The Last Leg

Hi everyone and welcome to the latest installment of our travels. As I write this both Sara and I are back in the UK safe and well. Apologies for the lateness of this posting, as you can imagine it has been pretty crazy for us since arriving back. Since the last update Sara has completed her tsunami relief work in Thailand and I have travelled through Malaysia and Singapore. Read about our adventures below:-

Sara in Khao Lak, Thailand with Habitat for Humanity

I spent two weeks in Khao Lak, Thailand doing Tsunami relief building homes with the non profit organization Habitat for Humanity.

Khao Lak is a one hour drive north of Phuket island. It was an up coming resort area that pre-tsunami had 72 hotels and resorts and now has seven. There were 4222 people killed in this town alone and another 1800 are still missing. I worked with a group of 12 volunteers from the US and Canada for 2 weeks building a home for a family who lost theirs in the tsunami.


Resort on the beach as it stands after the Tsunami

Our first day in Khao Lak we took a tour around the area of some of the damage done. I was surprised to see that many of the resorts, and homes are still as they looked just a few days after it hit. There have not been enough workers and money to clean up the debris and the beaches are strewn with debris and personal belongings.


A photo of a fishing boat that was swept by the tsunami and landed 2 kms from the shore. It will remain here as a reminder and memorial to those lost.


Feeding the elephants bananas from our mouths!!

Before we got down to work we took an hour long elephant safari through the hills above Khao Lak. It is monsoon season and the mud was so thick it would have been up to our knees had we been the ones walking. Luckily the elephants are much steadier but they were even sliding around the hills a bit!


First day on the work site and eager to make progress!!

Habitat gives the chosen family funds to buy supplies to build their home and hire workers and then volunteers like us come to help with the hardest bit of work which is setting the foundation. Our first day we dug trenches for the foundation cement and dug the holes for the septic tanks.
Thanks to the awful monsoon rains we spent much of day 2 and day 3 filling in these very holes and then re-digging them. Very frustrating to not make progress when you are working so hard. I also served as team medic being the only nurse and spent most mornings dressing all the wounds and doing first aid.


The rain finally abated for an afternoon and we poured the cement, nasty stuff!!

By the end of week one we had the cement trenches filled with cement and the partial foundation cinder block walls up to dry. It would be a difficult week two to finish the foundation so we had two good days of R&R to prepare us.


Saturday the team relaxes down in Phuket on the beach in the sun!

Phuket is much more rebuilt as it is a major tourist destination for Thailand. You could tell there was still a lot of construction going on but you would be hard pressed to really notice a tsunami had hit just 6 months ago. The beaches were clean and many tourists were already out (including us).


Sunday we went on a boat and kayak tour of Phang Nga Bay.



Back to work Monday morning!

It was hard to get back to work monday morning after such a relaxing weekend. Finally we were begining to see progress on our site. We really enjoyed working with the locals and had several Thai men as the site foremen and some workers from Mayanmar. None of us spoke each others language but you seem to get along with smiles, thumbs up and shaking the head "no".


As you can see, we just had to work through the rain. So many days we were soaked to the bone for much of the day.


During our weekend in Phuket the whole team got matching tattoos of the habitat for humanity symbol on our arms! Don't worry it is just henna ink!


Finally progress is made and we are ready to fill in the foundation with dirt and then pour the cement floor. Only catch is we have to build wheel barrow ramps and move all the dirt by hand!


Last day on the site we completed the cement columns for the roof.

While we would have liked to see the walls and roof go up, we had to settle with finishing the foundation. It was a great sense of accomplishment and our team bonded into great friendships during the two weeks. Without a sense of humor this two weeks could have been miserable and if there was anything lacking in our group it was not a sense of humor.


Our final team dinner

The whole team flew back up to Bangkok and celebrated together with a boat cruise and dinner at a wonderful restaurant by the river. It was a bitter sweet gooodbye as I left right after the meal to head to the airport and off to London. Next stop is Oxfordshire and back with Alex and his parents!!!


Alex's Malaysia and Singapore adventures:-

After leaving Sara in Bangkok to start her trip I caught a flight to Kuala Lumpur (KL) the capital of Malaysia. The map below shows the route I took for my last ten days of travel before heading home to the UK:



After a rather hectic arrival in KL (no accomodation booked!!) I made my way into town and to my hotel in the China Town area. The hotel was fine and served perfectly for my three night stay in the city. Malaysia is now a very developed country and even has one of the worlds tallest building - the Petronas Towers. At 88 floors and 1400+ feet it is very tall:

I spent a great four days exploring the city and its colonial history. Malaysia is also a very multicultural society (Malay/Chinese/Islamic/Indian) with with some fantastic Chinese and Indian restaurants not to be missed!! After leaving KL I took a local bus to the coastal town of Malacca. Malacca was once the greatest trading port in South East Asia and today is a major tourist destination with its mixture of Dutch, Portuguese and Islamic architecture. I spent two days in the city exploring the old backstreets and visiting many of the temples and churches.

The only way to get around Malacca

Last stop Singapore

A short four hour bus ride (and immigration check) from Malacca took me to the final stop for my round the world trip - Singapore. What a fantastic city!!! I arrived the day after London won the Olympic 2012 bid and the city was full of banners and celebrations. After becoming independant from Malasia in the 1960s Singapore began and ambitious transformation into a modern city. It is the cleanest and most efficient city I have ever visited and incredibly safe. This does come at a price with strict regulation on social behaviour, for example chewing gum is banned in Singapore!


