold. Then when you actually enter the temple you are greeted by a huge gold Buddha, usually being worshiped by a group of monks in their long orange outfits.

After wandering around the city in the midday sun we were exhausted, it gets so hot here! We decided to get some shade before taking a tuk tuk, which is a sort of motorbike taxi with seats on the back, to the night market where we proceeded to stuff our faces! The street food in south-east Asia is very popular, probably because it’s so tasty and so cheap. Not being one to turn down cheap, tasty food we tried an assortment of what they had to offer, stir fries, curries, rice, noodles, barbecued chicken!

The original plan after Chiang Mai was to head through a country called Laos, then onto Vietnam, Cambodia and finally back to Thailand to fly home but because we had left planning this too late we made the decision to miss out Laos, purely because of the length of the journeys and the unreliability of the buses. We were all really disappointed about this but at least it gives us somewhere to come back to! This resulted in another overnight train, this time to Bangkok where we flew to Hanoi, in north Vietnam!

We have only spent a couple of days in Vietnam but we don’t have a long time left now. Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangkok in Thailand and then it is back to sunny Doncaster! I hope the preparation for your SAT’s is going well, I’m sure it is if you’re all trying your best! Speak to you soon.

Mr White

Malaysia…truly Asia!

Hello everyone, it’s been an interesting few weeks. Since we last spoke the four of us have unfortunately been split up. Me and Ollie left James and Ash in Brisbane as they travelled further up the east coast and we flew to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Our original plan, before we set off travelling, was to all go on up the east coast together and then go our different ways but we hadn’t taken into account how much money we would spend, both in North America and Australia. But as they say in New Zealand, no worries! Southeast Asia, where we are now, has the potential for hundreds of adventures so if it means missing a week or so in Australia, it’s not so bad.

After an emotional farewell me and Ollie headed south from Brisbane to a place called Coolangatta while the boys headed north to Cairns. Most of the places we visited after Sydney were filled with Australian families on their summer holidays and for some reason it didn’t quite feel as though we were still travelling. Me and Ollie both said how we felt we were ready to move on to our next destination and this place was, as mentioned, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur after a relatively pain free 8 hour flight. Although I did manage to get a seat just in front of a baby which was clearly not too happy about flying as he cried for the majority of the flight. One thing that I have improved since coming away is my ability to deal with long journey’s. As a child I was always the first one to ask “are we there yet?”, much to my mum and dad’s annoyance. Even a couple of years ago me and a friend travelled for 5 hours down to Devon in the south of England and I was constantly moaning about the length of the drive. However, after a 23 hour bus ride on bumpy south American roads any journey seems to be achievable now.

I checked the weather forecast for KL before we left Australia and as you can see it wasn’t great,
thunderstorms every day! At the moment it is the monsoon, or rainy season in KL and just as we got out of the train station the sky erupted with an almighty crack of thunder and then a fierce flash of lightning. We didn’t have much of an idea of where our hostel was so we just had to face it, we were going to get wet! After stumbling around the hectic streets for an hour we finally found our hostel and decided to get dry and chill out before going out on an adventure the day after.

We were staying in Chinatown in KL and as it was Chinese New Year, the year of the dragon, there was a great atmosphere and Chinese decorations everywhere. This photo underneath is a huge dragon that was hung up in a shopping centre.

KL is very famous for it’s wide selection of cheap street food. Every night the streets fill up with rickety market stalls serving everything from sticky rice to spicy chicken noodle soup. All of it delicious!!! If the streets aren’t full of food stalls then they are full with scooters and motorbikes, there are thousands of them!

We acted as tourists on one of the days, taking a walk around the huge shopping centres and making the trip up the KL tower, which gave us fantastic views of the city. This view included the famous Petronas Towers.

Me and Ollie both said how much we enjoyed KL, it is a great city with a lot of character and atmosphere but we were both very much looking forward to heading north to Thailand, even though this meant an overnight train to get there.

Down Under!

