Camille’s Big Adventure

  Grab is the Vietnamese/SE Asian version of Uber and every single time I get one I go to the wrong place to get picked up and they call me to ask me where I am, but obviously I don’t speak Vietnamese so they say something, I say “I’m so sorry, I don’t speak Vietnamese, I’m here” they say sometime I say “sorry I don’t know” they hang up. Then I run around reading license plates trying to find my car for what feels like an eternity. It’s so hectic lol, every experience is like that.   Anyway, I headed for the hostel and arrived around 7pm. Another girl on my flight ended up in the same hostel and room as me and we quickly began chatting and decided to go for dinner together. She’s German and we are doing a very similar trip so have some plans to meet up along the way in different parts. She is a travel agent in Iceland and it was really cool to hear about her experiences there.  After a dinner of street food we walked to the beach and chatted and enjoyed the water and views. It’s a

I think I’ve come to the realization that big cities are just a bit too much for me, at least the main parts of them. I found the markets and the tourist attracts extremely overwhelming and realized that wandering around in big cities, especially in places where people are trying to call you in and get you to buy all their stuff is just too much for me. I find it extremely stressful. So after a few hours of wandering I went back to my hotel room to rest for a while and skip out on the heat of the day it’s 97 degrees here and just so hot during the day, but it cools off a lot in the evening.   As the sun started to get low in the sky I began wandering around the area my hotel is located in. There is a big mall, lots of tall skyscrapers for wealthy people to presumably live, and a big beautiful park. The park was full of locals who come from all over to enjoy the area. Kids were flying kites, there was heaps of free work put equipment, lots of restaurants and coffee shops. I really enj

 So, I'm a bit confused about whether locals call it HCMC or Saigon, but the tour operators were calling it Saigon, so I guess I'll go with that.  In the afternoon I headed to city center, about 30 minutes from my hotel, to do a bit of wandering around on the main street before my tour at 5:15. It was really beautifully decorated for the lunar new year with giant dragons and lights and it was really cool. I'm still in awe of all the motorbikes, I saw someone driving with a lunar new year bush which is like a 4-5ft sparely leaved tree covered in dangling red envelopes. They held it in one hand while driving at full speed in the other. Truly it appears anything can be carried on a motorbike. I hadn't ridden a motorbike yet at that point, and was shocked. I've since decided that I'm willing to take the motorbike taxis for a ride if its a short ride, but I'm willing to shell out the double the price for an actual car when I am going across town. When I say '

I arrive late last night in Ho Chi Minh City. I reckoned with having to pay the 'dummy tax' as I will be calling it from here on out. Its not uncommon when traveling to a new country that you end up paying more for stuff than a local would and getting scammed occasionally because you just don't know how it works. Since I've gotten here I've met 5 other people who went through the same or much worse than I did with the visa. I learned that the price I payed was a fraction of what others paid. An American I met had to pay over $1000 to get theirs sorted, then they got here and their airbnb was trashed and covered in very disgusting trash from the former guest. So, I'm counting my luck that I got here last night to a clean room that was exactly as described. That being said, I was a bit annoyed when I went through customs and the customs agent didn't even look at my visa. I was like "I paid $500, the least you could do is scrutinize it" lol, but atlea

  I made my way back from French island with a nice morning walk, and headed for Melbourne to meet up with a friend from high school Hope. I have now twice brought champagne as a house gift for letting me stay to a group who are currently not drinking. I learned when I got here that she’s pregnant! So exciting for her and her husband. They seem very happy. Hopes husband was working when I got there so we spent most of the day chatting and relaxing and got some delicious food nearby.   She lives in a very cute and trendy neighborhood and it’s a beautiful home. It looks really small from the outside, and it is very narrow, the the home extended a really far back making it quite a large space.  I over the few days I stayed with her I ate some incredible food, spent days chatting with her and her husband and friends about life, and generally just enjoyed socializing. One evening we went to an electronic jazz concert which was really interesting. It’s not something I would chose to list

  I packed up slowly and headed to my next destination, French Island. I parked up and did some work at the ferry terminal before heading to the island. The walk from the ferry to the campsite is about 3 miles, so I packed my backpack and began my trek by around 3pm.   It was a really lovely walk through the coastal marshes and scrub. I didn’t see anyone else my whole walk, but I saw hundreds of Black swans and oyster catchers. I also saw some mangroves which is the southernmost extent of mangroves, so that was cool.  After making it to my campsite I set up and decided to walk further in hopes of finding a wild koala, it was a bit over 2miles to the area where the koalas are supposed to be abundant, so I got on my way. I was absolutely thrilled when I got there to find a wild koala! And it was close enough that I could get a good pic, even better. The koala seemed less thrilled to see me than I was to see it. Probably because I woke it up. Koalas sleep 20+ hours a day. 

The next morning I hit the road to go to Wilson’s Promenade National Park. It’s a large peninsula that is entirely national park and mostly inaccessible by car.   On the drive over I had a minor catastrophe being unable to find fuel, with a low tank because all the servos (gas stations) were out of power and couldn’t pump gas. I pulled into one though and the worker told me that there was one with power 30 minutes up the road, and I was able to get there no problem.  I made my way to the park and it was a beautiful drive. I saw a few emus grazing in a field, and the stunning mountains overlooking the pristine white beaches were beautiful. The area was forested with short statured Eucalyptus trees and every corner of the turn was incredible.  I set up my tent and went for an overlook hike. I saw views of the mountains and beaches and it was really lovely. On my walk I saw an echidna as well! It was a big one, snuffling in the dirt looking for ants. It would stick its long nose str

The storm subsided in under and hour and I went back to bed. Later I learned that the storm was really bad to the west of me, and took out power for people for a few days, it still didn’t have power when I passed through 2 days later.   Anyway, the rain was pitter-pattering when I woke, but I packed up and had some breakfast before getting ready to hit the road. When I went to drive away though I was missing an essential item… my keys. I knew they had to be in my car because I hadn’t gone anywhere since I unlocked it, but they were no where to be found. I searched, for no exaggeration, an entire hour. I took everything out of my car and put it back in multiple times. My keys have an Apple tag on them and I tried ringing it but I could never hear it. Finally I realized that my phone can also tell distance of the Apple tag pretty well and I took everything out and held my phone over it. It was in my stuff, not in my car. One my one I carried all of my items away and packed the checking

Today was full of bliss, although it did end on a bit of a damper.   I woke up through the night with wombats foraging around my tent which was so cute. They are little beasts, a couple feet long and just dense and wide. They look like big cinder blocks covered in fur. My neighbors had a trailer and said that they woke up in the middle of the night to the trailer shaking cause a wombats decided to use the side of the trailer to scratch its bum!  The morning was foggy, and pastures were still full of roos until the mid- morning when the fog cleared. I stayed long enough to let my tent dry out in the sun and made my way out of the campground back to the coast.  By mid-afternoon I had made it to the small town of Bermagui (pronounced Berma, like the country, followed by gooey). A fellow camper last night told me it was a beautiful place to swim. I made it to the blue pools and it was magnificent. You park at the top of the cliffs and go down a long staircase towards the ocean. It’s