GRcade

Corazon de Leon wrote:I want to do a trip like that moggy - take six weeks or two months and go right around Australia and New Zealand. GF reckons she'd only be interested in going back to Sydney, stopping in at Melbourne and then moving on to NZ, but I'm not going 15,000 miles or whatever just for two cities.

Broom her.

I never did NZ but Oz was amazing. Getting out into the outback is incredible, it really is like being on Mars sometimes. The main highway from Adelaide to Darwin goes through loads of interesting places as well, Coober Pedy and Daly Waters were highlights for me that are probably lesser known places to stop for a night.

If you are going to skip anything, skip Canberra. Visiting the Parliament building is ok, but overall it’s a very very dull place.

Corazon de Leon wrote:I want to do a trip like that moggy - take six weeks or two months and go right around Australia and New Zealand. GF reckons she'd only be interested in going back to Sydney, stopping in at Melbourne and then moving on to NZ, but I'm not going 15,000 miles or whatever just for two cities.

You can do the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians from Melbourne and the Blue Mountains from Sydney, so if you could add in, say an internal flight to Uluru you'd be looking good for filling 2-3 weeks. Could even fly to Uluru from Sydney and then from Uluru to Melbourne.

What's the deal with the visa you need to go to the US? Looking at going to New York at the start of December.
Is it the ESTA? I went a bit through the application process for that and one of the questions was about your contact whilst in the US. Is that just the address of the hotel you'll be staying in whilst in the country?
How long does it normally take to come through once you apply?

Slayerx wrote:Just booked a short trip to Köln.

I've only been once and it was about 10 years ago.

Has anyone been recently and have any ideas for things to do ?

I'm off for 3 nights at the end of Oct by myself.

My gf went last year to see if it was a good place for us to move to. She liked it but not enough to live in. From her I'm under the impression that like a lot of German cities there's not a huge amount to do/see, but just a nice and pleasant city with a snazzy cathedral to walk around in and find stuff. Shame you won't be there for the Christmas markets and what not as Köln is pretty famous for theirs. Go to a Kölsch bar as it's their style of beer there. I think you will probably miss Oktoberfest celebrations but there will be plenty of beer gardens (if you like beer of course).

Lagamorph wrote:What's the deal with the visa you need to go to the US? Looking at going to New York at the start of December.
Is it the ESTA? I went a bit through the application process for that and one of the questions was about your contact whilst in the US. Is that just the address of the hotel you'll be staying in whilst in the country?
How long does it normally take to come through once you apply?

The ESTA is a visa waiver. I don't think it takes long once you apply, maybe a week or two so you should be fine if you do it now.

Yeah I'd just use the hotel address for the contact.

Tomous wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:I want to do a trip like that moggy - take six weeks or two months and go right around Australia and New Zealand. GF reckons she'd only be interested in going back to Sydney, stopping in at Melbourne and then moving on to NZ, but I'm not going 15,000 miles or whatever just for two cities.

You can do the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians from Melbourne and the Blue Mountains from Sydney, so if you could add in, say an internal flight to Uluru you'd be looking good for filling 2-3 weeks. Could even fly to Uluru from Sydney and then from Uluru to Melbourne.

Christ I could do the Grampian from my house - they're only about 80 miles away.

In all fairness the GF has spoken about the blue mountains as a potential trip, and I'd like to go up to Cairns and drive the Great Ocean Road but other than that I'll defer to the knowledge of the actual Australian.

Moggy wrote:

Hime wrote:How many spiders did you see? That chances of me seeing a huntsman reduces the likelihood of me going to Australia significantly.

In the entire month we spent time camping, in hotels, in hostels and at a relatives house. In that entire time and over thousands of miles, I saw zero spiders.

In fact I saw bugger all living wildlife (plenty of roadkill though!). Some emus, a few kangaroos and a possum that was living in the roof of my great-aunts garage. We ended up going to Melbourne zoo just to see that there were living creatures in Australia.

Fake edit: I did see a snake in an outback pub, it was slithering around near our table outside. No idea if it was dangerous but the locals didn’t seem to take much notice of it so we just assumed it was fine.