Hi again, even though I have just posted a blog about Fiji I wanted to update you what we’ve been doing in Australia over Christmas and New Year and bring you right up to date. It has been quite different to the all the others I have had at home in Doncaster. For you to try and picture where I am going in and where I have been in Australia I have a put a map in this post. We started in Melbourne right in the south east of Australia and are travelling all the way up the east coast to Brisbane where we fly out of. Hopefully you are able to see it alright. If not then I’m sure if you asked your teacher nicely they would let you have a look at a world atlas book. Firstly, like New Zealand, I’ll give you a very brief history lesson if you’re not too sure about Australia. It is located right on the other side of the world to Mallard, close to New Zealand and is the world’s sixth largest country (can you name the other five?). In 1770, British explorer James Cook mapped part of the east coast of Australia, named it New South Wales and claimed the land as Great Britain’s. It was at this point when Britain declared Australia as a penal colony, what this means is that Britain sent many of it’s prisoners, on ships, over to Australia in order to separate them from the rest of the country. The country is split up into a number of different states, just like the USA, the ones we’re travelling in are Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

So, we arrived in Melbourne on the 13th of December and spent about a week there. Although we had just spent 10 days not doing very much, lazing around on beaches in Fiji, we all felt very tired when we got to Australia so we didn’t do an awful lot. Whilst we were there it was my friend Ollie’s birthday, so went to watch a cricket match at a famous stadium called the MCG, or the Melbourne Cricket Ground, it was huge! Whilst we were there we met up with some friends we had made when we were in America, they live in Melbourne so they gave us a little tour of their home city. They also invited us round to their house for a roast dinner, something that we are all missing, although they couldn’t quite understand our love for gravy! We spent a couple more days here, soaking up the city life after being so far away from it in Fiji then caught an overnight bus to Sydney.

Sydney for Christmas and New Year is what the whole of our trip has been planned around. It was the accommodation here which we booked first, as early as February because there is such a high demand. People from all over the world come to Sydney for Christmas but in particular for the spectacular firework show on New Years Eve. We didn’t want to miss out!

We arrived two days before Christmas day and checked in to one of the best places we have stayed at, called Wake Up hostel. The first day we spent wandering around this huge multicultural city, trying to work out where the best place would be to watch the fireworks in a weeks time. The next two days, Christmas eve and day were very strange. Even though it was clear what time of the year it was, there were decorations everywhere, christmas trees, lights hanging off every building, it still didn’t feel like Christmas. We put this down to the fact that
a) we weren’t at home
b) the sun was shining high up in the sky and
c) we were walking around in shorts and t-shirt!!!

I was woken on Christmas day by the sun beaming through the curtains and into my eyes. I didn’t quite feel the excitement that I felt at home. I was right not to aswell because unfortunately I had forgotten to send Santa a letter informing him that I’d be in Sydney! Luckily though I spoke to my mum and she told me that he had left my presents at home, phew! There was no time to be worrying about my presents though because we had to get up and ready to catch a bus to take us to Bondi Beach. I know what you’re thinking, Mr White have you gone mad…the beach on Christmas Day? Well, the answer is no I haven’t gone mad, this is what a lot of Aussie’s do on christmas day, in fact on most days when the weather is great and the weather was fantastic! We got to the beach around midday and I was starting to wonder what I would have for my Christmas dinner. In the end I plumped for a delicious bag of fish and chips! As you can see from my picture I was delighted with it.

So, Christmas day was finished with and we were now looking ahead to the new years celebrations and the fireworks over the harbour. We had a week to discover what Sydney had to offer.

On one of the days we had a walk around the famous Paddy’s market in Sydney where you can buy practically anything! We also climbed one of the pylons on the mighty harbour bridge. Our original plan was to walk across the bridge but as we are on a tight budget we decided instead to do the walk up one of the pylons. This still gave magnificent views of the city, the opera house and beyond, and you can see the pictures we got from the top of here.

On another of the days we took a walk through the botanical gardens and round to the opera house which is one of the worlds most iconic buildings. No doubt you will have seen it on the TV before, the place was crammed full of tourists and there was even some people getting married outside when we were having a look round. It is from here that you get the best views of the harbour bridge, Ash tells me that to test the strength of the bridge before it was opened it was loaded with 96 steam trains, good job it was strong enough! It is from the bridge where the majority of the fireworks are shot up from on new years eve.

New years eve required a little planning from us because of a few things. Firstly we needed to decide where we wanted to watch the show from, there are a variety of viewpoints and we chose the one where we could see both the opera house and the bridge. Secondly, we needed to prepare ourselves a little picnic because we would be out all day so we managed to get all that sorted. Finally we needed to get an early night because we would be up early, as there are so many people in Sydney for new years you need to make sure you get a good spot. We were to set off at 8.30 in the morning ready for the fireworks at midnight.