The old with the new in downtown Singapore

One of the Olympic banners

I spent four days in the city visiting the various districts (china town, little india etc.) and of course a visit to the famous Raffles Hotel!


Main entrance to Raffles Hotel

A Hindu temple in Little India

So after leaving the UK almost ten months earlier I made my way to Singapore's Changi airport for my flight back to Heathrow. Tweleve hours later and Dad met me at arrivals and welcomed me home. It has been the most fantastic year of my life on so many different levels, the highlight of course being meeting Sara and getting engaged. "So what next?" you ask!!!

Well, stay tuned for the next update of "alexexplores.com" including Sara's travels in the UK, engagement parties and visa preparation!! All this and more........

Back in South East Asia

Hi everyone and greetings from South East Asia. Firstly, a million "thank yous" to everyone who sent me and Sara congratulation emails following our engagement. It was wonderful to hear from you all and so many kind words. Following all that excitement in China our trip had to continue and the next stop was to South East Asia. Read all about our adventures below including a visit to the famous Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia......

After leaving Beijing we flew (via Hong Kong) to Bangkok. Both Sara and I have been here before but for me it was the first time back for about fifteen years. All I can remember from that last trip was terrible traffic and an argument between my Dad and a Tuk Tuk driver. Well there are less Tuk Tuks around now but they have been replaced by cars and the traffic is as bad as ever. We met up with a friend of ours, Kimi, whom Sara travelled to Africa with back in August. It was great to see her and we had a lot of news to catch up on. As Sara and I had been to Bangkok before we decided that we would rather spend our time in neibouring Cambodia. Kimi was also going to join us for the first part of the trip. So with fresh plane tickets in hand we flew to Cambodia and the city of Siem Reap.....

The map below shows the route we took in Cambodia:


Courtesy of Lonely Planet

Siem Reap is a large town that is centred entirely on the tourist trade. The temples at Angkor are spread out over some 40 miles around the town. They were built between the 8th and 13th centuries and range from single towers made of bricks to vast stone temple complexes. The temples are in varying states of repair from a pile of bricks to stong standing structures. We spent three days in the area exploring a different part each day. It was very hot so we left early in the morning stopped for a long lunch and then continued later in the day. I won't rattle on about all of the temples we visited for fear you might browse elsewhere. Here are some edited highlights.

Our first stop was to the Bayon complex built between 1181 and 1220. It was an impressive introduction to the temples and features 3,936 feet of carving and mysterious Buddha faces carved on the towers of the third level.


Entrance to the Bayon


One of the locals


Sara and I next to one of the face carvings

We also paid a visit to Ta Prohm which is a very large temple complex enclosed by a moat. It is one of the most beautiful of the temples as it has not been restored. It was built in the later 12th century and as you can see in the photo below is covered by jungle vegetation (and tourists). This temple was also the setting for part of the movie Tomb Raider - Angelina Jolie is a local hero now!!


Me, Kimi and Sara at Ta Prohm

The jewel in the crown of the temples is Angkor Wat. It is a huge pyramid temple built by Suryavarman II between 1113 and 1150. It is surrounded by a moat 570 feet wide and about four miles long. We spent about two hours walking around and climbing the impossibly steep stairs to the top of the central tower.


Main entrance to Angkor Wat


The obligatory photo - altogether now ahhhhhhh!!

Outside of the temples we relaxed in town and all took part in a massage by a local blind charity. All the massures are blind and the money gives them a good income. I think I came away afterwards feeling worse than when I went in, oh well it was a good cause. We also visited a local butterfly garden and were entertained by traditional dancing at a local restaurant.


Kimi tries to attract the local butterflies

After Siem Reap Sara and I headed south to the capital Phnom Pehn while Kimi made her way back to the US. The bus journey took about seven hours and we were entertained by Cambodian karaokee on the bus all the way. Needless to say that the iPods were swiftly brought into service!!

Phnom Pehn is a small city with a busy heart - everyone is on the move mostly on small motobikes. The city still has a strong french feel with its architecture and influence in the food. We both loved the food in Cambodia and it is our new favorite. We visited the royal palace and also made the trip out to the Russian Market to stock up on DVDs and software, if it can be copied they have it. Cambodia has a royal family today and the Royal Palace is still used. It is an impressive construction although it is starting to look a little frayed around the edges. The centre piece to the Royal Palace is the Silver Pagoda which has a floor made up of thousands of silver tiles, most of them are covered however.


Typical Phnom Pehn building


The Royal Palace

After Phnom Pehn we took another bus south to the Coastal town of Sihanouk Ville (pronounced see-an-ook-ville). This is just a beach town and the plan was to spend a couple of days relaxing on the beach. Well that was the plan except the Cambodian food finally got the better of us. We did spend some time on the beach and relaxing so that was good - however no photos to prove it though, sorry!

We came back to Phnom Pehn for one night and then flew back to Thialand to begin the final part of our trip. As I write this I am in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) spending my last week sightseeing before flying back to London from Singapore. Sara has joined a trip with Habitat for Humanity (US charity) to undertake Tsunami relief work in the south of Thailand. Before I get loads of emails, don't worry Sara's trip was organised long before the whole engagement so we are still very much together!!!! Actually we are in training for the upcoming "time apart" during which I have to get my US visa - more on that in the next update.

Well that is all for now. My next update will be from London and the end of my trip (sob, sob). Sara will also publish updates on her Tsunami relief trip when she joins me in the UK. Stay tuned for more.......