Thanks Moggy, that's reassur

Mini E wrote:Saw one large spider that scuttled out of someone's wetsuit as they put it on.

That's that then.

Anyone been to Manila or Cebu? Off there in a month and a half and not sure if the latter is a legitimate tourist destination or just a place loads of Japanese people flock to because it gets printed in a guide (see also: Guam, which they bloody love).

SandyCoin wrote:

Slayerx wrote:Just booked a short trip to Köln.

I've only been once and it was about 10 years ago.

Has anyone been recently and have any ideas for things to do ?

I'm off for 3 nights at the end of Oct by myself.

My gf went last year to see if it was a good place for us to move to. She liked it but not enough to live in. From her I'm under the impression that like a lot of German cities there's not a huge amount to do/see, but just a nice and pleasant city with a snazzy cathedral to walk around in and find stuff. Shame you won't be there for the Christmas markets and what not as Köln is pretty famous for theirs. Go to a Kölsch bar as it's their style of beer there. I think you will probably miss Oktoberfest celebrations but there will be plenty of beer gardens (if you like beer of course).

Yeah they have The Dom which is an awesome Gothic cathedral and I enjoyed the local beer last I visited.

Just nice to get away and relax

Flights were less than £30 return although Ryanair

Parksey wrote:Anyone been to Manila or Cebu? Off there in a month and a half and not sure if the latter is a legitimate tourist destination or just a place loads of Japanese people flock to because it gets printed in a guide (see also: Guam, which they bloody love).

Yep I've been to both. Manila is okay but a fairly typical Asian city. Cebu is much better, more to do and see but also its a great gateway to other places such as Bohol island (worth exploring for its Chocolate Hills and Alona Beach) and a lot of other great beach places such as Moalboal.

How long do you have?

I think about six days (coming from Japan so it's a four hour flight and on JetStar so not massively expensive).

I wasn't planing on spending much time in Manila, probably just one or two nights. Then i was planning on flying in Cebu Air to either Cebu, Boracay, Palawan, Bohol or one of the other islands.

Ideally we'd be in a nice, fairly high-end hotel/resort and have the relaxing beach aspect, but also do stuff like diving, kayaking etc as well.

Parksey wrote:I think about six days (coming from Japan so it's a four hour flight and on JetStar so not massively expensive).

I wasn't planing on spending much time in Manila, probably just one or two nights. Then i was planning on flying in Cebu Air to either Cebu, Boracay, Palawan, Bohol or one of the other islands.

Ideally we'd be in a nice, fairly high-end hotel/resort and have the relaxing beach aspect, but also do stuff like diving, kayaking etc as well.

Borocay will be your best bet for something along those lines I imagine. Bohol is great but will take some travelling to-you'd likely need to fly to Cebu then get a boat. We went to El Nido on Palawan which has some amazing kayaking spots in lagoons as well plus diving options-Coron isn't too far either where you can dive a WW2 plane wreck. I don't think it would quite have the level of resorts Borocay would have though.

Anyone got any recommendations for Thailand? I've got a week in Phuket and don't want to spend every day snorting cocaine off a ladyboy's ballsack.

Skarjo wrote:Anyone got any recommendations for Thailand? I've got a week in Phuket and don't want to spend every day snorting cocaine off a ladyboy's ballsack.

The rest of the time you can snort it off of their tits.

Tomous wrote:

Parksey wrote:I think about six days (coming from Japan so it's a four hour flight and on JetStar so not massively expensive).

I wasn't planing on spending much time in Manila, probably just one or two nights. Then i was planning on flying in Cebu Air to either Cebu, Boracay, Palawan, Bohol or one of the other islands.

Ideally we'd be in a nice, fairly high-end hotel/resort and have the relaxing beach aspect, but also do stuff like diving, kayaking etc as well.

Borocay will be your best bet for something along those lines I imagine. Bohol is great but will take some travelling to-you'd likely need to fly to Cebu then get a boat. We went to El Nido on Palawan which has some amazing kayaking spots in lagoons as well plus diving options-Coron isn't too far either where you can dive a WW2 plane wreck. I don't think it would quite have the level of resorts Borocay would have though.