Me and Ollie had set our alarms even earlier because we went to watch Liverpool v Newcastle which was on at 8pm in England but very early for us. After the game we went back to meet James and Ash and some friends we had met in our hostel picked up our sizeable picnic and headed out. We queued to get into the park for well over 3 hours but finally managed to get ourselves a good seat and waited. Our picnic was meant to last us all day but we had practically demolished that within the first hour. The park was filling up and by the time the fireworks started there were around 20,000 people there. The atmosphere was electric and you could feel the excitement building. The entertainment started at about 9pm with a warm up fireworks show which was really good, there was also a light show by all the boats in the harbour but these were nothing compared to the main event. The countdown started at 90 and seemed to take an age to get to 3…2…1…then BOOM!!! The sky lit up with an amazing array of colours, blues, greens, reds, oranges. It was incredible! The show lasted around 15 minutes with each explosion more spectacular than the last. Safe to say it was the best new years I’ve ever had!

After the excitement of Christmas an New Year we enjoyed a few days chilling out before catching a double decker train to a place called Newcastle, just north of Sydney. We had been recommended this place just as somewhere we could relax for a few days before continuing up the east coast. It turned out to be a good recommendation as on one day we went to the beach, attempted (and miserably failed at) surfing, played with a kangaroo called Josie, saw a koala up a tree and fed a possum! The true Aussie experience I think you’ll agree.

A couple of days ago we caught an overnight bus from Newcastle to a place called Byron Bay which is a very popular place with backpackers. All we have done since we have been here is go to the beach as the weather is so good at the moment. The temperature today is 32C so it is too hot to do much else. Tomorrow we head north to a place called Surfer’s Paradise although with our surfing skills I’m not sure how much of a paradise it will end up being but I’m sure we’ll have fun.

Take care and I’ll speak to you all soon.

Mr White

Bula!!!

Bula everyone and Happy New Year, I hope you all had a great christmas and are ready for some more hard work in 2012.

Just to let you know, Bula is a Fijian word that we picked up while we were there. It was the one word that was used all the time. It means welcome or hello.

Now I’ll catch you up with what we’ve been doing since leaving New Zealand. We travelled approximately 5 hours north of New Zealand by aeroplane to Fiji which is a country made up of a number of small islands, each with it’s own incredible beaches and crystal clear seas! We spent our first night on the main island which is called Viti Levu in a hostel called Smugglers Cove. We were very lucky as the night we arrived we were treat to a host of Fijian entertainment and dancing. We didnt realise, however, that we would be watching (and participating in) a lot more Fijian dancing over the next week.

Before we came away we booked something called a Bula Pass which enabled us to travel on a boat around a group of tiny islands called the Yasawa’s and the Mananuca’s. Leavingf from Denerau Port we could just hop on and off as much as we liked, visiting as many of the islands as we liked.

The first island we chose was called White sandy beach and was a small resort with only us four stopping there for the night. As you may be able to guess, there was a long White sandy beach with a sparkling blue sea. The staff on the island couldn’t have been more friendly, serving us a delicious dinner and then encouraging us to get involved in some Fijian dancing and games, which was great fun. We learnt to do the Bula dance, at first we were dancing around like we had two left feet, much to the amusement of our hosts, but we got the hang of it in the end. The day after we decided to go and do a bit of snorkelling out in the sea, this was amazing, the only way I can describe it to you is by getting you to remember the film Finding Nemo. We managed to see Dory and Nemo but luckily for the time being we didn’t see Bruce the shark, maybe we’ll get to see him later?

Some of the other islands which we visited included Coral View, where we did some swimming in the sea. The sea in Fiji is incredibly warm, it isn’t quite like Cleethorpes or Scarborough where the sea is ice cold! We also went to Nabua Lodge when we had a go at some fishing the Fijian way. This involved dangling yourself out of a boat and using a long fishing line to try and pull up some big fish. Our Fijian captain for the day told us that it was a contest between England and Fiji and that if we didn’t catch anything then we wouldn’t be allowed any dinner, we all hoped he was joking because none of us were too confident. We were right to feel this way because after fishing for 2 hours the score was 4-0 to Fiji. It seemed as though we were going to go hungry for the night but luckily when we got back to the resort the staff took pity on us and cooked us a lovely barbecue on the beach. The food which was cooked for us was typically Fijian, it included fish, chicken, pumpkin, aubergine, mango, coconut and plenty of rice. Safe to say that we didn’t go hungry!

