Travel blogs from around the World

At the end of 2008 Mike Pipe, who had been with By Design Group for over 3 years, and Martin Webb left the company to go travelling.  Mike has been keeping us up to date with their adventures;  

"We are about three weeks into our travels and we have covered most of Thailand in that time.  We flew into Bangkok, being greeted by a wave of humidity (sorry to rub it in), and made our way towards the infamous Kohsan Road.  We booked a day trip out of Bangkok to go to Kanchanaburi where we swam down the River Kwai and rode elephants.  Once we were out of Bangkok we headed for the islands and beaches.  First stop was Koh Tao where we spent five days completing our free diving course!  It was still monsoon season there, the best time to do it because when your 18m down the weather doesn't really affect you too much!"

Mike and Martin headed to Australia on 18 December 2008;

"After Airlie we left for Rockhampton, heading for 'Ascot Backpackers' and 'Capricorn Dave's Bush Trek'.  Dave aims to find as many weird and potentially dangerous insects and animals as possible and give you the chance to see them close up.  'Capricorn' just walked around barefooted lifting rocks and climbing trees to find whatever he could.  The first animal encounter was with a massive Huntsman Spider which he gave us to hold and then proceeded to put it on our faces...potentially dangerous but why not eh!  Later in the day we managed to find a Yellow Bellied Tree Snake which we not only held, but after Dave showed us how to, we proceeded to put the snake in our mouths......don't try this at home folks.  Our third and most anticipated encounter was with Meat Ants.  The game with these 'monsters' involves you stamping on a Meat Ant’s nest and then standing barefoot for as long as you can.  The ants obviously try to defend their nest and start biting you...the effect is that you get what looks like socks made of ants and it's pretty painful....but we all managed it."

16th March 2009