I've heard that Boracay is basically just a party island for Westerners/tourists though? Someone even likened it to a generic Spanish holiday resort where you go to get plastered. And it's only 7km long so there's no escaping the hordes of tourists?

What we are looking for is basically a nice hotel/resort, preferably on or near a nice beach (some even have private ones) but also with stuff to do nearby. Stuff like snorkelling, diving, kayaking, cottaging, hiking, whale/dolphin watching etc etc...

My friend is in Berlin next week so I may meet him for 2 days. I've already done berlin so will probably move on after that? Anyone suggest somewhere not too far away that I can go for a few more days (2-4 days) (when I say not too far away this is based on European train terms). I was thinking either north to Hamburg or Denmark. Or east to Krakow, but maybe countryside would be good to?

Curls wrote:My friend is in Berlin next week so I may meet him for 2 days. I've already done berlin so will probably move on after that? Anyone suggest somewhere not too far away that I can go for a few more days (2-4 days) (when I say not too far away this is based on European train terms). I was thinking either north to Hamburg or Denmark. Or east to Krakow, but maybe countryside would be good to?

Hamburg is only 90 mins away from Berlin on the fast train and costs about...20 euros single journey. Denmark would be a bit of a longer and more expensive journey. From Hamburg it takes around 5 hrs by train to get to Copenhagen.

Parksey wrote:

Tomous wrote:

Parksey wrote:I think about six days (coming from Japan so it's a four hour flight and on JetStar so not massively expensive).

I wasn't planing on spending much time in Manila, probably just one or two nights. Then i was planning on flying in Cebu Air to either Cebu, Boracay, Palawan, Bohol or one of the other islands.

Ideally we'd be in a nice, fairly high-end hotel/resort and have the relaxing beach aspect, but also do stuff like diving, kayaking etc as well.

Borocay will be your best bet for something along those lines I imagine. Bohol is great but will take some travelling to-you'd likely need to fly to Cebu then get a boat. We went to El Nido on Palawan which has some amazing kayaking spots in lagoons as well plus diving options-Coron isn't too far either where you can dive a WW2 plane wreck. I don't think it would quite have the level of resorts Borocay would have though.

I've heard that Boracay is basically just a party island for Westerners/tourists though? Someone even likened it to a generic Spanish holiday resort where you go to get plastered. And it's only 7km long so there's no escaping the hordes of tourists?

What we are looking for is basically a nice hotel/resort, preferably on or near a nice beach (some even have private ones) but also with stuff to do nearby. Stuff like snorkelling, diving, kayaking, cottaging, hiking, whale/dolphin watching etc etc...

i was under the impression it does have that super busy area like you describe but also hotel resorts with their closed off areas of the beach? I could be wrong though.

Palawan could be a good bet although we were mainly in El Nido which can be very touristy too. The lagoons for kayaking are amazing though. And it has good snorkelling etc. The island is full of quieter beaches if you go off the beaten track though.

We also stayed in Moalboal which is a few hours on the bus from Cebu and was incredible. The beach there isn't huge or sandy but there's brilliant snorkelling-you see turtles swimming about and a sardine run which is literally thousands of sardines just hanging round together and incredible. We also did canyoning in Moalboal, which I can't recommend enough. Was so much fun-I made a video of our GoPro footage, let me know if you're interested in.

Bohol has your more traditional beach, Alona I think it's called plus it might have some hiking options round the Chocolate Hills (although we just visited the viewing spots).

A Cebu > Bohol > Moalboal triangle could work if you had time.

You can do whale shark snorkelling from Cebu in Oslob but it's ethically dodgy because they field the whale sharks (which messes with their behaviour) and overpopulate the sea with tourists. We opted to do it Donsol instead where they don't interfere with the whale sharks at all but that would be another internal flight for you to get to.


I can't advise on where the best place for cottaging is but Philippines is quite accepting of homosexuality for an Asian country so fill your boots.

Curls wrote:My friend is in Berlin next week so I may meet him for 2 days. I've already done berlin so will probably move on after that? Anyone suggest somewhere not too far away that I can go for a few more days (2-4 days) (when I say not too far away this is based on European train terms). I was thinking either north to Hamburg or Denmark. Or east to Krakow, but maybe countryside would be good to?

Dresden?