Following our feast at Nabua Lodge was a visit to the fourth island of the trip, Bay of Plenty. We hadn’t planned to go to this resort but it had been recommended to us so we thought we’d try it out. When we arrived we were a little disappointed because there was no long white sandy beach like there had been at the others but we weren’t disappointed for long. Our hosts instantly made us feel welcome and we did some actinides here which we will probably never do again. On our first day we prepared some traditional Fijian medicine. To do this we trekked through the mangroves and hacked down some tree roots, then we chopped the roots up into tiny pieces and added them to hot water. This water was then drank and was said to help cure symptoms of the flu. I didn’t try any of the medicine because I already felt good but I had told our hosts that my friend had a bit of a cold so they insisted that he had some. At the time Ash wasn’t too pleased with me telling them this but he drank it anyway. What he did say about the medicine was that it tasted disgusting and didn’t leave him feeling much better. Quite an interesting day though, doubt i’ll ever be preparing Fijian medicine again! The day became even more interesting when Mr White became the student as we were given a Fijian language lesson. It was quite difficult to understand at first but our teacher told us that we did very well, not sure if he was just being kind though. Our final activity on the Bay of Plenty and probably the most enjoyable was a visit to a Fijian village. We had the opportunity to look inside the village hall, the church and the local school which was really interesting. There were just four classrooms for 200 children in the village, with two teachers. Unfortunately the children were on their summer holidays so we didn’t get to meet any of them. You can see some of the pictures below of the school and village.

Next we travelled the short boat ride to the resort of Kuata. Again, the staff welcomed us with open arms and really made us feel at home. The greeting which we received at each island included a lot of singing, dancing and guitar playing. The first night here was good fun, we had some tea and then played some Fijian party games and did the Bula dance. By this point I was an expert! What we were really looking forward to though was the next day and that was snorkelling…with white tipped reef sharks!!! The boat took us on an extremely bumpy ride out to sea which lasted 30 long minutes. When we arrived to the edge of the reef we put all our snorkelling gear on, the mask, snorkel and flippers and jumped into the sea. Now before you get worried about the sharks, we were assured by the staff that the sharks would not harm us. To give you an idea about the size of them, there were two and they were approximately the length of your school desks. Not quite the size of Bruce! So, although they were no great white shark they were certainly big enough! We also saw all sorts of brightly coloured tropical fish. My favourite was one which was a striking electric blue colour. This was one of the best things we’ve done so far on our trip. It’s not everyday you go snorkelling with sharks!!!

Our final island was called South Sea Island and was the smallest of them all. The entire island was smaller than the size of Mallard’s playing field. We were able to walk all the way around it in less than 10 minutes. It was incredibly hot when we were here so we were unable to spend too much time in the sun. The sun is much stronger where are so I had to take my Mum’s advice and put my sun cream on and don’t stay in the sun too long!

After leaving South Sea we spent two final nights on the mainland in the capital of Fiji, Nadi, and prepared for a short flight to Melbourne, Australia. We all really enjoyed Fiji, had the opportunity to do some once in a lifetime activities. We also met some great people that made our time in Fiji even better!

I will try and get some more photo’s up soon, the computer isn’t working very well and also my blog of Australia so far will be online soon.

Take care

Mr White

Mr Knight’s Class…

Merry Christmas!!! It would be impossible for me to reply to each one of you so i decided to write one longer one to you all and try and answer as many of your questions as I can. First of all thanks for all the messages, it was really nice to read them all, especially at Christmas time. When you all read this you will probably be back at school so hope you had an amazing Christmas and New Year!!!

Im glad you are all enjoying the pictures, we’ve taken some really good ones and I knew you would like them. Im spending my Christmas in Sydney in Australia, hopefully by the time you get back to school there will be some pictures up for you to look at. I am also hoping that somebody has let Father Christmas know that I’ll be in Australia this year, otherwise when I wake up on Christmas morning I’ll have no presents to open  Having read your comments it sounds like your glee club performance was brilliant, i wish I could have been there to see it.

I am over half way into my travels now so I think I’ll be back to see you before you go to Balby Carr, but I’ve still got a lot of places to visit so I’m really excited.

Hope you are all well, take care,

Mr White

Sunny New Zealand!

Kia Ora Mallard,

Kia Ora is a typical greeting that people use here in New Zealand (NZ), it just means how are you! Wow, what a busy few weeks I’ve had since last writing to you, New Zealand is a brilliant country with so many things to do.

First of all, I’ll try and give you a little geography lesson then a little bit of history for those of you who don’t really know a lot about New Zealand, before I came I didn’t really know a lot either! New Zealand is split up into two islands, the north island and the south island (as you can see on the map) and it is right on the other side of the world to Mallard, approximately 10,550 miles away, in the South Pacific ocean. Because of its location New Zealand encounters a lot of earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters. It is also roughly the same size of the UK although New Zealand has a population of just over 4 million and the UK has a population of over 60 million!

