Day 15

Last day in South Africa. Nick gets up early to do the final game drive with the dutch family and Christina and her mother, but since I will be spending 6 hours driving today I give the game drive a miss and get some extra sleep. Breakfast at 9:30 is the usual 4-course affair, followed by a dash to check out by 11 so our tent can be cleaned for the next guests. The Gualaguala guide suggests that we tip a total of about £30 a day, which seems mightily excessive to us, so we go with about £10 a day, split between the ranger, tracker and general staff.

Day 15

location:Banding Island – Kota Bharu
summary:In which the existence of an exhibition of the utmost triviality is exposed, and a brief history of violent conquest is presented
trip:sea04
day:15

Day 15

As we had breakfast on our last day in Russia, I looked forward to a nice bowl of cereal. Sad I know, but I like a bit of certainty about my breakfast experience.

Day 15

Arriving in Rome, the city’s budget accommodation options were a bit thin on the ground, and availability seemed limited to a huge Hostelling International place a long way from the centre. Having no real choice in the matter, I got on the metro and headed west. I had to get off at Ottavio St Petro and change to a number 32 bus, and finally arrived at the hostel realising that it was actually off my map.It was a typical HI hostel – ultra clean, but anonymous and completely devoid of any helpful utilities like power sockets. It also featured a curfew and a lockout, which wasn’t terribly helpful when it takes so long to get there from the centre.

Day 15

I don’t know what time it was when everyone started stirring – I was certainly awake anyway. I asked Charlotte if she had managed to sleep. “Oh yeah”, she said, as if she’d never slept this well before in her entire life. The train eventually pulled into Trang station and we took a very overloaded tuktuk to the Trang Hotel. After lunch the next stop on the tour was the Thale Noi Bird Sanctuary, where we had several hours bird watching from a dragon boat that whizzed around lotus-covered lakes. About half an hour in, the birds were losing their appeal for me, though Steve and Sue were glued to their binoculars. I was more interested in the boat, which was able to skip over poles, ropes and nets at high speed thanks to it’s slender design and propeller that is several metres behind the boat itself.

Day 15

No journal available

location:Nimbin – Bellingen
summary:Cinema in converted butter factory
day:15