Now a little history lesson…people first reached New Zealand hundreds of years ago from surrounding islands and decided to settle there, they became known as Maori’s. In 1840 the Maori chiefs entered into an agreement with the UK which was known as the Treaty of Waitangi, which meant that New Zealand became part of the British colony. This, in turn meant that New Zealand was ruled by our Queen Victoria. At this point many British people began to move to live in New Zealand. It is since then that both our countries have had strong connection. For example, during both the first and second World War’s a large number of soldiers were sent from New Zealand to help Britain. Phew! Hopefully that has helped you understand New Zealand a bit more, now I’ll catch you up on what I’ve been up to!

We spent our first week at my friends Grandad’s house right up in the north of the north island in a place called Paihia, you might be able to see it on the map. It was nice to receive some home comforts for a while, we enjoyed a lovely home cooked roast dinner and a nice comfy bed for a week. On our first day here we went sea kayaking which was good fun but we were mostly looking forward to taking a trip on my friend Ash’s Grandad’s boat. He had told us that there was a strong possibility that we would see some dolphins so we had our fingers crossed! It must have been our lucky day because just as we were pulling out of the marina we saw a huge school of dolphins, they all came up to the boat and started swimming under it so we managed to get some really good photos. Two of them even started showing off and doing some flips out of the water.We continued on to visit the hole in the rock which is where a section of the rock has been eroded by the sea.

The next day we visited a place called Waitangi, this was where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the Maori chiefs and the UK, it was a really interesting visit and we got to see a typical Maori boat which they arrived to New Zealand in, one which they made out of a huge Kauri tree. We then had a long drive up to Cape Reinga which is the northwesternmost tip of New Zealand and is very famous in Maori mythology as they say this is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld!

After enjoying a week of luxury up in Paihia it was time to move on and begin our journey south. Our first stop was the town of Whitianga, and a place known as hot water beach. In a certain place on hot water beach you are able to dig into the sand and create a pool of hot water. The reason you are able to do this is because a long way below the ground is what is known as a hot spring, these are extremely hot rocks which heat the water. Once you start to dig the sand, you release the water, creating yourself a natural bath on the beach! Whilst in Whitianga we also took a trip to Cathedral Cove, a cove which has been created by the sea and we had a swim out to a number of caves around there, as you might be able to tell from the pictures.

Next we drove to the interesting but quite strange city of Rotorua. I found it quite strange because the city is like none I have ever visited. It is famous for its geothermal activity. This is basically heat from deep within the Earth, this heat sometimes surfaces in the form of bubbling mud pools and geysers which are found all around the city. In some places water seeps deep into the earth and is heated extremely quickly, this water is then forced up through the cracks and shoots out through what is known as a geyser. You might be able to get a better idea of this by looking at some of my pictures.

We concluded our visit to the north island by visiting the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. The weather wasn’t great while we were there so we spent a day in the Te Papa museum, this place was really interesting and had loads of facts and interesting, interactive exhibitions, it also had on display in one of the tanks one of the world’s largest colossal squid! Pretty amazing to see it up close. It was at this museum where I learnt most of the things I’m telling you about in this blog. As New Zealand is split up into two islands we had to board a ferry to the South Island so we made the trip from Wellington to Picton and then drove to a town on the east coast of the south island called Kaikoura, a place famous for whale watching!

We woke up in Kaikoura and decided that although it was quite expensive it was well worth the trip out into the sea, hopefully to watch some amazing animals in their own natural habitat. The whales that were usually around the area were sperm whales and we were told that the chances of seeing one was very high so we were all really looking forward to it. The long trip out was quite bumpy but the journey was worth it as we got to see three different sperm whales. The trip was pretty incredible. On the pictures you are only actually able to see a small part of the whale, we were told about 10%, the rest of the whale stays below the surface of the water. Pretty cool ey!

After the excitement of the whale watching we had a long drive over to the other side of the south coast to visit an area where there are a number of glaciers. Glaciers are large sections of ice that form on land and are constantly moving over time, growing and decreasing in size depending on the amount of ice and fall of snow and rain. The particular glacier we visited was called Franz Josef and was pretty spectacular. The walk up to it was over a river bed which at the time was dry and it felt as though we were walking on the moon, very strange with huge rocks and boulders.

We continued our tour of New Zealand by visiting the city Queenstown in the south of the south island. I really liked this place, the weather was great and while we were there New Zealand officially entered into summertime and all the children have broken up for their summer holidays. We took a trip up to the top of a mountain in Queenstown on a cable car and got spectacular views of the whole city. One thing about New Zealand we have all been blown away by is that around every corner you get some amazing views, and Queenstown was certainly no different!

Yesterday we began our last leg of the journey, from Queenstown to Christchurch via Mount Cook. Mount Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand and as you can see from the pictures it is covered in snow. We recently arrived in Christchurch which earlier this year was devastated by a large earthquake which ripped through the city centre. Much of this area is still closed off from the public and building are still half standing, with windows smashed and rubble on the floor. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of time here as we leave tomorrow afternoon but our visit to New Zealand has been amazing. We have only been here for four weeks but we have all loved every minute of it, it is somewhere i would love to come back to.

However, I have no time to plan my next trip, I need to pack up all my clothes and prepare for a flight tomorrow afternoon to a country called Fiji, also in the Pacific Ocean. This is somewhere we have all looked forward to since we booked our trip away and I know for a fact that this is the place that my mum is most jealous of me going to!

Hope you all enjoyed reading about my time in New Zealand. Speak to you soon, take care.

Mr White

Goodbye South America…

Hola Mallard, como estas? This means hello, how are you in Spanish. After spending nearly 6 weeks in South America I finally managed to learn to talk like one of the locals…well almost!

Sorry it has taken me so long to write to you, the internet hasn’t been great in the last few places we’ve stayed at. Hope you all had a good Halloween and bonfire night! In my last message I was in Buenos Aires, I’m now over 6000 miles away from there in New Zealand. On our final day in Buenos Aires we went for a walk around the famous district called la Boca. This area is famous for it brightly coloured houses and lively tango shows. The tango is a type of dance that originated in Buenos Aires over a hundred years ago, wherever you go there are tango shows to watch. You can see some of my pictures of the houses in la Boca. After visiting la Boca we boarded an overnight bus to the city of Cordoba. This city is famous in Argentina because it has a number of very good schools and universities, including the oldest university in Argentina, people from all around the world come here to study and learn Spanish. Whilst we were here we visited a museum dedicated to a man called Che Guevara, I don’t know if any of you will have heard about him but he is an extremely famous man, not only in South America but also around the world. In South America there is a lot of poverty, many people are poor and struggle to survive with the money they have. Che Guevara travelled around South America in the 1950′s and witnessed all this poverty and decided that he wanted to help these people by protesting against the governments who were not helping the poor people. Alongside other men Che Guevara managed to overthrow the government of Cuba in an attempt to make the country a fairer place to live. the museum was very interesting and you can see me sitting next to a statue of a young Che Guevara.

The hostel that we stayed in whilst we were here was one of our favourites, it was quite basic but the owner makes you feel at home so it was nice and relaxed. On our last night he treat us to what Argentinians call an ‘asado’, it is what we would call a barbecue. They are very popular over here because of the great food and the fact that Argentinians love the chance to get together and have fun. This picture underneath is just some of the meat which went onto the barbecue…yum!

After Cordoba we visited our last stop in Argentina, Mendoza. This city is Argentina’s largest wine producing region. We had been told that to truly discover what Mendoza was like you had to go on a wine tour of all the vineyards. Wine is made out of grapes so the vineyards are where the grapes are grown and the wine is produced. According the the locals the best way to tour the vineyards is by bike, so we all hired bikes and a day in the sun riding around all the vineyards enjoying the free tasters!

Our final destination in South America was the capital of Chile which is Santiago. The drive to Chile was really enjoyable, we drove over the Andes mountain range so there were some pretty amazing views, as you can see from my pictures! The main reason that we came to Santiago was because we were flying to New Zealand from there but as we had a couple of days here we decided not waste them and had a day out at the zoo!Finally the day which we had all been looking forward to had arrived, it was time to pack up and say goodbye to South America. I think I will definitely come back because it is an amazing part of the world, the people are so friendly, the weather is great and there is so much to do. For now, however, it was time for New Zealand! The flight was to last 13 hours so it wasn’t something we were all looking forward to, but good things come to those who wait. We were travelling over what is known as the International date line. This is an imaginary line that exists between South America and New Zealand.When I was in South America I was 3 hours behind the time in England, but in New Zealand I am 13 hours ahead of your time. What this means is that flying over the International date line makes you lose a whole day, so I lost Monday the 7th of November…that’s not a problem though because I never really liked Mondays! It’s very confusing and I still haven’t quite got my head around it.

So, we arrived in New Zealand on Tuesday and spent one night in a big city called Auckland. On Wednesday we visited the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, it is called the Sky Tower. It is as tall as 37 buses end to end and weighs the same amount as 6000 elephants!! We went up to the top and got some great views of Auckland. As you can see on one of my pictures there are some clear glass panels at the top which you can stand on and see all the way down to the ground…pretty scary!

We are lucky because we are staying at one of my friends’ grandads for the next week so it is nice having a few home comforts. We are lookinmg forward to our time here and hopefully I will be able to keep you updated. Take care everyone and keep working hard!

Mr White

40 hours on a bus…

Hi again to everybody at Mallard,

A lot has happened since I last spoke to you. We spent three more days in Brazil, on two of the three days we went to the beach and played football with some Brazilians, they were very good! We got beat 5-2!

On our last day we were advised by someone stopping in the same hostel to visit the botanical gardens (Jardim Botanico in Portuguese) so we decided we would go and have a stroll through there. The botanical gardens are incredible because they are set right in the middle of Rio, alongside high rise buildings and bustling streets, yet they are really peaceful. There are around 6,500 species of plants and birds, some of which are rare and endangered. It was very relaxing, escaping the madness of the city for a few hours.

We had now spent around two weeks in Rio so thought it was time to visit somewhere different and the plan was to travel to Iguazu Falls. This is a huge waterfall on the border between Brazil in Argentina, according to legend it was created in an outburst of rage by the god of the Iguazu River! Unfortunately, travelling to Foz do Iguacu, the town on the Brazilian side of the falls, meant a 23 hour overnight bus journey!! We all packed our bags and headed to the bus station, anxious about the journey ahead. The bus cost us around £70 and that paid for a chair that in Brazil they call ´semi-cama´, this is one that reclines most of the way so you can almost lay down and hopefully fall asleep. Once we got on the bus we were all pleasantly surprised, the coaches aren´t quite like the ones we have at home, there is much more leg room and space to move around. The 23 hour journey still felt a very long time though. We finally arrived at our hostel, checked in and decided to get an early night as we had a busy day visiting the falls the following day.

As we are on a budget we made the decision to only view the falls from the Argentinian side. We had also heard that the view from the Argentinian side was much more spectacular than the Brazilian one. Iguazu Falls is both the second widest waterfall in the world and has the second greatest annual flow of water than any other, after Niagara Falls, which is on the border of USA and Canada. We were told by our guide that you can view the falls from three separate places, the lower side, the upper side and above the famous Devil´s throat (or Garganta del Diablo in Spanish). We started with the lower side.

In order to get closer to the falls you need to take a short train ride and instantly we were all amazed by the thunderous noise that they created, it was deafening! We got off the train and the walk seemed to take forever but then suddenly you catch a glimpse of Iguazu and it is breath-taking. The water plummets 269 feet into the gorge below and the power at which it hits the bottom is like a steam train (a good simile there…Mr Knight taught me well!). We made a short boat ride over to an island in the middle to catch a fantastic panoramic view and stop for lunch. Once we had filled our bellies we began the long walk up to Devil´s throat, this is the most famous part of Iguazu as it is the point at which half of the river´s flow plummets into the abyss, creating a huge cloud of mist and spray. Devil´s throat is like nothing I have ever seen before, it is simply breath taking. I am trying to think of all those good adjectives which you use at Mallard but there aren´t enough to describe it. A huge U-shape opens up and it seems like the water is being sucked from the bottom. Luckily I managed to get some good photos so you can have a look. After the excitement of the day we were all exhausted so it was time to leave and head for our next destination, the capital of Argentina…Buenos Aires!!!

However, this meant another long bus journey, only 17 hours this time though! This bus was much better than the other one, it was very comfortable, showed three films and served food…we were very impressed. We arrived in Buenos Aires at 10am last Thursday, full of enthusiasm. We checked in at our hostel and spent the rest of the day wandering around the city. Luckily, we met some friends who had stopped at the same hostel as us in Rio and they invited us out for dinner, on the menu was the famous Argentinian steak. My friends were beginning to get a bit bored of me saying how much I was looking forward to this so there was no way I was missing out. Argentina is very famous for it´s huge juicy steaks and I can see why, it was delicious, so delicious in fact that I had one the next day aswell!

We woke up on Sunday morning, still feeling a little tired from the previous night and signed ourselves up to go and see Boca Juniors play. Boca are one of Buenos Aires´ most successful football teams, alongside River Plate, these teams have a great rivalry. Unfortunately they weren´t playing River, they were hosting a team called Belgrano at their stadium which is called La Bombonera (in English this means ´the chocolate box´). We began our walk to the stadium and the atmosphere already felt electric, the fans were singing and dancing all the way to the stadium. We got in the stadium and gradually it began to fill up ready for kick off, the anticipation and excitement was building.  Boca fans call themselves ´la doce´, which means the 12th man in English. They call themselves this because they make so much noise that they act as another man on the pitch, urging the team forward. After going to the match I can see why this is. Every so often the ground just erupts and everyone starts bouncing and jumping around, it is incredible. Unfortunately the match finished 0-0 so we didnt get to see a goal but it was certainly the best game of football I´ve ever been to.

So, this I where I am up to in my travels. We have until Friday in Buenos Aires, who knows what we will get up to. After this we head to another city in Argentina called Cordoba. I´ll be sure to keep you all informed.

Take care, speak to you soon.

Mr White

First few weeks…

Hello to everyone at Mallard, I hope you have all had a good
start to your new year and are working hard. Sorry it´s taken
so long to write to you, I´ve been so busy! I am now a
month into travelling around the world with 3 friends
and so far I have seen and done some amazing things! 

When I left home I felt really nervous and excited. I had
no idea about what to expect, leaving all my home comforts
for 6 months of adventures, and so far that is what it
has been. We began our travels in America, in a city
called San Francisco. It was a great place to start
because there was lots to do, the people were extremely
friendly and they could also speak English, which helped.
Probably the most memorable moment for us all was cycling
across the Golden Gate Bridge, which connects San Francisco
with another city called Oakland. We cycled about 10
miles that day so once we got back to our hostel we were
all exhausted. 

After spending a week in San Francisco it
was time to move on to Las Vegas via Yosemite national
park. Whilst driving through Yosemite we saw lots of
wildlife, including deer and many species of birds. The
park is also home to many wild bears but unfortunately we
didn't see any. We spent three nights in Vegas which was
good fun then made our way to Los Angeles.
We were lucky that on our first night in LA we got to
go see a football match, it was David Beckham's team,
LA Galaxy against a team from Canada, the Vancouver
Whitecaps. What made it even better was that LA won
the game 4-0! During our time in LA we also visited
Hollywood, this is where lots of films are made and
where a lot of celebrities live, we saw Simon Cowell's
house when we were there. Despite all the incredible
things we had seen in America we were all ready to move
on, and this was mainly down to the fact that our next
destination was Brazil and the lively city of Rio de
Janeiro! 

We arrived after a long, tiring 14 hour flight
and checked into our hostel in a part of Rio called
Ipanema, this place is famous for its long, white,
sandy beach. All the Brazilian people we have met have
been extremely friendly and helpful, especially as we
don't speak much of their language, which is Portuguese.
After having a couple of relaxing days on the beach we
decided to go on a favela tour, this has been the most
interesting and memorable events of the trip so far! A
favela  is a place where many of Brazil's poorest people
live, over 12 million of Brazil's 60 million people
live in favela's. They are areas of extreme poverty,
many of which are run by gangs, so they ate also very
dangerous. We had to pay to go on the tour, the money
that Brazil uses is called Reals, it cost us $65R, which
is around £25. Part of this money goes towards keeping
the local schools and daycare centres open, one of which
we visited. The children here love going to school because
they all want to grow up and get good jobs, this way
they can earn enough money to move out of the favela.
Another thing that we noticed about Brazilian children
is that they love football, everywhere you look there
are children playing, many of Brazil's best footballers
grew up in favelas like the one we visited. 

Yesterday we went on a city tour of Rio and got to
visit some of the landmarks that make this city so famous.
This included the statue of Christ the Redemeer.
This is a huge statue of Jesus Christ which stands
on the top of a mountain looking over the whole of Rio,
the views from up here were unbelievable! Christ the
Redeemer is also one of the 7 Wonders of the World. Next,
we made our way to the street where the Rio de Janeiro
carnival is held each year, at the carnival everybody
dresses up in incredible costumes and dances to samba
music. After this we headed to a neighbourhood called
Lapa, this is where a lot of street parties are held at
the weekends and also where the famous Lapa steps are.
An artist called Jorge Selaron covered a staircase in
Lapa in many different coloured tiles as a tribute to
Brazil, there are tiles representing over 60 different
countries! Finally, we took two cable cars up to the
top of Sugarloaf mountain, in Brazilian this is known
as Pao de Açucar! Like Christ the Redeemer, the view
from the top of here gives incredible views of the
whole city. Luckily, we got here just as the sun was
setting over Rio! 

So, this is where I'm up to in my adventure so far, we
are staying in Rio for another few days because there
is just so much to do here then we are moving on to a
country called Argentina. I'm going to try and get
some photos up so you can see where I've been! 

Keep working hard, speak to you soon!
Mr White